THE LIVES OF
JOSEPH HOWELL EVANS
and
RUTH EVAN EVANS
WELSH IMMIGRANT PIONEERS
BY ROSA MAE M. EVANS
and
JANET EVANS PACKHAM
WELSH ROOTS
IN LLANELLY
Joseph H. Evans stood patiently
before the table while the recorder finished his careful notation of the last
details in the huge battered book: his occupation: blacksmith; his age:
58; height:
5' 9-1/2";
color of eyes: light blue; color of
hair: dark
mixed with grey; other distinctive
marks: Wales -- The recorder hadn't even
looked up on the last question. Maybe he
had written "Wales"
because the recorder himself thought Joseph's speech
distinctive. Well, after all, English
was not his native tongue.
As he sat and waited for the next
step in the tedious admission procedure, he thought about the events of his
life that had brought him to this -- a prison sentence of two and a half
years! That he could do -- but the $250
fine was surely beyond anything he, Ruth or the boys might do to raise the
money to pay it. Well, he had done
nothing wrong. He had accepted the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. He had left his
home in Wales -- his parents and family -- and with Ruth and little Annie he
had crossed an ocean and a continent to obey the voice of the Prophet. His skills as a blacksmith had been applied
to help build a temple that was to stand into the millenium. Obeying the principle of plural marriage had
not worked out well for him at all. But
it was still the right thing to do and he would stay right here in this prison
before he would deny the principle!
That night he lay
in his miserable bunk, comforted by the presence in the next bunk of the only
other brother in the Gospel "in residence," Rudger
Clawson. Although he was physically and
emotionally exhausted from the events of the past week, he found it hard to
sleep, still a
little dismayed by the animosity Harriet and her mother had shown, but on the
other hand warmed by the loyalty of Ruth and the boys.. He thought about his
bad luck of having returned from his mission in Wales at the same time that the
newly appointed judge, Charles S. Zane, had arrived in Salt Lake. . .As his
mind wandered back to memories of his mission in Wales, he finally drifted off into a troubled sleep.
As was the case with most
missionaries, Joseph had been torn between the desire to return home to be with
his family in Salt Lake and the pain of again leaving his brother and other
members of the family in Wales. He had
spent his early life along the shores of Carmarthen Bay as had Ruth and their parents
before them. Carmarthen Bay lies at the
western end of the Bristol Channel and the southern end of the Irish Sea, and
shelters from the open sea such towns as Tenby, Amroth, St. Clears, Carmarthen, Kidwelly,
Pembrey, and LLanelli. Joseph's father was born in Amroth, and his mother in Pembrey. Ruth's father was from Pembrey
and her mother from nearby Glamorganshire.
Not much is known about the lives of the parents before the records show
them settled down to raise their families in Llanelli
about 1820.
A few years before that, Llanelli had not had much to offer in the way of employment
to support growing families. The
population was a mere 2,000 in 1804 when the growing area attracted enough
attention from its neighbors that an agent of "The Cambrian"
newspaper in Swansea was appointed to cover Llanelli
happenings. Through his reports the
gradual development of the town was made public, and in the next few years
employment and cultural opportunities were steadily increasing and attracting
young men like Morgan Evans and Walter Evan to settle there with their brides
and raise their families. Because of the
completion about 1804 of the Carmarthenshire Railroad, it was possible to start
mining and marketing profitably the extensive veins of coal found about five
miles from Llanelly.
The Swansea newspapers, then carried an article
announcing the formation of a promenade near the seaside, "entirely for
the accommodation of the many genteel families that annually visit that
delightful spot, which for salubrious air, and sea bathing, few places in the
Principality can equal." The next year saw the opening of a copper
smelting and refining operation in Llanelly,
receiving two freights of copper ore from Cornwall. It was the first erection of the kind in
Carmarthenshire. In1806 the
Carmarthenshire Rail Road Company laid the foundation stone of a new pier,
which was to extend 155 yards to form a complete basin and safe place of
shelter. The steady expansion of the
railroad system and improvement of the docks had much to do with the
acceleration of industry in the area. In
1807 "The Cambrian" carried the proud news that the "Kitty
Llewellyn" had arrived at Llanelly on Friday
evening with a cargo of bricks from Gloucester which she discharged the following
morning, took in a cargo of copper, and was completely ready for sea on
Saturday evening.
