January 23, 1902-December 2, 1987.
John E.M. Davis’ hand-made production of cedar souvenirs made him a household name for more than half a century. He opened his store in Somerset in 1925, and cedar souvenirs and novelties were his stock in trade.
His work attracted illustrious buyers such as playwright Eugene O’Neill who lived in Bermuda and a 1954 National Geographic Magazine article brought him renown.
Although best known for his cedarwork, for which he was honoured with a Founders Award by the Bermuda Arts Council in 2005, Davis was a professional musician during the 1920s and 1930s. He was also a co-founder of the Somerset Brigade Band.
Davis was born on January 23, 1902 in Somerset, a son of John Edward and Rowena Davis, and spent the first half of his life in Warwick. He was the youngest of 13 children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. In 1906, when he was four and a half, his parents moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, leaving him in the care of his oldest brother, William A. Davis, who lived in Warwick.
His formal education ended with primary school. When asked about his schooling during an oral history interview, he said: “ Well, that’s not even a 64-cent question because in those days you didn’t get much schooling.”
He attended Edgar Tucker’s school in Somerset, followed by the Spring Hill School in Warwick, first under Hattie Tucker and then Kate Astwood.
He told interviewer Dr. Eva Hodgson he was “pretty young” when he left school and his first job was on a farm where after three years, he was able to save enough money to buy his first pedal bike.
His next job was in a lime kiln, and then on a freight boat, helping to offload barrels of codfish, kerosene and other imports that arrived on the Hamilton docks and then transported to Somerset and St George’s.
“In those days, you shifted around,” he said. “Wherever you found a job, that is where you worked. “
He eventually moved into construction, working with established tradesman such as father and son Walter and Kenny Simons, who were top masons.
It was his brother William, a carpentry foreman, who gave him his start as a carpenter. Davis worked under him at Elbow Beach Hotel and at St. Mary’s Church, Warwick, where William built the cedar altar rails.
William and John were part of a large team of workmen who were hired to build a Heron’s Nest, Southampton home for wealthy American Mrs. C.P. Warren. Davis became her personal carpenter, taking on responsibilities that included doing her “fancy work” and French polishing the furniture. Davis had a busy work schedule by then, doing carpentry days and playing in a band nights.
Davis had taken up music in 1914 when he joined the Warwick Amateur Band at the age of 12. It was the year the First World War started. Davis came upon the Bermuda Militia Artillery band on a day they did “one straight march” from St. George’s to Dockyard to recruit soldiers.
Captivated by the sound of the trombone, Davis joined the band so he could learn to play. But at the audition, it quickly became evident that his arms were too short to play the trombone and he was given a cornet instead. Band member Martin Wilson—a future labour leader and member of the Upper House—was his first music teacher. Davis remained with the band for years, eventually earning a spot as solo cornetist.
The time he spent with the band became the foundation for his career as a professional musician. He had earned a degree of notoriety for his musical showmanship—he played his cornet from the top of the flagpole on Front Street as part of the band’s Christmas Eve performance.
He told Dr. Hodgson when the band performed “Glow Worm”, one of its most popular numbers, the trumpet players had to be “away from the band while the band was playing the tune.”
“I used to climb a ladder to play for them in Hamilton and I used to answer them from up there,” he said. “I guess that was one of the things that got me on the road.”
The first group to come calling was the Casino Jazz Band, which played at a nightclub at the Emporium on Front Street. The band’s Saturday night performances at Phoenix Drug Street’s second-floor verandah earned them a loyal following.
“And people would come from all over Bermuda to stand and listen to us play,” he said.
Davis later formed his own band, the Happy Five. In the early 1920s, he went to Boston, where a brother was living and his mother had returned following a move back to Bermuda. He took music lessons for about two years from a professor and also worked as a hotel houseman.
When he returned to the Island, he joined the Oriental Orchestra, whose members included John “Sonny” Phipps, Hendrick Lawrence, Victor Liburd, Archie Kennedy and Wellington Williams. With the training he received in Boston, he transformed the group into “one of best band orchestras that Bermuda has ever had.”
The Oriental Orchestra played for a number of years at a Queen Street nightclub, Royal Prince from December to May, and at Elbow Beach Hotel from May to December.
Then they were offered work year-round at Elbow. The engagement lasted for nearly seven years and saw them performing seven nights a week. In 1939, with Bermuda still feeling the effects of the Depression, Elbow Beach owner Harold Hayes Frith asked him to “break up my big band into little groups and I told him that was not for me.”
Davis got out of the music business altogether but always regretted giving his sheets of music—350 dance numbers and 100 concert numbers—to his fellow band members.
Davis had a job to go to, having opened John Davis Cedar Shop on the Main Road in Somerset in November 1925. The store’s original name was the Country Souvenir and Antique Shop.
He said he started the store to have something to fall back on, having once read that older professional musicians would eventually lose their spots to younger one. He started out buying antique furniture, which he restored and resold, before settling on cedar work.
He produced an amazing variety of items—ashtrays, trinket boxes, bowls, brooches shaped like angelfish. seahorses and Scottie dogs—by the hundreds. He supplied them to Hamilton shops and also sold them at his store.
When a colour photograph of him surrounded by his cedar crafts appeared in National Geographic in 1954, it was the start of tourists beating a path to his door.
He said: “People from all over the world were coming, some of them three or four years later with the magazine in their hands when they got the chance to come to Bermuda.”
For year, Davis promoted his weekly in The Bermuda Recorder. The ad read: “Hand tooled from finest Bermuda Cedar, in all varieties. John Davis Cedar Shop Somerset.
He closed it in 1971 but continued to produce souvenirs from his home at Bob’s Valley, Somerset.
John Davis was married twice. His first wife and the mother of his two daughters, Eleanor Johnson and Lucy Davis, was Ruth Louise (Paynter) Davis. His second wife was Lillian Fozard Davis. (Lillian’s son was Henry Eric Dowling, who was killed in action during the Korean War.)
Davis’ political and community activism made him a respected figure in Somerset. He served as treasurer of Somerset Cricket Club and helped put their accounts in order. He also helped SCC acquire property to build the club. He was a founder of the Somerset Brigade Band and an enthusiastic supporter of the Bermuda Workers Association—his brother William was a BWA co-founder—and the Progressive Labour Party.
Davis was honoured by Sandys Rotary Club in 1978 and by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1980.
Davis, who was widower, died on December 2, 1987. In 2005, he was a posthumous recipient of the Bermuda Arts Council Founders Award.
Davis usually inscribed his name on his work, examples of which can be found in homes in Bermuda and overseas. In 2008, a trio of nesting tables, signed John Davis Bermuda 1938, was put up for auction on eBay.
The Bermuda Historical Society Museum in Hamilton has several examples of his cedar work on display.
