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Post by Peter on Feb 21, 2020 22:28:58 GMT
Thanks for finding that book, Ross. I found it hard to read, even on a 32" monitor, so I scanned it, and did a OCR into a Word.doc. While I was reading it, I edited out, much of the parts that are not relevant, to the Welsh Indians. There was one reference to the first Coffee House in Europe. I found that interesting, as we were in Oxford, in April, 2018, having lunch at the oldest coffee house in Europe. It is now called Queen's Lane Coffee House. www.qlcoffeehouse.com/
Interesting to find this same cafe, mentioned in a 17th century book. BTW, we were in Oxford to tour the Pitt Rivers Museum. If you have not done that, I highly recommend it.
Reprinted from the New England Historical & Genealogical Register, January, 1898.
Page 1
The REV MORGAN JONES and the WELSH INDIANS
SEVERAL of the earlier Welsh poets make mention of one Madog, son of Owain Gwynedd, prince of North Wales, who, sailing westward from his native country, about the year 1162, discovered a new land, whither, some ten years later, he lead a colony of his own people. This event appears to have llecu forgotten, when in 1492 Columbus was proposing to cross the same waste of waters. and not till 1584 was the account of Madog made known to the English public by the Rev. Dr. David Powell in his
History of Wales. Almost a century later the story was revived in a limited circle, by the statement of Morgan Jones, at clerical gentleman then in the American colonies, who testified at New York, March 10, 1685-6, to his having, some seventeen years earlier, lived for a few months among a tribe of Welsh Indians on the Virginia coast; and we continue to hear ofWhite Indians, at distant intervals of time and in various localities, until, in the early part of the present century, Catlin encounters them on the Missouri River, near the present town of Bismark (Dakotah). The American traveller noted some words, in use among them, akin in sound and meaning to the Welsh, and was especially struck by the fairness of their skin, and by their very peculiar religious rites. They were then a tribe of limited numbers, called the Mandans, whom disease, a few years later, swept from the earth.
Mr. Jones’s statement commences as follows: “These Presents may certify all Persons whatsoever that in the year 1669,* I being then an inhabitant of Virginia, and Chaplain of M. G. Bennet of Mansemon~ County, Sir Wm Berkeley sent two ships to search what was then called the Port Royal, but now South Carolina, which is 60 leagues to the southward of Cape Fear; and I was sent with them to be their minister. Upon the 8th day of April we set out from Virginia.”
The writer continues his account, mentioning his arrival and departure from the new colony, whence, at the end of eight months, half-starved, owing to scarcity of provisions, he undertook to reach on foot, through the wilderness, the Virginia settlements, but only to fall into the hands of hostile natives westward of the great swamps. His few companions were evidently tortured and killed, while he, liberated by some Indians of the Doeg tribe, was taken to their retreat near Cape Hatteras. His freedom he attributes to his speaking Welsh, which was also the language of the Doegs, and in that tongue he continued to preach the Gospel to them for some months, before proceeding northward.
At this point, a review of such facts as bear upon Jones's opening remarks is interesting.
* The year is given in the printed documents, "1660," and is evidently a typographical error.
~ Nansemond.
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Post by Peter on Feb 21, 2020 23:03:59 GMT
4
page 4 omitted as it is not relevant to our subject.
5
half of page 5 omitted as irrelevant.
The foregoing review tends to show that no historical inaccuracies. as to his own movements, exist in Jones’s statement, which was first given to the public in the Gentlemen's Magazine of London, in 1740, under the heading, “The Crown of England's Title to America, prior to that of Spain.
