USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > Gwynedd > Historical collections relating to Gwynedd, a township of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, settled, 1696, by immigrants from Wales, with some data referring to the adjoining township, of Montgomery, also settled by Welsh > Part 4
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" This distinguished man, Lord of Penllyn (a cantref containing five parishes north of the Bala Lake), Eifonydd, Pennant, Melangell, and Glyn, in Powis, and, as some say, of eleven towns or trefs in the hundred of Oswestry, has been occasionally described, but erroneously, as founder of one of the fifteen noble tribes of North Wales. At the same time his territories were larger and his influence much more extensive than those of several of the founders of noble tribes. He flourished at the time of Henry II., and his son Richard I .? Paternally his descent was from Cynedda Wledig, but maternally it is alleged that his lineage was Norman, his mother being a descendant of Richard Earl of Avranches, by his son William, whose brother was Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester. Whether Rhirid was called Flaidd (the wolf ), from a cognomen of his maternal ancestors, or from the possession of a hungry and savage nature, it is not easy to say. His eldest son Madoc3 had a son, Rhirid Fychan (the younger, or the little), who married into the family of Fychan (Vaughan), of Nannau, and from him were descended the subsequents Vaughans of Nannau and Rhug. From his son David Pothon, who married Cicely, daughter of Sir Alexander Myddleton, Lord of Myddelton, in Shropshire, the Myddletons of Chirk Castle were descended, retaining the maternal name."
[P. 684.] " Vaughan of Llanuwchllyn .- This family of Vaughan, of the sept of Rhirid Flaidd, Lord of Penllyn, were long settled in the parish of Llanuwchllyn, probably at Glan-Llynn, on the margin of Bala Lake The head of this house in 1588 was Robert Vaughan, Esq.
1 By Thomas Nicholas, M.A., Ph.D., F. G. S. London : 1872.
2 This was late in the twelfth century. Henry II. reigned 1154 to 1189, and Richard 1189 to 1199.
3 Edward Foulke, it will be observed, traces his line to Madoc.
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HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF GWYNEDD.
His arms according to Dwun, were-Vert, a chevron between three wolves' heads erased, arg .- the insignia of Rhirid Flaidd.
" Edwards of Prysg .- John Edwards, of Prysg, near Llanuwchllyn, living in 1588, was of the lineage of Rhirid Flaidd, Lord of Penllyn, in the same line * * * with the Vaughans of Llanuwchllyn, mentioned above. The arms of Edwards of Prysg were those of Rhirid Flaidd,- Vert, a chevron between three wolves' heads erased, arg."
[P. 682.] " Rhiwaedog, near Bala, a spot of historic interest by reason of the great battle which tradition relates was fought here between the Welsh, under Llywarch Hen, the prince-bard, and the Saxons, when the aged bard lost Cynddelw, the last survivor of twenty-four sons, whose sanguinary character gave its name to the place (rhiw, a declivity ; and gwaedog, bloody.) It is situated in the narrow and long valley of Hirnant, nearly two miles from the Dee, and an equal distance from the mansion of Aberhirnant. Rhirid Flaidd is said by Yorke (' Royal Tribes') to have dwelt at Rhiwaedog."
[P. 682.] " While Merionydd was the central and most prominent district in these parts, and as such most frequently mentioned, the cantref of Penllyn, about the Bala Lake, now forming parts of Merionethshire, was also an important lordship, always or mostly under separate government * *
* * . Penllyn was the patrimony of Rhirid Flaidd, temp. Henry II., and continued in his son Madoc and grandson Rhirid Fychan (cor- rupted 'Vaughan '), from whom several of the chief old families of Merionethshire bearing that name are traced."
[P. 705.] " Lloyd, John, Esq., of Plas-issaf, Merionethshire.1 *
* * This family derives its descent from Rhirid Flaidd, of Rhiwaedog, * Lord of Penllyn, from whom are descended the Lloyds of Rhiwaedog, * * * * etc."
Edward Foulke, whatever may have been the relative rank and influence of his ancestor Rhirid Flaidd, in the rude age when he figured as a local chieftain, was himself a plain Welsh farmer, occupying, as he says, the farm of Coed-y-foel, a part of the estate of Roger Price,2 of Rhiwlas. This farm is still known by that name, and is owned (1883) by Richard J. Lloyd-
1 His arms are those of Rhirid Flaidd, with a crest added,-a wolf's head erased.
* He was High Sheriff of Merionethshire, in 1710.
