Welsh - American Connection

2024 will be the election of the 47th President of America 

This blog looks at the various past presidents, who had family connections with Wales.  It starts and ends with two prominent women

George Washington (1732 – 1799)

Portrait based on the unfinished Athenaeum portrait  
by Gilbert Stuart, 
1796

Notable the first president was George Washington, who took office from April 1789 to March 1797.  Washington did not belong to any political party; however, he did agree with certain Federalist policies, such that the country should have a national standing army and that a national bank should be established. 

By the time Washington became president in April 1789, he had only one tooth, they started to tall out when he was only 22.  A dentist in 1796, pulled out the last tooth.  Washington did have a way to replace his teeth either having them craved from elk’s teeth or ivory.

Even though Washington did not have a connection with Wales, the connection was with his wife Martha Dandridge, whom he married in 1759.  Washington was her second husband, having previously been married to Daniel Perke Curtis, who was a tobacco planter and 20 years older than herself.  Curtis, died in 1757, leaving the then 26-year-old Martha, with two young children, John and Martha. 

Martha was the daughter of English immigrant John Dandridge, and Frances Jones, who was the daughter of Reverend Orlando Jones, a Welsh clergyman.

John Adams (1735 – 1826)

After George Washington, second term as president. The second president to have been elected was John Adams.  Adams was one of the official Founding Fathers of the United States of America.  Adams won the election in 1796. Before this date, Adams, was the Ambassador to Great Britain, in 1785.  Whilst in this position, a counterpart assumed that Adams, had family from England, Adams, replied “Neither my father nor mother, grandfather or grandmother, great grandfather or great grandmother, nor any other relation that I know of, or care a fathering for, has been in England these one hundred and fifty years; so that you see I have not one drop of blood in vein but what is American”

Adams, was the first Federalist candidate, having won the election on a narrow margin, receiving 71 votes to Jefferson's 68.  Adams was the first president to live in what is now the White House.

Adams, ancestors did though originate from Wales, hailing from Drefach and Felindre Carmarthenshire.

John Adams was president for only one term. 

Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826)

The next president, also another official Foundering Father, was Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson was the first Sectary of State from 1790 to 1793 and then was the ice President under John Adams, serving in office from 1797 to 1801.  Jefferson was the first Democratic-Republican president to serve as president for two terms, having been re-elected for the second term during 1804, having defeated the Federalist Charles Cotesworth Pinckney.

Jefferson is known to have been able to speak, read, and write in Welsh, when he was 77 years old, Jefferson wrote in his diaries “The tradition in my father’s family is that their ancestors came to this country [America]  from Wales, from the region of Snowdon, highest mountains in Great Britain”

Incidentally, both Adams and Jefferson died on the same day, 4th July 1826

James Madison (1751 – 1836)

The next president following Jefferson was James Madison, who like Jefferson was a Democratic-Republican, serving for two terms from 1809 – 1817.

Madison was also a Founding Father, he was also hailed as the “Father of the Constitution”, for the drafting and promoting of the Constitution of the United States and the United States Bill of Rights. 

Jefferson led the United States into the War of 1812.  The war was fought between the United States and the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland and its allies.  The war lasted for over 2 years.  The result of the war was stalemate between the two sides.  The Treaty of Ghent, 1814 was signed.  America returned back to Status quo ante bellum.  The only loss during the war was that Spain lost Florida to the United States.

It is through his maternal great-great-grandfather, Daniel Gaines, who was born, in 1614, in Breconshire.  His parents, Thomas Gaines born, in 1590, Newton, Brecon and Blanch Kemins, 1590, Breconshire.  

1817, Maddison left office, where he retired to Montpelier.  He died nearly 20 years later, in 1836.

John Monroe (1758 – 1831)

The next president, James Monroe.  Monroe was a Democratic-Republican who also served for two terms, from 1817 to 1825.  Like the previous presidents, Monroe was also a Founding Father.

Monroe is the only person to hold two cabinets posts, whilst serving under Madison, the position of both Secretary of State and Secretary of War

It was during Monroe's presidency that he wanted a warmer relationship with the United Kingdom, and in  1817 the Rush-Bagot Treaty was signed between the two countries.  The treaty regulated naval armaments on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain and demilitarised the border between the US and British North America.  1818, saw the Treaty of 1818, signed which fixed the present Canada-United State border from Minnesota to the Rocky Mountains, at the 49th parallel.

