Their eldest son Evan (1848-72) died aged 24, their youngest Elizabeth aged 23, and a daughter Deborah (1857) at just five months, her name passed on to the next daughter. Our usual method of gathering in pumpkins was to force as many on a stick as one boy could carry on his shoulder and carry them home that way.

Born in South Wales in 1822 to John Phillips (known as Shon o’r Lan, a well-known Ivorite) and Deborah Thomas, Abraham was six years old when his family left rural Wales and moved to the rapidly industrialising valleys.Clara says I am wrong, but my memory was that Abraham's wife died either on the first trip they made, or else it was on this second trip.

The well respected Overman, Abraham Phillips, is faced with a dilemma: it is nearly Christmas; the pit is in danger of closure if coal doesn’t come up. About the first of July, school commenced, and our books consisted of a blue-backed speller, some fool's cap writing paper and a bottle of poke berry ink. To cut short a very long story, we found the pit, a drift mine cut into the Garth mountain, hidden in brambles in a local woodland. A Mary Adams lived at first with Abraham's family and then took out her own land later, a mile south-east of his. Abraham Phillips has come down in history as a controversial figure after facing an impossible situation at the Lan.The dates listed below have different categories as denoted by the letters in the brackets following each date. Susannah (1849-1885) stayed in Gwaelod-y-Garth, marrying a miner in 1871 and taking in Elizabeth when Abraham’s death led to the break up of the family.

We have no family records from this time period, but we do know the trip was a difficult one with rivers to cross and hills to climb.All that was left was the large flat rock used for the front door step and a pile of rocks of what remained of the fireplace. Even the red man, who despised the white intruder, was obliged to respect his adaptability to the wilderness. Then with a span of horses or a yoke of cattle hitched to a good sized ground slide with a box rudely constructed of clap-boards, we drove into the field to gather corn and haul to the crib or rail pen and throw down in a heap, ready for husking. The Captains were selected, the heap was divided and the captains took their respective positions with their men to the right or left, as the case may be. The Dallas County, Missouri Story" states: they traveled on Indian and buffalo trails, crossed the many streams by fording or by crude rafts they made by felling trees and lashing them together to cross the larger rivers including the wide Mississippi.