Contents

In 1855 Brigham Young wrote from Great Salt Lake City to Edmund Ellsworth, a son-in-law in England:

We are very ancios to have a company got up in England to cros the planes with hancarts. I due beleve that I could bring a company across, without a team and beet eny ox trane if I could be there myself. Would you like to try it?1

This was not Young's first mention of handcarts, but it was the first time the proposal would be acted upon. The handcart scheme was a "last resort," employed only when drought and other economic adversities had withered resources until the church could no longer afford to outfit the poor with Chicago wagons and ox teams.2 Yet mission leaders were writing home from Europe that twenty thousand converts "clamored" to come to Zion; officials could go nowhere without being teased by the poor to "let them come."3 So Brigham Young's letter to Edmund Ellsworth continued:

If we can have our emegration come to the eastern citys and the northan rout, it will be much relieve [to] our Brethrern from sickness and deth which I am very ancious to due. There is a raleway from New Yourk City to Iowa City and will cost onley about 8 dollars for the pasedge. Then take han[d]carts and there little luggedge with a fue good milk cowes and corn on till they are met with teams from this place, with provisions &c—

The handcart proposal was received by the European Saints with jubilation. Most LDS officials, too, responded enthusiastically and outdid themselves in accommodating those who wished to emigrate immediately. Not one but five companies, comprising nineteen hundred people, sailed from Liverpool through the winter and spring of 1855-56, all converging on Iowa City.

From Iowa City the 1856 immigration turned into the mixture of success and tragedy which has been fully documented by LeRoy and Ann Hafen, with the tragedy eloquently retold by Wallace Stegner.4 When all but the first company arrived in Iowa, little was ready for them. Though (as Franklin D. Richards, president of the European Mission, later swore) "hard thinking, hard working, and doing the best we could" went into the planning, deliberations had not ensured sufficient stockpiles of hardwood, iron, and canvas for carts and tents.5 From the Utah end, only one of the proposed supply stations had been established. In spite of this, three companies left Iowa in early June and arrived in Utah in less time and with casualties equal to or fewer than the typical wagon train. True, they were short of provisions all the way and would have suffered severely if supply trains had not reached them three hundred miles east of Salt Lake City. But immigrants and church leaders considered the experiment a success.

Error and misfortune dealt the two remaining handcart companies, the so-called Willie and Martin companies, "the worst disaster in the history of Western migration."6 Church historian Andrew Jenson concluded, "after the lapse of thirty-seven years, and weighing the matter calmly in well balanced minds," that no one was "specially to blame"; perhaps certain elders in England had responded "too kindly" to some Saints overanxious to reach the mountains.7 There had been difficulty procuring boats so that the largest company had not sailed until the end of May. Long waits in Iowa City and Florence, Nebraska, had been necessary as agents scrambled to outfit the unexpectedly large and late horde. From the start the Martin company had inherited a heavier share of infants, widows with large families, sick, and aged.8 When warned that it was too late to cross the Rockies that year, company leaders, encouraged by immigration officials, made a decision which in hindsight seems almost cavalier: They would start anyway, trusting a divine hand to temper the weather and other realities. Most of the immigrants were eager to go, although a few followed because there seemed little choice—otherwise they must winter in a territory hostile to Mormons, where jobs were scarce and survival depended upon homesteading skills they had not learned in the factories. Like generals planning a battle, knowing their attack might be stalled by an unreasonable storm but counting on normal weather, immigration leaders made the decision to go on.9

Even with good timing and luck, travel by handcart was a risk. Apostle John Taylor was skeptical from the beginning, and Mormon historian B. H. Roberts later described the whole idea as "possible but not feasible." The Willie and Martin companies soon found it impossible. Once on the trail, carts broke down, cattle stampeded, provisions ran out, and the most violent winter to hit the region in many years descended before they were out of the Black Hills—a month before usual snowfall. For once the tragedy could not be blamed on mobs. Given the weather, the causes lay in their own incaution and mismanagement, the responsibility for which lay equally with immigrants and mission leaders and, to a lesser degree, authorities in Utah. The tragedy is heightened by the fact that a decision that would have been applauded if the weather patterns had been normal came to be regarded as unthinking and callous, if well intended.

