He attended the Worcester public schools and Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard University in 1849, and then studied law in the Dane Law School of Harvard University, but did not engage in professional pursuits by reason of failing eyesight.

Davis sailed for San Francisco, California, around Cape Horn in 1852, and upon arriving, engaged for a brief time as a gold miner, a lumber supercargo surveyor for a coastal steamer, and a purser for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company.

[1] When the American Civil War broke out, he served in the secretive San Francisco-based Home Guard acting to secure both the loyalty of California to then Union President Abraham Lincoln and the election of Leland Stanford as governor of California (by patrolling the polls on election day).

He was named president of the board of trustees of Stanford University by its original founder and served in this capacity from 1885 to 1916 where he effected its consolidation with the Wilmerding and Lux schools.

He was an active student of history and literature, his most noted work being an essay entitled American Constitutions.