The chapel & Graveyard

the origins of penuel chapel

Penuel Chapel can trace its origins to 1757, when linen-draper and part time preacher Stephen Davies founded the first chapel on the opposite side of the road to Penuel’s current location. Situated in Old Chapel Yard, the congregation was granted formal incorporation by the Baptist Association in 1778, with Davies as their pastor. Over the next several years, monies were raised for the purchasing – and building – of a new chapel, which allowed for the present day site to be purchased in 1786.

The building was extended in 1797, before being rebuilt in 1817 and again 1851-2. The Chapel was substantially renovated 1909-10, with much of its interior today – including the organ and exceptional Canadian redwood – dating to that period.

stephen davies and the legacy of RELIGIOUS persecution in carmarthen

By the mid-18th century, the town of Carmarthen had a long-established reputation for the persecution of religious nonconformists. Under the reign of the notorious ‘Bloody’ Queen Mary I, on 30th March 1555, Protestant martyr and bishop Robert Ferrar was burnt at the stake in Carmarthen market square (Nott Square), with those of Nonconformist faiths – including Baptists – continuing to be driven from the town over the next two centuries. As a result of this persecution, the Baptists appear to have died out in the town for a time.

When Stephen Davies rented a dwelling house in Priory Street in 1757, he was moving to a town that still harboured religious hostility. For example, Rev. Thomas Evans, a Unitarian minister who was a very zealous advocate of civil and religious liberty, was imprisoned in 1776 at Carmarthen for two years, and was twice in the pillory. In this way, over the course of Stephen Davies preaching career he is known to have got into several personal clashes with others, both inside and outside of the Baptist community. By the time of this death in 1794, he had even been dismissed by his congregation at Penuel. In spite of this, another pastor who knew Davies at the time wrote that Stephen was a good man – he simply could not tolerate opposition. He is also described by the pastor Daniel Davies (1756-1837) as being ‘a public figure of consequential appearance and aristocratic manners’ who was ‘strongly built’ and ‘dressed well, with powdered wig’.

Today, Stephen Davies is remembered as the man who revived the defunct Baptist church in Carmarthen.

under ‘the face of god’: birth to death

Established as a place where one could ‘withdraw from the activity of the world and come into intimate communion with God’, the Chapel took the name ‘Penuel’, meaning ‘Face of God’. And certainly, over the course of its life as an active place of worship, Penuel has overseen the rites of passages of many – from baptisms, to marriages, to funerals.

THE GRAVEYARD AT PENUEL CHAPEL, CARMARTHEN

The Chapel’s graveyard still contains the archaic bones of its early congregation, with the newest headstone being over 100 years old. Sadly, due to the neglect of the Chapel’s previous owners, many of the headstones have been cut from the ground and moved from their original positions. It is the museum’s intention to restore peace and dignity to Penuel’s 19th century graveyard, with much work already having been done by the Rowtons’ and generous friends of the museum to clear away decades’ worth of bramble overgrowth and rubbish, and reposition the discarded headstones.

In addition to the numerous 19th century burial plots in the graveyard, there are even earlier graves to be found below the Chapel’s floor (which comprised part of the graveyard prior to Penuel’s 1850s’ expansion). Signalled by two large plaques on the Chapel’s wall, the earliest known death dates to 1799. Most of the marked graves belong to young girls from the same family.

schoolroom and increased community PRESENCE

The building at the rear of the museum is Penuel’s Schoolroom, built in 1886 for £1,200 by one of Wales’ most celebrated architects, George Morgan of Carmarthen. With the addition of this glorious, Romanesque arch-windowed giant, Penuel Chapel was able to increase its community presence. There exist abundant 19th century newspaper articles which attest to the Schoolroom’s importance as a meeting place for various guilds and groups, including the local Young People’s Guild, the Carmarthen Temperance Society, and the Liberal Association. In January 1896, it is even known to have hosted a well-attended, two-hour lecture on ‘The Science of Phrenology’! According to an article published by The Carmarthen Weekly Reporter, ‘the subject was treated in a scholarly manner’, with lecturer Professor Williams keeping the ‘large audience […] quite under his influence’.

faith healing, ‘manifestations’ and ‘baptisms of power’ at penuel chapel

Originally from Monmouthshire, Reverend William Samuel Jones (1863-1933) moved to the United States in 1892. There, he spent time preaching in the Hyde Park district of Scranton, Pennsylvania, before ultimately returning to Wales and Carmarthen’s Penuel Chapel.

Described from a young age as a preacher of great and brilliant ability, Jones was known for receiving ‘a baptism of power’ shortly before leaving the USA to minister at Penuel. He arrived in 1897. By 1900, he had experienced a second ‘baptism of power’. Transformed by these two profound encounters with God, Jones is said to have earned a ‘deep understanding of the holiness of God’, the ‘fire’ of whom had ‘penetrated his whole nature.’

