ELIZABETH P. DAVIS
wife of John S. Davis
Almost one hundred years ago Elizabeth P. Davis, the subject of this sketch,
was born on the 5th day of November, 1823, in White Rock House near Ferryside
in Carmarthenshire, South Wales. Her father, Benjamin
Phillips was born at St. Clair, Carmarthenshire, South Wales
in April, 1782. Her mother, Jane Davis Phillips was born in April, 1786 at
Cafenllath, St. Peters, Wales.
They were married at St. Peters in
1813. Six children blessed their union, four girls and two boys, namely: Mary,
Hannah, Reese, Thomas, Elizabeth and Margareth, who were born at Ferryside.
If sister Davis were alive there might be many interesting events of her
girlhood that she could recount but we must be content to begin our narrative
with her baptism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which
occured in 1849. Through being a member of that church she met John S. Davis
who was also a Latter Day Saint and prominently connected with the Church in Wales,
being first Counsellor to William S. Phillips, President of the Welsh Mission.
They were married in Merthyr Tydvil, Glamorganshire, South Wales,
on December 30th, 1850 by
the Rev. James C. Campbell, rector of the Parish
Church. One child, a daughter named
Julia Elizabeth was born to the Dec.
8th, 1851 in Myrther Tydvil.
Sister Davis was able during the first year after their marriage to assist
her husband in many ways in his work of translating the Book of Mormon,
Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and similar treatises into the
Welsh language. At different times she visited London
and other places of note with him, where he had considerable business connected
with the Church.
Naturally the Saints were anxious to emigrate and for some time prior to
their departure had known that they would leave Wales
upon short notice, and therefore had done much packing of boxes and attended to
other details necessary for the journey. On January 16, 1854, a letter was received from Liverpool,
saying that the Saints would have to sail on the 31st of January. President
Phillips answered by telegraph that it would be impossible to arrive at Liverpool
before the 31st. There was yet much work to be done, but the hardest part was
to bid farewell to dear ones. On January 21st Sister Davis, accompanied by her
husband and child went to Llanelly, where her father and mother now lived. They
had but a few hours for the visit. They bade them a silent farewell as they had
completely lost their speech. She was never to see her parents again. They then
went to Swansea to see a cousin and
after dined with President and Sister Phillips. There were 477 in the party of
emmigrants who sailed upon the Golconda
from Liverpool, as scheduled, on February 4, 1854.
The ship was tugged for about fifteen miles and afterwards sailed very
favorably, (according to the diary which Brother Davis kept at the time of the
journey and indeed for several years after arriving at their destination) when
about six o'clock a heavy gale arose which rolled the ship so much that many of
the Saints become very sea sick, Sister Davis among the number. The wind
continued all night and the next day, Sunday, so that nothing longer than a
prayer meeting was held in the afternoon. On the 6th there were cross winds and
tacking all day, and all continued to be sick. In the Evening they held a
prayer meeting in all the branches to pray for fair weather, and about ten o'clock the wind changed and became
favorable, although again on the 8th the wind arose and the waves were so high
that they swept over the deck.
The next day, however, was calmer and the brass band was called to play on
the poop at the Captain's request. On the 12th a public marriage took place on
the poop between Davis Lewis of Pembeysey and Esther Williams of Garmarthern,
Elder Martell officiating. The Captain kissed the bride as soon as the ceremony
was over upon which the audience laughed most heartily. On the 16th a little
child belonging to one of the English brethren was buried at sea by Elder
Squires.
On the 19th Sister Davis was a little better and able to get up after taking
gruel and arrowroot according to the Captain's intructions. It was fortunate
that brother Davis and their little daughter were well during the time but the
little girl was full of mischied and the care of her coupled with the cooking
and his duties in the Church, kept her father busy. The different branches, it
might be explained had to take turns in cooking, and there was a great deal of
work as well as jollity in this preparation of meals for so large a number.
The weather now began to be very warm. On March 3rd they came in sight of
the Bermuda Islands and on the 8th they sailed near the Island of Jamaica.
Many meetings were held on shipboard interspersed with mock trials by way of
relaxation and diversion. The occasion for one was the charge that one of the
cooks had stolen a rice pudding, but the Judge and Counsellors declined giving
a verdict there was not enough evidence and what there was proved too
circumstantial. March 10th great preparations went on for another wedding, this
time of William Gimnan of Blacnan, Mormouthshire, with Ann David of Pendenloys.
