Christmas Eve with Christmas Evans

A road trip east into Monroe County seems in order this morning --- to spend a few minutes on Christmas Eve with Christmas Evans. 

Christmas is an old friend. I've stood by the tombstone he shares with his wife, Emily, a number of times while visiting my kinfolk at Pleasant Corners Cemetery, located in Pleasant Township a couple of miles southwest of Eddyville.

Two sets of my great-great-great-grandparents --- William and Miriam (Trescott) Miller and Joseph and Mary (Young) McMulin --- are buried nearby. They were among Monroe County's first settlers during May of 1843. By comparison, the Evans arrived late --- after 1885.

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It was almost inevitable that any male with the surname Evans born on Christmas day into a Welsh Nonconformist family during the 19th Century would be saddled with the given name, Christmas. 

Not only did the name celebrate a birthday, but it also recognized the family's spiritual link to the first Christmas Evans (1766-1838), the greatest Nonconformist preacher, a Baptist, that Wales has produced.

I found 26 Christmas Evans --- and most likely there are many times that number --- when consulting Find A Grave in search of the tombstone photograph above. Most are buried in Wales, several in the United States, others in Australia.

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Our Christmas was born Dec. 25, 1827, at Tredegar, Monmouthshire, into the coal mining family of John and Mary Ann (Davies) Evans.  He married Emily Edwards during January of 1850 in Abergavenny and continued to work in the mines of his native land.

During 1863, at the height of the U.S. Civil War, Christmas decided to seek his fortune in America, sailing from Liverpool aboard the ship John Bright and landing in New York on April 13 of that year.

According to family lore recorded by his son, Thomas Lincoln Evans (1865-1954), Christmas and other Welsh miners were headed west down the Ohio River in search of work when they became entangled in the war during an encounter with Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan's raiders, who invaded Ohio during July of 1863. Here's how T.L. Evans told the story:

"When General Morgan made his famous raid through southern Ohio, he captured Christmas Evans, who proved somewhat of a burden on the hands of the raiders, since he could not understand their language and none of the captors understood his. Finally they ran across a Welshman who was able to interpret for him the words 'to go and to keep on going,' and with that invitation he left his captors after they had taken him over into West Virginia." (Harlan, Edgar R., "Narrative History of the People of Iowa," Chicago & New York: The American Historical Society, Inc., 1931, Vol 3, pp. 285-6)

Christmas found work in the mines at Pomeroy, Ohio, and sent for Emily and their boys --- Williams, John Z. and Enoch H --- who arrived safely during 1864.

After the war, the family moved west to Beacon, just southwest of Oskaloosa in Mahaska County, where other members of the extended Evans family had settled, and went to work in the mines there.

Christmas continued to work in the mines at Beacon through 1885, but some of his sons --- most notably John Z., who founded the Smokey Hollow Mining Co. --- moved south to Avery in Monroe County and after that Monroe County became the family's base.

Eventually, when Christmas could no longer work in the Beacon mines, he and Emily moved to Avery to live near John Z. and other children.

Christmas was 72 when he died at home in Avery on Feb. 6, 1895, and Albia's Friday Union, which noted his passing briefly in its edition of Feb. 8, characterized him as "a most excellent citizen, a man of probity and earnest convictions who wielded a great influence among his neighbors."

Emily followed her husband to the grave on June 6, 1910. Their children ensured that a fine tombstone was erected to mark their final resting place.

So Merry Christmas, Christmas, now "at rest," and everyone else out there, too!