Monroe’s connection to Wales is via his mother, Elizabeth Jones, whose own father James Jones had emigrated from Wales and settled in Virginia. 

After his presidency, in 1825, Monroe resided at Monroe Hill, now on the grounds of the University of Virginia, where he served on the university’s Board of Visitors until his death 4th July 1831.

John Quincy Adams (1767 – 1848)

Adams 1843–48,
photographed by Matthew Brady 

was Adams was the son of the aforementioned mentioned second president John Adams. Adams, junior only serving for one term.  He was also Democratic-Republican.  He also the leader of the National Republication Party.  The party evolved from the fractions of the Democratic-Republican, during the 1824 elections.  It was dissolved in 1834. 

Adams was regarded as one of America’s greatest-ever diplomates.  Adams died in 1846.

William Henry Harrison (1773 – 1841) 

 Harrison holds two records.  His inaugural speech, delivered during a heavy rainstorm in March 1841, was one of the longest speeches, however, this resulted in his death a month later, in April, 31 days into his term.

Harrison was a descendant of Sir Thomas Harrison, a general in Oliver Cromwell’s Army. His great-grandfather, Henry Harris, was a smallholder from Llanfyllian, Montgomeryshire.  Henry’s son, also another Henry moved to Wrexham and then to Nantwich, Cheshire before changing the surname from Harris to Harrison.  It is his son, Benjamin, who emigrating to America and signed the Declaration of Independence. 

Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865)

Abraham Lincoln is regarded as one of the famous presidents of the United States, having led the country successfully through the American Civil War, preserving the Union and abolishing slavery.  He also bolstered the federal government and modernized the U.S. economy

Lincoln, was assassinated during his second term, in 1865. He was both a Republican and a National Unionist.

Lincoln’s connections with Wales are vast.  John Morris, Lincoln’s great-great-grandfather, was a farmer from Ysbyty Ifan, North Wales.  His daughter, Ellen, emigrated to the United States with a group of Quarters.  Whilst in America, she married Cadwalader Evans.

Evans, himself was born in 1664, Ucheldre, a small hamlet near Bara. Both Cadwalader’s father and grandfather were buried in nearby Llanfor. 

After marrying Ellen and Cadwalader, had a daughter, Sarah who in 1711 married John Hanks. It's their granddaughter, Nancy, who was Lincoln’s mother.

During the election of 1860, Lincoln, who was aware of his Welsh ancestry printed 100,000 Welsh language election pamphlets.

James Abraham Garfield (1831 – 1881)

James Garfield is the only member of the Senate to have been elected as president.  Garfield a Republican only served for six and half months as president dying from an infection was subject to an assassination attempt.

it is through Garfield’s great-great-grandfather and his ancestors were served as a knight at Caerphilly Castle.

Richard Nixon (1913 – 1994)

Richard Nixon, a member of the Republican Party, was elected as president in 1969.  Nixon had risen to national prominence as a representative and senator of California. President Nixon, saw the conclusion to the US involvement in the Vietnam War, with the Soviet Union and China. The Environment Protection Agency was established during his period as president. 

During his second term, Nixon resigned as president due to his impeachment for his involvement in the Watergate scandal.

Nixon's connections with Wales date back to the early settlers, with a Howell Griffiths, from Carmarthenshire who in 1690 emigrated to Philadelphia.  The previous year, 1689, Huw Harris from Montgomeryshire emigrated to Pennsylvania.  Nixon’s great-grandmother was descended from Thomas Price who emigrated to America 14 years after the Mayflower landed.

Nixon, after his presidency, became an author publishing 10 books.  Hied died in 1994.

Barack Obama (1961 - )

Barack Obama, a member of the Democratic party, served as president from 209 to 2017. Obama was the first African-American president.

His connections with Wales are that his sixth-time great grandparents, Henry and Margaret Price, hailing from Anglesey emigrated at the beginning of the 19th century to Ohio.

Finally.........

Hillary Clinton (1947 - )

This blog started with a lady, and now it ends with a lady.  Hillary Clinton, the wife of Bill Clinton, was a diplomat, lawyer, writer, and public speaker.  She ran for the second presidential election in 2016, but however, being defeated by Donald Trump.

The following year, 2017, she received an honorary degree from Swansea University.  The degree of Doctor of Laws is in recognition of her commitment to promoting the rights of families and children around the world.

Both, her great grandfather, John Jones a miner from Llangyndir, and great-grandmother, Mary Griffiths from Abergavenny, emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1879.