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