CaernarvonTownship
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~Contents~
- Caernarvon township by Klein
Excerpt from the History of Lancaster County by Dr. Frederick Klein, 1924
CAERNARVON TOWNSHIP-THE WELSH SETTLEMENT IN LANCASTER COUNTY
Almost all of the early and influential settlers in Caernarvon township were of Welsh origin. One would infer,as much from the township name, which is that of one of the most historic places in Wales; and from the accurate spelling of the very many Welsh place-names borne by hamlets, villages, boroughs, and larger civil divisions of southeastern Pennsylvania, one might logically assert that not only was there a strong Welsh repre- sentation in early Pennsylvania, but that its leaders were men of education; also that they were influential in the Province. Indeed, had William Penn not had to bow to the wishes of the King, his new province would have been named New Wales instead of Pennsylvania, it is said.
Quakerism had important part in the establishment.of the Province of Pennsylvania; and it had some part in the affairs of the Principality of Wales earlier in the same century. Quakerism in Wales had its beginning in about the middle of the seventeenth century. "The doctrine of George Fox began to be preached in Wales in about 1653, and one of the earliest ministers of that faith was John ap John, who afterwards was a purchaser of considerable land within the boundaries of Chester county, Pennsylvania." He, however, died in Wales. The Welsh Quakers had little comfort or freedom under the Cromwells, and less under the Stuarts; so that when they learned that one of their, own faith, a Quaker, intended to found a colony in the New World, a province in which there would be religious liberty, they soon resolved to see him. Certain Welsh Quakers journeyed to London in the fall of 1681, and there met William Penn. They returned to Wales, reporting that they had completed arrangements to purchase from William Penn "a barony" of forty thousand acres in Pennsylvania.
The leaders of the Welsh syndicate, or "company of adventurers" (as such organizations were usually termed in those days) were mostly of the leisured upper class, the county gentry of Wales; indeed, those who were not of that social station probably were willing to emigrate as servants or husbandman to the manorial lords, the leaders of the expedition. It is quite clear that the original plan was to establish a barony in Pennsylvania to be governed somewhat like the feudal system of Britain; and it is possible that had they been able to insist upon what Penn had originally promised-an undivided barony of forty thousand acres-they would have brought such a system of government into effect in Pennsylvania, introducing into the Province a mode of plantation life somewhat like that of the southern colonies. Unfortunately, the arrangement they made with William Penn did not in written agreements make clear the "undivided barony" understanding. Nevertheless, when the advance parties of the Welsh colonists reached Pennsylvania in 1682 and were offered several smaller tracts in New Castle, Kent and Sussex (now Delaware) counties, instead of one undivided tract in Philadelphia county, they were surprised; and when they found that lands were already being surveyed for the English within the bounds of their proposed barony along the Schuylkill, there was open friction between the Welsh agents and the Provincial authorities. They appealed to William Penn, who frankly admitted his liability, and sought to keep his word by issuing a warrant in 1684 to Thomas Holmes, the Surveyor-General, to survey forty thousand acres "layd out contiguously as one Barony" in as "uniform a manner as conveniently may be upon the west side of Skoolkill river," for "divers considerable persons among ye Welsh Friends." But it proved to be inconvenient to the provincial authorities to set aside so large an undivided tract, and even William Penn himself had to be reconciled to the dispositions made by his deputy-governor. So it came about that the Welsh company had to abandon their plan of one vast barony, and content themselves by accepting their 40,000 acres in several smaller tracts. Part of the land offered to and accepted by them was in Radnor and Haverford townships of Chester county. And eventually, as their numbers increased, they reached out into other townships of Chester county, coming ultimately into what are now Caernarvon and Brecknock townships of Lancaster county.
The emigration of Welsh Quakers began in 1682, and the movement continued steadily until about 1710. But the emigration of Welshmen was not confined altogether to those who were of the Society of Friends. There were at least two other important and concurrent migrations. The Welsh Episcopalians began to come in numbers in about 1698, and Welsh Baptists, it is said, began to cross the sea in about 1701, continuing steadily until about 1735. Rupp writes:
At the very infancy of the Pennsylvania Colony, a number of Welsh,of sterling worth and excellent character, arrived in the province in 1682. They had early purchased of the Proprietary, in England, forty thousand acres of land and settled west of the Schuylkill. In a few years their number was so much augmented that they had settled, before 1692, six townships in the lower counties.
