As an active Mormon, I am accustomed to the romantic tales I hear in church of the wonderful “faith-inspiring” teams of pioneers who traveled to the Salt Lake valley with all their possessions in a handcart, presumably whistling as they trudged along.
Every year many faithful Latter-day Saints take pilgrimages as “handcart” pioneers, trudging along trails. We sometimes see pictures in the media of the happy, 21st century re-creators of the pioneer treks. I imagine a few may recount their experiences in Sacrament meeting. Here’s a link to a re-enactment
It’s a pleasant modern-day fantasy, but if someone wanted to accurately recreate a handcart trek, they would need to do it half-starved, with bloody feet and blistered hands, with few supplies and noisy handcarts prone to breaking. And if winter crept up, the re-creators would have to stop every so often to bury children and other pioneers killed by disease and the elements.
The hard fact is, the LDS handcart experiment was a disaster. Any money saved did not come close to to suffering endured by new Latter-day Saints who had to trek across a country carrying heavier loads than any rickshaw carrier was forced to endure. In fact, the fourth and fifth handcart groups, the Willie and Martin teams of 1856, were so badly mismanaged that at least a quarter (250-plus) of the handcart pioneers perished on the trail.
Historian Will Bagley recounts the LDS handcart fiasco in the Winter 2009 edition of the Journal of Mormon History. It is must reading for LDS history enthusiasts. The genesis for the handcart idea was money. The Perpetual Immigration Fund was badly in debt and early church leaders wanted to cut costs. Leaders rationalized that new Latter-day Saints would be glad to make a few sacrifices and carry their supplies across the plains to get to Zion.
The first three handcart groups made it through by early fall in 1856. Only about 30 pioneers of 600 died, an average number for the times. However, the handcarts made loud noises that caused discomfort and food supplies were woefully inadequate. Bagley recounts that the Mormon prophet Brigham Young was badly shaken by the emaciated, starved state of many of the handcart pioneers. A key problem that was never adequately handled by Mormon leaders was setting up food and other supplies posts along the trail.
The biggest, most deadly mistake made by Mormon leaders was to allow the Willie and Martin teams to leave for Salt Lake City in mid and late July of 1856. Neither group had a realistic chance of making it to the Salt Lake Valley before the cold and snow set in and the latter parts of the trip were horrifying for the LDS pioneers. As mentioned, about 25 percent died and Bagley opines that many others died after arriving in Salt Lake City. Despite October efforts by church leaders to send out relief wagons, the weakest in the parties continued to die at alarming rates.
Given the horror of the early handcarts, it’s ironic we celebrate them today. Despite cheerily false 1850s reports of the handcart treks in the church-owned Deseret News, LDS leaders did not hide the grim facts. Church leaders hurled accusations, claiming that some leaders should not have sent out the parties so late in the summer. Later, church leaders launched a counterattack from the pulpits against those who criticized them for the deadly handcart fiascos.
Martin’s Cove was a place where many perished. Here is an account from Bagley’s piece: “We stayed in the ravine for five or six days on reduced rations,” Samuel Jones continued. “One night a windstorm blew down almost every tent. Many perished of cold and hunger at this place.”
Now that would be an experience that would likely bring some empathy and understanding to all the modern-day trekkers to Martin’s Cove.
There’s no doubt that transporting thousands of saints across the plains to Utah was an impressive accomplishment by Brigham Young and other church leaders. But the handcart scheme, which staggered on for five more treks before being stopped, was a big mistake. Far too many suffered for whatever savings were intended.
-- Doug Gibson
-- Originally published at StandardBlogs
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