o, see Y Drych, 4 July, 3 October, 26 December, 1878, 6 February, 1879; Tarian y Gweithiwr, 5 September, 1879.
12. For details of the scbeme see Tarian y Gweithiwr, 17, 24, 31 January, 9, 23, 30 May, 6 June, 1879. It is discussed in Alan Conway, 'Welsh Emigration to tbe United States' in B. Bailyn & D. Fleming, eds., Dislocation and Emigration: the Social Background of American Immigration (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), 257-259, and E. W Evans, Mabon: A Study in Trade Union Leadership (Cardiff, 1959) 25-26.
See Conway also for a general discussion of emigration schemes in Wales, and for a particular case study see Bill Jones, `We Will Give You Wings to Fly': Emigration Societies in Merthyr Tydfil in 1868, Merthyr Historian 13 (2001), forthcoming.
13. Mabon's justification for the scheme and expositions of his belief in the `safety valve' theory of emigration as a means of preventing wages falling can be found in numerous issues of Tarian Y Gweithiwr during 1879. See, especially, 17, 24, 31 January, 1879.
14. Tarian y Gweithiwr, 24 January, 9 May 1879.
15. See, for example, ibid., 23 May 1879.
16. Ibid., 21 February, 1879.
17. Ibid., 2 May, 1879.
18. Ibid., 22 August, 1879. See also 31 October, 1879.
19. Conway, `Welsh Emigration', 259.
20. Y Gwladgarwr, 24 October, 1879.
21. Tarian y Gweithiwr, 19 December, 1879.
22. Ibid., 9 January, 1880.
24. Ibid., 16 January, 1880.
25. Ibid., 7 May, 1880.
28. Ibid., 13 February, 1880.
29. Y Drych, 6 February, 1879.
30. Tarian y Gweithiwr, 13 February, 1880.
By Rina Callingham
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I read with interest about the exploits of Hopkin William Sion Hopkin in both Bill Jones and Dr. Huw Walters article "On the American Frontier: Amman Valley Emigrants in Texas, 1879-1880" and Jenni Hyatt's translation of "Hen Gymeriadau-Cwmgors a'r Waun o'r flwyddyn 1840". On learning that nothing more was known about him after his last letter from America, dated 14th April 1880, I tried without success, to find him and his family in the American censuses. Having no connection to spur me on, I then forgot about him.
Some time later, whilst researching the Morgan family of Gelliwarog farm on the Gwrhyd mountain in Llangiwg, I came across a reference which rang a bell. My ancestor, Moses Morgan had an older brother, Thomas of Bryndu, Gwaun-cae-gurwen, whose eldest daughter, Margaret (born 1841) married a Hopkin W. Hopkin of Waun Leision in 1858. I traced the young family through the censuses up to 1871, but was unable to find any of them after this time. Suspecting they may have emigrated, I recalled the Hopkin W. Hopkin, I had previously read about and realised they were one and the same. With renewed interest, I set about looking for them again.
Knowing that they had arrived in America in 1879, the first port of call was the national census of 1880. It took some time to realise that the Indian Territory, where the family relocated in April 1880, wasn't actually included in this census. At that time, this region was in a state of flux, seeking to accommodate the many Indian nations who had been forced to congregate there to escape the advance of European settlers. With undefined boundaries and no official recognition as an organised territory, there were few formal government processes in place. From 1889 however, the federal government began to exercise some control in the area and after many adjustments, by 1907 the Indian Territory was reduced in size and organised to become part of Oklahoma, the new, 46th State of the Union.
The Hopkin family were enumerated for the first time in the federal census of 1900. Their home town of McAlester was recorded as Township no. 5 in the Choctaw Nation County of the Indian Territory. McAlester had been founded at the "crossroads" where the California (stage and mail) Trail met the emigration and trade route of The Texas Road. The settlement was named after Colonel James J. McAlester, who after buying some land, discovered coal and managed to persuade the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway to build a track locally. As a result, the coal industry flourished and this 