IOWA CITY, Iowa — In the history of the American West, handcarts were an overland-trail anomaly, yet a relatively inexpensive and efficient one, William G. Hartley said at the Mormon Handcart Trek Symposium June 9 in Iowa City.
Brother Hartley, a BYU associate professor of history and an expert on the Mormon Trail, spoke to audiences in Iowa City and the previous weekend in Kearney, Neb.
In the course of his presentations at both events, Brother Hartley said that arguments in favor of handcarts as a means of overland travel are compelling.
For one thing, handcarts presented far less expense. In terms of today's dollars, making the journey with a fully outfitted wagon with a team of four oxen would have cost between $8,000 and $10,000, he said. This would have been particularly burdensome or prohibitive to Church converts who already had to pay passage across the ocean from Europe or the British Isles. It meant that thousands could not afford wagon outfits and needed cheaper transportation if they were to come at all.
By contrast, the cost of coming from England and then trekking to Utah with a handcart would have been around $1,000 in today's monetary terms, Brother Hartley said. Handcarts were far more efficient, obviating the need to find grass for grazing and the need to unhitch the animals at night and yoke them back up again the next morning.
"This was a good plan, if it could have been implemented fully," he said. Handcart travelers were limited to 17 pounds of baggage per person with five people per cart. (It is a myth, Brother Hartley said, that handcarts held 600 pounds of supplies; in actuality, a loaded cart typically weighed less than 200 pounds; occasionally more if flour was hauled.)
For every 20 handcarts, each company would have a wagon hauling tents, some utensils and food.
A key part of the plan was never implemented, he noted. It was to establish four way stations, one at Genoa, Neb.; one at Fort Laramie in Wyoming; and two others. But the plans — and the immigration itself — were interrupted in 1857 by the "Mormon War" in which U.S. President James Buchanan, reacting to false rumors about the Mormons being in rebellion in Utah Territory, sent armed troops to put down the supposed rebellion.
Tensions quieted without bloodshed with the result that, due to army supply trains, there was a surplus of wagons and oxen in the territory that could be had inexpensively. Leaders turned to the volunteer efforts of members who could furnish wagons and teams and go to Florence (present-day Omaha), Neb., to fetch the waiting immigrants and bring them west.
These "down-and-back" emissaries carried provisions in the wagons, dropping them off at supply stations along the way. The immigrants could then put their baggage in the empty wagons and make use of the waiting provisions as they came to them.
Thus, the need for and era of handcart travel came to an end.
Brother Hartley said that of about 70,000 Latter-day Saints who came west, about 3,000 came by handcart. Of the 10 handcart companies, five came in 1856 (including the Willie and Martin companies), two in 1857, one in 1859 and another two in 1860.
Thus, handcarts account for less than 5 percent of the Mormon immigration, he noted. The sufferings of the Willie and Martin companies in Wyoming have given the handcart trains disproportionate public awareness.
In truth for almost all Mormon Trail travelers the trek west was not tragic or overly hard, Brother Hartley noted. "For most, the trek was routine, boring, sometimes hungry, often uncomfortable — like camping tends to be — but was a successful journey that many enjoyed and they wanted to make."