IOWA CITY, Iowa — A century and a half after the first Mormon handcart company began its westward trek on June 9, 1856, historians and Latter-day Saints gathered in Iowa City Friday to discuss the pioneer journeys and analyze why two handcart groups met tragedy on the trail to Salt Lake City.
Overland travel by handcart was encouraged by then-LDS Church President Brigham Young for poor immigrants from Great Britain, who had no money left to purchase ox teams for the trip west after crossing the Atlantic and taking the railroad to Iowa.
William Hartley, professor of history at Brigham Young University and a trail historian, said the well-known tragedy that befell the Willie and Martin handcart companies has created an unfortunate misperception that the trail was plagued by heartbreak. In truth, for most it was not overly hard, he said. In all, 10 handcart companies made the journey across the plains.
For most, "it was long and boring and sometimes uncomfortable," he said, "but it was a successful journey that many enjoyed and wanted to make. Most who gathered to Zion did so happily."
Hartley noted the majority of the 3,000 LDS emigrants who traveled by handcart from 1856 to 1860 made it safely to Utah. They represent only about 5 percent of Mormon pioneers. Yet their stories of endurance, faith, courage and suffering "have made them the symbol of Mormon Trail travel."
Hundreds of emigrants in the Willie and Martin companies died of exhaustion, exposure and hunger on the plains of Wyoming in October 1856 after a late-summer start prompted warnings from Iowa residents along the trail that they were undertaking the journey too late in the season, historian Lyndia Carter said.
Though a few became too ill to move on and several elected to leave the Willie and Martin companies before they left Iowa, the vast majority were determined to press on, she said.
In what he called "a break with professorial protocol," BYU religion professor Fred Woods said historians who look at the handcart migration — particularly the Willie and Martin companies — without an understanding of the emigrants' deep religious conviction can't adequately assess the factors that eventually led to death for some.
He said no one was better at organizing overland migration than Brigham Young, who was directing church officials in Britain and relying on apostles John Taylor and Franklin D. Richards to help the emigrants make it safely to Utah. Recently, Carter and other historians said they believe top church officials failed in their leadership and were negligent in getting the Willie and Martin companies started to Utah so late in the season.
"I want to steer any blame away from Brigham Young and Franklin D. Richards as other historians have suggested," Woods said. "I think there were other factors we need to look at carefully on these issues."
Ships bringing the emigrants from Europe in the spring of 1856 were hampered by unusually bad weather, and the end of the Crimean War meant available vessels were in high demand by soldiers returning home, he said. Richards was "constantly talking about the importance of setting sail" early in the spring, he said, so emigrants would arrive early enough to make the trek to Salt Lake City safely.
Meanwhile, church agents in the United States were working to make arrangements for the travelers but were hampered by the death of a key leader in St. Louis. Woods lauded the efforts of LDS leaders in dealing with circumstances that were often out of their control.
Trail historian Don Smith said at least one historian has said top LDS leaders were "criminally careless" in making arrangements for the Willie and Martin companies, noting that some returning LDS missionaries that year also faulted church leadership.
"They fail to see that many obstacles faced the assigned leaders," he said.
Some have charged that an unexpectedly large number of emigrants arriving in Iowa led to hasty construction of handcarts using green wood, which was more susceptible to break-down. Smith said he believes the carts were built with green wood by design, not out of desperation.
The church's emigration fund lacked sufficient money, hampering church agent Daniel Spencer in Iowa City who was trying to contract for handcart construction and supplies, he said. Other delays had to do with finding an adequate camping spot for arriving emigrants where facilities for handcart construction could be set up.
"Those who denigrate leadership know little about Daniel Spencer," a seasoned leader who had proven his abilities for years before being assigned to help the emigrants, Smith said.
The three-day anniversary events began Friday morning in Mormon Handcart Park, set on the site where handcart emigrants prepared for their journey west. Dozens of local youths dressed in period costumes set off with handcarts along trails in the park to inaugurate the commemoration, which continues through Sunday.
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