The Welsh customs, and that of the Swiss and Palatines, in settling new countries, were similar in many respects. At first, they would send persons across the Atlantic, to take up land for them, and make some preparations for the reception of their families. Among the Welsh, who acted as pioneer, was the well-known Rowland Ellis, who sent over Thomas Owen and family to make a settlement; and as soon as Owen had made some improvements, in which he spent a few years, Ellis, and one hundred other Welsh passengers, arrived in 1686. In 1698 other Welsh families arrived; among them were William Jones, Thomas Evans, Robert Evans, Owen Evans, Cadwallader Evans, Hugh Griffith, Edward Foulke, John Humphrey, Robert Jones, and others, who purchased ten thousand acres df land of Robert Turner, in Guinedd (Gwynedd) township, Chester county.
Another settlement was commenced about the year 1722 or 3, by the Welsh, extending up as far as to the present site of Churchtown. Among the principal settlers were Torbet, Douglas, E. Davis, A. Billing, Z. Davis, Spenger, Henderson, Evans, Ford, Lardner, Morgan, Robinet, Edwards, Jenkins.
The tax lists of seventeen townships of Chester county for an early year of the eighteenth century show that the Welsh were then predominant, there being 248 Welsh landholders and only 237 of all other nationalities. Radnor and Tredyffryn townships were settled exclusively by the Welsh, and in some of the other townships, Haverford, Nantmeal, Charlestown, there was just a stray "foreigner." Conestoga township, however, had eleven Welsh colonists and twenty-nine of other nationalities.
The migration into Caernarvon township of Lancaster county is referred to on the first pages of a Vestry Book of Bangor Episcopal Church. The book was opened with an introductory historical review on November 17, 1751, by the Rev. George Craig, who was then pastor. In part it reads:
By the Honorable William Penn, Esq., original proprietor of the Province of Pennsylvania, his Charter to all persons who should be inclined to transport themselves from any part of Christendom into said Province, it is granted they shall enjoy the free exercise of the Christian Religion, under whatever denomination. Upon this so engaging a plan of Priviliges, among others, several families of Welsh, known by the name of Ancient Britains, did transport themselves from Wales, in Old England, unto the Province aforesaid, and settled themselves at first in the township of Radnor, in the County of Chester, in the Province aforesaid, where they erected a place of worship, where they had divine service, according to the doctrine and discipline of the Episcopal Church of England, of which Church they were all zealous members, and had for their minister the Rev. Mr. Robert Weyman, the Society's Missionary for the Propagating of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. After some years many of them, finding their settlements too confined (from the vast numbers of incomers), they, Anno Domini 1730, removed some miles to the westward into a new county, called Lancaster, and settled in a Township called Caernarvon, from a shire of the same name in Wales, in Old England, and fixing here they (in immitation of all good Christians) found that no place would be agreeable to them without the Public Worship of God, therefore, Unanimously and Cordially Consented and agreed, according to their worldly circumstances, to build a Church of square logs, which they finished, and gave it the name of Bangor, from a Diocese of that name in Wales, in Old England.
The Ellis & Evans "History of Lancaster County" (1883) agrees that Caernarvon township was first settled by a colony of Welsh people about the year 1730, and seems to have based this statement upon the church record quoted. But there is good reason for believing that the statement, though substantially correct, is inaccurate as to dates.
Lancaster county was created in 1729, mainly from the western part of Chester county; and it is obvious that there were then settlers within Caernarvon township, for the boundaries were set upon the lines of land-holdings of settlers specifically named. The following is the boundary definition "settled and agreed upon by the Magistrates and Inhabitants of the said county on the gth day of June," 1729:
17. Caernarvon.-Caernarvon Township, beginning at the county line at the corner of Salisbury on the mountain, thence northerly along the said line to the northeast corner of Cadwalader Elis's land, thence westerly by * * township along a ridge of mountains to Earl Township at the northeast corner of Thomas Edwards' land, thence southerly by the said township to the corner of Leacock and Salisbury township, thence easterly by Salisbury and along the said mountain to the place of beginning.
As a matter of fact, lands along the Conestoga river, from below Morgantown to Terre Hill, were partly surveyed in 1718-20. Cadwallader Ellis's tract of five hundred acres on what became the eastern boundary of Caernarvon township was surveyed in September, 1718; the tract on the extreme western boundary of the township was surveyed for Thomas Edwards in June, 1719. By the way, Thomas Edwards was one of the first judges appointed for Lancaster county, in 1729; and he remained a jurist for more than thirty years. "The surveys and drafts of John Taylor, Surveyor-General of Pennsylvania," show that the land between the Ellis and Edwards tracts was almost wholly taken by Welshmen, among the names being John, Evan, and Edward Edwards; William, Hugh, Edward, John and Gabriel Davies; William, Nathan, David, and Evan Evans; Thomas and John Morgan, Hugh Hughes, John Jenkins, John Bowen. These are unmistakably Welsh names. While the majority of the patents for the land surveyed were not actually issued until after 1730, the account books of the Penns for the year 1735 show that the patentees were in many cases then debited with interest for sixteen years. For example, the account of Gabriel Davies is shown below:
Account of Gabriel Davies-
1735 Dr.
June 11-To 450 acres of land ................ L45 0 0
-Interest and rent to date ........... 48 12 0
L93 12 0
1735 Cr.
June 11-By payment ....................... L 44 0 0
Sept. 8--By payment ...................... ....49 12 0
L 93 12 0
Mr. B. F. Owen, an authority'on Caernarvon township history, takes issue the Rev. George Craig as to the date of settlement. He says that the were all originally Quakers; that they came "organized in their meetings and settled in Radnor and other townships in Chester county, in 1682- 88; that the failure to organize a Welsh Barony brought much discouragement and division not only in temporal matters. Many espoused the faith of George Keith, becoming known as Keithian Quakers, and after he had deserted them, further divisions brought into being societies of Keithian Baptists, and Seventh-Day Baptists. "Many united themselves with the Established Church, which they abhorred in the old country." Among them was George Keith himself, who was ordained in 1700.
Upon the plantation of William Davis, a former Quaker, Episcopal missionaries built the first church of St. David. As to the settlement of Caernarvon township, Mr. Owens writes:
The movement west was a second effort of the Welsh to be alone. They did not move into Caernarvon township, Lancaster county, but into Conestoga township, Chester county, in the valley of the Conestoga. They were largely the children of the first settlers from Wales. This was in 1718 and 1719, and it is unaccountable that they should have permitted a statement of first settlement in 1730, when many of those who came before 1720 Were living to contradict it. The county of Lancaster was established in 1729, and it was persons in this settlement who helped in that work.
The first settlement in the Conestoga valley was made November 5, 1718, wheu Cadwallader Ellis had surveyed a tract Of 500 acres, now east of Morgantown. This was followed November 6, 1718, by Thomas Morgan, 400 acres; Hugh Hughes, 630 acres; John Bowers, 100 acres; Anthony Yeidel, 340 acres (afterwards added to John Bowers') ; Gabriel Davis, 450 acres, and in 1719, Thomas Edwards, at Spring Grove, 1000 acres, and Jenkin Davis 1000 acres at the mouth of the Muddy Creek; in 1720, George Hudson, 312 acres; Nathan Evans, John Davis, Philip Davis, Edward Davis, William Davis, and many others, until, in 1735, the entire valley was surveyed, settled, and much of it patented.
Another indication that Caernarvon township was settled before 1730 is given in Bangor church records. The Rev. Griffith Hughes is said to -have been the first pastor. I-le was sent as a missionary to St. David's and Perkiomen in 1732, by the Society of London, and made monthly visits to Pequea, Caernarvon and the Tulpehocken region. Yet in 1734 a petition was sent by settlers to the Society of London, part of the preamble of which reads: "That we, being well-affected to the Church of England, tho' destitute for several years of an orthodox minister, until the coming of our dear countryman, Mr. Hughes," and so forth. Yet, though they may have been ministered unto many years prior to the coming of the Rev. Hughes, it appears that they had not progressed far in the matter of church building in Caernarvon township, though a frame church had been raised in Pequea in 1728 or 1729. Missionary Hughes in a letter from Radnor, March 2, 1733, wrote: "I found a great necessity of visiting a great many Welsh and English gentlemen that lived far back in the woods, where I found a great number of well-disposed persons, but entirely destitute of a minister. At their earnest request I have gone there several,times since and for a long time had no other place to preach but under the shade of a large tree-their houses being too small to contain the great numbers that resorted there."
Surprising as it may seem, many of those pioneers of Lancaster county were actually native-born Pennsylvanians, children of the Welsh migrants of 1682-88. They had grown to manhood in the wilds of Pennsylvania; had lived a frontier life, and, excepting home instruction, had probably grown up untutored. Nevertheless, most of them knew the language of their fathers, Welsh, and the petition of 1734 was for Welsh books, many of the church members being able to read Welsh, as well as speak it.
Further conclusive evidence that settlers had reached Welsh Mountain in about 1719 is given in other Church of England records. The Rev. Robert Weyman, a missionary of the London Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, was in the Conestoga country in 1717-19. In 1728 the Rev. John Blackhouse, of the same society, reported that he had visited the people of Conestoga, 70 miles back in the country from Philadelphia, "near the place where Mr. Weyman used to go." Further, he wrote: "About 36 miles back from Chester, on the road to Conestoga, the inhabitants are building a church at which (at their request) I design (God willing) to preach once a month." Thirteen years later Mr. Blackhouse reported: "About a month ago, went 4o miles back to among my old congregation at Pequea."
