John Silvanus Davis

John Silvanus Davis (English: sɪlvɔnʌs) (Welsh: Davies), June 7, 1822 – June 11, 1882) was a Welsh printer, writer, and early defender of the Latter-day Saints in South Wales during the mid-1800s.^[1] He translated the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenants into Welsh.^[2]

Davis was born during a period of rapid industrialization in South Wales during the mid-1800s.^[3] At the opening of the 1800s, Wales was mainly an agrarian society. However, within the next few decades the country expanded rapidly, particularly during the Napoleonic wars, which required a lot of raw materials provided by mining towns in Wales like Merthyr Tydfil or Aberdare.^[4]

This prosperity halted when the war ended and demand for Welsh products like coal and wool fell, which drove a large migration of workers to the industrial towns. Merthyr Tydfil's population had increased from 7,705 in 1801 to 46,378 in 1851, up to 10,000 of which were migrant workers. There were more people employed in industry than agriculture in Wales making it the first industrial nation.^[5] The result was a permanent state of uncertainty in these towns.^[6]

He was baptized into the Congregational Church, though his father eventually started his own congregation, which was not uncommon in the non-conformist chapels of Wales. Davis followed in his father's faith as a young man.^[7]

Davis received a fair education and developed a talent for literature.^[8] He began writing poetry when he was thirteen, under the direction of his mother. His writing appeared in various Welsh magazines.^[9] Davis continued to write poems, songs and hymns for the rest of his life, a practice his daughter Julia Elizabeth Davis also enjoyed.

Davis first became interested in the Latter-day Saints in 1845 at Llanybyther. He heard about them from the Reverend John Jones, brother to Captain Dan Jones. Reverend Jones was printing Mormon tracts at the time, which made him deeply unpopular among his fellow printers.^[10][11] Davis was working with him as editor, typesetter and pressman, so he read the tracts carefully. The result was his baptism. Davis was baptized on April 19, 1846, and then ordained a teacher and priest within the next two years.^[12] He defended Mormonism vigorously in periodicals, tracts, poems, and books. He also actively engaged directly with both local and visiting preachers. He also traveled throughout Wales and Dublin as a missionary for his newfound religion.^[13]

In 1848, Davis was called as first counselor to William S. Phillips, president of the Welsh mission.^[14] The two managed the affairs of the printing office in Llannerdy. Davis printed several Mormon periodicals influential among the Welsh Saints, most notably Zion's Trumpet, which he edited from 1849 until his emigration in 1854.^[15]

In addition to translating, he wrote edifying tracts expounding and defending Latter-day Saint beliefs, as well as a hymnbook with over 500 songs, many of which were his own composition. His dealings with the Latter-day Saints in the Welsh mission brought him into circles with early Mormon leaders such as F. D. Richards, Erastus Snow, and future prophet John Taylor.^[16]

The first branch of the Latter-day Saints in Wales was established in Overton, near the border with England. The Latter-day Saint missionaries had been proselytizing there for more than a decade without the benefit of a Welsh translation of the Book of Mormon because the language was not widely spoken in the farming communities surrounding this small branch, and hence not needed.

In 1842, Elder Lorenzo Snow sent William Henshaw to the cosmopolitan industrial town of Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales where Henshaw recognized the need for proselytizing materials in Welsh. The Reverend John Jones, brother to Captain Dan Jones, was printing Mormon tracts at his printing press in Rhydybont, near Llanybydder, Carmathenshire, assisted by a 23-year-old Davis.^[17]

By late 1848, Dan Jones was anxious to make the standard works of the Latter-day Saints available to the nearly 4,000 of his countrymen who had already been baptized. However, he emigrated to the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1848 before the translation could be started. In his place, Davis was selected to oversee all printing activities for the Church in Wales.

Davis's exposure to proper grammar, exposition of ideas, logic, and to the printing world in general, equipped him well to serve as editor of all church publications in Wales. He was one of the most highly educated converts in the church in mid-19th-century Wales. This was not so much from formal schooling as it was from years of setting type and reading proofs in both Welsh and English.

