People of Welsh descent have had a powerful effect on American politics. A third of the 54 signatories of the 1776 American Declaration of Independence were believed to be of Welsh descent. They included the Llandaff-born Francis Lewis, who moved to America at 21, signing the constitution on behalf of New York.
Ten of America’s Presidents also have Welsh roots. The second, John Adams (1797-1801), and his son John Quincy Adams, the sixth (1825-1829), are from a family that trace back to Llanboidy, Carmarthenshire (John’s great-grandfather was a tenant farmer on the Banc-y-Llain, which is now part of the Jabajak Estate). Third President Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), even owned a Welsh dictionary, and wrote that his father’s family “came to this country from Wales, and from near the mountain of Snowden [sic]”.
James Madison, James Monroe and William Henry Harrison had Welsh ancestry too, as did Abraham Lincoln, whose great-great-grandfather, John Morris, was a farmer from Ysbyty Ifan near Conwy (his barn, now derelict, is still there). His daughter, Ellen, emigrated to the United States with Quakers, strengthening her Welsh ties in marriage, to Cadwaladr Evans, originally from Bala, and Lincoln’s understanding of Welsh informed his 1860 election campaign, when he had 100,000 election pamphlets printed yn Gymraeg (in Welsh). Another man of Welsh ancestry also opposed him in the Civil War a year later: Confederate Leader Jefferson Davis, whose family migrated from Wales to Philadelphia in the early 1700s.
Welsh links to power continued after this. James Garfield (he was assassinated after six months of his Presidency in 1881) claimed heritage from Caerphilly, while Richard Nixon (1969-1974), had links with early settlers from Carmarthenshire and Montgomeryshire. Barack Obama’s great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Robert Perry, was also born in Anglesey. Obama is the only President to visit Wales, staying at Newport’s Celtic Manor for the 2014 NATO summit.
A recent Presidential candidate also has family from Wales. Hillary Clinton’s great-grandfather John Jones, a miner from Llangynidr, moved to Pennsylvania in 1879, and her great-grandmother, Mary, was believed to come from Abergavenny. Clinton received an honorary doctorate from Swansea University in 2017, and their College of Law and Criminology was renamed the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3Lnqpnm5%2BifKKuzq6raJulocG2vsRoo6Kmm6h6o7HTsJyepl2Wuqa%2ByJyYZpmemXq4rcueqg%3D%3D