On the 18th they arrived at New Orleans after a most delightful trip up the
river, and the Golconda was anchored a mile or two above the light house. The
passengers remained on board until five P.M., when the large steamboat, John
Simmons, came alongside and they and their luggage were transferred to the
steamer, which left for St. Louis at 8 o'clock. The fare was $3.00 per
passenger and half price for children. March 24th the child of Brother William
Jones of Myrther who had died two days before was buried on the wayside where
the steamer stopped for a short time.
The trip up the river was very warm and some of the Saints were taken sick.
On the 25th they stopped for a short time at a small town called Napoleon,
where they saw for the first time Indians with their bows and arrows and
squaws. As they went further up the river it became very cold mornings and
evenings and warmer clothing had to be donned, although it was warm in midday.
Quite a number of the Saints died of cholera and some were buried every day.
Owing to her long illness on ship board Sister Davis was very much frightened
seeing so many sick and dying but her husband cheered and encouraged her all
that was possible. In ten days they arrived at St. Louis, where they remained
three weeks getting supplies for the further journey.
They started from St. Louis on the steamboat Australia on whose hurricane
deck they had fitted the wagon beds to sleep and live in. There was a great
deal of trouble trying to keep the covers and tents wet to prevent their being
burned up from sparks from the funnels. But on the other hand, doubtless due to
the open air living there was no cholera on this boat trip.
In about a week they landed near Kansas City where they took the wagons and
luggage up to the camping ground in McGee's Park. They stayed here about five
weeks. Here Brother Davis purchased four yoke of oxen, two cows, and a pony,
which he though would come in useful on the plains, for $40.00.
The company of 42 wagons was organized, Job Smith being appointed their
captain. Brother Davis was appointed a captain of twelve, all of the company
being English except his own family and the two families he was emmigrating.
They started on the last lap of their journey the first part of July and began
to experience life on the plains.
The cholera once more began its ravages and some few more fell victoms.
Brother Davis became stricken with the cholera and it was thought he would not
recover, but on taking a dose of Powdered Lobelia recommended and furnished by
Brother Jarvis he recovered, although he remained weak for some time. Soon
after this their little girl, now two and a half years old, was attacked by the
same illness. She was also very sick but her faith in the laying on of hands
cured her.
The trip, while sometimes hard and perilous, was a pleasant one. They
encountered buffalo herds, chased the deer, shot rabbits and prarie chickens
and caught fish, all this serving to vary the diet and help out the bacon they
were met with a band of three thousand Indians, who were holding a meeting and
luckily proved to be entirely friendly. Their worst predicaments were with the
rough narrow passes of the road, and fractions oxen.
The company arrived in Great Salt Lake City September 25th, 1854. They
camped near the Jordan Bridge for five days, driving their oxen and cows to the
range across the river. Brother Davis went up to the President's office where
he met Brother Samuel W. Richards, who introduced him to President Young. The
latter took them down to the camp in his buggy and afterwards to the Fourth
Ward where the President preached. Later he drove Brother Davis around the city
to look at some lots which he said might be purchased. While driving Brother Davis
asked him what he advised him to do. The first suggestion was that he work on a
farm, but on learning that Brother Davis was a printer the president said that
he had then better stay in the city and keep at his trade, which he accordingly
did, working later on the Deseret News and the Valley Tan. Following President'
Young's adivice he chose and bought for $500.00 the Absolom Free lot, an acre
and a fourth with a small three roomed log house on it, for his future home,
facing what was then Emigrant Square, which now contains the City and County
Building. They moved into this place on the 2nd of October.
The next April they began to build their house, which the President had
advised them to build as good as possible. Conforming to that advise Brother
Davis constructed a two story building, using the cellar soil for inside adobe,
which for many years was called the Big house, as practically all the other
houses below this point at the time were only of one story or at the most at
story and a half.
During the trying periods to follow, and in fact during her entire life
Sister Davis was most frugal and economical. Long before the famine in 1856,
with her usual forethought about such matters, she economized her flour, using
corn meal, bran, potatoes and other substitutes, and accordingly while
thousands had none at all the Davis family was never entirely without a little
flour, which was often shared with those less fortunate than themselves. She
would make yeast to sell, which was traded for an equal quantity of flour, and
made the candles for her own use. She also made soap from grease obtained from
slaughtered hogs and lye made from wood ashes from the stove, and Brother Davis
in his diary mentioned the fact that on one day she had made "twenty-five
pounds of most excellent good soap".
She was a fine spinner and soon learned to take the wool as it came from the
sheep's back and wash, card, roll, spin and dye it. She had no loom so sent it
to a neighbor to weave. Once piece of cloth so made was of a beautiful blue-gray
with two threads of red running down and across it forming a two inch plaid or
square. This piece of cloth was made by an expert dressmaker, who had lived at
Nauvoo, into a best dress for her sixteen year old daughter, whose picture was
taken in it. For many years Sister Davis also spun and knit the stockings,
socks and mittens for the use of the family.
