Jim Wolfe

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Biography

A Journey Back Home by James E. Wolfe

I visited Gwynedd, Pennsylvania in March 2022. Sarah Evans Pugh, settled here in 1698 coming from Wales with her 4 brothers Thomas, Cadwalader, Robert and Owen. Their land is indicated on historical maps and I was able to visit the modern day properties, using a land plat superimposed on modern day topographic map from reference Fair Land Gwynedd by Phil Johnson Ruth. Owen Evans' updated house and 15 acres was on the market and had offers of $3.6 million. Sarah and her husband Robert Pugh's land has some barn ruins and colonial-looking house. It is located on the east side of the city of North Wales and is under Montgomery County Farm Preservation domain. The connection to these Welsh settlers was enabled by 4 generations of Quaker families and 5 historical references, one of which contains copies of the Evans family manuscript brought from Wales in 1698. This book reference is Welsh Founders of Pennsylvania by Thomas Allen Glenn, 1911.

The Sarah Evans Pugh and the Evans’ brothers families are descended from Evan ap (son of) Evan, an Anglican minister, and his 2nd wife, so they received no land when he died in 1690, most likely. He is buried at Llanfor Church near Fron Goch, northern Wales. (see Howard M. Jenkins, Historical Collections of Gwynedd, 1884 and 1897; and Margaret Louise Pugh Saville, The Evans Family self-published document in Handley Genealogy Library and archive, Winchester, Virginia). I discovered The Evans Family document at Handley Library in February 2020, when I visited Winchester, Virginia.

Two children of Robert and Sarah Pugh, Evan and Ellen removed to Virginia by 1744 with their families. Ellen Pugh had married John Rogers in 21 April 1717 in Gwynedd. John and Ellen Rogers had a daughter, Eleanor (Jenkins, 1884), who married Benjamin Barrett of the Hopewell Quakers, near Winchester, Virginia. Benjamin and Eleanor Barret had a daughter, Lydia who married John Mercer in 1789 in Frederick County, Virginia, then moved to Belmont County, Ohio. John and Lydia Mercer had a daughter, Sydney who married John W. Murphy and moved to Tuscarawas County, Ohio about 1828 with their family. I am the 7th generation of this family lineage that is well-documented in Tuscarawas County, Ohio and I am happy to have found my roots in Gwynedd, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, a most excellent community.

I also found in a reference (The Magna Carta Barons by Charles Browning originally published in 1915) a connection to Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk and one of 28 noble families who were surety for the Magna Carta at Runnymeade.

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by James Wolfe at registration.

Margaret Louise Pugh Saville, The Evans Family self-published document in Handley Genealogy Library and archive Welsh Founders of Pennsylvania by Thomas Allen Glenn, 1911 Howard M. Jenkins, Historical Collections of Gwynedd, 1884 and 1897 The Magna Carta Barons by Charles Browning originally published in 1915