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Welsh Americans () are an United States ethnic group whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in Wales, United Kingdom. In the 2008 U.S. Census community survey, an estimated 1.98 million Americans had Welsh people, 0.6% of the total U.S. population. This compares with a population of 3 million in Wales. However, 3.8% of Americans appear to bear a Welsh surnames.
There have been several US presidents with Welsh ancestry, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, James A. Garfield,The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield, 1881, E.E. Brown, Lothrop publishing, page 23. Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon, and Barack Obama. Other prominent figures of Welsh descent in American history include Jefferson Davis, the only president of the Confederate States of America.
The proportion of the American population with a name of Welsh origin ranges from 9.5% in South Carolina to 1.1% in North Dakota. Typically, names of Welsh origin are concentrated in the mid-Atlantic states, New England, the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama and in Appalachia, West Virginia and Tennessee.
In 1810, John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee, wrote to his friend Major Amos Stoddard about a conversation he had had in 1782 with the old Cherokee chief Oconostota concerning ancient fortifications built along the Alabama River. The chief allegedly told him that the forts had been built by a group of White people called "Welsh", as protection against the ancestors of the Cherokee, who eventually drove them from the region.
Sevier had also written in 1799 of the alleged discovery of six skeletons in brass armor bearing the Welsh coat-of-arms. Thomas S. Hinde claimed that in 1799, six soldiers had been dug up near Jeffersonville, Indiana on the Ohio River with that contained Welsh coat of arms.The American pioneer:a monthly periodical, devoted to the objects of the Logan Historical Society; or, to collecting and publishing sketches relative to the early settlement and successive improvement of the country, Volume 1 (Google eBook) J. S. Williams., 1842 It is possible these were the same six Sevier referred to, as the number, brass plates and Welsh coat of arms are consistent with both references. Speculation abounds connecting Madog with certain sites, such as Devil's Backbone, located on the Ohio River at Fourteen Mile Creek near Louisville, Kentucky. "The Madoc legend lives in Southern Indiana: Documentary makers hope to bring pictures to author's work" Curran, Kelly (2009-01-08). News and Tribune, Jeffersonville,. Retrieved 2011-10-16.
In 1757, Rev. Goronwy Owen, an Anglican Vicar born at Y Dafarn Goch, in the parish of Llanfair Mathafarn Eithaf in Anglesey and whose contribution to Welsh poetry is most responsible for the subsequent Welsh eighteenth century Renaissance,See, for instance: Prys Morgan, The Eighteenth Century Renaissance (Christopher Davies, Swansea, 1981). emigrated to Williamsburg, in the Colony of Virginia. Until his death on his cotton and tobacco plantation near Lawrenceville, Virginia in 1769, Rev. Owen was mostly noted as an émigré bard, writing with hiraeth ("longing" or "homesickness") for his native Anglesey. During the subsequent revival of the Eisteddfod, the Gwyneddigion Society held up the poetry of Rev. Owen as an example for bards at future eisteddfodau to emulate.
In 1900, there were 93,744 Welsh-born resident in the United States, more than half of whom were settled in Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania. In those three states, Welsh immigrants tended to work in coal mining, slate quarrying, and metallurgy.
In the 19th century, thousands of Welsh coal miners emigrated to the anthracite and bituminous mines of Pennsylvania, many becoming mine managers and executives. The miners brought organizational skills, exemplified in the United Mine Workers labor union, and its most famous leader John L. Lewis, who was born in a Welsh settlement in Iowa. Pennsylvania has the most Welsh Americans, approximately 200,000; they are primarily concentrated in the Western and Northeastern (Coal Region) regions of the state.
According to Marcus Tanner, "In Ohio State, Jackson and Gallia counties in particular became a 'Little Wales', where Welsh settlers were sufficiently thick on the ground by the 1830s to justify the establishment of Calvinistic Methodist synods."
In the early nineteenth century most of the Welsh settlers were farmers, but later there was emigration by coal miners to the coalfields of Ohio and Pennsylvania and by slate quarrymen from North Wales to the "Slate Valley" region of Vermont and Upstate New York. There was a large concentration of Welsh people in the section of Southeast Ohio, such as Jackson County, Ohio, which was nicknamed "Little Wales".
As late as 1900, Ohio still had 150 Welsh-speaking church congregations.Marcus Tanner (2004), The Last of the Celts, Yale University Press. Page 326.
