Rutland County VT Archives History - Books .....The Welsh Migrant Entrepreneurs 1899 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/vt/vtfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Jan Jordan jnrose@webtv.net May 19, 2006, 2:56 pm Book Title: See Below ...'slate kings' like Hugh G. Hughes and Hugh W. Hughes...When Owen Owens died in 1898, for instance, his estate was valued at $11,000, and Richard E. Lloyd, who operated a number of quarries in Fair Haven and Poultney, was described as 'famous thoughout the United States and also in Britain' as a slate merchant, and a 'power in the quarrying world.' When in 1899 the small producers of sea-green slate decired to form "The Poultney Consolidated Slate Company" and to sell through one agent... The eight companies joining in this organization were listed as: Jones and Owen Jones and Roberts Parry and Jones Roberts and Morris Edmunds and Roberts Edwards and Williams Thomas and Williams Hughes, Jones and Thomas. Among 514 Welsh residents of Poultney and South Poultney listed in Welsh Calvinists Church directory published in 1905, the six most popular surnames accounted for the names of 364 individuals: Roberts 105; Jones 97; Williams 56; Hughes 50; Owens 29; and Thomas 27. When to the fact that these six surnames accounted for more than 70% of the names of all Welsh Calvinists in Poultney township... Since similar duplication existed among the Congregationists and Wesleyan Methodists of the area, confusion was compounded... The Welsh, following their old-country custom, attempted to improve the situation by seeing to it that each individual who bore a common name was also possessed of a nickname by which he might be recognized. NEW LIVES IN THE VALLEY: Slate Quarries and Quarry Villages in North Wales, New York, and Vermont 1850-1920, by Gwilym R. Roberts, ©1998, Chapter 6, pages 154-155. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/vt/rutland/history/1899/seebelow/welshmig69gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/vtfiles/ File size: 2.2 Kb