EDWARD FOULKE'S NARRATIVE OF HIS REMOVAL. 37
Price, Esq., of Rhiwlas, a lineal descendant of Roger. Its name signifies " the wood of the bare hill,"-i. e. a wood around the base of a hill whose crown is bare,-and this describes the place. It lies along the river Treweryn, in a charming valley, on the east side of the stream.1 Rhiwlas is distant a mile, and the market-town of Bala about two miles. The Treweryn is a considerable stream, coming down from the mountains, north- west of Bala, and flowing for several miles east and south through a narrow valley between the mountains called, on one side, Arenig Vawr (great), and Arenig Bach (little). The parish is Llanvor, from which many of the Welsh settlers in Eastern Pennsylvania came, and the region, picturesque and romantic, is fairly characteristic of northern Wales. Many names near by will be recognized by students of the records of immigration that came from these parts,- Bala, the town and the lake; the river Dee, famous for its beauty ; Rhiwaedog, celebrated in Welsh history ; the swift and clear Treweryn; and numerous others mentioned in the old accounts.
His narrative of his removal indicates that Edward Foulke possessed some education, and it must have been superior to the average of his time. His "Exhortation," addressed to his children, late in life, is a good piece of composition. Some details concerning his life in Wales, previous to his removal, have come down by tradition, and are doubtless trustworthy. His purpose of immigration, it is said, was formed from his con- viction of the hardships and injustice inflicted upon those sub- ject to a monarchical government. He had attended, the tradition says, at a military muster or drill, required by law, when a person in his company, a kinsman, engaged in exercise with a broad-sword or other weapon, had the cap of his knee
1 For assistance as to these details I am indebted to Howel W. Lloyd, Esq., M. A, London, a native of that part of Wales here described.
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HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF GWYNEDD.
struck off by his antagonist. The bystanders, with the one who had inflicted the injury, showed no regret at the occurrence, but rather exulted over it, while Edward, distressed at the suffering of his kinsman, was shocked to consider that the barbarous occurrence was a natural outgrowth of the system under which they lived. His mind turned to Pennsylvania as a place of escape, but he felt extreme reluctance to undertake the diffi- culties and perils of the long voyage with his large family. He " opened " the matter, however, to his wife, and she, as the tra- dition says, regarded the impression that had been made upon his mind as having a Divine origin, and while he hesitated and argued the pecuniary disadvantage a removal might be, she earnestly declared to him that "He that revealed this to thee can bless a very little in America to us, and can blast a great deal in our native land."
Being accounted an excellent singer,1 large companies were in the habit of collecting at their house on First-days to hear Edward sing. "But with this he became uneasy, as he found that his company was of no advantage to him, nor he to theni, as their time was spent in vain and trifling amusements. On one occasion, expressing his uneasiness to his wife, he found that she shared the feeling, and was dissatisfied both with the singing
and some of the singers. She urged that the way to spend First-day with profit would be to read the Scriptures, and said that then the undesirable part of the company would soon become weary and leave them, while their truest and most valu- able friends would adhere to them more closely. The plan being adopted, it was found as his wife anticipated ; when com- panies had collected, and Edward was tempted to undue levity, she would say, 'Put away, and get the Bible.' The light and
1 This statement of facts is taken in substance from the MS. journal of Joseph Foulke, of Gwynedd.
EDWARD FOULKE'S NARRATIVE OF HIS REMOVAL. 39
unprofitable portion of their visitors soon fell away, while others more weighty and solid continued with them. Their meeting and Scripture reading continued for some time, and the gather- ing at their house increased. At length Eleanor reminded her husband of his exercise of mind on the subject of emigration, and said that as they had so evidently benefited by their follow- ing the path of duty in regard to the observance of First-day, it remained for them to proceed in the removal to Pennsylvania, which had also been indicated to them. And when they re- solved upon the step, some who had attended their meeting came with them."
The insight we get by this narrative helps us to estimate very precisely the character of Edward Foulke and his family. But it must be distinctly observed that at the time of their com- ing they were not Friends. Like the Evanses, and all the other settlers except John Hugh and John Humphrey, they had been inclined to the Friends, but had not actually joined them.