In August 1850, Davis announced he had been "counseled" to translate and publish the Doctrine and Covenants. Instead of translating it all at once, Davis released a 16-page "signature" every other week in Zion's Trumpet which contained part of the scripture. Between February 22, 1851 and August 23, 1851, Davis had released all 20 signatures of the Doctrine and Covenants.^[18]

This distribution method worked so well that Davis decided to do the same for the Book of Mormon. On July 26, 1851, a month before finishing the Doctrine and Covenants, Davis started gathering subscriptions for the translation of the Book of Mormon. Davis encouraged his team of distributors and church leaders to be very aggressive in getting subscriptions, but by September 6, 1851 they had only 1,223 signatures and decided to delay the printing. However, by April 17, 1851, the Saints had gathered only 1,500 subscribers. Davis moved forward with the translation anyway. He released the 31st and final signature of the Llyfr Mormon on September 20, 1851.^[19]

In his forward to the Welsh edition of the Book of Mormon dated April 6, 1852, Davis stated that the translation was the "best that could be done under disadvantages which the majority of translators do not labor under," and that he sought "perspicuity and plain language" more than "any kind of adornment." The disadvantages he talked about could have been the lack of printing experience among the Saints or the extremely cramped conditions of the printing press, which was in his house on John's Street in Georgetown in Merthyr Tydfil.

Upon completion of the Book of Mormon in Welsh, John sent a copy to the editor of the Baptist periodical Seren Gomer. The editor examined it and said it was "so perfect a translation" but that Davis had wasted valuable time on something as "worthless a work as the Book of Mormon."^[20] The parts were then published and sold all in under one year. The first copy, bound in Moroccan leather, was taken to Brigham Young in Utah by emigrating Welsh elders.

Davis's translation was the only Welsh version of the Book of Mormon until the year 2000. It is also the only translation in a Celtic language.

Davis married Elizabeth Phillips (1823 – 1906) on December 30, 1850, in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales. They met each other through their association with the Latter-day Saints in the Cwmbach branch of the Welsh Mission.^[21] They had one daughter, Julia Elizabeth Davis (1851 – 1946), who married Utah's first democratic senator, Joseph L. Rawlins.

As early as November 1853, Davis and his family started preparations for their emigration to the Great Salt Lake Valley in Utah. He closed his accounts and transferred operational management of the Welsh mission and printing presses to Captain Dan Jones. On January 15, 1854, Davis received first word that the emigrants were to set sail for the United States on February 1. With only two weeks notice, the Latter-day Saints hastily gathered in from the countryside with what they could. John and Elizabeth saw their parents one last time before joining the others at Liverpool.^[22][23]

The Davises boarded the ship Golconda in the late evening of January 31, 1854. Four days later, the ship set sail with 477 people. The weather was rough for much of their journey across the Atlantic Ocean. However, it warmed when they reached the Bermuda Islands. The passengers spent their time on the voyage with entertainment including mock trials, dancing, band music, weddings, and daily religious meetings.^[24][25] The Golconda reached the Port of New Orleans in the United States six weeks later. The company made their way by steamboat and wagon to St. Louis, Missouri, where they remained for three weeks gathering provisions for the trek westward across the Great Plains.

After leaving St. Louis, they passed by several Native Americans who were receiving gifts from the United States government. The Native Americans were also trading with pioneers, emigrants, gold diggers, and other people heading West. Crossing the Great Plains in the 1850s was a dangerous undertaking, often resulting in hunger, privation and death. Both Davis and Elizabeth fell ill to cholera along the way. The company arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley in July 1854 after a journey of seven months and three weeks.^[26]

Almost immediately after the Davises reached Salt Lake City, Davis started teaching English to the new Welsh Saints. He taught various subjects for most of his life on topics ranging from writing to astronomy, both of which he knew well.^[27]

Davis first met Brigham Young in December 1854. Young advised Davis to go into farming, but when he found out he was a printer, directed him instead to pursue his trade at the Deseret News.