A lesser-known aspect of the handcart immigration, however, provides one of the most satisfying episodes in Mormon history. The rescue effort mounted by Brigham Young before anyone in Utah suspected the critical situation of the companies, the munificent response of communities throughout the territory, and the courage and endurance of the rescue parties make a heartening story. In many immigrant journals, memory of the rescue and the welcome in Salt Lake City dominates other experience; the drama and timeliness of the deliverance are dwelt on far more often than grief and disillusionment over the predicament. Those embittered were in the minority; and even these, decades later, wrote emotionally, gratefully, of the heroic men who saved them from starvation and death. The rescue is the subject of this essay.10

On 4 October 1856, the Willie Company, which had been short of teams when Franklin D. Richards camped with them in mid-August, was four days west of Fort Laramie, halfway to the "Upper Crossing" where they would leave the Platte River and strike overland to the Sweetwater. Each morning heavy frost made the walking unpleasant for those barefoot or in tattered shoes. Roads were deeply rutted from storms, putting even more strain on the frail carts. Members had just been assigned half rations and would soon have this amount halved again. Yet only a few in the camp realized how truly serious their condition was. The others, as sixteen-year-old Emma James later wrote, "could look toward the west and see the snow-capped mountains in the distance" and remain cheerful. They were still sturdy, though getting a little hungry.11

Captain Willie, Levi Savage, others of the sub-captains, and a few fathers had made calculations and knew that supplies were insufficient to take them to South Pass, the first place they could expect help from the Salt Lake valley. Savage noted matter-of-factly in his journal the weak state of the teams and how the old people were failing fast. Even if the weather continued mild in daytime, some of their people were in trouble; any more thunderstorms or, worse, any snow would have fearful results.12

The Martin company was eight days behind them, still forty miles east of the fort. At Laramie they too were put on rations of two cups of flour per adult per day, so some visited the fort to trade jewelry, utensils, and heirlooms for cornmeal, beans, and bacon. Up to now most had found the journey pleasant, even though they had disposed of bedding to lighten the cartloads and make room for foodstuffs. Beyond Fort Laramie things would get rough and then grim, but for now only those with experience crossing the Rockies knew enough to worry.13
_______________

NOTES.

1. Brigham Young to Edmund Ellsworth, 29 September 1855, Archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City (hereafter referred to as Church Archives). Ellsworth's given name is sometimes spelled Edmond. Original spellings and usages in this quotation have been retained; however, some quotations elsewhere have been altered, for the sake of clarity, to reflect modern spelling and usage.
2. For analysis of this critical period in the Utah economy, see Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), pp. 131-60.
3. See conference report of Franklin D. Richards delivered in the Bowery, Salt Lake City, 5 October 1856, as published in Brigham Young et al., Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (Liverpool: Latter-day Saints' Book Depot, 185 2-86), 4:114-19 (hereafter referred to as JD). The evening before this speech Richards had informed the First Presidency: "There were 20,000 over there that were panting to pull a hand cart." See Minutes of Special Meeting in the Historian's Office, 4 October 1856, General Minutes Collection, Church Archives.
4. LeRoy R. Hafen and Ann W. Hafen, Handcarts to Zion (Glendale, Calif.: Arthur H. Clark, 1960); and Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964). We have benefitted from edited transcripts of several journals and speeches included in the appendices to the Hafens' book, although all were checked against the original manuscripts.
5. JD, 4:117.
6. Hafen and Hafen, Handcarts, p. 140.
7. Andrew Jenson, "The Belated Emigration of 1856," The Contributor 14 (January 1893): 134.
8. In makeup the Willie and Martin companies resembled earlier trains: one-third of the members were children under thirteen, one-third women, one-quarter men, and one percent over sixty-five years. The Martin company was half again as large as other companies; half of its families were headed by widows (much more than half by the time they reached South Pass); and, while there were plenty of bachelors who might have shouldered the loads, many of these included, in Franklin D. Richards's description, "cripples, and old grey-headed men" (Historian's Office Minutes, 4 October 1856, Church Archives).
9. Stegner, The Gathering of Zion; and B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Century 1, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1930), 4:83-107. Both cite Chislett's reference to Levi Savage, sub-captain and one of the few dissenters in the decision to continue west that season. A lesser-known account of the "council meeting" in Florence at which the decision was made may be found in "Laletas [Laleta] Dixon's History of Her Ancestor, William James of Willey [Willie] Handcart Co., 1856," typescript, Church Archives. This history incorporates first-person reminiscences by Sarah, Emma, and Mary Ann James, who were eighteen, sixteen, and eleven years of age during the trek. Emma reports (p. 2) that as a result of this meeting, one hundred Saints "decided to winter over," but the majority "voted to go on."
10. Although there has been more than adequate treatment of the handcart experience as a whole, the only extensive attention given to the relief effort was in 1914 when a series of articles by Solomon F. Kimball entitled "Belated Emigrants of 1856" was published in volume 12 (nos. 1-4) of The Improvement Era. These were partly based on Andrew Jenson's 1893 series in The Contributor, cited earlier. Kimball had the great advantage of personal acquaintance with many of the rescue party "heroes." The Hafens devote twenty-three pages to the rescue, relying principally on the Grant party journal kept by Robert T. Burton, as copied into the Journal History of the Church, Church Archives, under the date 30 November 1856. (The Journal History of the Church is hereafter referred to as JH, Church Archives.) See also John Chislett's account published in T. B. H. Stenhouse, The Rocky Mountain Saints (New York: D. Appleton, 1872), pp. 312-32; and the writings of Daniel W. Jones and Ephraim K. Hanks, cited below.
11. "Laleta Dixon's History," Church Archives, p. 4.
12. Levi Savage, Jr., Journal, entries for 8 - 18 October 1856, typescript, Church Archives.
13. Short histories of Mary Taylor, John Jaques, Josephine Zundle, and others, all members of the Martin company, may be read in Kate B. Carter, comp., Treasures of Pioneer History, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1952-57), 5:229- 96. See also the Journal of Thomas Durham, typescript, Church Archives.