APA
VI. The Origin of the Township's Name.
I "T is curious enough that there should have been, ever, any speculation or doubt concerning the origin of the township's name. For Gwynedd was a geographical designation among the Welsh people, more than a thousand years old, when the arriving settlers applied it freshly to their little block of Pennsyl- vania land. The name was that which had long been applied to the northern part of Wales. By the English that region was called North Wales; but the people themselves for hundreds of years had named it Gwynedd. Many of the most prominent and able of the Welsh leaders, from the sixth century to the thirteenth, are known as princes or so-called kings of Gwynedd, and for a time after the reign of Rhodry Mawr, or Roderick the Great, in the middle of the ninth century, Gwynedd claimed and to some extent possessed a political supremacy over the whole of Wales.
Gwynedd was in fact the stronghold of the Welsh. In it were the homes of a large part of the Kymric people, descend- ants of those Britons who faced Cæsar on the shores by Deal, when, half a century before Christ, he crossed from Gaul to in- vade their island. It is the wildest portion of "Wild Wales." Enclosed within the bent arm of the Dee, the fastnesses around the base of Snowdon were naturally, as they became historically, the last refuge of the Britons against the relentless pressure of invasion, first Angle, then Norman, which came upon them from their eastern border, and, fastening upon southern and central
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THE ORIGIN OF THE TOWNSHIP'S NAME.
Wales, left them, at last, nothing but these rocky recesses in the north.1 There, it may be said, was the scat of the most per- sistent British spirit. Not more intense, perhaps, than that which marked portions of southern Wales, it was better situated for resistance. In the halls of Aberffraw (in Anglesey), Gwy- nedd's last capital, the bards sang to the end praises of their heroes, and fanned with their tales of old prophecy the spark of national feeling which kindled into a flame - though but for an instant - so late as the days of Glendower.2
But, though the name of Gwynedd belongs so distinctly, for so long a time, to the northern part of Wales, there was, appar- ently, a greater Gwynedd than this before 600. In the vague chronicles of that time, for a half century or more, we hear of British chiefs - sometimes called kings, sometimes named by other titles- who, as they fought against Anglo-Saxon en- croachment in the north of England, ruled over a Gwynedd that extended northward from the Dee's mouth across the Mersey and up into the lake and mountain region which is now Lanca- shire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland. For such a union of British power, including part or all of the present Wales, and that northwestern part of England just described, the city which we now call Chester, the "Caerlleon on Dee" of the Britons, was the natural capital.
1 " It hath been," says Sir John Price, as edited by Humphrey Lloyd, speaking of Gwynedd, "a great while the chiefest seat of the last kings of Britain, because it was and is the strongest country within this isle, full of high mountains, craggy rocks, great woods, and deep valleys, strait and dangerous places, deep and swift rivers." Wood- ward, in his History of Wales (London, 1850-52), remarks that " the pride and the glory of the Kymry has been that last retreat of British independence, the principality of Gwynedd."
2 In Gwynedd, in the fastnesses about Snowdon, Llewelyn (second of the name con- spicuous in Welsh history, Llewelyn ap Griffith) made his last struggle with the over- whelming force of Edward I. Failing there, his death shortly after ended finally - except the episode of Glendower - the effort to maintain Welsh independence. The eldest son of the English king became then, in fact as in name, Prince of Wales.
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HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF GWYNEDD.
To this larger district the king or prince known as Maelgwn Gwynedd, whose name stands out in the chronicles about the middle of the sixth century, appears attached. The theatre of his actions seems to have been more in north-western Eng- land than in Wales. He was resisting that advance of the Angles which came across Yorkshire, from the place of their descent upon the coast, about the mouth of the Humber. The Britons in his time had been forced by the pressure of invasion into the three natural strongholds in the western side of their island. In the extreme south they had been driven into the long point of land - the counties now of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall - which form the Cornwall peninsula, and, when, A.D. 577, the West Saxons under Ceawlin defeated them at the great and decisive battle of Deorham,1 these Britons were cut off, by their enemies' hold upon the Severn, from connection with those who held the middle region north of that river. This region above the Severn - the Wales of our day - was then called by the Saxons North Wales, and so appears on the maps which represent that time, for the Cornwall region was known as West Wales. The third stronghold was that of north- western England, the "Lake Country" of our later time, and from it the Britons joined hands with allies still farther in the north, along and beyond the Clyde.
Confining ourselves to a view of the greater Gwynedd that included, as has been said, part or all of modern Wales, and most of the modern "Lake Country," it will easily be seen how this hinged upon Chester, and how, when the Saxons cut through to the sea's edge upon the west by the capture of that city (probably about A.D. 613, under Æthelfrith), they severed the Britons of the great central stronghold from those in the northern one, and so divided Gwynedd. Precisely who had made the
.1 Deorham was a village northward of Bath, on hills overlooking the Severn.
