JONES, JOHN WILLIAM (1827 - 1884), editor of Y Drych, a Welsh-American newspaper
Date of birth: 1827
Date of death: 1884
Gender: Male
Occupation: editor of Y Drych, a Welsh-American newspaper
Area of activity: Literature and Writing; Printing and Publishing
Author: Robert (Bob) Owen
Born 11 January 1827 at Bryn-bychan, Llanaelhaearn, Caernarfonshire. He moved with his parents to Ty'n-llwyn, Llanllyfni, where his father kept a school. In 1845 he emigrated, with a number of Caernarvonshire and Merioneth families, to the U.S.A. He worked on farms in Racine (Wisconsin), on a canal near Chicago, and as a furniture carpenter in Utica (N.Y.). He received some further education at Clinton and started to keep school himself, teaching his pupils arithmetic; he became proficient in this subject as well as in astronomy and geology, and, in course of time, acquired a wide general knowledge. When Y Drych was founded in 1851 he began to contribute to its columns, and, towards the end of 1852, was invited by the proprietor, John Mather Jones, 1826 - 1874, of Bangor, Caernarfonshire, to come to New York as its editor, a post which he continued to hold until about the middle of 1884. The Drych was, however, not a success, even after a journal called Y Gwyliedydd was joined to it in 1855, until the editor became also the proprietor in 1858. The Drych was thought by some people to be in favour of slavery. In the year in which he became proprietor of Y Drych, Jones won the prize at the Utica New Year's Day eisteddfod for an essay on the subject of the evils of slavery; at the same time he won the prize for an essay on geology. He had, in 1852, been the editor of a Welsh quarterly journal, Yr Adolygydd Chwarterol, published in New York. He wrote several books - on such subjects as arithmetic, reading and writing, a history of the war in the Crimea, etc. He paid frequent visits to his native land. He died 8 October 1884 and was buried in Forest Hill cemetery, Utica.
Author
- Robert (Bob) Owen, (1885 - 1962)
- Y Drych, 18 October 1856, 2 January 1858, 7 May 1885, 24 March 1921, 10 January 1924
- The Cambrian (Cincinnati), 1884, 293
- J. Jones ('Myrddin Fardd'), Enwogion Sir Gaernarfon (1922)
Sources
Published date: 1959
Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/
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