* * * * *

	Mouth of Echo Canyon. Photograph courtesy of Church Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

THE DELAYED BACKUP TEAMS

The cause for delay of the relief teams did not lie with the authorities in Utah. The rescue operation as dictated by them was elaborate and constantly updated. Before Willie's company came in, Brigham Young had received sketchy reports of their condition. On 2 November, Young told an audience in the Tabernacle:

We can return home and sit down and warm our feet before the fire, and can eat our bread and butter, etc., but my mind is yonder in the snow, where those immigrating Saints are, and my mind has been with them ever since I had the report of their start from Winter Quarters on the 3rd of September. 1 cannot talk about anything, I cannot go Out or come in, but what in every minute or two minutes my mind reverts to them; and the questions—whereabouts are my brethren and sisters who are on the plains, and what is their condition, force themselves upon me and annoy my feelings all the time.104

The handcart companies had been the topic at each Sunday meeting, and each Sunday names of volunteers had been taken and the following day teams sent east to buttress Grant's party. At one point Brigham Young himself proposed to go out or to at least "make a short visit to Fort Supply and Fort Bridger." On 13 October, in company with eight men, Young and Heber C. Kimball, with their wives Emmeline F. Young and Mary Helen Kimball, had actually left the city fully intending to meet the immigrants on the road. But two days later a doctor was dispatched to bring in the ailing Brigham Young. All but two of the president's party returned, the two presumably having gone on to Fort Supply for news of the immigrant companies' plight.105

It is apparent from the fact that Young and Kimball took their wives that in early October they had had little notion of the difficulties that lay ahead for the handcart companies. But all through the month of October partial appraisals had been received. On the road east Captain Grant's party had encountered a number of immigrant and merchant trains heading for the valley. Through the Texas company, which descended Emigration Canyon on 11 October, Brigham Young had learned the progress of the relief party over Big and Little mountains. On 24 October, Dimick Huntington, a scout, had brought further news about Grant and a report that Smoot's church train had been seen on the Green River. The next day a partner in the firm of Livingston and Kinkead had arrived in town with his merchant train and word from Charles Decker, Grant's chief guide: "The snow was lying deep and there was no feed for the horses and [he] requested that Bro Feramorz Little would send some grain."106

Although these reports were infrequent, they had been regular enough to help Young gradually surmise the straits of the companies and forward available relief. Church units in the immediate vicinity of Salt Lake City had been called upon in September—the militia to send men; bishops to send teams, feed, and foodstuffs; ward Relief Societies to send bedding, clothing, and medicines. By October outlying settlements—Tooele, Weber, Centerville, Union, Provo—had become the donors. In November and December, as the immigrants arrived and as they recovered, it would become the turn of the far northern and southern settlements to help find them housing and work.