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THE ORIGIN OF THE TOWNSHIP'S NAME.
fight against the Saxons after Maelgwn's time is uncertain. But before the victory of Æthelfrith, Gwynedd had been boldly and fiercely defended. Its territory, says Green,1 besides embracing the bulk of the present North Wales, pushed forward, by its outlying fastness of Elmet,2 into the heart of southern Deira.3 In Elmet the Britons long held their rude homes. By the Welsh chronicle, which, though it must be quoted with great caution, . may be, after all, as trustworthy as that of Saxon or Angle, there followed Maelgwn Gwynedd, in direct succession, father and son, Run, Beli, Cadvan, Cadwallon, and Cadwallader. These were "Kings of Gwynedd," or, as Welsh authority says of the last three, "Kings of Britain ;" they were at any rate chiefs who headed the British struggle. In A.D. 589, when the kingdom of Deira had been overrun by its Bernician neighbors, it was to the protection of a king of Gwynedd that the sons of Ælla, the Deiran king, then just dead, fled for protection.4
That the Britons did lose their hold at Chester in A.D. 613, by a victory of ÆEthelfrith, we accept on the authority of Green. The chronicle of the Welsh, known as that of Caradawg of Llangarvan, avers that this (Chester) " chief city of Venedotia " was taken by Egbert the Saxon about A. D. 883, having " hitherto remained in the hands of the Welsh." It may be that the possession of Æthelfrith was not made permanent, and that, again falling for a while into British hands, the city was a second time taken in Egbert's day. But it does not seem that after the
1 The Making of England, p. 232 (New York, 1882).
? The wooded region north of " The Peak " of Derbyshire.
3 The Saxon Deira was a large part of the present Yorkshire.
4 History can never forget the kingdom of Ælla, for thence it was that there came to Rome as slaves those blue-eyed, fair-haired youths whom Gregory saw and stopped to inquire about, as he passed through the market-place of Rome. "Angels, not Angles," he exclaimed as he viewed them, and departed to organize his work of Christianity in Britain.
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HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF GWYNEDD.
close of the sixth century there was anything of the kingdom or principality of Gwynedd northward from the mouth of the Dee, and this is what chiefly concerns the present inquiry. We may remark only how natural it was, so long as their passage from the one region to the other was kept open by the possession of Chester, that the Britons of Wales and those of northwestern England should have been bound together in some rude form of national unity. For the two regions are very similar natural fastnesses ; the crags and glens southwest of the Dee find their counterpart in the wild scenery northward of the Mersey. While Cader-Idris and Snowdon rise in the one region, and through the deep clear waters of Bala the current of the Dee flows unchanged and unmingling,1 in the other the Scawfells, Helvellyn, and Skiddaw lift their heads above the charming lakes of Cumberland. Two such regions, easily defensible, nearly adjoining, and inhabited by a kindred people, were naturally allies at the least.
This Gwynedd is easily recognized by the name itself. For Gwyn-edd means The White Land.' In the symbolism of patriotic association the white meant, doubtless, the pure, the beautiful, the untaken, the virgin land ; but in the snows that crowned Snowdon and Helvellyn another reason might be found for the name. Gwen is a favorite Welsh name for a woman - corresponding to Blanche, as belonging to a light-haired, fair- skinned beauty. The white stones that inclosed "the place of session," in Welsh law, were the "meini gwynion." In the Lake of Bala a famous white fish is known as the Gwyniad.2 In
1 Such is the old and familiar tradition.
? Oddly enough, and quoted as part of the proof that some part of the American Indians are of Welsh descent- probably come from Madoc's voyages in the twelfth century - there is a salmonoid fish ( Corogonus fera) in the waters of British Columbia, with silvery scales, closely resembling that in Bala, and its name, as given by the natives, is the Quinnat.
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THE ORIGIN OF THE TOWNSHIP'S NAME.
fact, the word gwyn or gwen will be continually met with in Welsh, and has always the same significance-to be white, pure, unsullied. Justice, patriotism, the beauty of fair women, the snowy heights of the unconquered mountains, the recesses of the unravaged home of the Kymry, all were represented in the adjective.
