Our History

In the late 1740’s, settlers began migrating west of the Yadkin River. Davie County was formed from a portion of Rowan County in 1836. The county was named Davie in honor of William R. Davie, a Revolutionary War Leader, governor of North Carolina, minister to France and a leader in the founding of the University of North Carolina.


According to records, a small village named “Mocks Old Field” was in existence before the American Revolution. Even then, the area was considered to be centrally located on the main north-to-south and east-to-west routes of travel in North Carolina. Mocks Old Field was used frequently as a secret meeting place for Colonial forces and planners, some of whom were members of the family of Davie County’s most famous citizen, Daniel Boone.


Mocksville was incorporated in 1839. With today’s population of over 5000, Mocksville is the county seat and Davie’s largest town. Other incorporated towns in the county are Cooleemee, with over 950 residents and incorporated in 1985 and Bermuda Run, with over 1,700 residents and incorporated in 1999. Other townships include Sheffield-Calahaln, Smith Grove, Clarksville, Ijames, Fork, Advance, Farmington, Fulton, Jerusalem, Cana, Center, Hillsdale, Cornatzer, Bixby, and Shady Grove.


Find Your Place in Davie County

Each year hundreds visit our Davie County Public Library Martin/Wall History Room to trace their genealogy connections to Davie County. The room contains many volumes and reference materials and a very knowledgeable staff of historians. The library is located at 371 North Main Street, Mocksville and their phone number is 336-753-6030.


Historical Places

The Anderson Family Museum, Calahaln Road at Highway 64 West, houses an extensive collection of nineteenth and twentieth-century medical, dental, family memorabilia, and general artifacts.
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The Cana Store is one of the few surviving late 1800’s commercial buildings in Davie County. James Harrison Cain established a mercantile business in Cana in 1875. In addition to the mercantile/country store until 1964, this building also served as the Cana Post Office from 1919 to 1954. The store remains in the Cana family and is located on Cana Road off US Highway 601 North.
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The Cooleemee Plantation House was built 1853-1855 by Peter and Columbia Stuart Hairston, a sister of Civil War General J.E.B. Stuart. The site is one of the 33 National Historic Landmark sites in North Carolina. An Anglo-Grecian villa in the shape of a Greek cross, the house contains approximately 300,000 bricks made on site. The house is now privately owned by the Foster Family.
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The Davie County Courthouse is a neo-classical revival style building, erected in 1909 in downtown Mocksville. The courthouse and accompanying jail were built at the cost of approximately $40,000. (They were built where the old Davie Hotel once stood). The original courthouse was built in 1839 and stood in the center of the Town Square. The courthouse is located on Main Street in Mocksville.
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The former Davie County Jail was completed in 1839 and is now privately owned. It is one of two Federal-style brick buildings that still survive in Mocksville. The jail served the county until 1909 when the new courthouse and jail were built. The former jail is located on Main Street.
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Downtown Mocksville Historic District
In 1991, Downtown Mocksville was accepted into the Main Street Program, which is part of the National Register for Historic Places and is designed to offer grassroots assistance to historic downtowns in their revitalization efforts. We were part of a pilot program specially designed for small downtowns with a population of just over 5,000. Now you can take a walk through history with the Davie County Chamber of Commerce’s Walking Tour of Downtown Mocksville.
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Farmington Historic District is located in northeastern Davie County’s Farmington Township and contains the most cohesive collection of historic residential, agricultural, commercial, religious, and educational buildings found in an unincorporated community. It runs through the Farmington Road and NC Highway 801 crossroads and visitors can drive by the beautiful historic homes including the Farmington School Auditorium which is now used as a community center.
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A highway marker was placed at the Ferebee Family Home Site on Highway 64 West near Hunting Creek in honor of Colonel Thomas A. Ferebee. The nearby bridge is also named after him. Col. Ferebee was the bombardier on the B-29 “Enola Gay” and dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945.
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Fulton Methodist Church was erected in 1888 and reflects a mix of Italianate and Gothic revival style details. The church is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is located in the Fork community on US Highway 801 South.
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Hodges Business College was erected in 1894 by Professor John Hodges. It is Davie County’s only surviving rural brick academy buildings. Hodges, a graduate of Duke and Yale Universities operated his school until the early 1900’s when he became the superintendent of county schools. The building, which is now privately owned, is located off Cherry Hill Road off Highway 601 South.
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Joppa Cemetery is one of the oldest and most historic graveyards in Davie County. The burial grounds contain the graves of Squire and Sarah Boone, parents of Daniel Boone. Daniel Boone lived near Bear Creek during his teens and early twenties. A North Carolina historical marker notes the location of the cemetery located on US 601 in Mocksville (Yadkinville Road).
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In Cooleemee, the Pearson Graveyard, dating to the early 1700s, was recently reclaimed from the surrounding forest near Pine Ridge Road by local volunteers. With extensive research by a group of Wake Forest University students, grave markers have been returned to or placed at their original sites.
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Pudding Ridge
While crossing Davie County on a rainy day, February 7, 1781, General Cornwallis’ British Army crossed Dutchman Creek in pursuit of American General Nathanael Greene. This was the main crossing of Dutchman Creek toward Yadkin County until the early 1900s. The old roadbed and rock are still visible in the creek. Legend says that Cornwallis dubbed the area Pudding Ridge because the quantity and thickness of the mud his army had to travel to was like pudding. A sign marking the crossing is located on Pudding Ridge Golf Course.
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The Squire Boone House site was the 1829 birthplace of Hinton Rowan Helper. Helper was a Davie County man that held center stage in our history in the late 1850s and whose book, The Impending Crisis of the South: How To Meet It was second to Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a literary work fueling the fires of secession and the Civil War. The house is one of the 33 National Historic Landmark sites in North Carolina.
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The Veteran’s Memorial Marker in the Town Square records the names of 346 Davie County men who died in military service from the Civil War to the present.
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