Welsh Journals

MISCELLANEA PRYCE HUGHES OF LLANLLUGAN AND SOUTH CAROLINA: A NOTE EIRLYS M. BARKER Thomas Nelson Community College, Hampton, Virginia, U.S.A. Pryce Hughes, born near Welshpool towards the end of the seventeenth century, has been hailed by historians of early America and by his contemporaries as an 'outstanding frontier figure of the [American] South' He was also a prominent early promoter of Welsh emigration to America with his vision of a colony for five hundred Welsh settlers on the Mississippi. The historic record is, however, curiously confused on both sides of the Atlantic as to his origins and his achievements. I first became aware of him during research concerning the Europeans involved in the North American Indian trade in the early eighteenth century. With its establishment in 1670, Charleston, South Carolina, or Charles Town as it was called during the colonial period, became the centre of trade for the south-eastern colonies. It was a sorry, primitive town for many years, eking a livelihood from the exchange of goods with the Indians. Deerskins were in demand in Europe where they were turned into fine leather goods such as breeches, gloves and saddles. The skins and furs hunted and processed by the Indians were exchanged for goods such as British woollens, brass kettles, guns and other manufactured items. During research into this southern Indian trade, I came across many tantalising secondary and primary source references to brothers Pryce and Richard Hughes. One 1755 American source referred to Pryce as a 'Man of some Fortune, Learning and Piety'.2 Governor Spotswood of Virginia, writing in 1730, called him 'an English Gent., who had a particular fancy of rambling among the Indians' I came across the will drawn up by Richard, who had died in Charleston in 1711. When in Wales, I pursued the search. Neither Pryce nor Richard was to be found in The Dictionary of Welsh Biography, nor could the National Library of Wales's card indexes help me. I had seen a secondary copy of Pryce Hughes's will, with his place of origin transcribed as 'Kavllygan'. My mother, Marian Henry Jones, with her experience in Montgomeryshire history, suggested that this could be Llanllugan' and a search through old issues of the Montgomery- shire Collections and the St Asaph Bishops' Transcripts soon yielded some results. The Montgomeryshire Collections for 1890 contained an outline of the Hughes family of Llanllugan. The father, Richard Hughes, married a Maria Pryce in March 1685. She was possibly the heiress of the Frongoch estate in the parishes of Llanllugan, Llanwyddelan and Manafon, and she died in January 1700, after bearing six children who grew to adulthood. The two eldest sons, Richard and Pryce, according to the Collections, died simultaneously in America. The reputed incident is worth recalling; the Collections stating the both 'mortgaged their property, went to America, purchased a large tract of land, and lost their Dictionary of American Biography (1964), p.355, entry for Pryce Hughes by Verner W. Crane. Wilbur R. Jacobs (ed.), The Appalachian Indian Frontier: The Edmond Atkin Report and Plan of 1755 (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1954), pp. 59-60. Atkin mentioned that 'Hewse' wanted to instill 'Christian Principles' in the Indians. R.A. Brock (ed.), The Official Letters of Alexander Spotswood, Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of Virginia, 1710-1722 (Collections of the Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia, 1882-85) Vol. 2, p.331.