Early Welsh Settlers in America - Part 2

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Early Welsh Settlers in America - Part 1 -    • Early Welsh Settlers in America  - Pa...  

Penn first called the area "New Wales". In a letter to friend Robert Turner in January 1681 Penn wrote, “ "This day, my country was confirmed to me under the great seal of England, with privileges, by the name of Pennsylvania, a name the King would give it in honor of my father. I choose New Wales, being as this a pretty hill country, but Penn being Welsh for a head as Penmanmoire in Wales, and Penrith in Cumberland and Penn Buckinghamshire, the highest land in England.” Penn continued a few sentences later, “for I proposed when the secretary – a Welshman- refused to have it called New Wales, Sylvania, and they added Penn to it; and though I much opposed it, and went to the King to have it struck out and altered, he said twas past.”

King Charles II insisted on the name "Pennsylvania" in honor of the late Admiral Penn. On 4 March 1681, the King signed the charter and the following day Penn prophetically wrote, "It is a clear and just thing, and my God who has given it to me through many difficulties, will, I believe, bless and make it the seed of a nation." Penn then traveled to America and while there, he negotiated Pennsylvania's first land-purchase survey with the native tribe of the Lenape people. Penn felt it was only right and fitting to also purchase the land from the Native American inhabitants. Penn purchased the first tract of land under a white oak tree on the 15th of July 1682. Penn drafted a charter of liberties for the settlement creating a political “haven” guaranteeing free and fair trial by jury, freedom of religion, freedom from unjust imprisonment, and free elections.

In about 1681, a group of Welsh Quakers met with William Penn to secure a grant of land in which they could live as a Welsh community using their own language. The parties agreed on a tract covering 40,000 acres (160 km2), to be constituted as a separate county whose people and government could conduct their affairs in Welsh. It became known as the Welsh Tract, also called the Welsh Barony. It was located just to the west of the city of Philadelphia. The original settlers, led by John Roberts, had negotiated with William Penn the Tract as a separate “county” whose local government would use the Welsh language. Unfortunately, contrary to Penn's assurances, the Barony was never formally created, but the many Welsh settlers gave their communities Welsh names that survive today. The Welsh Tract's boundaries were established in 1687, but in violation of the prior agreement because by the 1690s the land had already been partitioned among different counties rather than being its own county. Despite appeals from the Welsh settlers, and the Tract never gained self-government. Yet, this new Pennsylvania colony initially attracted a small group of Welshmen, who arrived in the New World shortly before Penn himself in 1682.

Despite the disappointment and the hardships of the early years, these first Welsh settlers were so successful in establishing their farms and so enthusiastic about their new home, that they were able to persuade others to join them. Significant numbers of people - in some cases, whole communities - began to leave Wales. A second wave of Welsh immigration began at the end of the 17th century, but ceased completely by the end of the first quarter of the 18th century.

The area of the original Welsh tract in Pennsylvania is now part of Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware counties. Many towns in the area still bear Welsh names. Some, such as North Wales, Lower Gwynedd, Upper Gwynedd, Lower Merion, Upper Merion, Narberth, Bala Cynwyd, Radnor, Malvern, Berwyn, and Haverford Township, are named after places in Wales.

By 1700, it is estimated that Welsh people accounted for about one-third of the colony's estimated population of twenty thousand. The Pennsylvania Provincial Council helped govern the Province of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1776. Records show the Welsh were especially numerous by 1700, politically active and elected 9% of the members of the Pennsylvania Provincial Council. A second "Welsh Tract" of 30,000 acres was granted to Welsh emigrants by William Penn in 1701. It comprised what is today called Pencader Hundred, Delaware, and some of Cecil County, Maryland.