Hi Jeff and everyone --
Oh my, Avondale was a bad one, and here we have yet ANOTHER connection
between
Brynmawr and the Scranton area Evan Hughes, brother of Benjamin Hughes,
superintendent of underground mine operations for the D.L&W., was also from
Brynmawr and was also killed at Avondale.<
Yes, I knew that Evan Hughes from Brynmawr was the pit boss at Avondale and died
with the rest of the men trapped underground in the inferno there. Since
reading more about the Hughes family in William D. Jones' _Wales in America:
Scranton and the Welsh, 1860-1920_ I've intended (whenever I can find some time)
to dig up more about them. Since, if my memory serves me, Benjamin and Evan
Hughes' father was an ironworker from Nantyglo, as were my g-g-grandmother Eliza
Newman Powell's family, it has seemed likely to me that the families were
acquainted on both sides of "the pond" -- perhaps even quite well acquainted.
What I've been especially curious about for several years is whether there's any
connection between Evan and Benjamin Hughes and the Sarah Hughes whom Eliza and
William's son George Powell (b. Brynmawr 28 Dec 1854) married in Pennsylvania. I
really know nothing of her family, and of Sarah herself I only know that family
stories take pride in the fact that she was a very noted poet (a female bard??).
George Powell worked for the D.L. & W. [for other listers, the coalmining arm of
the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railway was the Scranton region's biggest
employer -- their various mines employed thousands] most of his adult life and
was also a noted church organist in the Scranton region. They had no children.
Have you even visited Washburn Street cemetery in Hyde Park where
about half
of the victims are buried? < Sadly, not yet. I went to Scranton 22
years ago
tracing family history, but at that time had not figured out that my William and
James Powell died at Avondale and are buried at Washburn St. Now I'm dying to
go again, since I've been fleshing out more of the family's history in Plymouth
and Scranton. My 2nd cousin Kathleen Tifft Cooper visited Washburn St. (a.k.a.
Hyde Park Cemetery) a few years ago and posted photos online for all to see
(
http://www.rootsweb.com/~paluzern/township/cemetery/avondale-washburn.htm --
bravo for her), including a photo of our Powells' gravestone. But here's the
corker: neither Kathleen nor I realized at the time that **apparently** William
Powell's daughter Mary, who seems to have married an unknown Mr. Phillips either
in Brynmawr or in PA, is also buried there and memorialized on the same
tombstone. But all we can read in Kathleen's photos
(
http://www.rootsweb.com/~paluzern/township/cemetery/powell-wj_x.jpg) is the
three names, so we don't even know what the stone says about Mary! She is a
mystery to us and it's driving us crazy. Since Kathleen and I are both on the
West coast, we really need to see if we can find someone in the Scranton area
who can try to read that tombstone for us.
I have more to say re: the Calvary records, but will put that in a separate post
so as not to confuse other list readers.
Cheers,
Judith Sylte
Whidbey Island, WA
USA