It was 31 October before G. H. Gibbs had "come up" ahead of the Willie company with the first solid information about that company to be received in Salt Lake City. All that morning "Presidents Young and Grant were counselling about the matter."107 One result was that during the next several days men such as Bishop Silas Richards of Union had been asked to send more teams east.108 About this time Goudy Hogan and Franklin Standley, with others from northern settlements, were called "to go out with 4 horses to each wagon to haul provisions to the handcart people." They had been told that it would take ten days but once on the trail they were shuffled east to help Martin's company so that it was forty days before they returned.109 Several weeks later Asa Hawley and others of the Utah County militia had been sent out."110

These were the later teams for whom Captain Grant had waited in exasperation. There was nothing cowardly about them, whatever Grant's men might think. First, without hard facts as to where they were going and what was needed, it was difficult to know how much to risk. Second, the roads in places were nearly impassable by late October, whereas for Grant's party the roads had been quite reliable. These later rescuers were in as much danger of frozen limbs and starvation if they pushed too far too fast as were the immigrants. Crossing Big Mountain, Asa Hawley and others had encountered snow "up to the tops of our wagon bows." It reminded him of Bonaparte crossing the Alps. "We ploughed our way through and went on." Some of his companions had their feet badly frozen and had to be left on the Weber, Bear, and Yellow rivers to recuperate. But on the way back, wrote Hawley, these boys made it all up—they were fresh and strong and "took hold with a will, which relieved us very much."

The hardier teams had reached Fort Bridger. There they congregated with other wagons originally sent out to help Willie but who had been commandeered into heading east toward Martin's camp. At Fort Bridger there had been no word on what to do next. C. N. Spencer and John Van Cott continued one day beyond the fort but did not venture a crossing of the Sweetwater, concluding that the Martin company must have either wintered or perished along with Captain Grant's relief teams. They were the ones who had started back toward the valley, causing "all the teams which had gone on the road to help them[,] in all 77 teams which had arrived at Bridger," to return with them.111

Fortunately someone at the fort had thought to send a courier to apprise Brigham Young of the relief teams' return. This courier reached the valley 11 November—two days after the Willie company. According to Hosea Stout,

[T]his news was very unexpected. . . . Immediately upon receiving the news the president sent W. H. Kimball, Joseph Simmons James Furgerson & myself as an express to go and turn the teams East again and for us to find where the Hand cart company was.

William Kimball had been in Salt Lake City but one full day. Yet he and Stout left at sunset and traveled five miles before camping for the night. They found Van Cott the next morning just over Big Mountain; Spencer had already "gone home in the night." Stout continued:

Van Cott justified himself for returning and abandoning the Hand Cart Company as he could get no information of them and had concluded they had returned to the states, or Stopt at Larimie, been killed by the Indians or other wise gone to the devil and for him to have gone further was only to loose his team and starve to death himself & do no good after all and as for G. D. Grant and those with him who had gone to meet them they had probably stoped at Ft. Larimie. So on these vague conclusions he had not only turned back but had caused all the rest of the teams to return and thus leave the poor suffering Hand carters to their fate.112

Such self-consideration was not acceptable in pioneer Mormon society. William Kimball "repremanded him severely" before presenting Van Cott with a letter from President Brigham Young, whereupon Van Cott turned his wagons right around and started east again. No doubt Spencer, when caught up with by Brigham Young, got a similar tongue-lashing.

Precious days, perhaps weeks, had been lost. Apparently Stout, Kimball, Van Cott, and the teams they met traveled night and day, for they arrived at Fort Bridger at noon on 15 November, after only three and a half days' backtracking. On the Weber they had encountered Young and Garr and now knew that the handcart company was encamped at Devil's Gate. A beef was killed at the fort to be sent by quick, light mule team to the immigrants. During the next two days they overtook ox teams which had already been redirected by Young and Garr. Some they advised to camp so as to be rested when the immigrant company was brought through. Others joined their caravan.