By 1820 harbor and dock improvements
had been made at Kidwelly and Pembrey,
expanding even more the development of the coal mining in the Bay area. In 1824 the Pembrey
Company began operation of a blast furnace in that town, and as they opened
extensive coal mines, they furnished even more employment opportunities. The people of Llanelly
looked forward to a new lighthouse on Caldy Island
which came into operation in 1828. Now Llanelly would be sought for its security instead of being
avoided for its dangers. It was also
noteworthy that a new extensive breakwater had increased the capacity of the
Port of Llanelly so that vessels of 450 tons could
now be loaded there, where formerly ships of 40 to 50 tons were considered
large. The expanded Port was so
convenient that ship owners would now insure to Llanelly
on the same terms as any other port.
That same year two new market houses were built on either end of Llanelly to accommodate the increased business which
crowded the old market in the middle of town.
On the 22nd of November of 1828 the newspaper carried the announcement
of the event which proved Llanelly's growing
importance in South Wales:
It affords us
pleasure to state that the improving town of Llanelly,
in consequence of the increase of its trade, was on Thursday last constituted a
regular post town, and Mr. John Morgan was appointed Post Master. Up to that period, it was a sub-office under
Swansea, Cardiff and Carmarthen, and only made up bags for those towns, but now
letters will be transmitted directly to London, Bristol and the intermediate
places, and without the intervention of any other office.2
This was the year that Ruth Evan was
born in Llanelly, and the same year that Joseph Evans
celebrated his second birthday there.
Joseph was the second of five children in the family of Morgan Evans and
Charlotte Leonard. According to the
little information gleaned from census reports, Joseph's parents in 1841 both
worked as gardeners, and in 1851 his father Morgan Evans was shown both as
gardener and "publican," which in Britain is the keeper of a
pub. Other subsequent records show that
he worked as a shipping agent, a railway plate layer and a railway guard.3
Our knowledge of Joseph's brothers
and sisters is meager. From information
on various marriage and birth certificates, as well as census reports we know that
his brother William worked as an engine fitter at the time of his marriage in
1855, and the next year he started working as a railway porter. He married Letitia
Powell and had three daughters, Rachel Jane, Charlotte Letitia,
and Sarah Maria.
Joseph had a brother Thomas who was
about nine years his junior, but nothing more is known about him at present.. He also had two
younger sisters, Charlotte and Jane.
Charlotte apparently never married, but worked as a crep
maker, helping supply the demand for mourning clothing. Jane married Alfred Thompson, a copper
forger. They had twins: a boy, Clifford Henry, and a girl, Charlotte
Jane. Clifford died at fourteen months
of "debility from birth and tubercular meningitis.
" When little Charlotte Jane
was almost five years old, her mother died of "phthisis" otherwise
known as consumption or pulmonary tuberculosis.
During the twenty years that Joseph
Howell Evans and Ruth Evan were growing up in their respective families in Llanelly, the town continued to grow in population and to
progress with the changes brought about as the industrial revolution affected
the Carmarthen Bay area. Although
farmers continued to raise cattle, pigs, horses, and sheep, the new railroads,
bridges, roads and mines cut into the countryside, drawing in people to the new
jobs that were made available. There was
a great increase in traffic at the new seaports which developed around the bay,
but the storms that swept in from the Atlantic continued to take their toll of
the unsheltered. The ships were not
their only victims. A hurricane in
January 1839 caused considerable damage to buildings in the city, but most
spectacular was a steam mill smoke stack which fell in on the building and
severed it in two. Two years before, a
violent March thunder storm brought hail of unusual size and considerable
snowfall. The lightening, attracted by
the heavy iron cap, struck the fine new 300 foot high stack of the Cambrian
Copper Works, damaging it severely. The
news reported that the roof of the refinery was also damaged, "most likely
by the bricks brought down from the stack with the velocity of cannon balls, so
as to leave little traces of them except dust."
