il, river- and steamboat journeys via New Orleans and Galveston. As soon as they reached their destination they found problems.
The emigrant society's local agents were not expecting the newcomers and the houses which had been built for them were not yet equipped. Nor was there for them the free food they believed they were entitled to under the emigration scheme's terms. Some of the emigrants, the Hopkin family among them, were forced to use most of the money they had left to buy provisions. All this did not augur well for the future, as the emigrants would not be able to support themselves until they had grown crops for the first time. Nevertheless, when lots were draw, the Hopkin family secured one of the better plots of land, and then began the long, arduous work of preparing it. 21
The Hopkins's second letter, written at the end of December 1879, was more optimistic than the first. 22 'Wele ni yn fyw, it begins brightly, `ac yn rhagorol mewn iechyd. Yr ydym ni a'r plant yn bwyta cymaint arall yn agos o fwyd ag oeddem yn arferol o wneud gartref yng Nghymru, ac hefyd yn teimlo fod ein nerth yn cynyddu bob dydd.' [We are alive and in excellent health. We and the children are eating almost twice as much as we usually did in Wales, and we also feel that our strength is growing every day.] At the time of writing they had left the work of rolling the land and were in the process of erecting sheds for the animals. There was also nothing but praise for the agents, who appeared to be fulfilling all their promises. There was plenty of food - flour, potatoes, a side of bacon, peas, corn, and fresh meat three times a week - as well as tea, coffee, sugar and lard. The emigrants were also being provided with whatever they needed for farming in terms of materials, wagons and livestock. Little wonder the letter ended with a reassurance that `ein bod yn gysurus iawn o ran ein hamgylchiadau ar hyn o bryd ' 23 [our circumstances are very comfortable at the moment]. A letter written by the other Welsh family sponsored by the emigration scheme, George and Catherine Davies, confirms the air of satisfaction and optimism that appears to have prevailed among members of the New Philadelphia community at that time. 24
After the end of December, however, things deteriorated. In stark contrast to the upbeat tone of the second letter, the final one, dated 14 April 1880, 25 described how the Hopkin family had been forced to move away from New Philadelphia. In mid January the pioneers' food allowances were stopped because the local agents insisted that they had not received enough money from the emigrant society's backers in London, and were not prepared to subsidize the pioneers any further. It was difficult for the emigrants to know exactly what was going on and who was to blame, but the fears of running out of what little money they had left and starving were real enough.
For a fortnight the Hopkin family wondered what they should do, hoping every day that they would receive some good news which would enable them to stay on the farm in which they had invested so much hope and effort. Then came what Hopkin Hopkin described as `un o'r pethau mwyaf anhawdd a wnaethum erioed, sef troi fy nghefn ar y lle; ond felly bu rhaid gwneud ' [one of the hardest things I have ever done, to turn my back on the place; but that's what had to be done]. The realization finally came that if they were to obtain work, then they had to go `on the tramp' in search of it. Consequently on 27 January 1880 Hopkin and one of his sons, Ioan, went to North Texas to sell the two horses the agents had given them; they kept the money as a small recompense for the swindle they believed they had suffered. They then proceeded to Dallas where they met a Welshman from Neath, Elias Thomas, who after giving them shelter for the evening, advised them to go to a coal mine which was being opened up some two hundred miles away in McAlester in what was then Indian Territory (now the state of Oklahoma). Apparently it had good prospects and the owners were having difficulty in recruiting worke