Welsh Saints on the Mormon Trail - The Story of the Nineteenth-Century Welsh Emigrants to Salt Lake City — The Story of the Nineteenth-Century Welsh Emigrants to Salt Lake City

Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description

Hanes y Cymry a ymfudodd i ogledd yr Amerig ar drywydd y Mormoniaid. Rhwng 1847 a 1869, croesodd tua 4,500 o Gymry y Gwastadedd Mawr a mynyddoedd y Rockies mewn ceirt ag ychen. Caiff rhyfeloedd yr Indiaid, Rhyfel Cartref yr Amerig, Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane a Crazy Horse oll sylw yn eu stori. Dros 70 o luniau.

Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description

The story of the Welsh who emigrated to North America on the Mormon Trail. Between 1847 and 1869, about 4,500 Welsh people crossed the Great Plains and the Rockies by ox-cart, through the history of the early West. The Indian Wars, the Civil War, Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane and Crazy Horse all appear in their story. Over 70 photographs.

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Bywgraffiad yr Awdur / Author Biography

Wil Aaron is a pioneer in the world of television, having worked as an independent director and producer and establishing several television companies and influential resources. He establised the television company 'Ffilmiau'r Nant' in 1976, which produced programmes such as 'Hel Straeon', 'Sgorio' and 'C'mon Midffild' for S4C.

Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review

A non-fiction book for adults, telling the story of the Welsh who emigrated to North America. Between 1847 and the coming of the train in 1869, about 4,500 Welsh people followed the Mormon Trail to Salt Lake City, crossing the Great Plains and the Rockies by ox-cart, through the history of the early West. They travelled alongside the '49ers'. They were passed by the first transcontinental stage coaches and the Pony Express. They witnessed the first telegraph wires being strung across the land and the first transcontinental railroad tracks being laid. They saw the beginnings of the Indian Wars and the end of the Civil War. Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Hickok rode the same trails and Calamity Jane and Crazy Horse have a place in their story. Mark Twain and H M Stanley wrote about them. Their stories are recorded in detail in the hundreds of diaries and biographies that their Church urged them to write, and which are now stored in the Mormon Church History Library: a rich source very little used by Welsh historians but heavily researched for this book. The book portrays the Mormon Trail over the 22 years of its existence, before it came to an end with the coming of the railway. Year by year, the book looks at the development of the trail, at the experiences of the Welsh on the trail that year, at the history of the Welsh in Utah that year, using the diaries and biographies as the prime sources. Each year we feature one or more of the most colourful characters on the trail, from gun-runners to mass murderers, from a girl who grew up to be the first female state senator in American history to the greatest missionary in the history of the Mormon Church. A collection of exciting and entertaining stories, laced in history, with bravery and fear, excitement and heartbreak aplenty.

Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review

Almost anyone who has tried to read The Book of Mormon will know it for an outrageous forgery written in King-James-Bible English, yet today there are some 16 million followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, centred on Salt Lake City. First published in Welsh, Welsh Saints on the Mormon Trail is a history of the Welsh contribution to the founding years of the Church in the mid nineteenth century, for between 1847 and 1868 some 5,000 converts, mostly Welsh-speaking, left Wales to make the long and dangerous journey across the Atlantic and then overland to the fledgling Promised Land in what was to become the state of Utah. At first, shiploads of Mormon converts sailed to New Orleans, then up the Mississippi to Nauvoo, after which they journeyed in ox-drawn wagon trains many hundreds of miles across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains to the Mormon settlements around the Great Salt Lake. Later, the point of debarkation was changed to New York, in part at least because of the diseases that plagued the Mississippi route. The courage and endurance of these men, women and children, especially in the early years, was extraordinary. All wagon trains had to be organised with a careful estimation of food and other necessary supplies, and timed so as to cross the Rockies before the onset of winter. The Mormons under Brigham Young were particularly well served in this respect. Even so, death from dreaded diseases like cholera, and terrible accidents with individuals falling under the wheels of wagons, were a constant peril on the long journey. By the 1860s, too, there was danger from raiding parties of Plains Indians whose hunting grounds they crossed. The Mormons, though they may not have intended it, were part of the great theft of Indian land in the mid and late nineteenth century and of the tragedy that ended in the genocide of Native Americans. But the Welsh Mormons were often victims, too, in Wales, where the Mormon faith was viewed with suspicion and often downright hatred in Nonconformist communities. Losing one’s job, or being beaten up, were common enough to make converts long for escape to the great New Jerusalem beyond the boundaries of the United States in the 1840s. Wil Aaron tells this fascinating story with chapters divided in years from 1847–68. He is lucky in having a treasure trove of documentary evidence. Mormons were encouraged to keep diaries, and many of these describe vividly the trials of the Saints as they laboured with ox-drawn carts – and in one year with handcarts alone – across the great expanse of plains and mountains. He also draws on letters home, and on the Welsh-language Mormon journal, Udgorn Seion . They allow him to recreate the experience of these pioneers, enhanced by period and recent photographs and an excellent pull-out map of the trail itself in great detail. This English-language edition is very well written and the story it tells so fascinating that I found it hard to put down. Highly recommended.