In 1836 the town of Llanelly was lighted with gas, and it was noted that with
the high grade of coal in the area, the lights were extremely brilliant. The brilliancy was expected to increase each night
as the air in the pipes decreased.
Shopkeepers were putting in pipe to take advantage of the service and it
was expected that it would be a matter of only a few weeks before every house
in the town would have the gas light.
In 1853 the electric telegraph was
extended to Llanelly.
They had a competent operator and immediately people began to send and
receive messages
Entertainment and relaxation was
something there was comparatively little time and energy for. There was the promenade near the seaside, and
during the good weather the beaches were a popular place for diversion. The pubs were the social gathering places for
the men, and where socializing sometimes got out of
control. The Welsh have long been noted for
their love of singing, and choirs from all over the country now meet in formal
competition at the annual Eisteddfod.
Events that made the news were usually visiting acts of various kinds
which attracted great crowds.
Nineteen-year-old Joseph may have been among the many who attended a
play at the Town Hall when a visiting group stayed several weeks and performed
three plays, "The Married Bachelor," "Binks
the Hangman," and "A Day in Paris." Another well attended event was a fireworks
display by a visiting pyrotechnist. The news reported that every available spot
was occupied, whether window, house-roof, or church-steeple., and the Market
place was crowded almost to the point of suffocation.
The Michaelmas
Fair was an annual event held to honor St. Michael on September 29. The news reported in 1853 that the exhibition
of stock was very good and cattle, pigs, and horses realized high prices. A few of the "light-fingered gentry honoured the fair with their presence," and the fair ended amidst scenes of
tumult and dissipation, which it was thought in this day of enlightenment could
well be done away with.
Llanelly
citizens prided themselves on being liberal-minded about religion. When the foundation stone for the new Church
of St. Paul was laid in Llanelly (1849) by the Lord
Bishop of St. David's, most of the shops closed and a large crowd of citizens
gathered to watch the ceremony. Business
was suspended and shops closed again in June 1853 at the formal re-opening of Capel Als,
the parish church where Ruth and all of her brothers and sisters were
christened. An additional engine had to
be put on the trains to bring in the attending crowds. The Reverend Rees extended the thanks of the
congregation to the community for the liberality and brotherly feeling shown by
the various denominations. Enough money
was collected to reduce the debt nearly to half.
Another evidence of the religious
concern of the people was in the petition which was circulated in 1842
"that no Railway shall be used on the Lord's-day except in cases of
charity or necessity.' It was signed by
about seven hundred persons "including two Magistrates, and, with one or
two exceptions, all the gentry and respectability of the town and neighbourhood."
It was in this ambiance that Joseph
Howell Evans grew up, and met and married Ruth Evan. Ruth was the third of nine children born to
Walter Evan and Anne Thomas, all in Llanelly. Ruth's father Walter Evan, on the 1841 census
was reported as a basket maker. In 1851
his occupation was a coal mine labourer. The certificate of his death at age
seventy-one in 1863 shows he had continued to work as a labourer
in a coal yard. Of the nine children
born to Walter and Anne, they lost four to early death: two daughters named Anne, and two sons, David
at age 15, and John at age twenty-two, not yet
married. Record of the adult life of the
two first-born, Mary
and Margaret, has yet to be found.
Ruth's brother Walter married Sarah Davies when he was eighteen years
old. They had two children, and Walter
died at age twenty-two. William married
Margaret Lewis and we have record of three of their children, Walter, Rachel
Ann, and Mary.
