Off Topic Post - St. David's Day and the Welsh in America

Yesterday, March 1^st, was St. David’s Day - the Patron Saint of Wales.  This is an important day for all those who celebrate their Welsh heritage.  This post veers a little off topic in recognition of the Welsh influence on North America.

The word Welsh actually came from the Anglo-Saxon word Wealhas meaning foreign, stranger, not of Saxon origin.  To the Anglo-Saxons the Welsh were indeed foreign.  The Welsh were descendents of the Celts, a tribal culture occupying Britannia before the Roman invasion.  The Romans never settled in Wales and thus the people remained relatively unchanged compared to the Romano-Britons living in the areas that what would eventually become England.  The Welsh language is considered Indo-European and is in the same family as Cornish, Breton (northwestern part of France), Manx, Irish and Scottish Gaelic.  This is a polite way of saying Welsh is incomprehensible to most of us.  If you find yourself in Wales and the person talking to you sounds like they are attempting to clear a fish-bone caught in their throat, chances are they are speaking Welsh.  More than 20% of the Welsh population speak their native language.

According to legend, the first Welsh in North America were led by Prince Madog.  Madog and his followers fled fighting in their homeland and sailed West in two ships in 1169 and found Mobile Bay in Alabama.  Madog returned to Wales and in 1170 set sail in 10 ships to return to whence he came.  He and his followers were never to be heard from again.  Stories of tall, fair-haired Indians speaking a language similar to Welsh have fueled the legend that the Welsh may have been the first pre-Columbus European settlers (after the Vikings of course).  One of the first documented Welsh settlers in North America was Howell Powell who left Brecon for Virginia in 1642.  After Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, the wave of religious intolerance sent Welsh Quakers to what would become Pennsylvania.  Today there are more people in Pennsylvania claiming Welsh heritage than in the United Kingdom.

For a small country, and a relatively small number of immigrants compared to other nations, the Welsh have had a remarkable influence on the emergence of modern North America.  Sixteen (approximately one fourth) of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were of Welsh descent, as were Presidents George Washington, James Monroe, Abraham Lincoln, Calvin Coolidge and Richard Nixon.  Elihu Yale was the son of Welsh immigrants who founded the prestigious university that still bears his name.  Morgan Edwards, the joint founder of Brown University of Rhode Island, came from Pontypool, Wales.  While March 17^th is widely celebrated as St. Patrick’s Day (the Patron Saint of Ireland), particularly in Ireland and North America, St. David’s Day is little known outside of Pennsylvania and Wales.

The only link with between Hereward Farm and St. David’s Day is the one remaining daffodil looking a little worse for wear and a row of leeks.  Both of these are Welsh National Emblems.  Clearly, the Irish Shamrock and the English Rose are easier to wear in the lapel of one’s jacket.