“Welsh Colony At Powell”

On March 22, 1883, the 300 members of a Welsh Colony arrived by train at Aberdeen, South Dakota. Thirty families led by William E. Powell arrived here on the 29th and built the ‘Big Shanty or Shanty Mawr’ on the Hugh Griffith claim on Section 9, 1½ miles north where they all lived until moving on their own homesteads and their families arrived from North and South Wales.

The ‘Big Shanty’ was moved here and a post office with Morris Jones as Postmaster set up July 7, 1883. A general store, J.T. Llewellyn, proprietor; a blacksmith shop, Morgans ‘a Go’; Central School, John A. Williams, teacher and a Calvinistic Methodist Church, Rev. John W. Morgan, pastor; a Congregational Church, Rev. J.T. Lewis, Pastor, were organized and built. All

but the general store and the C.M. Church were disbanded because of death, discouragement and hardship and only the hardiest farmers remained.

The Methodist Church was destroyed, the store badly damaged and four farmsteads wiped out by a tornado June 2, 1911.

Determination of the new generation to continue to worship in faith resulted in the immediate rebuilding of the church which was dedicated on its present site on Thanksgiving Day, 1911. On June 8, 1958, to commemorate the faith and loyalty of those hardy Welsh Pioneers, the 75th Anniversary of the establishment of their trustful faith was celebrated by the congregation of the remaining church, now Presbyterian.

Edmunds County, SD 45 -10 miles south of Ipswich (2006)