The Welsh language was commonly spoken in the Jackson County area for generations until the 1950s when its use began to subside. As of 2010, more than 126,000 Ohioans are of Welsh descent and about 135 Welsh language, with significant concentrations still found in many communities of Ohio such as Oak Hill (13.6%), Madison (12.7%), Franklin (10.5%), Jackson (10.0%), Radnor (9.8%), and Jefferson (9.7%).
Examples of slave- and plantation-owning Welsh Americans include Welsh poet Rev. Goronwy Owen and American Founding Father Thomas Jefferson. While there were cases of slaves adopting their masters' surnames, Welsh religious groups and anti-slavery groups also helped to assist slaves to freedom and evidence exists of names adopted for this reason. In other situations, slaves took on their own new identity of Freeman, Newman, or Liberty, while others chose the surnames of American heroes or founding fathers, which in both cases could have been Welsh in origin.
Many Welsh descendants, especially Quakers, migrated to Tennessee—primarily from Colonial settlements in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina—pre-Statehood (1796) and in the early years of the 19th Century.
The first organized settlement occurred in the 1850s, inspired by Reverend Samuel Roberts, a Congregational pastor from Llanbrynmair, Montgomeryshire. Engaging with former Ohio governor William Bebb and Welsh immigrant Evan B. Jones, of Cincinnati, Roberts, known as "S.R.", promoted Welsh migration to Scott County, Tennessee. The first emigrants left Wales for Philadelphia in June, 1856. The first settlers arrived at Nancy's Branch in Scott County in September, 1856. Ultimately, the settlement failed. Some of the settlers migrated to Knoxville, while others migrated to other parts of the United States. Only three families, plus Samuel Roberts and John Jones remained at the settlement named Brynyffynon. The National Library of Wales has a collection of original material related to the settlement, identified as the " Tennessee Papers."
Following the American Civil War, several Welsh immigrant families moved from the Welsh Tract in Pennsylvania to Central East Tennessee. These Welsh families settled primarily in an area now known as Mechanicsville in the city of Knoxville. These families were recruited by the brothers Joseph and David Richards to work in a rolling mill then co-owned by John H. Jones.
The Richards brothers co-founded the Knoxville Iron Works beside the L&N Railroad, later to be used as the site for the 1982 World's Fair. Of the original buildings of the Iron Works where Welsh immigrants worked, only the structure housing the restaurant 'The Foundry' remains. At the time of the 1982 World's Fair, the building was known as the Strohaus.
Having first met in donated space at the Second Presbyterian Church, the immigrant Welsh built their own Congregational Church, with the Reverend Thomas Thomas serving as the first pastor in 1870. However, by 1899, the church property was sold. The Welsh celebrated their native culture here, holding services in Welsh and hosting choral competitions and other activities that kept the community connected.
These Welsh-immigrant families became successful and established other businesses in Knoxville. By 1930, many descendants of post-Civil War Knoxville's Welsh families dispersed into other sections of the city and neighboring counties.. Today, scores of families in greater Knoxville can trace their ancestry directly to these original immigrants. The Welsh tradition in Knoxville was remembered with Welsh descendants' celebrating St. David's Day until the early 21st century. The Knoxville Welsh Society is now defunct.
Because of pit mining north of Knoxville, a significant Welsh settlement was established in Anderson and Campbell Counties, especially in the towns of Briceville and Coal Creek (now Rocky Top). The non-profit Coal Creek Watershed Foundation has spearheaded efforts to document and preserve the history of Welsh settlers in this region.
Chattanooga and nearby communities such as Soddy-Daisy were home to Welsh immigrants who worked in the mining and iron industries. The Soddy-Daisy Roots Project and the research of Professor Edward G. Hartmann provide substantial information about the Welsh settlers in southeastern Tennessee.
During 1984–1985, Welsh educator David Greenslade travelled in Tennessee, documenting current and historic Welsh settlements as part of a larger, nationwide study of Welsh in the United States. Greenslade's research resulted in the book, Welsh Fever. Greenslade's at the National Library of Wales.
Award-winning actress Dale Dickey is a descendant of Knoxville's Richards brothers. Her ancestor, Reverend R. D. Thomas, another Welsh immigrant to Knoxville, authored the seminal work Hanes Cymru America ( History of the Welsh in America) in 1872. A digital version of the original book, in Welsh, is .
According to The Minnesota Ethnic Food Book, "Early Welsh immigrants settled in the Minnesota River valley in 1853; Blue Earth, Nicollete, and Le Sueur counties were the nucleus of a rural community that reached west into Brown County. While some of the men had been miners in Wales, most seem to have left central and northern Wales looking for land of their own. Families quickly founded enduring farming settlements and, despite a movement of children to Mankato and the Twin Cities metropolitan area, a Welsh presence remains in the river valley to this day."Anne R. Kaplan, Marjorie's A. Hoover, & Willard B. Moore (1986), The Minnesota Ethnic Food Book, Minnesota Historical Society Press. Page 81.