Throughout her life Sister Davis combined these qualities of thrift, exonomy
and generous living. She would patch and mend in order to give away a dollar to
the needy, or to the Church. She was constantly helping those who arrived from
the old country and were as yet without homes or food. During the rush of
emigrants in an average week she gave a hundred meals. Countless people
throughout Utah could claim they ate their first meal in Salt Lake City at her
house. One day, as example, a young woman, daughter of friends in the old
country came to see her. She had a nursing baby in her arms and was almost
fainting when she reached the house, not having tasted bread for three weeks
but living entirely on roots and what could be gathered. Consequently Sister
Davis was horrified to see that the infant was nursing blood from its mother's
breast. You may be sure that Sister Davis joyfully gave her bread, tea, and the
best she had in the house. Besides meals, she afforded many nights of
refreshing sleep to countless weary, travel worn people, tired of cramped
quarters in wagon or on the hard ground, on straw mattresses which she put in
every available space possible in the house, even to the kitchen.
One season after the usual routine of meals and beds Sister Davis was very
much astonished and horrified to find on all her bedding what are, since the
war, called "cooties". Every effort to get rid of them failed. The
blankets being the favorite nesting place of the pests were boiled as a last
resort. After this cleansing was accomplished great care was exercised that no
new ones found a home with her.
One incident will partly give an illustration of Sister Davis' generosity
and unselfishness. She had beautiful hair, long and thick; shortly after they
arrived she cut off a large roll from the back of her head and gave it to a
neighbor who had permanently lost her hair through sickness. This lady wore it
as a wig for many years.
Butter was an article that was very scarce during the winter months before
the cows came in. It would be by a piece of good luck that the family would
succeed in getting a half pound occasionally which Brother Davis would insist
that his wife use for herself as she was rather sickly. The butter was quite
white in color, in fact no color at all. Their little daughter once pretended
that mashed potatoes was butter, and spread some carefully and rather thickly
over her bread. Sister Davis thought the child had helped herself to the
precious butter, and was about to censure her for it when she discovered the
fraud.
But life was not all work in those hard days. On the 23rd of July, 1856
President Young issued invitations to a large party of Saints to celebrate the
24th at the Headwaters of Big Cottonwood Canyon. Brother and Sister Davis were
among those invited and participated in the pleasures and rejoicings of the
day. They were also celebrating the "Twenty-fourth" in the same
locality a year later when the first news came of the approaching Johnston's
army.
They went to many dancing parties at the Social Hall, and at the 13th Ward,
also in the 15th and 16th Wards called the "Welsh Settlement" where
their old country friends lived. But in 1864 she had the misfortune to slip on
the ice, involuntarily she threw out her hand, with the result that her wrist
was badly dislocated. She had the presence of mind to give the hand a violent
jerk; it snapped back in place, she then fainted, and was carried in to the
house by neighbors. For months her arm was in a sling, that fact ended all
dancing parties.
Sister Davis had a concertina which she had brought from Wales and in the
early years delighted to play on it the old Welsh tunes and hymns. She had also
a sweet voice when she chose to sing. She was very fond of hearing other people
sing as well as telling jokes, and had a merry, hearty laugh to her last day
for any of the latter that she heard. One anecdote that particularly pleased
her to repeat was the final summing up of an old Welshman who was giving her
his reasons for getting a divorce from a recent wife; "And look you, she
cleans the bottom shelf first".
On the 3rd of October, 1856, the Welsh hand cart company arrived in the
City, two years after her own arrival. Starting out with the number of six
hundred, the sad part of it was that, according to history, one fourth of that
number died upon the journey.
Among those who were spared were many of Brother and Sister Davis's friends
and acquaintances, whom they had known in Wales who were gladly thereafter made
welcome at their home. Among them was Thos. E. Giles the "Blind
Harpist" and his little boy Hyrum, one of twins. Brother Giles wife and
baby had died on the plains. Later in the winter the little twin to his boy
came with frozen feet, and Sister Davis took him in and doctored him to the
best of her ability. In December of that year a cousin, John Walters and his
two daughters arrived in Great Salt Lake having also greatly exposed to heavy
snowstorms during their trip.
Her sister Margaret and brother Thomas joined the Church in Wales and
emigrated to Utah. They left, however, after a few years and went to Nevada to
live. She visited them there in 1874 and again when they were living in San
Francisco in 1891.
