Finding a good roundup of professional wooden toymakers in the Jones County area is a rare thing, as they are nowadays, often hard to come by. Even rarer, is the opportunity to have the only well known toymaker in the area donate his time and talent to help build wooden craft objects for participants of Ellisville State School’s Laurel Day Habilitation Program.

Ellisville resident and retired Navy chief, Clifford “Cliff” Davis, creator of Piney Woods Wooden Toy, was quick to point out that he is a proud supporter of Laurel Day Habilitation Program. Davis has been donating woodwork projects to Laurel Day Habilitation since the inception of the Art with the Artist Program in August.

He is glad to see each of his hand-crafted unfinished woodworks come to life with vibrant colors.

“We enjoy painting Mr. Davis’ woodwork items,” said Trina Holifield, director of Laurel Day Habilitation. “We have painted over a dozen crosses of different shapes and styles. We have also painted birdhouses, and all of these items, we were able to enter as competitive art exhibit entries at the South Mississippi Fair last month.”

Holifield stated that the art exhibits garnered 115 blue ribbons at the fair and that they “couldn’t have done it without Davis’ help.”

Originally from Geneva, N.Y., Davis came to Jones County on the day of his retirement by chance. He had stopped to refill for gasoline at a local fuel station and decided to look around the Ellisville area. What he found was a great choice for retirement and a great place to single-handedly raise three children.

“I fell in love with Ellisville,” he said. “That same day I gassed up my vehicle, was the same day I moved to Ellisville. I also knew I wanted to work as a toymaker here.”

He has since then built a respectable following, not only in the Jones County area but all throughout the nation. His toys are treasured as heirloom pieces by his clientele. Most of his toys are custom made for clients, and a number of locally owned specialty shops in the Jones and Pine Belt areas carry his work.

“I love what I do, and I’m glad I’m also able to share my toys with Laurel Day Habilitation,” he said.

For the past 23 years since his retirement in the Navy, Davis has been making handcrafted wooden toys in his sawdust-covered workshop in Ellisville.

“I grew up in a family farm,” he said. “My family were farmers up north, and even at a young age, I knew that I didn’t want to be a farmer.”

He knew toymaking was his passion as soon as he learned carpentry in his teen years from his grandfather. It wasn’t a surprise to all who knew Davis that toymaking is what he wanted to do full time after his retirement from the Navy. 

“I use a lot of recycled materials, scrap wood, and wood that my clients want me to use that may have special meaning to them,” he conscientiously stated.

Regardless of the latest trends in the toy industry, one can hardly deny the timeless appeal of wooden trains and train tracks, doll houses and doll furniture, trucks, toy boxes and so much more. Wooden toys have a certain allure that kids and grownups alike find fascinating.

“I like this truck,” said Daniel Knight, who admired the wooden toy tanker truck’s smooth craftsmanship. It reminds him of the truck his father drives for a living. He was more than eager to find out if the toy truck had a “CB radio just like his dad’s”, and carefully inspected every detail the wooden toy truck had.

The smile on Knight’s face, and the overwhelmingly appreciative response he has gotten from participants, drew Davis to support the Art with the Artist Program at Laurel Day Habilitation.

Davis has made more than a thousand toys in the course of his career as a toymaker. He ardently stated with a hint of a New Yorker drawl, “If I can’t do for them, then forget about it.”