In brief, my George ancestors came from Talgarth, Wales and landed in Chester PA that is located near the Philadelphia International Airport. At that time in 1802, it was a port village from where many pioneers departed to discover and settle the Northwest Territory. Henry George and his wife, Mary Beven arrived with their eldest children on a mission to establish a Welsh community and Baptist Church somewhere in the Ohio country.
At that time, they were supported by their church community in Wales and in America. The community arranged for their departure by ox-drawn wagons and horses to hike through mountainous Pennsylvania along a trail that was once blazed and surveyed by George Washington.
They got to a place that must have appeared much like home in the Appalachian mountains. Welsh and Irish settlers discovered coal and iron ore like the deposits in their native homelands. They knew how to mine and they developed communities around that and farming.
Henry George was a minister and stone mason, and his job was to preach and to establish new communities. The best way for me to determine his path and timeline is to follow the birth of his children and their reported birth locations.
From that process, I discovered that they once lived in the town of Beulah, PA. Beulah was probably named after Beulah, a village in southern Powys, Wales, lying on the Afon Cammarch. Beulah PA was a coal mining village that has since disappeared because the coal has been extracted. Today it is a Ghost Town.
“The Ghost Town Trail is a rail trail in Western Pennsylvania that stretches 36 miles (58 km) from Black Lick, Indiana County, to Ebensburg, Cambria County.[1] Established in 1991 on the right-of-way of the former Ebensburg and Black Lick Railroad, the trail follows the Blacklick Creek and passes through many ghost towns that were abandoned in the early 1900s with the decline of the local coal mining industry. Open year round to cycling, hiking, and cross-country skiing, the trail is designated as a National Recreation Trail by the United States Department of the Interior.[1]
The trail passes many historical sites, particularly sites of abandoned coal mines and their company towns. The ghost towns include Bracken, Armerford, Lackawanna No. 3, Wehrum, Scott Glenn, Webster, Beulah, and Claghorn.[1]”
Ghost Trail
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