|
|
OHIO GENEALOGY EXPRESS
A Part of Genealogy
Express
|
WELCOME TO
FRANKLIN COUNTY, OHIO
The Welsh of
Columbus, Ohio:
A Study
in Adaptation and Assimilation
By Daniel Jenkins Williams ©1916
(Source: Google Books) |
|
|
CHAPTER II.
THE COMING OF THE WELSH TO OHIO (Migration and Early
Settlement)
The first Welshman to enter the territory now known as
the State of
Ohio was the Rev.
David Jones who labored as a missionary among the Shawnee and
Delaware Indians in 1772 and 1773. The second Welshman
known to have traversed Ohio ground was General
Anthony Wayne. General Wayne, with his army, came to Ohio in
1793 being commissioned by the government "to make an
end of Indian troubles on the frontier."1
The first permanent Welsh settlers2
in Ohio were Ezekiel Hughes and Edward
Bebb who came
from Llanbrynmair, Montgomeryshire, North Wales. These
two men were responsible for the first definite step
westward on the part of Welsh emigrants. Hughes and
Bebb
were instrumental in persuading a company of fifty Welsh
people in their neighborhood in Llanbrynmair to emigrate
to America. This company walked from Llanbrynmair to
Bristol, England, where, on August 11th, 1795, they
embarked on the ship Maria and sailed for America. After
a perilous voyage of fourteen weeks they entered
Delaware Bay and in a few days thereafter reached the
port of Philadelphia. These emigrants became the pioneer
settlers of Ebensgburg, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, of
Paddy's Kun, Butler County, Ohio, and of the Welsh Hills
in Licking County, Ohio. In the autumn of 1796 twelve
families settled in Ebensburg3
including those of Theopholis Reese, Thomas
Phillips, and James Nicholas. In the following Spring and Summer
eleven other families came to the settlement.
----------------------------------
See ' 'The History of
the Welsh Settlement of Paddy's Run''; also "Hanes Cymry
America" p. 113 sq. 1
See "The Cambrian for Nov. 3, 1881; also "The Cymry of
'76" 3 See "Day's Historical Collections of
Pennsylvania," chapter on "Cambria County." |
|
|
They named
the township
Cambria, and later the County was given the same name.1
The Welsh of this colony are characterized as "a people
remarkable for thrift, sobriety, and industry."
Hughes and Bebb did not join the other members of their
company who settled in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, but
after remaining with friends in the Dyffryn Mawr, (Great
Valley), near Philadelphia for several months, they
started in April 1796 for the then far West. They walked
over the mountains
to Red Stone, Old Fort, (now Brownsville) Pa. where they
secured a flat-boat and floated down the
Ohio River to Fort Washington, or
Cincinnati. After reaching Cincinnati they spent three
weeks "in
traversing the five lower ranges" but in their search
they found only one tract of land which they considered
good for that part of the country. They described the
land as being well watered and convenient being only
half a mile from the road going from Cincinnati to
Hamilton. They purchased
100 acres of land in section 34, Colerian Township,
cleared a part of it for cultivation, and built a cabin
on it. Their purpose was to remain there and to
experiment with the land in that region until the land
beyond the Great Miami was surveyed by the government
and placed on the market, believing
that the soil on the east side of the Great Miami River
was similar to that on the west side.
They remained on their farm east of the Great Miami
from 1796 until 1801 when the government surveyed the
land on the west side of the river and placed it on the
market.
The two men made frequent excursions into the regions
beyond the Miami and made careful examination of the
soil and of conditions in general. "The land to be sold
on the other
side of the Miami," writes Hughes, "is rich as any in
Kentucky, much better watered,
and the title indisputable. "Ezekiel Hughes was
the first to purchase land in this newly opened
territory. He bought sections 15 and 16 in Whitewater
Township, Hamilton County, paying $2.05 per acre.
---------------------------------------------
1 The
Welsh of Cambria County first settled at Beulah, about
two miles
from Ebensburg but when Ebensbnrg was made the county
seat of Cambria
County, the Welsh gradually moved toward Ebensburg. |
|
|
This tract lies between the
Miami and
Whitewater rivers, just where the Whitewater empties
into the Miami. At the same time Edward Bebb purchased
half a section on the Dry Pork of Whitewater in what is
now Morgan Township, Butler County, which was the first
land bought in Butler County.
Two other men, Morgan and William Gwilym, from Cavenaman,
South Wales, joined Hughes and Bebb on the east side of
the Great Miami in 1798, and "squatted" on Blue Rock
Creek. In 1802 William Gwilym followed his friends to
Paddy's Run and began to clear the forest. Morgan
Gwilym
returned to Red Stone where he had previously worked,
stayed there a while and then invested his earnings in a
two-horse wagon and some iron castings and returned to
Paddy's Run.
Edward Bebb, after buying his land, started for Wales
seeking the sweetheart of his former days with the
intention of bringing her to the cabin in the woods. He
walked all the distance from Paddy's Run to Ebensburg
intending to stay there a short time on his return trip
to Wales. While at Ebensburg, much to his surprise, he
met the lady for whom he was making the trip. Her maiden
name was Margret
Roberts. But when Bebb met her in Ebensburg her name
was Mrs. Margret Owens. After Bebb left Wales for
America Miss Roberts married a man by the name of Owens.
