Howells, William - Letter to Orson Pratt - 11 Aug 1849

Aberdare, August, 11, 1849.

Dear Brother,--Yesterday afternoon the doleful news of an explosion of foul air in a Coal-pit in this parish, created a great sensation, and threw a general gloom over the whole neighbourhood.

Knowing that there were a great number of the brothers and their families living in the place called, Cwenbach, where the explosion took place--fearing also that many were working in the said pit, I went down with some of my brother officers, and in the midst of the slaughter, we found that the only Saint that worked in the pit escaped without losing a hair off his head, although there were fifty-five corpses surrounding him, and I am sorry to say, to a man, sad persecutors of the Latter-day Saints. The lamentations of the widows and orphans was heart-breaking indeed.

Yours, &c.,

Wm. HOWELLS.