Pequea church, about eight miles due south of Bangor church, was built in 1728 or 1729; a frame structure, and presumably intended for English members. Bangor church, at Churchtown, was built of squared logs in 1733. In it the Rev. Griffith Hughes conducted the Church of England service in English and Welsh. Later Bangor may have become an exclusively Welsh church, for the Rev. Richard Locke, who from 1744 served the parishes of Lancaster, Pequea, and Bangor (Churchtown) reports in 1748 that he had "constantly attended a Welsh church (Bangor, Churchtown) every other Sunday, at twenty miles distance" (from Lancaster). The Rev. George Craig succeeded Mr. Locke in 1751, and in the same year made the historical note in the Vestry Book of Bangor church, to which reference has been made. He had only arrived in the colony in that year, and he lived in Lancaster. Still, had he not made a similar introductory entry in the Vestry Book he began for the Pequea church, one would be inclined to place morereliance on his historical review of Bangor church, for he probably had among his congregations some of the pioneers of Caernarvon.
However, we may accept some of Rev. Craig's records as reliable. He set down in his account the names of "the principal members who built the said (Bangor) church." They were- Thomas Williams, Philip Davies, George Huttson, Reese Davies, Nathan Evans, Thomas Morgan, Edward Davies, Gabriel Davies, Morgan John, Edward Davies, John Bowen, Hugh Davies, John Edwards, David Davies, Nicholas Huttson, Morgan Evans, Evan Hughs, John Davies, Zaccheus Davies, Charles Huttson, George Huttson, Thomas Nicholass, Edward Nicholass, John Davies. With two exceptions these are familiar Welsh patronymics.
Fortunately, there is a more reliable record than Rev. Craig's, of the Welsh settlement within Lancaster county. Tax-lists may be taken as reliable evidence of possession or ownership; and those lists for the Conestoga country prior to 1729 have been put into the county record by Mr. H. Frank Eshleman, whose labors are untiring in certain lines of historical research. Quoting from his compilation, it appears that in the 1718 tax list for Conestoga township of Chester county, one Welsh name, Morgan Jones, is listed in "English Inhabitants" classification; three names, James Davis, Evan Evans, and Thomas Jones, come into the "Freemen" classification; Richard Davis and Woolrich Howell appear among "Dutch Inhabitants." Colonel John Evans is listed among "Non-resident Lands upon the River Pequea," as owner of 1000 acres. New Welsh names in the Conestoga list for 1719 were William Hughes, David Jones, John Williams, Charles Jones, and Robert Evans. There was evidently little further movement of Welsh into Conestoga township until 1724. The tax list for 1724-25, however, shows a great increase, the Welsh settlers including James, John, Jr., Thomas, Philip, and Richard Davis; Ga- briel, John, and Edward Davies; Robert, David, and Nathan Evans, Cadwallader Ellis, Thomas Edwards, David Jenkins, David, Charles and John Jones. The "Conestoga Rate" for the year 1726-27 lists new Welsh names as follows - John Loyd, Richard Owen, Pane Williams, Sam Lewis, and Thomas Morgan. It is therefore very obvious that settlement of Caernarvon township began earlier than 1730.
The village of Churchtown is situated almost in the center of the township, on the high ridge. "In the days of the forges, it was a busy hive of industry. Tailors, shoemakers, hatmakers, cabinet and chair makers, harness shops, blacksmiths, Conestoga wagon builders, and nearly fulling mills, gave employment to many persons, and an air of prosperity was evident to the traveller." Today it has no appreciable industries other than the mills already referred to. Its population is about 400; what it was in the heyday of the forges has not been recorded. But Churchtown and its environs will ever be one of the historic spots of Lancaster county. It seems that originally it was intended to. name the village Bangor; and for long it was referred to as the Bangor Church Town. The place became a post town eventually, as Church town. Beartown, in the southwestern corner of Caernarvon township, is a hamlet that developed to some extent during the exploitation of mineral properties, 1850-75.
The old Welsh settlers have been succeeded in Caernarvon township by Germans. These are mostly of Mennonite sects, and their presence in the region is represented in the Churchtown Mennonite, Conestoga Amish Mennonite, and Lichty's Amish Mennonite rneeting-houses. There are also three United Evangelical Association churches, or meeting-houses, Bridgeville, California, and Mt. Culeman, all active churches with large congregations. The Evangelical Association worshipped in a stone church just east of Churchtown, and even forty years ago had a large and flourishing congregation.
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