Welsh Colony at Powell

The bronze's last words, now Presbyterian, record a merger rather than a change of heart. The colony's Calvinistic Methodists belonged to the Welsh church that joined the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in 1920, so the congregation that rebuilt after the 1911 tornado kept its faith and changed its name. Shanty Mawr is half English and half Welsh: mawr means big. The settlement was named for William E. Powell, called a railroad official by an 1894 Welsh-American magazine, and its post office closed in 1908.

What the plaque says

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, 1 1/2 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 CM 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 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. Erected 1966 by Descendants of the Pioneers and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

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