By Bill Jones and Huw Walters.
The Carmarthenshire Antiquary Vol xxxvii 2001
Copied by Gareth Hicks with the permission of the authors.
Includes biographical notes on Hopkin Hopkin by Rina Callingham
Most parts of Wales have some form of an overseas dimension to their history and the Amman Valley is certainly no exception. For centuries people have left the area of their birth in search of a better life elsewhere, and they became more numerous during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Not much research has been done on emigration from the Amman Valley aud little is known about changing patterns of out-migration and settlement abroad, and how the emigrants fared in their adopted countries. It is even impossible to say exactly how many did leave over the years because statistical records at this level are either unreliable or have never been kept in the first place. Many of the emigrants, probably the majority, made their homes in the United States; others travelled to Canada, and further afield to South Africa, Australia and Patagonia. Far from settling permanently at the point of arrival, some were very mobile as they moved from place to place in search of work and more favourable conditions. Most probably went overseas on their own resources and those of family and friends, though some, however, took advantage of government assisted passages to the Dominions and Commonwealth countries or planned emigration schemes to the United States.
Generally, comparatively little is known also about the ordinary individuals and families who took part in this exodus, and their actual experiences. Sometimes they surface for a period in the columns of the newspapers of the time, only to then disappear completely from the surviving record. Such is the fate of some of the Amman Valley emigrants in Texas and other parts of southern United States of America in 1879-1880 who are glimpsed in this article. But, more unusually, there is a fuller picture of one family from the same valley who also found themselves in Texas due to some exceptional circumstances. It is on the story of this family, that of Hopkin Hopkin, a Gwauncaegurwen miner, his wife Margaret, and their nine children, that most of the following concentrates. Unusually again for an ordinary emigrant, something is known about Hopkin Hopkin before he emigrated, as he was a very well-known and much respected local figure. During 1879-1880 he and his family were involved in a very ambitious plan to move Welsh industrial workers and their families to a new agricultural settlement in Texas. Yet our knowledge of the Hopkin saga is due less to their participation in that scheme and more to three lengthy Welsh-language letters that were printed in the Aberdare-published Tarian y Gweithiwr newspaper during late 1879 and early 1880. 1
Before he left for Texas, Hopkin William Sion Hopkin of Waun Leision, Gwauncaegurwen, had played a very prominent part in the temperance movement in the Amman Valley. 2 A strongly religious man, he was a faithful and active deacon of Carmel Independent chapel, Gwauncaegurwen, where he served as precentor. Surviving testimony is unanimous in declaring that he possessed a rare talent as a musician and singer, and won many prizes in eisteddfodau and other competitive meetings in the area. In 1860, a poetic tribute to Hopkin's efforts as a music teacher and on behalf of the Band of Hope, written by Evan Gethin of Gwauncaegurwen, was published in Y Diwygiwr. 3 Hopkin gave music lessons in Bethesda chapel, Cwmaman, for a time, and also at his parents' house on Waun Leision. The parental home was apparently a major meeting place for the poets and musicians of the area. Hopkin was also a member of the renowned 'Cymdeithas Gorawl Dyffryn Tawe', led by the influential W. Ivander Griffiths. 4 In 1916 D. W Lewis wrote that of all the musicians in the locality: `Fe ddichon mai efe (Hopkin) oedd yr arweinydd a ddangosodd fwyaf o allu i osod cor wrth ei gilydd ryw 40 neu 50 mlynedd yn ol.' [Possibly Hopkin was the conductor who showed the most ability to put a choir to