While the Richards family and those who came here to Tennessee to settle and make their home, in the years 1866-7, it may be of interest to note that this was not the first Welsh settlement -- and the reason for, or one of the reasons, for this coming was due in the main to descriptions given in The Drych (The Mirror), a Welsh paper published in Utica, N. Y., of the Welsh in Tennessee, especially in the counties now of Scott and Morgan, the Rev. Samuel Roberts of Llambermair, Wales, being the leader.  For a number of years there were several groups of men and women who left Wales, seeking homes elsewhere, and the Welsh papers of that day contained many interesting letters from the colonists.  Among these were letters from Roberts, who was one of our great preachers.  He was induced, with a number of his family and friends, through Governor Bebb of Ohio, to come to this country.  The governor was of Welsh parentage, and lived in a Welsh settlement in Ohio, and the boy, like some of the rest of us, heard so much of the beauties of Wales, that after he reached manhood and was a successful lawyer, having married a lady that held large possessions of lands in Tennessee, he made a trip to Wales and there met Mr. Roberts.

The description of the country where this boundary was situated, was so much like that of Wales, that Mr. Roberts was persuaded to come to this country to spy out, as it were, the Promised Land.  He come and was so much impressed, that he went back to Wales and shortly after he and a goodly number returned and began their life in the wilderness.  This settlement come here several years before the civil war.  Trouble arose as to the land titles and before this was finally disposed of, civil war broke out.  There were men coming from Kentucky to join the confederate army in the south and others from Tennessee going to join the army of the north, and as they passed along through this seemingly only spot where Provisions could be obtained, the colony suffered much, and for a number of years the question of reimbursing them for losses sustained was up before the U. S. department, but nothing came of it, except fees to lawyers, and upon the death of Roberts, after leaving this country, and that of Mr. Bebb, there was no effort to have others come to that section on the part of the Welsh settlers.  This settlement had its school, church and literary societies, and for a time they were happy and contented.

There were no railroads then, and they were as though in an isolated inland garden.  At one time, in or about the year 68-70, a number of the Roberts family went back to Wales, and the recollection of one of the young ladies, a daughter of one of the Roberts, who was for the first time looking at a locomotive, yet seemingly well acquainted with even the different parts, was an evidence that out there, beyond, as it were, the pale of civilization, even the girls were made acquainted and more familiar with the marchinery [sic] and the intricate parts of a locomotive than those living where these were a common sight.  One of the Roberts boys lived here in Knoxville for a while, and was professor in the state university.

While Mr. Bebb was in Knoxville, where court was held, trying to straighten out the question of land titles, he became acquainted with the officials of the then E. T. & G. and the E. T. & V. railroads, two separate companies.  These companies bought their iron from either Pittsburg [sic] or Richmond, and were desirious [sic] of having a rolling mill built in this section.  They spoke of the matter to Mr. Bebb and through him, a Mr. John H. Jones, a practical iron worker of Ohio, a Welshman, and a Mr. Griffiths, if I remember rightly, came in touch with the railroad officials, who made a proposition of this kind: "We will pay for the erection of the mill, the purchase of all things necessary, and will pay you a certain fixed salary for three years, after which the mill will be turned over to you, on condition that you furnish our roads with iron at Pittsburg or Richmond prices, plus freight to Bristol, the head of the road for the East Tennessee and Virginia railroad, or at Knoxville, for the East Tennessee and Georgia railroad.  The arrangement was agreed on, and Messrs. Jones and Griffith went in search of the plant.  This they found at Danville, Penn., the same mill that young Richards worked in.  This had been abandoned after new and better equipped mill had been installed.