Clearly some Welsh settlers at some point – Treweryn, Penllyn, "North Wales" all featuring in various place names.

by leekpunch

28 comments

  2. Lots of Welsh inspired stuff around Philly, including Bryn Mawr university.

    Its a result of the Welsh Tract, an area of the Pennsylvania Colony given to Welsh speaking Quaker settlers. Its a pre patagonia Welsh outpost.

  3. There’s tons of places with Welsh names in Philadelphia. I was planning a trip to North Wales before and searched for some areas on Google maps. I got very confused after scanning the map for a while, before I realised it was showing me somewhere in Philadelphia with the same name…

    I found some schools there with Welsh names. You don’t want to know how badly they butcher the pronunciation 😅

  4. I’ve been to Gwynedd, Pennsylvania. There’s a beautiful nature reserve there. There is also a borough called North Wales. Edit: just noticed you already mentioned North Wales in your caption lol.

  6. Love this post as I grew up just outside of that area. Many tributes to Wales that we do undoubtedly mispronounce.

  7. I spent a few years believing that Jayne Mansfield was Welsh. Nope, not that Brynmawr!

  9. Religious reasons (Quakers) and Mining country, that’s why.

    Wonder how they pronounce it.

  10. Was part of the Welsh Tract, a Welsh settler colony in modern day Pennsylvania. At one point there were plans for it to be a separate Welsh speaking state, but that never happened and it got incorporated into Pennsylvania

  11. There’s also a Bala Cynwyd in PA too. I have a friend who lives in Bath Pa and when I visit I’m going to try and see some of the Welsh named places too.

  13. Question is, can they pronounce the names there properly

  15. I’d love to hear how the Philly locals pronounce some of those!

  17. There’s a police patch of Gwynedd Valley in The Black Boy, Caernarfon, in the public bar.

  18. Yes, and I met one of those “Gwynedd people” when I was working in South Korea. He was an engineer from Pennsylvania. His parents were Welsh, and I think they spoke Welsh. He was definitely American.

    This guy had lived in South Korea for many years. He had a Korean wife and he spoke Korean well.

  19. There’s also a town called Wales in Wisconsin. I drove through it a few weeks ago and it has some familiar street names too.

    It was only a fleeting visit and I haven’t checked Google maps but from memory I remember that theres a Caernarfon rd and Llanberis pass rd.

  20. We have Snowden River and Severn River here in Maryland. There’s a town called Davy in West Virginia. A town called Wales in Wisconsin (that’s where my people settled when they came from the old country). Lots of “Cousin Jack” and “Cousin Jenny” stories.

  23. The people who originally lived there probably had a name for that area…

  24. My family were some of those who came there from Wales, then moved south to Eastern Kentucky. Morgan, which I’m sure narrows it down 😁

  25. I don’t even want to fucking know how those mfs try and pronounce these places

  26. When I did my maternal grandmothers ancestry I found many Welsh immigrants in Eastern Pennsylvania before some of them moved to Western Pennsylvania where I currently live.

  27. The longest running nonWelsh eisteddfod is in Edwardsville, Luzerne County PA, not too far from Montgomery, where Gwynedd is.

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