Taking Gwyn, then, as the root, the termination edd has simply the significance of a land, a region, a country. The pro- nunciation of it is not edd, as in English, but eth, the th soft, as in "with." Gwen-eth may therefore be assumed as the name spoken, and its significance, the white or fair land.1
Returning to that Gwynedd which was but the northern third of what we now know as Wales, it may be said that be- tween A.D. 613, when Æthelfrith took Chester, and the time of Rhodry Mawr, about A. D. 843, little is known concerning it geographically, and nothing in the chronicle of its feuds and wars is of importance to this inquiry. But Rhodry Mawr, when he died in A. D. 877, divided all Wales amongst his three sons, and named definite boundaries for their territories. In the north he gave Gwynedd to his eldest son Anarawd, and he ordered that Merfyn, the Prince of Powys, the middle division, and Cadelh, of Deheubarth, the southern, should, with their heirs and successors, acknowledge the superior sovereignty of Anarawd. These divisions long continued to have a practical and actual existence ; for four hundred years they were regarded ; and they still have, as a basis of historical and descriptive method, a certain acknowledged importance.2
1 It need hardly be said after this explanation, that while Gwynedd means the same thing as North Wales, in the sense that both names were long applied to the same region of country, they have no other relationship what- ever, and no other similar meaning. What the Kymry called Gwynedd the- English knew as North Wales, till geographically the designations became inter- changeable.
? This division of the kingdom, tending to divide its strength in the face of
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HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF GWYNEDD.
In this division by Rhodry Mawr, "Gwynedd," says Sir John Price, " had upon the north side the sea, from the river Dee, at Basingwerke, to Aberdyfi, and upon the west and south- west the river Dyfi,1 which divided it from south Wales [Deheubarth, Prince Cadelh's possession], and in some places from Powys Land. And on the south and east it is divided from Powys, sometimes, with mountains, and sometimes with rivers, till it come to the river Dee again."
The same authority describes Gwynedd as " of old time" divided into four parts - the island of Mon (Anglesey), Arfon (Caernarvon), Merioneth, and Y Berfedwlad, which may be Englished the inland or middle country." Substantially, these four divisions were Anglesey, the whole of Caernarvon, nearly all the present Merioneth, the greater part of Denbighshire, and all of Flintshire, except a small section. It would include rather less than a third of the area of modern Wales.
It is not germane to the present purpose to trace the history of the Gwynedd over which Anarawd was left the ruler. It figures, however, as has already been stated, in all the chronicles of subsequent Welsh struggle. In the twelfth century, Owain Gwynedd made himself a name equal to that of Rhodry and Maelgwn, though inferior, perhaps, to that of the two desperate and heroic Llewelyns. And it was Madoc, son of Owain Gwynedd, who, as Welsh authority claims, crossed the Atlantic
the Saxon enemy, the Welsh chroniclers much lament; but it was according to the general tenor of the Welsh system, which required, as in the gavel-kind of the old English law, a distribution of the father's possessions among his children. [See for an elaborate discussion of the subject, F. Seebohm's " Tribal System in Wales."-Note, 1896.]
1 By looking at the map these lines will be easily followed, and the de- scription is inserted for that purpose, but the points of the compass given are misleading ; the sea lay on the west, as well as on the north, and the Dyfi (Dovey) could only be fairly described as bounding on the south, and in part on the south-east.
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THE ORIGIN OF THE TOWNSHIP'S NAME.
to the American continent, more than three hundred years before the caravels of Columbus sailed out from Palos. It would be useless to enter the well-beaten field wherein the claims of Madoc have been disputed, but it is enough to say that some of these claims are in modern time accepted as probably true. That Madoc was a real person, the son of Owain Gwynedd, that he sailed from Wales in one or two voyages about 1170-72, and that he bore away into the Atlantic westward "by a route leaving Ireland on the north," is conceded. But what land he reached, if any, and whether any descendants of himself and his company have been found, either in North or South America, are questions quite beyond settlement ;1 in the Welsh Triads them- selves Madoc's second and final voyage is accounted one of " The Three Losses by Disappearance " sustained by " The Isle of Britain."
In the " Triads " we may find abundant allusions to Gwy- nedd. In those that are historical and geographical, as well as those that refer to "the social state " of the Welsh, the name frequently appears. "There are three courts of country and law - one in Powys, one at Caerleon-on-Usk, which is that of Gla- morgan and Deheubarth, and one in Gwynedd." "The court of country and law in Gwynedd is constituted of the lord of the commot (unless the prince himself be present), the mayor, chan- cellor," etc. There were " three invading tribes that came into the Isle of Britain, and departed from it," one of these being " the hosts of Ganvel the Gwyddel [Irishman], who came to Gwynedd, and were there twenty-nine years, until they were driven out by Caswallon, the son of Beli." Of "the Three
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