The 1818 Welsh - The Early Pioneers

 In 1818, six families decided to leave the Cilcennin area of Wales and sail for America. There were 36 in the group including women and children: 

• John Jones, Tirbach 

• J. Evans, Penlanlas 

• Evan Evans Tymawr 

• Lewis Davies, Rhiwlas 

• William Williams, Pantfallen 

• Thomas Evans, Pantfallen 

It is believed that the six families left their homes in the parish of Cilcennin and started their ambitious journey on 1 April 1818 or thereabouts. They went first to Liverpool, and they had hoped to sail to America straight after arriving, but they were forced to wait there for a whole month before they could sail on a suitable ship. 

They had a wretched and difficult voyage because of the bad weather and the conditions on board ship and unfortunately the journey was too much for the little daughter of John and Mary Evans Penlanlas and she had to be buried at sea. After a voyage of 7 weeks and 6 days, the Welsh must have been extremely glad when the ship landed in Chesapeake Bay in Baltimore on 1 July, but this was not the end of their journey. John Jones and his company intended to join the other Welsh people from Llanbryn-mair in Paddy's Run, in western Ohio, and so straight after landing they faced another long journey of 500 miles. 

The Welsh traveled in wagons to Pittsburgh and then onwards in flat boats down the Ohio River. The men were unfamiliar with steering these boats and found it extremely hard, and the women had their worries as well as their food supply was becoming scarce. 

After traveling 100 miles, the travelers were exhausted, hungry, and needed to mend the boats, and so they decided to land and stay the night near Gallipolis in southeast Ohio, where a community of French people lived. During the night, the boats' ropes were either cut loose or they became loose in a storm. The Welsh feared that they had lost everything, but they managed to get their boats and their belongings back safely. 

Whatever had happened, the events of that night were a turning point in the story of the "the 1818 Welsh" and a milestone in the history of the emigrating from Wales to Ohio in general because the exhausted Welsh people decided to stay put rather than continue the journey to Paddy's Run. According to one story, the women were completely fed up with traveling by now and they refused to budge a step further, but according to another story, it was the French who were responsible for inciting them to stay in the area. 

At that time, the highway between Chillicothe and Gallipolis was being built so the men managed to find work in the area quite quickly. There was plenty of government land available to buy in the county, but the Welsh had contemplated carefully before venturing to buy. John Jones went to survey the land in Radnor, Delaware County, where a community of Welsh people already lived and saw that the land there was low and flat, but he was worried that the climate could foster diseases. All in all, then, buying land in the Gallipolis area was the best choice. The Welsh chose land worth $1.25 an acre, approx. 18 miles from where Centerville was later established.   

The land of the Welsh was part of the township of Raccoon, in Gallia County, but the farm of Lewis Davies extended into the next county, and therefore he was the first Welshman to settle in Jackson County. Later, western parts of Gallia were added to Jackson County, putting the families living there in Madison. 

Even though the land which the Welsh had bought was cheap, it was full of stones and of poor quality and it was not deep enough to grow good crops. The struggle to improve their lives continued for the pioneers after settling in Ohio. 

William Williams and Thomas Evans and their families moved to Delaware County in 1822 but the rest of the group stayed in the area and most of them were buried in Evans Cemetery by Moriah Church. 

Even though the living conditions in rural Cardiganshire, Wales, did not improve at all after John Jones Tirbach and his group left, nobody else ventured to follow them to southeast Ohio for nearly 12 years. The emigrating started anew in the 1830’s, with families here and there packing their bags to join their former neighbors in Jackson and Gallia counties.  

Religion was an important part of the lives of these Welsh people, and they must have missed worshipping in Welsh greatly because soon after arriving they started the first cause in Moriah in 1835, under the supervision of the Rev. Edward Jones from Cincinnati. Edward Jones returned to Wales in 1837, and he published a guidebook for emigrants - Y Teithiwr Americanaidd (The American Traveler) - which sang the praises of Ohio and describing Jackson and Gallia as the best counties to settle in. It is believed that this booklet had a substantial influence on the Cardis (people from Cardiganshire) as the emigrating on a massive scale from Cardiganshire to southeast Ohio started in the same year as the booklet was published.   "... Jackson and Gallia are only Cardiganshire on 'a larger' scale" -Y Cenhadwr Americanaidd 

By 1850 around 3,000 of the Welsh had crossed the Atlantic to start a new life in the area of Rio Grande, Tyn Rhos, Moriah, Nebo, Centerville, Peniel, Oak Hill and Horeb. The area became known as “Little Wales” or “Little Cardiganshire” from then on.