On the sixteenth Stout's party "camped at Big Sandy with several teams from Centerville and a large number of oxen from Fort Supply, all who were hurrying on to meet & relieve the H. Carts." They found a load of provisions strongly guarded on the Little Sandy and another team at Pacific Creek near South Pass. "Our train now began to look quite large," reported Stout, "being some 30 wagons.113

At last, on 18 November, Stout's men met an advance team from Grant's company "at the Station on the Sweat Water," who informed them that the immigrants would arrive there during the night.

Several teams were dispatched to meet them and help them in. Soon they began to come in, some in wagons, some on horses, some on foot, while some hed to be lead or carried on the backs of men."114

Rescuers and immigrants alike were "filled with delight" to meet Kimball and Stout. This new relief came just in time for those on foot who could not have endured the next day's ordeal of scaling Rocky Ridge. Now there were enough wagons for all the people to ride, though a durable few elected to walk, saying they kept warmer that way. Hosea Stout gives a latecomer's picture of the Martin company in camp the night after crossing South Pass.

Some were merry and cheerfull some dull and stupid some sick some frosted & some lazy and mean but all seemed to be elated more or less with the idea of speedily arriving in the Valley."115

Stout's party, buttressed by four-horse teams sent out after his departure from the valley, gave the relief effort all the labor necessary to speed the immigrants in. The Martin company now traveled twenty-five to thirty miles a day. Light ambulance wagons, with the freshest men and teams, hurried ahead of the train carrying critically ill patients, mostly small children. Of the remainder of the company, two or three more died each day while the survivors, except for a sturdy few, could no longer act for themselves. The rescuers thus became orderlies, with a hospital-like routine. Asa Hawley wrote:

We had given up our wagons to them [the immigrants]. After arranging their beds as well as we could when bedtime had come, we would carry them to our wagons. After seeing them to bed, we would close the wagon covers thus shutting out all the cold possible. Thus we would leave them for the night. Then shoveling away the snow we would lay our scanty blankets down for a little rest, then up in the morning a long time before daylight we would build a big fire and prepare breakfast. When all was about ready we would arouse our passengers, again repeating that which we had done the day before. When we were all seated we would again pass them their food. Breakfast over, all was now a hurry and bustle to be off. . . . We again loaded them into our wagons and traveled on. This was repeated night and morning all the way.116

A letter written by Joseph Simmons, one of Stout's party, portrays the handcart company in camp on one evening:

Handcart Company Camp
on Muddy 12 miles from Bridger
Nov 24th 1856

Bro Horace [K. Whitney]
As some of our Company start for the City tomorrow morning I improve the opportunity by writing you a few scrawls. I am sitting not on the stile Mary [type of desk?] but on a sack of oats with the paper on my knee, by the side of a blazing camp fire, surrounded by some eight hundred persons. One old lady lay dead within twenty feet of me, babies crying, some singing, some praying, &c, &c, but among all this I feel to rejoice for the hand of the Lord has been continually with us. Almost every day angry storms arise very threatning and judging from their appearance one would think that we should be unable to withstand the tempest, but the prayers of the holy men of God are heard. The clouds divide to the right and left, letting the saints pass through in safty. The suffering of the camp from frozen feet and various other causes I will not attempt to describe. Suffice to say bad, bad, bad. The boys, including your humble servant, are all enjoying the blessing of health, lonely in their feelings, and doing all in their power to make the saints comfortable. We have some seventy waggons, divided into six divisions one captain appointed over each, but all make one camp at night. We intend reaching the valley next Saturday [29 November], but this calculation is founded upon the faith of our heavenly Father being continually with us, staying the storms as in the past, for without the help of high heaven, we should have been snow bound in the mountains long ago. . . . Bro Burton is writing to Bro Brigham and will probably present more fully the situation of the camp. At all events this is all you will get from me this time. Give my love to everybody.

May our heavenly Father bless Bros Brigham, Heber, Jedediah all the saints throughout the world & all honest hearted people.