Joseph Howell Evans and Ruth Evan
were married in 1849 at the Parish Church in Llanelly
according to the rites and ceremonies of the Established Church. Their first child, named Joseph Howell Evans
after his father, died at the age of nine months. Shortly after his son's death, Joseph joined
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, baptized the 25th of July,
1850. By this time there were enough
members of the church in Llanelly to have their own
meeting house. A little building dating
to about 1849 is still standing in Llanelly, Presently owned and
occupied by the Elim congregation of the Pentecostal
Church, it has been reputed to be the oldest surviving chapel built by the
Mormons. Joseph and Ruth would have
attended meetings there. Ruth was
baptized a year after Joseph on the 20th of July, 1851. Meanwhile she had presented Joseph with a
daughter whom they named Anne after Ruth's mother. Joseph had learned the blacksmith skills and
was able to support the family and to start saving a little so they could join
those who would go to Utah. Before that
time came, they had another son, John, and after ten months, in November of
1853, they mourned his death resulting from a siege with diarrhea and
convulsions. Even though they were still
grieving from their loss, they had to be ready within a few weeks for the long
ocean voyage to America.
BRANCHING OUT
TO SALT LAKE CITY
It had to be with mixed emotion that
Joseph and Ruth made the decision to go to Salt Lake. Joseph was 27 years old, Ruth was 25 and at
the beginning of the second trimester of another pregnancy, and Annie was not
quite three. Both of them were leaving
their aging parents, not having much hope of ever seeing them again (and they
never did). They were leaving brothers
and sisters and the graves of their two infant sons. But President Young had urged emigration, and
had provided the means through the establishment of the Perpetual Emigration
Fund. This meant that the Saints
throughout the world would donate the money and the emigrant could in turn
repay into the fund after they were established in the Valley. So Joseph would make his deposit with what he
had and would "borrow" the rest.
Joseph and Ruth had received
detailed instruction from the Church leaders on how to make preparation for the
long journey ahead. This was the
fifteenth year of Church experience in mass emigration and each year or two saw
refinements in their advice for the prospective emigrant. By 1854 many items for comfortable living in
Utah were obtainable in Salt Lake City.
The space allowed on ship-board for luggage was ten cubic feet, It must have been a
painful experience for those leaving their homes to have to make hard decisions
about what to take and what had to be left behind. Passengers were advised to have as much as
possible packed to go into the hold of the ship in order to give more space
around their berths and freer ventilation.
Any clothes they needed during the voyage, or
clothes that would be ruined by dampness should not be stored in the hold. It was also advisable to have among them a
claw-hammer, a few tenpenny nails, and some cord so they
could make fast all the boxes that were kept up between decks. This had to be done before they went to sea
and got sick and were unable to do it.
Little extras they could bring that would be lightweight and take up
little space were tapes, thread, needles, pins, worsted, hooks and eyes,
buttons, thimbles, combs, writing paper, pens and pencils. They could also bring good firearms,
especially rifles for use when crossing the plains. No ammunition could be brought on board, but
could be purchased in the United States.
Passengers had to furnish their own beds and bedding as well as their
own cooking and eating utensils, and a tin or earthen container which would
hold three quarts of water for each person.
The price of steerage passage ranged
from £3, 10s to £5 for adults, and from £3 to £4 10s for children one to
fourteen years of age. This price
included by law seventy days' provisions.
The law required that any provisions not used on arrival at New Orleans
should be given to the passengers. A quick
trip therefore meant valuable help to the passengers who were not well
off. Joseph
made arrangements for the their passage, paying a deposit of £3 against a total
fare of £11, 2s,6d for steerage for the three of
them: Joseph, Ruth, and little Anne.