Theophilus Evans, vicar of St. David's, in Brecon, writes, “Sir, That the vast continent of America was first discovered by Britons, about 300 years before the Spaniards had any footing there; and that the descendants of that first colony of Britons. who then seated themselves there, are still a distinct People. and retain their original language, is a Matter of Fact, which may be indesputably proved, by concurrent account of several Writers and Travellers. I shall first quole a letter of Mr. Morgan Jones, Chaplain of the Plantation of South Carolina, sent lo Dr. Thomas Lloyd of Pennsylvania, by whom it was transmitted,to (his brother), Charles Lloyd, of Dol-y-fran, in Montgomeryshire, Eng, and afterwards communicated to Dr. Robert Plott by the hands of Mr. Edward Lloyd, A.M., Keeper of the Ashmoleum Museum, in Oxford," who in tum had received it from the above Charles Lloyd or from his cousin Thomas Price of Llanvyllin. Co. Montgomery, as we gather from s work entitled “British Remains." In this latter book, published in I777, by N. Owen, jr., A.M., the author quotes a letter of Charles Lloyd (or Llwyd) esq. of Dol-y-fran, to the effect that Morgan Jones was contemporary with his brother, Thomas Lloyd, and himself, at Oxford; that he was of Jesus College. And to distinguiish him from others of his nnme. was known as “senior Jones."
The only Morgan Jones. clergyman. of Jeusus College, 0xford, likely to have written the statement, matriculated June 1, 1686, aged 18, plebeian, son of " John David” of Trevethin [or Trethuen]. on the Aron, westward of Uske, Co. Monmouth; B.A., Dec 12, 1639, vicar in 1661 of Undy, (or Wondye), in the same county, on the Bristol Channel, near Caldicott.
But Jones, in the statement as to his adventures in Virginia. signs himself " son of John Jones of Bassaleg,” a small place on the Ebbwith, westward of Newport, and some miles south of Trevethin, and Calamy, in his “ Non-Conformist Memorial." London, I721. Notes, among the ejected ministers of
Glamorganshire, I662, " Mr. Morgan Jones, an honest plowman, of Llanmodock,” at Whitford Point, though the author indicates his uncertainty, as to the exact locality, by an asterick. We know. however. that a few miles eastward of Llanmodock, at a place called Ilston [near Swansea), the first Baptist Church in Wales was formed in 1649, with John Myles as pastor. and that at a general meeting held in
March, 1651, at Aberafon [a branch of the Ilston church). several ministers, among whom was Morgan Jones, were agreed, in rotation, to supply the pulpit at Camarthen. There were two of this name present, the following Septmber, at the Llantrisant meeting, the names of the Elders and messengers from Ilston being John Myles, Morgan Jones, William Thomas, Morgan Jones, Henry Griffith, John Davis, and Hugh Mathews. The first three of these were ejected from their ministry when, in 1662, "Black Bartholemew's Day” put an end to the liberty of the Nonconformists. The others are not memtioned by Calamy, and were probably dead. Mr. Thomas left Llantrissant, where he was located, and became a schoolmaster in Swansea, while Miles and Jones fled to New England, the former, taking with him, the Ilston church book.
The other parties, through whose hands the statement passed, were, first: Thomas Lloyd, for whom it was undoubtedly written. This gentleman arrived in Philadelphia, Aug. 20, I583. on the America. Capt. Joseph Wasey; he stood high in the oonfidence and friendship of Wm Penn; was President of the Council; Deputy Gov. 1684-88, and died Sep 10, 1694, aged 45, leaving three daughters. His age corresponds with that of Thomas lloyd, son of Morgan Lloyd, of Llanbalk.
7
What time Morgan Jones reached the American colonies, after ejectment from his ministry in Wales, does not appear, but we meet with his name, as the Boston Town Records, as iollows: “Mr. Jones one the 28: 3rd May, 1666, being sent for having been sent for by the Selectmen for keeping a school, and being requiretl to perform his promise to the Towne to remone himself and family in the springe: And forbidden to keep a schoole any longer.”
Notwithstanding these hard measures he found means to make his peace with the authorities, for an entry on the records, in 1658, alludes to his living in the house of the Recorder, Mr. John Julliffe, merchant, and he was, in July, one of three witnesses to a ooneyance from Mathew Cory, to said Jolliffe, Lib. V. page 495. Soon after this, with a view, we may presume, to better his fortnne. he went to Virginia. in time.as we have seen, to sail with Maj. Gen. Richard Hennet of Nansemoncl Co., as his chaplain, in an expedition sent, in April, 1670, to Port Royal, or Charleston, S. C.
