Population with a Welsh Heritage
Pennsylvania has the largest Welsh population in the USA with 1.14% of the population of the state identifying as Welsh. Welsh emigration to Pennsylvania began in the 1600s Century with Quakers seeking religious freedom and economic opportunities. With a promise of a better life many followed leaders such as William Penn and established Welsh communities.
The industrial revolution of the 1800s drove the next wave of immigration across the Atlantic. Welsh men and women, with skills in the iron and anthracite coal industries were in demand to help build the emerging American industrial revolution. The similarities in the landscape and geology of Wales and Pennsylvania meant that the Welsh were highly skilled in these industries and many made their fortunes.
With them the Welsh immigrants brought their language, music, culture and traditions which survive in the American communities to this day.
“Wales helped build America – its founding ideals must be allowed to endure” – Eluned Morgan
Welsh Place Names in Pennsylvania
To remind them of their home country, Welsh settlers in Pennsylvania named their settlements after places familiar to them back in Cymru. The names of these towns and places today still connect them to the people and their Welsh heritage. Some place names and their history:
Bangor – settled in the late 1760s by Robert M Jones from Bangor, Wales. He helped establish the slate industry and a live-sized statue of him remains in the town centre, where piles of slate residue around the area is reminiscent of the place of the same name in Wales.
Bryn Mawr – named after an estate near Dolgellau in North Wales that belonged to Rowland Ellis, a Welsh Quaker who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1686.
Bala Cynwyd – bordering the western edge of Philadelphia and was settled in the 1680s by Welsh Quakers naming it after the town of Bala and village of Cynwyd. In the industrial era the Roberts brothers founded the Pencoyd Iron Works (head of the woods in Welsh) in the area which became a leading manufacturer of iron and steel bridges.
St Davids – named after the patron saint of Wales this is a residential area in the eastern part of Wayne, Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
There are many more Welsh place names and zoom in on the map to find others.
Bala Cynwyd
Berwy
Caernarvon
Cumru
Haverford
Johnstown
Meirion
Narberth
North Wales
Penn Llyn
Radnor
Welsh Mountain