By mid January of 1854 they were
ready to go. On January 21, the
"Cambrian News" carried the following item:
Latter-Day Saints -- This fraternity have assembled in large
numbers at Llanelly this week, when they have held a
conference, preparatory to the departure of the elected to the great Salt Lake
Valley. Their President, Captain Daniel
Jones, was present, together with another deputy from that settlement. It is but right to say that some of the
parties who have before proceeded from this neighbourhood
have sent very bright reports of their altered condition.
From Llanelly,
the group traveled to Liverpool where they met at a time specified just prior
to departure. To save the expense of
porters, the men among the passengers helped each other get all
the luggage aboard. This also
minimized the possibility of being robbed by men who frequented all the
emigrant ships, ostensibly as porters, but really to pilfer from the
passengers. The luggage designated for
the hold was deposited there, and that intended for the berth area was properly
placed and secured.
The Passengers' Act of June, 1852
outlined exact specifications for many aspects of travel which helped to keep a
ship's captain from causing undue hardship on the passengers. In providing for the berthing of the
passengers, it required that the berths be six feet long and that eighteen
inches in width be allowed to each statute adult. No two passengers, unless members of the same
family, could be placed in the same berth, nor in any case could persons of
different sexes, above the age of fourteen years, unless husband and wife, be
placed in the same berth. All unmarried
male passengers of the age of fourteen years and up were to be berthed in the
fore part of the vessel and separated from the rest of the passengers by a
strong bulk head. Single women were in
the stern. The Government Emigration
Officer at the port of embarkation, previous to the ship's departure, saw that
all these regulations were carried out.
The added regulations regarding sanitation and discipline established by
the Latter-day Saints ensured that the Mormons traveled with a greater amount
of comfort, security, and health than any other emigrants of the same class.
They boarded the ship "Golconda" on January 30th, 312 adults, 137 children
under fourteen, and fifteen under one year of age, a total of 464. .They were soon divided into districts, and
settled down to await a favorable tide.
About eleven o'clock Saturday morning, February 4th, the steamboat came
and took a turn around the "Golconda,"
which was at that time resting on the river.
Then as they sailed from Liverpool, the passengers must have lined the
ship rails watching the land until they could no longer see it through the
mists, each with his own thoughts of home.
They sailed pleasantly for a few hours, during which time a meeting was
held and the Districts were divided into seven Branches, with a president over
each Branch, four of whom were Welshmen, John Davis, William D. Jones, Phillip
Sykes, and Thomas C. Martill. The Branches were divided into Groups, with a president
over each Group. The entire company,
which they agreed would be called the "Golconda
Emigrating Conference," was presided over by President Dorr P. Curtis and
his counselors Thomas Squires and W. S. Phillips. There was to be a meeting of the Saints in
each Branch on Tuesday and Thursday nights, with a family prayer each night
before going to bed.
About five o'clock in the afternoon
a storm arose, and most of the passengers were stricken with seasickness. Sunday morning, they remembered to keep the
Sabbath Day holy, but most were too sick to get out of their beds. It must have been particularly miserable for Ruth
in her pregnancy. Anyone who wasn't sick
was busy taking care of those members of the family who were. The storm continued, and the passengers were
still sick through Monday. Then each
Branch was instructed to hold prayer meetings.
Before ten o'clock the wind had turned and dropped. The Presidency reported later that the next
day there was rejoicing among the Saints and everyone was praising the name of
the Lord. They enjoyed fair weather for
the rest of the trip. One of the
passengers, John J. Davies wrote as follows:
We had a brass
band on board -- all Welsh. There was a
choir and also a string band. They
played for dances, and the passengers enjoyed dancing at sea. There was a few
bachelors on board. They had a place by
themselves. They called it Bachelors
Hall. They made lots of fun to us on
sea. The captain was very kind to us,
especially to the sick. But very little
sickness we had on sea and only one death, and that was an infant. Indeed it was a solemn time when the child
was dropped into the sea.
They were just six weeks on the
water. At times they would sight a ship
ahead of them through the telescope, and by nightfall they had passed it by
far. They sailed past the West Indies
and had a close and splendid view of Jamaica.
