gration 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 workers. Hopkin and his son finally reached there on 7 February, after riding on luggage trains without paying in order to save money. They found work straight away. At the time, McAlester was a settlement of Welsh and English immigrants. Later that month Hopkin and his son also discovered that the Amman Valley was not all that far away:
. . . yr oeddem yn eistedd i lawr yn nhy Mr. Morris, y drws nesaf i'm llety. Daeth dyn tal, lysti i'r ty, a dywedodd Mr. Morris wrtho, dyma Gymro eto, bachgen or Hen Wlad. Gofynodd yntau i mi o ba le yr oeddem yn dyfod, ac atebais mai nid pell o Lanelli, sir Caerfyrddin. Beth yw enw y lle? Dywedais mai Gwauncaegurwen ydoedd. Hopkin, rho dy law. Sut yr wyt er ys Ilawer dydd? Yna dywedais fy mod yn credu fy mod yn adnabod ei lais, ond nas gallaswn ddweyd pwy oedd. Dywedodd John Williams, Glynbeudy, Brynaman, a mawr mor falch oeddem i weled ein gilydd. Y mae John yn gweithio engine Slope No 5 yn y lle hwn, ac yn ddyn parchus gan y cwmni a'r gweithwyr, a chanddo ddigon o arian. 26
[We were sitting in Mr Morris's house, next door to our lodgings. A tall, lusty man came to the house, and Mr Morris said to him, here's another Welshman, a boy from the old country. He [i.e. the newcomer] asked me where I came from, and I said not far from Llanelli, Carmarthenshire. What's the name of the place? I said it was Gwauncaegurwen. Hopkin, give me your hand. How are you this long time? Then I said that I thought I recognised his voice, but couldn't say who he was. He said John Williams, Glynbeudy, Brynaman, and how very pleased we were to see each other. John works in engine Slope No. 5 here, and he is a man respected by the company and the workmen and has plenty of money.]
The meeting with John Williams, and probably the Amman Valley connection, proved to be a very profitable one for the Hopkin family. Williams paid for Margaret Hopkin and the remaining eight children to travel from New Philadelphia to Houston whilst the coal company paid for the journey from there to their new home in McAlester, fiv