The next year, in the first part of March, Brother and Sister Davis,
together with other people of the Ward, went to the southern part of the city
about nine o'clock in the morning and were baptized. Brother Davis by Brother
William Carmichael and his wife by George Woodard, the Bishop's first
counselor. They changed their clothes in the tents erected near the creek the
temperature of which at that time of the year was none too warm.
At the approach of the Government Soldiers, in the general exodus, the family
with others employed on the Deseret News left the city for Filmore, the capital
of the territory. This was April 16th, 1858. It took them ten days to get there
in their oxen pulled wagons. They remained at Filmore five months. On their
return trip the family had a very narrow escape. Camping places where shade,
water and drainage were all combined, were hard to find. After weary travel
they approached what Brother Davis considered an ideal spot to spend the night,
but there came over Sister Davis a very strong feeling that they should not do
so but should go on to some other place. Her husband eventually gave in on the
point, and they spent the night at a far less desirable spot. It was indeed a
fortunate thing that for them they did so, for that very night another party
who camped in the spot were massacred by the Indians.
The soldiers at Camp Douglas were for some time a considerable source of
anxiety to the residents of the city, as will appear from the foregoing. One
day a neighbor living a block away had seen the soldiers on the estern hill
seemingly marching toward the city. He became very much excited and rushed to
warn the neighbors of approaching warfare. He wildly waived his arms and
shouted; "Get your guns, get your guns, they are marching this way"!
Brother Davis, a very cool headed man, quietly entered the house, got his
telescope and viewing the troops through it, soon found out that they were only
drilling on the parade ground with no idea of onslaught. Nevertheless the
people were very much frightened especially the women and children.
About 1861 Brother Davis through ill health had to give up his work as
printer and for one year was unable to do anything. Unknown to her husband,
Sister Davis, through her economy had saved one hundred dollars, and when in
his extremety he did not know what to do for funds, she produced her saving
which went towards buying a small stock of notions and groceries for a small
store which they started in the front room of their house. This stock was
increased and the business flurished until 1870 when the Ward Co-operative
Stores were organized. He could not run in opposition to the Ward Store so he
rented a piece of land from President Young on First South nearly opposite the
Theatre and bulit a store there.
It was there that Brother Davis first made and sold in large quantitied his
"Cronk Beer", a species of root beer which became quite well known in
the community and many families of Zion became steady consumers of this
refreshing non-alcoholic beverage.
In September of the same year Sister Davis suffered a nervous break down
from which she did not recover until the following May. In the meantime Brother
Davis build a two-story house connected with his store and the family moved up
and lived there five years.
During 1876 the old Davis home in the 8th Ward was rebuilt and in October of
that year the family returned to it. Brother Davis at this time gave up his
store and engaged exclusively in the wholesale manufacture of Cronk Beer.
On December 8th, 1876, the daughter Julia was married to Joseph L. Rawlins.
Brother Davis, after a long lingering illness died in 1882.
About nine years later Sister Davis went to live with her daughter and
family, where she made her home for seven years. Twice during this period she went
with them to Washington D.C., once when her son-in-law was Utah's
representative and one Winter when he was United States Senator. She did not
care for public life and missed her "meetings" and associaton with
her Salt Lake friends and declined to go the third time. One day the next
summer after their return to Salt Lake she went down to her old home (which was
now vacant) and found the back door unlocked and partly open. She suspected a
burglar. She spoke to a gentleman passing and he telephoned to the police; they
caught him.
He had ramsacked the house and had a big cache ready to remove. He served
his time in jail. This decided her to return to her old home, she persuaded her
nephew, John Phillips and family to occupy part of the house, which he did for
five years.
At the end of this time her eldest grand-daughter and husband, W. W. Ray,
came to live with her. She was very happy in their companionship, which lasted
only four months, when her death occured on October 13, 1906. Her daughter and
two of her grand-daughters were with her when her spirit passed away.
Sister Davis was of a very retiring and modest disposition but in her quiet
way very firm in her convictions and sense of right. Her son-in-law said of her
on the day of her funeral; "I would have liked to speak and pay my public
tribute to her had it been seemly to do so. I never knew her to speak ill of
any one in all the years I have known her". Although her health did not
permit her to take an active part in Church work she was very staunch in her
religious belief, and gave most liberally to the church upon all occasions as
well as to the poor and needy.
Many times during her life when ever she saw a funeral passing on a stormy,
blustering day she would feel a sadness and pity and express the hope that when
she died she would not be buried on such a day and that she would not suffer
long. At the end both of her wishes were granted for she died quickly from
heart trouble, without pain or forewarning. She was buried on a perfect October
day as calm and peaceful as her life, which had come to an end like the
beautiful autumn leaves which were falling, with their mission done.