They did not see Cuba as they had thought they might. They were excited at the sight of flying
fish, and marveled at the clearness and the color of the Caribbean Sea. They gathered in groups on the deck, enjoying
sitting in the sunshine; they told stories, sang songs, and cracked jokes; and they
had some excellent meetings. There was
an abundance of food on board, and most of the passengers were healthy. Only one death occurred, that of a
twenty-five-day-old infant who had been born in Liverpool. An eighty-four-year-old woman, Sister Esther Jones,
took daily walks back and forth on the deck as easily as though she were on
land. Elder Curtis later reported that
Captain Kerr and all the crew spoke in their favor. In fact, several of the crew decided to go
with them to Salt Lake and wanted to be baptized.
There were two marriages on board,
but the social highlight of the trip was the wedding of William Gillman of Monmouthshire and Ann Davis of Glamorganshire, which took place on
March 11. Everyone searched through
their boxes for their best clothes, and at nine o'clock two flags were raised
and the marriage was performed according to the old-fashioned Welsh
custom. Probably no one had ever enjoyed
a wedding party so much -- on land or on sea.
John J. Davies supplies more details:
We had the
pleasure to see a wedding on sea. The
bride was tied to a chair. She was
hoisted up the mast quite a ways. The
captain said, "What a brave woman."
Then she took her handkerchief and waved it in the breeze. The bridesman was carried around
the ship in a chair by four bachelors.
They made it for that purpose.
This took place about the first of March 1854. We had a great deal of amusement on the sea.
They arrived
safe and sound at New Orleans on March 18, 1854, the first company of the eight
that were to sail from Liverpool that year.
The "Benjamin Adams" had left Liverpool on January 22nd,
almost two weeks before the "Golconda," but had not
yet arrived
Just before any LDS ship arrived in
New Orleans, the passengers were always told to look out for thieves who would
board the ship posing as friends of a passenger in order to gain access to the
belongings that were still below decks.
Four men would be stationed to guard each hatchway with instructions to
let no one but passengers go below. They
were kept busy, for there were always a number of thieves doing their best to
get by the guards.
All passengers had to go through
customs and submit to health examinations.
Three sick people from the "Golconda"
had to be left in quarantine in New Orleans.
There was then a little time for the others to browse through the
nearby streets of New Orleans, and to enjoy a moderate meal which they could
obtain for five cents. They were
previously cautioned that it would make them sick to eat much of fresh meat and
vegetables, since they had been living all these past weeks on salt pork,
biscuits and such. As soon as the
luggage could be put aboard the steamer, which had been previously arranged for
by Elder James Brown, a missionary agent of the church in New Orleans, they
continued their journey from New Orleans to St. Louis, a distance of some seven
hundred miles. John J. Davies wrote in
his reminiscences:
We stayed in New
Orleans a few days to get ready to travel up the river again. About the last of March we started for St.
Louis in a small steam boat and we was crouded. Now we are
going, yes faster and faster. The steam
boat a puffing and snorting and pushing hard against the stream. But oh, what a durty watter for us to use. We dip it up for to settle it, but it don't get much better.
Never mind, we will do the best we can with it. I must drink it, annyhow,
because I am very thirsty. And what a rackity noyes
it made me shudder. The Captain a
shouting and the watter a splashing and the band a
playing and some of us singing and some of the sister a washing and the babs a crying And the sailors a talking and many of them a
smoking and all of us trying to do something and the boat a tuging
and snorting when traveling up the Missouri river also the Mississippi. Indeed it was a great site to us to see such
forest of timber and land. What a wonderfull stream this is -- going in such a force, takeing down some very larg
logs. They some times strike the boat
with tremendous blows, but we got through all right. We got to St. Louis about the 10th of April
1854. And we was
glad to get there. But what a durty looking place this is to be shure.
Evans, Ruth
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