To Mr. and Mrs. Owens one child was born. The family
left Wales for America but on the voyage Owens and the
child died and were buried at sea, and Mrs. Owens was
left to make her way in the new country alone. After
landing in New York she determined to go to Ebensburg
where she had relatives who had left Llanbrynmair in the
ship Maria in 1795.
It was at the home of one of the friends that Edward
Bebb found her on his arrival at Ebensburg. Bebb
remained there a few weeks, then returned to his home,
on the Dry Fork, accompanied by his bride. There in
their cabin on December 8th, 1802 was born William
Bebb,
the first white child born
in Butler County, who later became the 17th Governor of
Ohio, and the first native born Governor of the Buckeye
State.1
----------------------------------
1
See "Historical Collections of Ohio" Vol. I. p. 349. |
|
|
|
Ezekiel Hughes returned to
Wales in 1803 and married
a Miss Margret Bebb.1
The two returned to their home in
Hamilton County in 1804. These
trips on the part of Bebb and Hughes, together with
correspondence and glaring advertisement, created a
great interest on the part of the Welsh of Llanbrynmair
and presently a large number of Welsh immigrants poured
into Paddy's Run. From 1803 to 1820 there was a constant
stream of Welsh people coming into the community and a
Welsh colony was the result. Just as Hughes and
Bebb
were pioneers in Paddy's Run so is Paddy's Run pioneer
and parent of Welsh settlements in Ohio.2 Out of Paddy's
Run grew, either directly or indirectly, four important
Welsh settlements in the State, viz.: the Welsh Hills
colony in Licking County, settled in 1801; the Jackson
and Gallia settlements in Jackson and Gallia Counties,
settled in 1818; the Gomer settlement established in
Gomer, Allen County, in 1833; and the Venedocia
settlement in Vanwert County established in 1848.
The
Welsh Hills Settlement
Theopholis Rees and Thomas Phillips were members of the
colony which first settled in Cambria County,
Pennsylvania, in 1796. The influence of Hughes and
Bebb
may be seen in the desire of their friends to venture
farther west. In 1801 Theopholis Rees began to
investigate the advantages of the country beyond the
Ohio River.3
In August
1801 he sent his son,
John Rees, and Simon Jones to explore a tract of land in
Granville Township, Licking County, which
has since received the name of Welsh Hills Settlement.
When these men returned to Ebensburg and reported
favorably on
the land in Licking County, Theopholis Rees and
Thomas Phillips purchased nearly 2,000 acres of land in the
northwest corner of Granville Township. The tract was
divided, Rees
taking the south half or a little more, and Phillips the
remainder.
Others bought smaller farms about the same time. A year
after the purchase was made Rees and his family, his two
sons-in-law and their families, left Ebensburg for their
new home in the Welsh Hills. Thomas Phillips did not
come to his tract in the Welsh Hills until 1806. From
1806 on, the colony grew rapidly for many years. "
----------------------------------
1 Margret
Bebb, so
far as we have been able to ascertain, was not a
relative of the other Bebbs mentioned in this chapter.
2 Paddy's Run sounds incongruous as the name of a
Welsh community.
There is a story handed down by tradition that in the
first surveying party which came to this region there
was an Irishman, and that the Irishman was drowned in
this creek. From that time to the present day the creek
has been known as Paddy's Run; and the community takes
its name from the creek
which runs through the valley. At one time during the
'80s an effort was made to change the name from Paddy's
Run to Glendower (Welsh, Glyndwr).
The change was actually and officially made by the
government, but so great was the opposition to it that
the name was soon changed back to Paddy's Run. The
station is now called Shandon but the community is known
as Paddy's Run.
3 See "The Cambrian" for August 1907, article by
Win. Harvey Jones,
p. 344 sq. Mr. Jones in this article states that Rees
came to
America with
Thomas Phillips and others landing in New York May 14,
1795. Chidlaw
definitely states that Rees was in the company of fifty
who came with Hughes
and Bebb and landed in Philadelphia in the Spring of
1795. Jbones has made
it careful study of Welsh Settlements in Ohio in recent
years. Ghidlaw, on the
other hand, was the son-in-law of Ezekiel Hughes and
wrote 20 years before Jones. Chidlaw quotes from the Diary of
Ezekiel Hughes
in his article (see
The Cambrian for May, 1888). Whether Rees was in this
particular company
which Hughes and Bebb brought with them or not we do not
know, but that
the large majority of the Ebensburg colony were from the
colony that Hughes
and Bebb brought over is certain. So the influence of
these men in their westward
venture was felt in the Ebensburg colony, and the most
venturesome of
them were, by the success of their friends in Paddy's
Run. inspired to seek
like opportunities beyond the Ohio. |
|
|
CLICK HERE to RETURN to
FRANKLIN COUNTY, OHIO |
CLICK HERE to
RETURN to
OHIO GENEALOGY EXPRESS |
FREE GENEALOGY RESEARCH
is My MISSION
GENEALOGY EXPRESS
This Webpage has been created by Sharon Wick exclusively for Ohio
Genealogy Express ©2008
Submitters retain all copyrights |
|
|
|