OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Tidbits of Ohio -- Part 53B

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Historical Collections of Ohio.
And Then They Went West
Know Your Ohio
Tid Bits - part 53 B
Notes by
S.Kelly
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Tid Bits - Part 53B
Ohio Welsh.

      
      Pioneer Life of the Welsh in Ohio

Many aspects of life were common to all these pioneer Welsh communities.
The region into which they came was an unbroken forest, covered with a
variey of timber and a thick growth of underbrush. The water supply was
plentiful and the forest gave abundance of fruit and nuts of many
varieties. The woods abounded with game and the streams teemed with
fish. Nature provided well for the early comers.

The first task of the pioneer after securing his land was to select a
suitable place for the location of his cabin. The first Welsh settlers
sought the hills. The regions into which they came in Butler, Licking,
and Jackson and Gallia Counties were hilly, as were the home of former
Welsh settlers in Cambria County and the Great Valley region in
Pennsylvania. Two reasons may be assigned for their selecting the hills
for a home. First the land from which they came in Wales were
mountainous. It was natural that they should chose a place simular in
its general appearance to their homeland. A second reason for seeking
the hills was that the hilltops were healthier.The valleys and bottom
lands while possessing better soil, were at the same time swampy, the
streams were sluggish and the water stagnant; whereas the hillsides were
dry and from slopes welled up pure and refreshing springs of water which
ran in streams into valleys below.

The first cabins were generally erected near a spring on the hillside.
Before the early settlers of Jackson and Gallia Counties decided to make
that region their final abode they commissioned one of their number to
investigate the conditions of the soil and climate in the Radnor
settlement in Delaware County. The man returned with the verdict that
the region of Radnor was low and swampy and suggestive of malaria. The
Radnor colony, therefore, is the one exception of the early pioneer
Welsh of Ohio, which settled in a region not hilly, for te land in the
vacinity of Radnor, while it is not entirely flat, is only slightly
rolling.

After living for a generation in the hill-country the Welsh began to
move out of the hills into more level regions, and to make settlements.
Thus we found in some of the early settlers of Paddy's Run in 1833,
migrating to Gomer and starting a new settlement there; others from the
same place went to Venedocia in Vanwert County in 1848 to establish a
new settlement in that place. And  later, during the 60's we find the
second generation leaving the hills and leaving for the prairies in
Western States.

The cabins of those early Welsh pioneers were built of logs with
puncheon floors and greased paper windows. The doors were of clapboards
fastened with wooden hinges. The logs of the house were chinked with mud
of clay, as were also the chimneys. Their houses were scantily furnished
with home made furniture, and their out-of-door buildings corresponded
with their dwellings in pont of architecture and furnihing in general.

The Welsh possess qualities of great indurance and their prominent
characteristics were industry, fruganity, deep religious convictions,
and kind and heplful, neighborly spirit. Their co-operation in ecnomic
activity showed this. They had their cabin " raisings, " their "
rollings,"  "choppings," and " huskings" in common, and " butchering
day" ws great event. The women also had knitting and quilting parties or
bees. When newcomers entered the settlement they were received with
great kindness and the spirit of hospitality was very marked each time.
Neighbors entertained new arrivals and helped them clear a piece of
ground and to raise a cabin and did all in their power to make things
home-like and comfortable.

This was a time of large families, ranging from anywhere from six to
twelve childen. The home influence and training were puritanic. On the
puncheon floors of the cabins the entire family knelt every morning and
evening about the family alter. The early families knew but one language
and one book. They all spoke Welsh and they read and studied the Welsh
Bible. If a family chanced to have some book aside from the Bible, it
was a biblical commentary, or perhaps a biography of some famous Welsh
preacher. Papers an periodicals were scarcely known to them for a long
time, except some few sent from Wales and these generally were of
religious character.

With the literture at their disposal the parents in these humble homes
were diligent in instructing their children; evenings were spent in
teaching them to read the Welsh Bible and to commit verses of scripture
to memory.

The Sabbath was very strictly observed in the home. All shoes had to be
shined on Saturday night for Sunday. Wood and water enough to last over
Sunday had to be brought to the house on Saturday evening. If a child
laughed heartily on Sunday he was censured for it, the idea being that
such laughter could only issue from a sprit of levity which was regarded
unworthy of the day. For any member of the family to remain home from
church on Sunday, except for illness, was out of the question. A child
was censured for picking a berry from a bush on his way from Sunday
school. To sing any song other than church hymns was not allowed, and to
whisle even a hymn tune was forbidden as one of the unnecessary things
on Sunday. To go for a walk on Sunday was to idle the time away and to
go for a ride would definately break the Sabbath.

The diligence with which these parents guided their children and gave
them instruction with the meagre means at their disposal is certainly
praiseworthy, and their reward may be seen in the worthy type of manhood
and womanhood which the early settlements have produced.

The church occupied a large and controlling place in the community of
the early Welsh. The power of the church organiztion was more marked in
the Jackson and Gallia settlement than any other. This was accounted for
in several ways. First of all, it was by far the largest of the early
settlements, thus afforded opportunities for developing a community life
of their own choice without compromises with other people about them. In
the next place they were all from the same part of Wales; they were, so
to speak, one large family. They were very clannish and desired to have
nothing to do with their neigbors of other nationalities.
They spoke the Welsh language and were determined to maintain it. Their
prevailing religious persuasion was Calvanistic Methodists and this
denomination lends itself readily to a rigid form of government.

The first pastor to Jackson and Gallia settlement was the Rev Robert
Williams.
Williams was a man of austere character and of domineering disposition.
He was a powerful preacher, a great organizer, and an untiring worker.
He was an absolute ruler and possessed but little of the democratic
spirit. He was a controling figure in every religious undertaking in all
of the early Welsh communities. Under his leadership and religious
organization the settlements was developed and carried on for forty
years, and the highly organized conditions of the settlements in a
religious way was largely due to his efforts.

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Tid Bits continued in Part 54.