According to local Welsh language poet James Price, whose bardic name was Ap Dewi ("Son of David"), the first Welsh literary society in Minnesota was founded at a meeting held in South Bend Township, also in Blue Earth County in the fall of 1855. (2025). 9781363189397, The Great Plains Welsh Heritage Project / Wentworth Press. ISBN 9781363189397
Translated from: Also according to Ap Dewi, "The first eisteddfod in the State of Minnesota was held in Judson in the house of Wm. C. Williams in 1864. The second eisteddfod was held in 1866 in Judson, in the log chapel, with the Rev. John Roberts as Chairman. Ellis E. Ellis, Robert E. Hughes, H.H. Hughes, Rev. J. Jenkins, and William R. Jones took part in this eisteddfod. The third eisteddfod was held in Judson in the new chapel (Jerusalem) on January 2, 1871. The famous Llew Llwyfo (bardic name) was chairman and a splendid time was had." (2025). 9781363189397, The Great Plains Welsh Heritage Project / Wentworth Press. ISBN 9781363189397
Translated from:
By the 1880s, between 2,500 and 3,000 people of Welsh background were contributing to the life of some 17 churches and 22 chapels.Phillips G. Davies, "The Welsh Settlements in Minnesota: The Evidence of the Churches in Blue Earth and Le Sueur Counties," Welsh History Review, Dec 1986, Vol. 13 Issue 2, pp 139-154
Also according to The Minnesota Ethnic Food Book, "A profile of the Welsh community in the 1980s seems typical of many American ethnic groups: women of the older generation, aged in their sixties and seventies, maintain what there is of traditional foodways; but the younger generation shows revived interest in its heritage. These women have reclaimed old recipes from Welsh cookbooks or brought them back from trips to Wales. Thus Welsh folk occasionally eat Welsh cakes, bara brith, leek soup, and lamb on St. David's Day in honor of the patron saint of Wales."
Welsh cultural events, as well as a Welsh-language classes and a conversation group, continue to be organized by the St. David's Society of Minnesota. St. David's Society of Minnesota.
With the Civil War, many Welshmen began moving west, especially to Michigan and Wisconsin. They operated small farms and clung to their historic traditions. The church was the center of Welsh community life, and a vigorous Welsh-speaking press kept ethnic consciousness strong. Blodau Yr Oes ("Flowers of the Age"), first produced in 1872 in Utica, was aimed at children attending Welsh in America. Strongly Republican, the Welsh gradually assimilated into the larger society without totally abandoning their own ethnic cultural patterns.David Maldwyn Ellisd, "The Assimilation of the Welsh in Central New York," New York History, July 1972, Vol. 53 Issue 3, pp 299-333
Between 1888 and 2012 the Welsh Presbyterian Church was the center of the Welsh-American community in Los Angeles. The church was founded by the Reverend David Hughes from Llanuwchllyn, Gwynedd at another site. In its prime the church would average 300 immigrants for Sunday service in Welsh and English. Notably, the choir of the church sang in the 1941 film How Green Was My Valley. The singing tradition continued with the Cor Cymraeg De Califfornia, the Welsh Choir of Southern California, a non-denominational 501(c)(3) founded in 1997 still performing across the United States.
Santa Monica, California was named one of the most British towns in America due to its commerce and British migrants who came during a post-World War II boom in factory production, many of whom were Welsh. However, higher cost of living and stricter immigration laws have affected the town once dubbed 'Little Britain'.
In 2011 the West Coast Eisteddfod: Welsh Festival of Arts, sponsored by A Raven Above Press and AmeriCymru, was the first eisteddfod in the area since 1926. In the following year, Lorin Morgan-Richards established the annual Los Angeles St. David's Day Festival which sparked a cultural resurgence in the city and the formation of the Welsh League of Southern California in 2014. Celebrities of Welsh heritage Henry Thomas, Ioan Gruffudd, Michael Sheen, along with Richard Burton's and Frank Lloyd Wright's families have all publicly supported the festival.
The annual Los Angeles St. David's Day Festival, celebrates Welsh heritage through performance, workshops, and outdoor marketplace. In Portland, the Eisteddfod is a yearly Welsh event focusing on art competitions and performance in the bardic tradition. On a smaller scale, many states across the country hold regular Welsh Society meetings.
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