Your devoted friend J M Simmons

[In margin:] John Whitney says he is all right except frosted toes.117

Captain Grant now felt free to leave the entire operation in charge of Robert Burton and, with Stout and three others, head "quite briskly" toward the valley to give a final report to President Young. He knew the immigrant companies were not yet out of danger, for he himself "could scarsely stand alone or keep awake" by the time he reached Fort Bridger. At Bear River he encountered a severe snowstorm and "the coldest and most piercing weather we have had during our journey." His purpose was to report the condition of the three needy companies and get the president's concurrence on the decision to bring in the people but to cache the luggage at Devil's Gate. He also wanted extra teams to tamp the trail ahead of the immigrants.118

But President Young was a step ahead of him. By the time Grant reached Big Mountain he found Joseph Young, Brigham Young, Jr., Feramorz Little, and others with ox teams already breaking the road through waist-deep snow. After a conference between Grant and the First Presidency, more teams were sent to Echo Canyon and Bear River. Also, wrote the church clerk, couriers "started for Bridger this morning to instruct the Ox Trains company to remain at Fort Supply & Bridger during the winter.119 In this way the "church herd" (consisting, complained Harvey Cluff, mostly of privately owned Texas cattle which he was "called" to tend without recompense) would survive until spring.

By 28 November the first of the Martin company were crossing Big Mountain. For a week the weather had held, but now there were four feet of fresh snow with twenty-foot drifts on the north side of the summit. With help from the tamping teams, by stomping main and side tracks and shoveling through the drifts, Burton's men brought the wagons over. A camp was made in East Canyon, to which men from the valley began to filter. Some of these hurried back to advise Brigham Young of the company's progress. By the time the immigrants camped at the head of Emigration Canyon the following evening, fresh supplies were waiting for them. At noon on Sunday, 30 November, as a congregation exited after services, 104 wagons carrying the Martin company members rolled past the old Tabernacle and halted before the tithing offices where the former Hotel Utah now stands.120 On 7, 10, and 15 December, some fifty more wagons, carrying 360 members of the independent wagon trains who had rested at Fort Bridger for a time, reached the city. Of these, however, "only a few were suffering from the cold, and their condition far preferable to the last [handcart] companies.121
_______________

NOTES.

103. Burton Journal, JH, Church Archives, 12 November 1856.
104. Brigham Young speech of 4 November 1856, recorded in Deseret News, 12 November 1856.
105. Brigham Young Office Journals, 1852-57, Church Archives, 4-17 October 1856.
106. Ibid., 18-31 October 1856.
107. Ibid., 31 October 1856.
108. Autobiography of Silas Richards, in Carter, Our Pioneer Heritage, 15:109-17.
109. Diary of Goody Hogan, holograph in Joel E. Ricks Collection, Utah State University Library, Logan, Utah.
110. "Autobiography of Asa Hawley," Church Archives, p. 6.
111. Brooks, Diary of Hosea Stout, 2:605, 11 November 1856.
112. Ibid., pp. 605-6, 12 November 1856.
113. Ibid., p. 606, 17 November 1856.
114. Ibid., 18 November 1856.
115. Ibid., p. 607, 19 November 1856.
116. "Autobiography of Asa Hawley," Church Archives, p. 6.
117. Photocopy of handwritten letter in Joseph Simmons Willes, "A Brief Biography of Joseph Marcellus Simmons," typescript, with photographs, 31 pp., Church Archives. At the time, Joseph Simmons, son-in-law of Brigham Young's business manager, was twenty-two years of age. His first child was born in Salt Lake City while he was on the rescue mission. See Carter, Heart Throbs, 11:168.
118. Brooks, Diary of Hosea Stout, 2:607, 20-25 November 1856.
119. Brigham Young Office Journal, Church Archives, 25 November 1856.
120. Burton Journal, JH, Church Archives, 30 November 1856; Bell, Writings of John Jaques, pp. 166-71; "Autobiography of Asa Hawley," Church Archives, p. 6; and Brooks, Diary of Hosea Stout, 2:608, 30 November 1856.
121. Brigham Young Office Journal, Church Archives, 15 December 1856.