July 2017 marks 170 years since the first company of Mormon pioneers reached the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.
Among the stories of the thousands of early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who crossed the plains are those of extraordinary youths, witnesses to miracles along the trail and faithful converts.
A demographic analysis of the LDS Church History website’s Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel database (the database is online at history.lds.org/overlandtravel) reveals 51 percent of the 57,000 Mormon pioneers currently documented were younger than 21 at the time they crossed the plains, according to Church History Library Director Keith Erekson.
One of these pioneer youths was Mary Martha Wanlass (spelled “Wanless” in some sources), who led her family from Missouri to Utah at 14 years old.
As told in “Our Pioneer Heritage, vol. 3,” Mary sailed to America with her father, stepmother and two younger half-siblings when she was 8 years old. After taking a train to St. Louis, the family lived in Missouri for several years.
Mary’s father suffered a severe stroke during this time, shortly before her stepmother, Jane, gave birth to twins.
“It took Jane and Mary months to nurse him back to partial health,” the book records.
The strain this put on Jane made her very ill, and she died in 1862.
“Mary now had to assume the role of mother and housekeeper,” the account reads. “What an enormous responsibility for a girl of 14 — twins, 4 years of age, a little sister, 6, a brother, 9, and a bedridden father.”
But despite the daunting task before her, Mary was determined to get her family to Zion.
“She couldn’t forget how her stepmother had pleaded to go on, and even on her deathbed had turned to Mary and said, ‘Don’t give your father any peace till he goes to the Rocky Mountains,’ ” the book relates.
Mary expressed this goal to her father, and he sold all his possessions to buy a wagon and other necessities to travel West. But soon after their journey began, Mary’s father had another stroke, which left him “entirely bedfast.”
“They were detained for more than a week, and by the time they were able to continue their journey, they were so far behind, they never did catch up with anyone,” the book recounts. “The three small children were placed on the backs of oxen and the 9-year-old boy acted as the pilot.”
Despite the many trials they faced along the trail, “the hand of the Lord was manifest in their behalf throughout the whole journey,” according to “Our Pioneer Heritage.” Mary and her family arrived in Lehi, Utah, in 1863.
Pioneer diaries record that the Lord's hand was also manifest to them through the miracles they observed during their travels.
Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, arrived in the valley 1863, recounted an experience in which she and a group of Saints exiled from Jackson County, Missouri, found themselves on the banks of the Missouri River without enough money for everyone in the group to cross using the ferry.
“One or two families must be left behind, and the fear was that if left, they would be killed,” Lightner recorded in an autobiography.
She said a few men traveling with the group determined they would try to catch some fish, hoping the ferryman would accept the fish as payment. They put out their lines and pulled up some small fish and a 14-pound catfish.
“On opening it, what was their astonishment to find three bright silver half dollars, just the amount needed to pay for taking their team over the river,” Lightner recorded. “This was considered a miracle, and caused great rejoicing among us.”
Many of the pioneers also recorded their conversion stories, which exhibit their faith and willingness to sacrifice for what they believed.
Thomas John’s conversion story, as told in a history written by his son Henry John, evidences Thomas John’s integrity in doing what he knew was right regardless of the consequences.
Thomas John, who traveled to Salt Lake City in 1862, was a Welsh shoemaker and a very religious man, according to the account. When the LDS missionaries came to Wales, they preached the restored gospel to the John family.
“Thomas immediately knew it was true,” Henry John wrote. “So he studied, he prayed and inquired about it.”
But it was difficult for Thomas John to separate from his friends in the Independent Church to which he had previously belonged and affiliate himself with a people “so very unpopular” as the Latter-day Saints, Henry John related. This caused him “a lot of sleepless nights,” and he prayed to know whether to follow “the ways of men or the commandments of God.”
“He finally decided that he would forsake all if necessary and take up his cross and follow the Savior,” Henry wrote. “For why should he receive eternal life in the kingdom of God more than the Savior and his former disciples without suffering persecutions?”
Thomas John was confirmed a member of the LDS Church in May 1851. Prior to his baptism, Thomas John had more work than he could keep up with in his business as a shoemaker, Henry John recalled.
“But when the people learned that he had joined the church, they left him,” Henry John recorded. “He had to seek work wherever he could find it and any kind of work he could find. The children were even mistreated on the school ground. The weight and oppression became so heavy that it seemed that he would have to despair.”
One day in the midst of these trials, Thomas John prayed to know whether what he had done in joining the LDS Church was right, and a feeling of light and “joy unspeakable” flowed over him.
“I have heard my father say when he became an old man, ‘I have never doubted since that day,’ ” Henry John recalled.