PUGH, ELLIS (1656 - 1718), Quaker
Date of birth: 1656
Date of death: 1718
Gender: Male
Occupation: Quaker
Area of activity: Literature and Writing; Religion
Author: Robert (Bob) Owen
Born at Penrhos, near Tyddyn-y-garreg, Dolgelley, Meironnydd, in June 1656 (in August, according to NLW MS 9270A ). His father had died before he was born and his mother died soon after giving birth to him. When he was 18 years old he joined the Society of Friends under the influence of John ap John; six years later he himself began to minister among Friends. In 1686 he and his family and many other Welsh people started on the long voyage to Pennsylvania. They reached Barbadoes in March 1687 and arrived in Pennsylvania in the summer of the same year. Pugh settled with his family near Gwynedd township in Philadelphia county (now Montgomery county), as a farmer; he also continued to minister to the many Welsh people who were there. In 1706 he returned to Wales, but he was back in Pennsylvania two years later, and continued to minister to Friends. He died 3 October (3 December according to Blackwell) 1718. He left in manuscript a work Annerch ir Cymru , the publication of which was arranged by two groups of Friends, in Haver-ford and Gwynedd respectively. It was printed at Philadelphia in 1721 - the first book in Welsh published in America (a copy in the N.L.W.). The work was reprinted in London in 1782 and 1801. A translation into English was also published in 1727. This also was printed at Philadelphia, but by S. Keimer for W. Davies, bookbinder. The English translation was entitled A Salutation to the Britains … Translated from the British Language by Rowland Ellis, Revis'd and corrected by David Lloyd. (There were London editions in 1732, 1739, and 1793).
Author
- Robert (Bob) Owen, (1885 - 1962)
- H. Blackwell, NLW MS 9270A: A Dictionary of Welsh Biography
- H. Blackwell, A Bibliography of Welsh Americana (NLW MS 9278) (Aberystwyth 1942), ('Supplement' to The National Library of Wales Journal, 1942)
- R. Prys Morris, Cantref Meirionydd ei chwedlau, ei hynafiaethau, a'i hanes (1890), 144-7
- J. Bowden, The history of the Society of Friends in America (1850, 1854), ii, 1854 edition, 259
- A Collection of Memorials concerning Divers deceased Ministers … of the People called Quakers in Pennsylvania (1788)
- The Cambrian (Utica), 1903, 228-32
Sources
Published date: 1959
Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/
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