The Welsh-American Heritage Museum is located in Oak Hill, Ohio in southern Jackson County. It is open by appointment by calling Mildred Bangert at 740-682-7057.

The objectives of the museum are to foster Welsh family ties throughout the world, to collect and preserve records, artifacts, books, photographs, etc. of Welsh families in a museum setting, to keep the Welsh culture and traditions alive in the area, and to preserve for all time the old Welsh Congregational Church building.

In 1818 six families from the Cilcennin area set sail from Aberaeron Wales to the United States. After a long and wretched journey across the Atlantic they hired covered wagons for another long and hazardous trek across the mountains of Pittsburgh. There they placed their meager possessions on crude rafts and journeyed down the Ohio River - their destination was to have been the frontier town of Paddy's Run.

After traveling 250 miles they ran out of provisions and tied up their rafts near the French settlement of Gallipolis where they were made welcome for the night. Whether it was the storm or the travel-weary women who cut loose the ropes that night, no one knows, but the travelers never reached their destination.

Some of the men were involved in building roads near Centerville and then on to Oak Hill. The area reminded them so much of their native Cilcennin that they decided to settle there.

In 1839 hundreds gathered at Aberaeron Harbor as friends and relatives said their last goodbyes to 175 who were emigrating to the United States. There was considerable wailing and weeping as the boats sailed out of the harbor. Four young men led the singing of a hymn at the quayside, "Bydd Melys glanio draw nol'n bod o din I don, a mi rol ffarwel maes draw I'r ddaear hon."

A great many of those 175 Welsh men and women found their way to the Tyn Rhos, Moriah, Nebo, Centerpoint, Bethel, Oak Hill and Horeb areas in Gallia and Jackson counties of Southeastern Ohio.

Farming, making iron and manufacturing clay products became three of the leading occupations of these Welshmen and their descendants.

The Welsh-American Heritage Museum not only strives to keep Welsh traditions alive, but continues to be a link with the land of the Red Dragon with visits and programs between people here and people in Wales. News of the happenings at the museum are printed in the Welsh Newsletter, Ninnau, that is read in both Wales and the United States.

"The museum is a living museum, a place where people can come and feel the very essence of our heritage: a heritage that links us with the land of Wales with every Welsh hymn we sing and every Welsh-oriented event we attend," says Mildred Bangert.

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Courtesy of the Welsh-American Heritage Museum, Oak Hill, OH

Mildred Bangert, Curator