Cholera Cemetery above Tredegar, Wales

Copyright Robin Drayton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

This is one of the bleakest, saddest places on earth up above Tredegar, Wales on Rhymney Hill. The cholera victims were buried up there because, well, cholera. While the story I am writing is not intended to be illustrated, this place makes an appearance.

We don't see much cholera today because of clean and safe drinking water and sewage systems generally through people united in governmental activity. During the Capitalist exploitation of the Industrial Revolution in Wales, there was no economic incentive to provide sanitary or sewers or clean drinking water. It was illegal for the workers to organize. The towns were controlled by the same wealthy men who controlled the pits and furnaces. When cholera struck, the masters left for houses deep in the country. If workers died, more were readily available from the poor of Ireland and elsewhere.

On a brighter note, I found some information to have a new hero. I've already written about his parents. I don't think he'll make it into my story. He clearly knew our Vaughans in Llanfoist.

James Davies was born 26 May 1826 Llanfoist, Monmouthshire, Wales son of James Davies and Elizabeth Sykes. He had come to Nauvoo, Illinois with his parents in 1843 and joined the Mormon battalion in 1846, marched to Santa Fe and then with the sick detachment to Pueblo. He arrived in Salt Lake City 29 July 1847. Their home was located on 400 West and between 3rd and 4th North.

And the Davies Family would have known my Joseph Ridges Family right around the corner in Salt Lake.