Dr. John Morgan was Surgeon-in-Chief of the American army, and one of the founders of the Philadelphia Medical School, the first of the kind established in America, and the beginning of the great University. He came from a Welsh family.
Among the divines were Revs. David Jones, Samuel Davie, David Williams, Morgan Edwards, and others. Perhaps the most distinguished of these was Mr. Jones. His ancestors came from Wales, and settled on the "Welsh Tract" in Delaware county, Pa. He was on a mission among the Shawanese and Delaware Indians in 1772-73. In 1776 he was appointed chaplain to Colonel St. Clair's regiment, and was on duty at Ticonderoga when the enemy was momentarily expected from Crown Point. He delivered a characteristic discourse, which produced a powerful impression upon the troops. When with General Wayne, he saw an English dragoon alight and enter a house for refreshments. The chaplain went to the dragoon's horse, took the pistols from the holsters, went into the house, made him a prisoner, and marched him into camp: Wayne complimented him for his bravery. He was also with General Gates; also at the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth; with the army at Valley Forge, and in all subsequent campaigns to the surrender of Yorktown by Cornwallis. At the age of seventy-six he served as chaplain in the War of 1812. He died in February, 1820, aged eighty-four.
Rev. Samuel Davies became President of Princeton College. When Washington was colonel, and after Braddock's defeat, Mr. Davies, who was addressing the volunteer company, used this language in allusion to Washington: "I cannot but hope that Providence has hitherto preserved him in so signal a manner for some important service to his country."
General Washington's family associations were with the descendants of the Welsh. His wife, Martha, whom he called, familiarly "Patsy," was the grand-daughter of Rev. Orlando Jones, who came to Virginia from Wales. Colonel Fielding Lewis, of Welsh descent, married Washington's sister; and his son, George Washington Lewis, was commander of the general's life-guard.
Elihu Yale, the founder of Yale College, Jonathan Edwards, Daniel Webster, Charles Davies the mathematician, and a long array of brilliant men and women who have adorned every station in American society, were of Welsh origin or descent. Mr. Webster, however, was descended only from his mother's side.
Seven Presidents of the United States have descended from the Welsh race,—John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and William Henry Harrison.
Chief-Justice John Marshall, the first to expound the Constitution, was the grandson of a native of Wales; and, as if the office should continue in such a lineage, Chief-Justice Roger B. Taney was sprung from a family descended from the northern part of Wales.
William Penn, founder of the great State of Pennsylvania, Thomas Floyd, the first Governor of the colony, and Anthony Morris, the first mayor of the refined city of Philadelphia, were Welsh.
Oliver Evans, so famous for his inventions in high-pressure engines, by means of which all turbid streams could be successfully navigated, was born of a Welsh family near that city. It was found that the sediment of the water choked up or wore off the sliding-valves of the low-pressure engines. He was the third person who received a patent from the United States—Samuel Hopkins being the first—for his inventions, and concerning which President Jefferson remarked that they were "too valuable to be covered by a patent, for they were such things that the people could not do without, once they were known."