Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

MANUSCRIPTS OF WELSH-AMERICAN INTEREST IN THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF WALES The list which follows does not pretend to contain every reference to the United States in the collections of manuscripts which are either in the possession or in the custody of the National Library of Wales. It is based on an examination of the most likely sources of American items, and it is quite possible that further stray letters from emigrants may be discovered in uncatalogued manuscripts in our collections. The great majority of these manuscripts belongs to the nineteenth century. This is only natural; though it is difficult to believe that so little has been preserved over here of the papers of the seventeenth century Quaker emigrants from Merioneth and of the Baptists from South Wales. Emigration from Wales slowed down during the eighteenth century, and Morgan John Rhees and the Llanbrynmair- pioneers of 1795 belong more rightly to the nineteenth century. With them the floodgates of emigration from Wales to the United States were opened not to be closed for a whole century. The Llanbrynmair emigrants are represented better in this list than any other group of settlers. Without detracting from the primary importance of this group of emigrants and its descendants, it may be said that it owes its prominence in this list partly to the care which the folk at home took to preserve the letters and partly to the public spirit of three or four owners who have in comparatively recent years transferred groups of these letters to the National Library. Manuscripts relating to the Madoc legend have been included in the list as it greatly exercised the curiosity and credulity of both emigrants and promoters of Welsh settlement during an important period in the history of emigration to America. The place of writing, the date, and a short summary of the subjects of correspondence, are given in brackets after the name of each corres- pondent. A glance at these subjects shows how important a source these letters are for the genealogist and the social historian. Until the middle of the nineteenth century correspondence with the old country was expensive and the emigrants often lacked hard cash. Therefore, they wrote infrequently, but when they did the majority of I For an interesting account of this group, and particularly of the Bebb family, see an address by Stephen R. Williams — The Saga of Paddy's Run — in the Ohio Journal of Science, July, 194.1.