Pleasant Valley Junction (now Colton) on the D&RGW route traveled by William D. Davies. USHS collections, courtesy F. W. Voll.
William D. Davies Visits the Welsh in Utah in 1891 EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY PHILLIPS G. DAVIES
M . ATERIAL ABOUT T H E EARLY W E L S H SETTLERS, DOth M o r m o n a n d n o t ,
in Utah is fairly limited. Frederick S. Buchanan's chapter on the British in The Peoples of Utah1 provides some interesting information about the Welsh, but there is not very much of it. Further material about the Utah Welsh in the early days can be found in chapters 26 and 27 of William D. Davies's America, a Gwledigaethau Bywyd [America, and the politics of life], published in Welsh in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, in 1897. Davies spent several days in Spanish Fork, Provo, Salt Lake City, and Ogden in early March of 1891. His account first appeared in the Welsh-language newspaper for which he worked, Y Drych [The mirror], which was published in Utica, New York. This material seems not to have been translated heretofore. Dr. Davies is professor of English at Iowa State University, Ames. "Helen Z. Papanikolas, ed., (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1976] p p . 61-114.