On July 23, 1856, Brigham Young invited several prominent Latter-day Saints, including the Davises, to join him at the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon for a 24th of July celebration. The next day, they received word of general Albert S. Johnston's army approaching the Great Salt Lake Valley during the Utah War. The Latter-day Saints had been driven from the eastern United States and were determined to stand their ground in Utah. Brigham Young ordered the Saints to bury the foundation of the Salt Lake Temple to protect it from destruction. Then, the Davises, along with the Deseret News staff and the presses, moved to Fillmore until the end of the Utah War. They returned to Salt Lake City in September 1858.^[28][29]

In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, political and social changes led to a renewed interest in religion. Various Christian sects, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) started printing large amounts of tracts, pamphlets, books, translations, and hymnals expounding their doctrines. Although these efforts were ecumenical at the opening of the nineteenth century, by mid-century the printers started showing more interest in denominational printing.^[30] Many printers at the time "placed messianic faith in the power of the press." It wasn't just a tool to print text, it was a divine gift, provided to "turn the unfaithful multitudes toward Christ." Joseph Smith also understood the importance of the press as a proselyting tool. Shortly before he was killed, Smith told Captain Dan Jones, "you shall have $1100, and the start for Wales, not with your fingers in your mouth but prepared to buy a press, and do business aright."^[31]

Davis played a large role in the production of these printed religious texts. Nineteenth-century printers were also authors and editors and had considerable control over the quality of the content coming off the presses. A printer's apprentice was required "to be well versed in all the peculiarities of the English language." For Davis, this meant he was the silent editor and occasional author of Reverend Jones's work. In 1848, Davis left John Jones's print shop and established his own in Merthyr Tydfil. As official printer for the Mormons, he eventually printed thousands of pages of religious material in both English and Welsh. When he emigrated to the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1854, he took his printing expertise with him and established presses, periodicals, and newspapers throughout the Western United States.^[32]

In addition to his personal writings such as his songs, he also worked professionally with both secular and religious printing establishments such as the Deseret News, Valley Tan and The Mountaineer (later called the Daily Herald). Davis became the foreman of the Daily Herald in August 1859.^[33][34]

In December 1858, Davis was elected as public printer for the legislative assembly.^[35]

In 1861, Davis was forced to give up printing due to ill health. He was unemployed for one year until he and his wife, Elizabeth, opened a small store in their two-story house with one hundred dollars she had saved without his knowledge. The business flourished until 1870, when Brigham Young and other businessmen formed Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI)^[36][37]

In his final years, Davis manufactured and sold a root beer called "Cronk Beer" popular among Mormons.^[38][39][40]

Davis died on June 11, 1882 in Salt Lake City, Utah after a lingering illness.^[41] He "was of a retiring disposition, gentle but impressive in manner, a deliberate thinker, and a vigorous writer."

• Book of Mormon (Welsh: Llyfr Mormon) (Welsh translation) on April 6, 1852
• Doctrine and Covenants (Welsh translation) in 1850
• The Pearl of Great Price (Welsh translation) on October 16, 1852
• Zion's Trumpet or Star of the Saints
• "Treatises on Miracles"
• A collection of hymns, songs and spiritual rhymes, for the service of Latter Day Saints, in Wales. (Welsh: Casgliad o hymnau, caniadau, ac odlau ysbrydol, at wasanaeth Saint Y Dyddiau Diweddaf, yn Nghymru). A Welsh hymnbook edited by Davis. It contained many of his own songs.^[42]
• The Bee Hive Songster in 1868. A collection of popular Mormon folk songs.^[43]

• "Davis, John S. – The Noble Art of Printing" by Jacob D. Rawlins
• John Davis, Printer by Ronald D. Dennis (YouTube).
• Collected works on the Welsh Mission and Davis by Ronald D. Dennis
• Zion's Trumpet edited by Ronald D. Dennis.
• Llyfr Mormon: The Translation of the Book of Mormon into Welsh by Ronald D. Dennis.

• The Welsh Mission
• The Welsh Saints Project
• The Great Mormon Migration
• Prophet of the Jubilee (Prophwyd y Jubili), the previous name of the Udgorn Seion.

• Profile on the Church History Biographical Database website.
• Profile on the Welsh Saints Project.
• Profile on FamilySearch.
• Biography on the Welsh Saints Project.
• Papers, 1843–1877.
• Correspondence, 1849–1855.
• Receipts, 1850–1854.