MORGAN DAVIES
By his granddaughter
Beatrice L. Davies
My grandfather Morgan
Davies was born in Cilybebyll, County of Glamorgan, South Wales on
May 10, 1841. He was the son of Thomas and Gwenllian Williams
Davies. He had two sisters—Ann and Margaret—and three brothers—Edward, William,
and Thomas. His father was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints and was a tiler by trade. His mother
never joined the Church.
Grandfather was a member of the Church and was
advanced to office of teacher in the Priesthood before he left Wales for America.
He was not a studious boy and would not attend school; consequently, he never
learned to read or write. He appeared to be a very “venturesome type” and spent
much of his youth roaming from one place to another in Wales and England.
It is thought that his love for adventure was the main reason for his coming to America.
He left Liverpool, England, and arrived in America with the
Birkenhead Branch of the LDS Church at the age of 23.
In all of his adventures he had a staunch
companion, his brother William, and this brother traveled to America with
him. They never had much money at any time—they always earned just enough to
take them from one place to another. Therefore, they accepted a government
offer to drive a team and bring supplies to Fr. Douglas. They traveled at the
same time the John Hancock Company did and remained with them most of the
journey in order to secure protection from the Indians.
The Saints were told to share with the Indians
and to never harm them—that if they would do this the Indians would not take
all the Saints had. Grandfather found this to be true. He would watch them
enter his wagon, trying at all times to pretend that he was not frightened.
Each time the Indians would help themselves to what they wanted and then leave
in a peaceful manner.
Grandfather was a very good swimmer. As his
childhood had been lived in a home built on the shores it was only natural that
he should go swimming often in the ocean. One day as the Saints were crossing a
river they had a hard time getting the oxen across. Grandfather offered to swim
across with them, helping until all were across.
In this company of
Saints were two young girls—Ann Keep, age 27, who was born in Greenham, Berkshire, England, and here sister. Grandfather offered to give them a ride in his
wagon, as they had walked most of the way. A friendship grew between these
young people, and they spent much of their time together on the trip to Utah.
The company arrived in Salt
Lake City in October of 1864. As Grandfather had to deliver his goods to
the Fort, he remained in Salt Lake. But the two Keep girls continued
on their journey to Lehi where they were to
live with an uncle. It wasn’t long before Grandfather realized that one of
those young ladies, Ann, meant a lot to him. He walked from Salt Lake to Lehi [about 30 miles) many times to visit her. One day
he decided that she would have to make up her mind and come back with him. This
night when he arrived in Lehi he was told
that Ann was attending a dance. He went to the place and took her from the
dance floor and told her that he would not wait any longer for her—that she
must come right now. They were married in Salt Lake City on March 1,
1865—just five months after having arrived here. His trips were made to Lehi all during the cold winter months.
Having just earned
$115 from the government Grandfather purchased land and built the first stucco
home ever built in the west. He continued buying more land and building homes
to sell or rent. His brother William was always a partner in these
transactions. The first lath and plaster home ever known to the west was built
by these two brothers. It was a duplex home, and William lived in one side and
Grandfather in the other. Though they built and lived in many homes in
Clarkston, Newton, and other Utah towns, they spent most of
their years in Salt Lake City. It was while residing at 7th East between 4th and 5th South that most of their children were born. In his later
years he bought and built four homes on 9th East between 4th and 5th South where he spent the remainder of
his life. One daughter still lives in one of these four homes.
His first wife died
May 18, 1892, at the age of 55. They had six children born to them: Thomas
James, Edward Morgan, Lucy Ann, Daniel William (who died at the age of 3
years), Morgan Alfred (my father), and Gwenllian Mary.
He later married Mary Hunt; and when she died he married Ann Gates. Both of
these marriages were just civil marriages.
Though he had not attended school he was very
successful as a plasterer, especially in ornamental plastering. He taught all
of his sons this art. He was foreman on the Salt Lake Temple where
he taught and helped with the fine ornamental work. Some of these still remain
in the Temple rooms as a monument to his masterful arts. He worked on
all the temples built in Utah –the Salt Lake, Logan,
Manti, and St. George—acting as foreman on most of them. He was also foreman of
the City and County Building of Salt Lake City, and he helped plaster most
every large building built in this city up to the time of his death. Among them
were the Salt Lake Theater, State Capitol Building, etc. In fact
most of the lovely ornamental work on all buildings in SaltLake theaters,
etc., has been done either by this man or his three sons. While working on the
Salt Lake Tabernacle they had a hard time making the plaster stick to the laths
because the laths were placed so far apart. Grandfather had the inspiration to
put lots of hair in the mixture to see if that wouldn’t hold it better. It did
hold, and today it is found to be one of the reasons the acoustics are so good
in that building. We feel that it was an inspiration from the Lord, as we all
know He helped and inspired all who worked on it to make it the outstanding
building it is today.