His services, as a minister, were evidently not required by the Carolina colonists; he net out afoot, to again reach Virginia, and after meeting curious adventures by the way, as has heen related, was back in Boston by the middle of the year 1671, at which time he was again a witness to some deed in which Mr. Jollifie was interested.
During his absense, his wife. thrown upon her own resources, adopted what was then a novel method of livelihood, as we find by the following permit of 30: 11th January, 1671, “Mrs. Dorothy Jones. the wife of Mr. Morgan Jones. is approved of to keepe a house of Public Entertainment for the selling of Colfee & Chochaletto,”—being the first mention of a Colfee House in Boston.‘ The last renewal of Mrs. Jones's license was in April 1674, at whioh time she was accorded the additional privilege of selling “cider & wine."
During the latter year the preliminary Tax List of the town, for Division No 4, contains the names of Morgan Jones and his man Isaac Rat. An error evidently, as they do not eppear in the regular list; we find Jones's name, however, on the regular list for Division No. 5, with that of his man's on the preliminary one. This Isaac Rat. as we gather from the town records of the previous year, (Nov. 1673), was one of the ersons driven out of their habitations in New York when that city was surrendered to the Dutch; coming to Boston he had entered the service of John Kean, who kept a cook-shop.
The Indian War, or King Phillip's War, broke out in 1675; whether Jones too any active part in it is uncertain; however. his name eccur's on the Treasurer's accounts. of July 1676, as a member of Maj. Sam‘ Appleton's company, under Lt. Jeremy Swain, (of reading). This was 6 months after the Narragausett Expedition. During the following September, he was one of the garrison stationed at Marlborough, an important rondesvous for the forces, until the close of the war.
Register. Xxxviii, 440-1; xl., 320 ; xliii., 266; Mass. Archives, ix., 97; Bodge's King Phillip's War."
* Evelyn in his Diary, 1637. mentions the Greek Canopias, who, at the Oxford University, “was the first I ever saw drink coffee,” a fact subsequently mentioned by Anthony A Wood, in his “Athenae Oxoniensis.”
An English Coffee House was established in Oxford, about 1650, at the Angel, by one Jacob, a Jew, who opened another, two or three years later, In London, in the Southampton Buildings, Holborn.
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By the year 1678 it would appear that Jones was located at Newtown, formerly Midlleborough, on Long Island, in the vicinity of New York. Bolton's Westchester informs as that, on the 17th Dec, 1678, the inhabitants of Eastchester agree to pay 40 (?) a year to Mr. Morgan Jones, “ minister of Newtown“ if he will come and live among them, and perform the offices of a minister. Accordingly, he appears thereafter, to have officiated both at West Chester, and rotated around among the different places to which he was called, through a period of over ten years. At this time King's County, the town of Newtown, in Queen's County, Shawkopoke or Staten Island, and probably Westchester, and Eastchester, constituted the Riding of Yorkshire, as established by the first provincial assembly, which met at Hampstead, Feb. 28, 1665.
On the Westchester records, under date of Feb. 11, 1679-80, is noted a baptism, by Morgan Jones, priest; “a marriage, also performed by him, was recorded in the same year. Bolton. ii. 200-I.
Riker. in his History of Newtown, Long Island, states that. on April 3, 1680, it was agreed at a town meeting at that place, to engage the Rev. Mr. Jones for one year, the term to date from March 10th, at a salary of 50 (?)*.
*I was not able to determine the currency in New England, in the 1670s, as it related to Morgan Jones. English, French,m Spanish, and Dutch were in circulation, as was Notes of Credit.
The book has not been copied here, in it's entirety. I have only included the parts that refer to the Welsh Indians, and sufficient other information, to show that Rev. Morgan Jones, was known, and that the dates are comtemporary with other accounts of the Morgan encounter.
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