In 1757, Reverend Goronwy Owen, an Anglican vicar born at Y Dafarn Goch, in the parish of Llanfair Mathafarn Eithaf in Anglesey and the poet most responsible for the subsequent Welsh eighteenth-century renaissance,See, for instance: Prys Morgan, The Eighteenth Century Renaissance (Christopher Davies, Swansea, 1981). emigrated to Williamsburg, in the Colony of Virginia. Until his death on his cotton and tobacco plantation near Lawrenceville, Virginia in 1769, Owen was mostly noted as an émigré bard, writing with hiraeth ('longing') for his native Anglesey. During the subsequent revival of the eisteddfod, the Gwyneddigion Society held up the poetry of Owen as an example for bards at future eisteddfodau to emulate.