Grandfather was a small man, as many Welsh
people are. His eyes were deep set and dark. He had dark hair, mustache and
beard. He was rough speaking, almost harsh, but was very generous and liberal
with his money, giving it always when needed. He had a very keen sense of humor
and was modest in his accomplishments. He never wanted his picture taken, and
when they would come to the Salt Lake Temple or other such
places to take pictures of the workmen there he would line his men up and then
disappear until the picture had been taken; then he would return. He was a firm
believer in the paying of his tithes. Many nights he and his eldest son Thomas
would pour over their books at the end of the year to be certain that they had
the correct amount of their income to see what the tenth was the Lord had
coming to Him.
Grandfather died
February 21, 1924, at the age of 83. At the present time he has a
posterity of 6 children, 23 grandchildren, 64 great-grandchildren and 21
great-great-grandchildren—a total of 114 in all. There were no children born to
the second or third union.
MORGAN DAVIES
By his granddaughter Verla Harris
Blakemore
We—my mother, father,
sister and two brothers—lived right next door to ur grandfather, Morgan Davies. Although he was
an accomplished plasterer and was foreman of the plasterers who worked on the Salt Lake,
Manti, St. George, and Logan temples and other outstanding buildings
such as the Tabernacle, the Salt Lake Theater and the City County Building,
he had never learned to read or write.
It became the duty of
one of us to read the daily paper to him—a chore we all abhorred. When it was
my turn to read I read very quickly. He would wait until I was all through and
then he would say, “Nyeah, nyeah, nyeah, nyeah, nyeah! I don’t know a word you said. Now go back and read
it over again so that I can understand it.”
He was very meticulous and kept a very
beautiful lawn. He would sit out in front to water the lawn and if we, without
thinking, would run across the lawn he would call us back and say, “Com back here! Isn’t the sidewalk big enough for you to
walk on? Go back and don’t sue it. Use the sidewalk instead!”
But he was also loving, thoughtful and caring.
I had a pet lamb, and as it grew it would of
course need more food. My mother had said we would have to sell it because hay
was too expensive. I was very upset, and when he asked what the trouble was I
told him we had to sell my lamb because we didn’t have any hay. On my way home from
school he stopped me and said, ?” though you said you
didn’t have any hay for the lamb. Well, you better go back and look again.” He
had bought a bale of hay so that I could keep my lamb.
He was stern and demanding but also caring and
thoughtful, and I loved him dearly.
Verla Harris Blakemore
2177 Kensington Ave.
Salt Lake City, Utah 84117
(801) 581-1434
January 31, 1990
MORGAN DAVIES
By his granddaughter,
Ruth Davies Hall
Morgan Davies was born
on May 10, 1841, at Troedyrhiw Varteg, Cilybebyll, Wales. His parents were Thomas Davies and Gwenllian Williams. He was the fourth child and the
third son of six children. His given name was the same as his grandfather’s
surname.
We know very little of
his childhood, although he did tell us that he cried before he was born because hw was afraid he was going to
be a girl. He never wanted to go to school, so he never learned to read or
write. In fact one day his father told him if he didn’t got to school that day he
would have to go to work with him, so Morgan made sure that he didn’t go to
school.
His father’s occupation was plastering, so
when Morgan had to go to work with his father he too learned to plaster. This
was his occupation during his entire life.
On 29 September 1856 he was baptized into the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This may have been in Cardiff, Wales,
or Liverpool, England. We only know that he and his brother William
moved about working, and they were in these two places sometime previous to
their sailing for America.
He borrowed money from
the Perpetual Emigration Fund to come to Utah. In St. Louis he
found an opportunity to drive a government wagon out to Ft. Douglas,
so he did this. The group of government wagons stayed close to the emigrating
pioneers, among whom was Ann Keep.
Ann Keep went to Lehi to live with her sister, Mary Elizabeth (Aunt
Polly) and her husband, Alfred Turner. Morgan Davies stayed in Salt Lake,
but his attraction for Ann made him walk many times to Lehi to
see her. On one very cold winter day he walked knee-deep in snow to Lehi. When he arrived at the Turner home Alfred came to the
door but didn’t invite Morgan in even to dry his clothes before he went back
home. Alfred said that Ann had gone to a dance with another fellow. After a few
minutes of conversation Alfred finally asked Morgan in, and there was Ann and
Aunt Polly laughing at the joke. Regardless of such jokes they were married 1
March 1865.
Their children were:
Thomas James (named for his grandparents) born 5 September 1866; Edward Morgan,
born 28 December 1868; Lucy Ann (Aunty to us), born 25 May 1871, Daniel
William, born 16 June 1873 and died 26 January 1876; Morgan Alfred (Uncle Ed was
to have been called Morgan, but everyone used his first name; so Grandma said
that she would give this child Morgan for his first name so that he would be
called Morgan, but everyone called him Alf), born 3 August 1875; and GwenllianMary (Aunt Gwennie),
born 21 July 1879.
Morgan Davies has
plastered in the St. George Temple and the Salt Lake Temple.
William Burt was in charge of the work in St. George and John R. Winder in Salt Lake.
The St. George Temple site was dedicated November 9, 1871, and the Temple was
dedicated on April 6, 1877; so during sometime between these years Morgan
worked on the temple. He went to St. George by ox team, taking six months to
make the trip. The country around St. George is a lava wasteland. Morgan said
that God finished the earth and then dumped His refuse in southern Utah.
