Between the mid 1840s and late 1860s about 5,000 Welsh
people, inspired by the Mormon faith, left Wales to start a new life in the far
west of the United States.
In Welsh Saints on the Mormon Trail
(Y Lolfa), written by Wil Aaron, the story is told of their journey by ox-carts
and on foot from the Mississippi and the Missouri to Salt Lake City,
and of their subsequent lives in Utah.
The book explores a little-known episode of Welsh history. The Welsh
Mormons were crossing a continent at a particularly dramatic time in American
history. The ‘49ers’ and the Pony Express
shared the trails with them. They were passed by the first trans-continental
stagecoaches. They saw the beginnings of the Indian
Wars and the end of the Civil War. Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Hickock rode the
same trails and Calamity Jane and Crazy Horse have a place in their stories. Part
of the Mormons religious responsibility was to keep diaries, and hundreds of
these documents describing their adventures are now kept in the Church archive of
the Mormon Church History Library in Salt
Lake City. Wil Aaron has made good use of this rich resource
and of the Welsh journals and memoirs collected on
‘welshmormonhistory.byu.edu’.
“This is a book about the grit and steadfastness of ordinary
men and women whose remarkable tale deserves a place in the history of the
Welsh people,” says author Wil Aaron.
Professor Jerry Hunter of Bangor University writes, “Here is a volume I
shall return to time after time, and I know that others will do likewise. The
author has consulted extensive historical resources and has discerningly
deciphered them, arousing anew an interest in the story.”