by David Collier
MARY PROSSER, née Roberts
A fortuitous online discovery revealed that at least one native of Troedyrhiw had travelled as far as the San Francisco Bay area of California in the nineteenth century. An American calling himself ‘AlphaRoaming’ had written on his blog:- “I’m based in Silicon Valley and get out in the wilderness as often as possible. Back a few weeks ago I carpooled with a retired friend from San Jose up to Antioch, California to visit Northern California’s former coal mining district.’ He had posted this image of a headstone found in Rose Hill Cemetery in the Mount Diablo Coalfield, Contra Costa County, California.
The inscription states:-
MARY
WIFE OF WILLIAM PROSSER
DIED SEPT 24 1876
AGED 52 Y’RS
NATIVE OF TROEDYRHIW,
MERTHYR
From the late 1850’s until the turn of the century a low grade coal was extracted from the mines in this area and small towns, principally Nortonville, Somersville and Stewartville, grew up to house the workers and their families. The inhabitants were a diverse mix including significant numbers of Welsh and Italian immigrants. These settlements did not outlast the closure of the coal mines and the silica sand extraction industry that followed and their locations are now officially classified as ‘ghost towns’. Close to Somersville is the burial ground now known as Rose Hill Cemetery but formerly called the Protestant or ‘Welsh’ cemetery. This is where Mary Prosser was laid to rest in 1876 following a long period of ill health due, in all probability, to one of the diseases such as smallpox, typhoid, scarlet fever and diphtheria that were all too prevalent at the time.
It is believed that nearly 250 individuals are at Rose Hill but, sadly, the site was long neglected and subjected to vandalism including the theft of gravestones and ironwork so that now less than half of the original number of plots can be positively identified. Apart from Prosser other names with proven or likely Welsh origins found at Rose Hill include Davies, Davis, Edwards, Evans, Gething, Howell, Howells, Hughes, Humphreys, James, Jenkins, Jones, Morgan, Morris, Rees, Richards, Thomas, Vaughn, Waters and Williams.
Fortunately, this historic site and its artefacts are now being conserved and protected by the staff and volunteers of the Black Diamond Regional Preserve so that we and future generations can continue to appreciate it.
In 1979, Somersville gained fame as the site of the largest historical archaeology excavation ever done in the U.S. at the time. The Public Broadcasting System examined the project in a documentary series on archaeology, Odyssey: Other People’s Garbage.
The Rose Hill Cemetery aspect of this initiative seems to share many of the aims of the Saron Graveyard Project in Troedyrhiw but, unlike the latter, enjoys the advantages that come from being part of a larger well funded project.
Pursuing research into the background of Mary Prosser and how she came to live in the U.S. and finally die and be interred in this small part of California has revealed some additional information but has also thrown up a number of puzzles that are still to be unravelled. This is an item printed in the deaths column of a Welsh language newspaper some months after Mary’s death:-
This item seems to:-
- confirm that Mary died on 24 September 1876 at 52 years of age, the wife of William Prosser;
- reveal that she died in Somersville after suffering greatly with an illness for over a year;
- confirm that Mary was born in Troedyrhiw, Merthyr;
- state that she emigrated to America in 1848 from Brynmawr which was (at that time) in Brecknockshire (and is now within Blaenau Gwent);
- state that by 1857 she was living in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania;
- explain that her brother, Thomas Roberts, who lived in Reading, Pennsylvania, would like to contact Mr Prosser;
- make it likely that she, her husband and their families were Welsh speaking;
- make it likely that her maiden name was Roberts.
A search in available records for a marriage between a William Prosser and a Mary Roberts prior to the date of emigration (1848) yields only one likely result.
This marriage took place in the parish of Llanelli/Llanelly on the edge of which is Brynmawr – the starting point for Mary (Roberts) Prosser (and possibly her husband?) to emigrate to the U.S.
If we could now link this Mary Roberts to Troedyrhiw we would have strong evidence that we have identified the person that lies buried in Rose Hill Cemetery. Thus far it has not been possible to do this but we are hopeful that ongoing enquiries will eventually be successful.
SOME CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
South Africa, British Columbia and California are all many thousands of miles from Troedyrhiw. To travel from the village to any of these places by modern means of transport would normally be a quite straightforward if rather tiring venture but undertaking the same journeys in the nineteenth century would have been full of potential hazards. That our forebears were willing to take such risks, whether to fulfil their duty or in pursuit of better lives, and to put up with all of the hardships that they would undoubtedly face upon arrival at their destination is testament to their determination and resilience and leaves us much to admire.
John W. Williams, as we have seen, suffered a fatal accident while mining for gold in British Columbia. He must have been part of the early Welsh emigration to Canada attracted by the Cariboo Gold Rush that began in 1858. As with other miners that suffered similar fates he is likely to have been buried near to the place where he died with no permanent marker showing the location of his final resting place. It appears from census records that, sadly, he had left a wife and two children behind in Troedyrhiw while he went away to seek his fortune.
Evan J. Williams found himself to be embroiled in what, at the time, was the largest deployment of British troops since the Crimean War. Between 1899 and 1902 half a million soldiers had been sent to take part in the conflict in South Africa and amongst the 55,000 British casualties there were some 22,000 fatalities of which 12,000, including Trooper Williams, had died from diseases such as dysentery, typhoid and intestinal infections.
As many as 2 million Americans can trace their ancestry back to Welsh born immigrants. In the middle of the nineteenth century many were recruited, because of their skills, to work in the coal mines and ironworks of Pennsylvania. This probably explains why Mary Prosser and her husband William came to Tamaqua from Brynmawr in 1857. We don’t know why the couple later decided to move to California. It could have been that William’s presumed skills as a ‘hard-rock’ miner were in demand in the goldfields at that time and, when this didn’t work out, he turned to the type of work that he knew best in the recently opened coal mines of the Mount Diablo area. He and his wife could not have suspected that the harsh realities of life in an environment where infectious diseases were rife and medical care was rudimentary or non existent were to prove so costly for Mary.
Some links
https://friendsofsaron.wordpress.com/Information on the progress of the Saron Graveyard Project, Troedyrhiw and the history of the village.
http://www.southport-land.com/PDFs/EBRPD_brochure_Rose_Hill_MOD3.pdf Information Rose Hill Cemetery and the Black Diamond Preserve.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_zmCD4Eojg Youtube clip including footage of archaeological dig at Somersville, Contra Costa County, California.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58d29e6ccd0f6829bdf2f58f/t/59531edbb6ac500ba29e2421/1498619614340/MOV_The_Cariboo_Gold_Rush_Story.pdf Information on the Cariboo Gold Rush from the Museum of Vancouver.
https://www.southafricawargraves.org/ Information on the South Africa War Graves Project.