Shot Pouch and Powder Horn by Chase Davies

I wanted to share with you my Shot Pouch and Powder Horn I made in about 2012, for a submission to the Conemporary Makers Blog.  

This bag was modelled after the rising sun on the headstone erected over the grave of my Great Great Grandfather Joshua Davies (Sr.).  Joshua was a friend to the Indians.  They had given him the name "Rising Sun" on account of his ruddy complexion.  They often called on him.  He would hire them and could always depend on them.  The Indians held a special service for him when he died and I am told that the headstone was erected in his honour by a local First Nation band.

Joshua Davies Sr. was born in 1858 in Wales and came to Ontario Canada in 1879.  He came west to Alberta with a survey crew for the A.R.& I. Railroad in 1881.  In 1884 he married Susan Yunker, a German immigrant to southern Alberta.  He initially squatted and worked for the Sheran Coal Mine in the Lethbridge area.  Later he built a cabin and then moved the "Holmes" house onto thirteen hundred acres, the "Old Ranch".  There he farmed and had a cattle herd of 400 head and 200 horses, which he grazed from Nobleford in the north to the Milk River Ridge in the south.  As the Davies home was on the highway, it was the stopping place for neighbours for over 50 years.  Mr. and Mrs. Davies had four sons and seven daughters.  Joshua died in 1920.  I am the great grandson of his son Joshua Y. Davies Jr. and Maude Shaw (a Metis).

Copy and photos supplied by Chase Davies.