This was the Baptism of Fire and the people who I have read about who experienced this went from being an ordinary preacher to an extraordinary one and one having a passion to save souls.

Michael Marcel of ukwells.org

The concept of a ‘baptism of power’ can be said to align with the beliefs of the Keswick movement (also called the Higher Life movement), whose theology teaches that life consists of two primary crises or major turning points. Here, the ‘second blessing’ is also called ‘entire sanctification’, and relates to an encounter with Spirit which allows for a deeper understanding of God. Interestingly, W.S. Jones went on to attend the first Keswick Convention in Wales in August 1903, where the teaching was about the need for a second baptism, sanctification, and holiness.

In the aftermath of these life-changing experiences, Rev. W.S. Jones is also claimed to have received ‘divine healing’ for a medical condition. Such healing allowed him to continue his work, establishing prayer circles and becoming known as the ‘Carmarthen trinity’ along with Calvinistic Methodist minister W.W. Lewis and Congregational minister and Professor of Philosophy Keri Evans. He was installed at Penuel Chapel from May 1897 to March 1904.

‘Suddenly there came to me an indelible consciousness of the amazing holiness of God. Like a purifying fire – like a fiery river flowing out of the throne – and I in the midst as if reclining on it. I do not know whether it were in the body or out of it but the fire percolated through my whole nature. I remember the thought which gripped me – ‘the Holiness of God, and I still alive in the midst of the stream. I cannot die here.’ When I recovered consciousness of my earthly surroundings I was amazed to find that the pain which for years I had been enduring had vanished. `That night I slept like a healthy little child. Here was my first experience of divine healing and I knew of no other who had experienced it nor did I know any writings. All I know is that Jesus taught ‘Ask and it shall be given.‘

W.S. Jones’ diary, March 1900, describing his ‘divine healing’

A tentative supporter of the power of the ‘triune’ triple immersion baptism, Rev. W.S. Jones officiated at his first baptism at Penuel Chapel on Sunday 13th June 1897. According to a contemporary newspaper report, ‘Twelve candidates were immersed at Penuel in the presence of an unusually large congregation.’

Today, W.S. Jones is considered to be an crucial early figure in Welsh Revivalism (1904-5), a movement synonymous with supernatural phenomena including visions, manifestations, and faith healing miracles. Indeed, according to an article published in The South Wales Daily News on 13th December 1904, such ‘manifestations’ were known to have been experienced in Carmarthenshire during the tenure of Rev. Jones. By the time of Jones’ movement from Carmarthen, worshippers at Penuel were strong advocates of faith healing, with one newspaper reporting how it was ‘common knowledge that they regarded medicine and surgery with contempt’ because of the plethora of miracles they had experienced at the Chapel.

PENUEL IS ‘A PLACE WHERE THE KINGDOM OF GOD HAS COME ON EARTH’

A consequence of Penuel’s spiritual activity is that it is still today regarded by many as a ‘spiritual well’, defined by preacher Michael Marcel of Wells UK as an important Christian heritage site ‘where the Kingdom of God has come on earth’. Penuel Chapel is the only such well in Carmarthen.

fleeing to america to escape religious persecution

After becoming increasingly disenchanted with anti-liberalism in politics and religion in Britain, Rhys founded a Welsh Emigration Society and resolved to emigrate to America.

Sensationally, it is said that Rhys ‘left [Britain] very suddenly for America’ in August 1794, after ‘efforts were made all over the Kingdom to get rid of prominent Radicals.’ Rhys was exactly that and so, according to a historical overview provided by a 1915 article in The Carmarthen Weekly Reporter, he was ‘tracked down by Bow St. runners and just managed to escape to Liverpool and get away to America.’

“In the year 1794 a Mr. Reed kept a hotel [in Carmarthen] on the grounds where the Town Hall now stands. Morgan Rhys and his friends used to meet in a private room at this hotel. One night, about the close of July in the year stated, a stranger came suddenly in and asked for lodging there. After having had it, and been seated, he asked Mr. Reed if he knew a person in town by the name of Morgan Rhys. He received an affirmative answer, with the additional remark that Mr Rhys was a very good and a very respectable man. Then the stranger gave a hint that he had been sent from London, and that he had a warrant to arrest Morgan Rhys and to take him to the Capital [London]. Mr. Reed promised to take the bailiff to the house of Mr. Rhys the next morning. Mr Rhys happened to be in the hotel at that time, but in another room. Mr. Reed went to him and told him all, and also told him to flee at once without any delay. […] He fled, walking to Lampeter, and from thence to Newtown where he took a conveyance for Liverpool. After he had reached that place he made arrangements to sail for America, August 1st.”

Rev. Joshua Watkins, Penuel Chapel (ordained 28th March 1796)

Once in America, Rhys purchased a large tract of land in the Allegheny mountains of Pennsylvania, founding it as a Welsh colony called Cambria. He is also credited as being the first European to cross the continent.