It’s interesting to note what Brigham Young said of that country. I quote from Temples
of the Most High, page 86:
Upon one occasion,
President Brigham Young was in the Tabernacle at St. George and was speaking on
the spirit world. He stated that it was not far from us and if the veil could
be taken from our eyes, there wouldn’t be either a man, woman or child who
would dare to go out of this tabernacle, as the spirits of the Gadianton robbers were so thick out there. “This is
where they lived in these mountains,” said he.
None of us is perfect, and although Morgan Davies
had many good qualities—his steadfastness and fine workmanship, for example—he
did err in the matter of drinking. For many years his home life was disturbed
by this fault. He would get drunk, sober up and come home repentant and assure
his wife that he would never touch a drop again. But time after time he did the
same thing again. During one of his particularly bad times Ann took her family
to live with her parents in Clarkston, Utah. It is to his credit that
he did finally overcome the habit, and during his later life he never drank.
After the death of Ann, Morgan married Mrs.
Hunt who was to me my Grandmother Davies. With this wife Morgan went back to Wales for
a visit, but he said that the country didn’t look the same and he didn’t want
to go again.
I liked my Grandfather Davies, perhaps because
of the dimes he gave me. There was sort of a little game about it. Grandpa
would take out his small change and, laying it on the table, would ask me which
coin I wanted. I always took the dime, and Grandpa thought I was smart to know
that the dime was worth more than the nickel which was larger in size.
Finally, on 21 February 1924, Morgan Davies
died at the age of 82 years, 9 months, 10 days.
(Postscript added by granddaughter Alice Jane
Davies Griffin: He could always tell how old he was in years, months and days;
even down the hour if he would take time to figure for a minute or two. He didn’t
ever learn to write his name, or if he did he didn’t use this knowledge, just
signed with an X.)
MORGAN DAVIES
By his grandson,
Morgan Davies
As told to Florence
Griffin Butler
Grandpa Morgan Davies was a foreman and
overseer.
He was not a very old man when he left Wales.
He first left home and went to stay with an uncle. A boy there, a cousin, was
known as the bully of the school. Grandpa resolved that he wouldn’t be bullied.
The outgrowth of that was that he was kicked out of his uncle’s home, and from
that period on he was on his own.
Grandpa used to come up to Fourth South to ask
Father (Thomas James Davies) what to do. “Can Morgan go too?” (Grandpa could
neither read nor write and liked me to go along to help him this way.)
He had an old wagon
with a spring seat in front (where the grain was kept). Once we were traveling
along 9th East in this one-horse wagon. We came to
the surplus canal (drainage sewer for the town). “Whoa!” Grandpa called out. “Do
you see that stream of water? When we were crossing the plains the oxen would
smell something, and it was all you could do to hold onto the oxen. We had to
get out and get a drink before the animals dirtied the water.”
Going along First West
where the train track crosses Second South I
cut over slouch-wise. Grandpa’s hand went out across the lines. “Let me drive,
Morgan. There was a man bought a new wagon and a few days later took it back
with one of the wheels broken. The man at the store asked, ‘How does your son
drive across the railroad tracks?’” He gave me quite a lecture on how to drive
the horse across the tracks and take care of the wagon.
At one time Grandpa and his brother William
were boarding with an attractive young widow named Amelia Evans Camp who was
also born in Wales. She gave them each an egg for breakfast. She reached
over the table and pushed the egg onto William’s plate. “You eat my egg this
morning. Better that one of us go hungry than both of us starve to death.”
Later Uncle William married her—Aunt May.
Grandpa would take three quarters out of his
pocket (my day’s wages) three days a week.
Each one of his wives read to him. The last
wife had a cane and a crutch. Once when he was coming out of a church meeting
he said, “That was a good sermon, but I’d been better off if I’d bought the
book and had my wife read it to me.”
He had someone write a note for him saying he
was going to quit drinking. He gave it to his wife. She gave it a shove. He did
drink a little after that.
When he was 60 or over he went back to Wales.
He took his second wife. I remember Grandpa and his wife going east to go to Wales.
They got on the train. At Nebraska they stopped. His wife had noticed
him take something from his mouth and throw it out of the window. He jumped up,
went out of the car and came back with a rock. He sucked on that rock the
entire trip. He didn’t use tobacco after that. He had a strong will power to
quit.
He had a strong resolve to save money, and he
did. He left four houses.
All the men called him Dad.
He was very, very strange.
The house had a
lean-to where three boys used to sleep. Every night he would say, “I’ll call
you in time for breakfast.” The next morning he would call, “I call you this
once but I call you no more.” Typical Welsh way of speaking.
He wouldn’t speak out against the Church.
(I visited with my
Uncle Morgan Davies, grandson of Morgan Davies of Wales on August 11,
1964. Uncle Morgan reminisced about his grandfather Morgan Davis, and I took
notes. We had planned to get together again. Uncle Morgan died the following
year on the 1st of April, 1965.)
Florence Griffin Butler
1548 East 4500 South
Salt Lake City, Utah 84117
801 277-0243
