First Handcart Company to Utah
submitted by: SUP Trail Marker Pioneer Stories November 2022
Edmund Ellsworth |
While a missionary in England, Edmund Ellsworth, a son-in-law of Brigham Young, had a recurring dream about leading a handcart company to Utah. Although this method of emigrant transportation had never before been used, he began advocating it as an inexpensive method of travel. When his call to lead the first handcart company actually came, Ellsworth readily accepted the assignment.
On June 9, the great handcart experiment began. With buoyant spirits and an enthusiastic send off, they set out across Iowa. There were about 280 people, including a man aged 71 and the youthful Birmingham Brass Band. Each traveler was allowed only 17 pounds of luggage. The wagon assigned to the handcart company hauled supplies. There was a tent for each 20 people.
The first day the emigrants traveled only four miles. Then, they had to remain idle for a day while the men searched for strayed oxen. With the animals recovered, the company set out again, only to have two of the poorly constructed handcarts break down. On June 12th a young boy died, soon to be followed by the deaths of other children and adults.
Initially their progress had been slow, but the pace increased. They averaged seven miles a day the first week, almost 13 miles per day the next week and then they hit their stride covering up to 20 miles a day before reaching Florence, Nebraska. Daily food rations for adults were between one half and one pound of flour, plus two ounces of rice, three ounces of sugar, and one-half pound of bacon per week. Children got less. At Kanesville, Iowa, they purchased two more wagons and additional livestock.
Much of the time there was spent making major repairs to the carts. To minimize wear, workmen installed tin boxes in the hubs and thick iron hoops around the axles. Finally ready, they left Florence on July 20 with 55 handcarts, each laden with up to 500 pounds of supplies and luggage. There were also three wagons, three mules, one horse, and six yoke of oxen. On July 26 lightning killed one man, knocked down two other adults, and burned a boy. The road was sometimes muddy, often sandy and hilly. Once they waited more than an hour for a buffalo herd to cross the road. Hunters killed some of the buffalo for food.
On August 8, a man turned up missing and was not found until the next day, five miles ahead of the company. On August 31 they met five supply wagons that had been sent from the valley to assist them. The company reached Devil's Gate and passed by the old Fort Seminoe trading post on September 8. On September 11 they took the Seminoe Cutoff, an alternate route that tracked south of Rocky Ridge, bypassing it and four crossings of the Sweetwater. Ellsworth had taken this cut-off in 1854 when traveling to serve his mission in England. His company was the first westbound Mormon emigrant group to take the Seminoe Cut-of.
After traveling nearly night and day to overtake them, Daniel McArthur's handcart company pulled ín at almost 11:00 p.m. and camped beside Ellsworth's company at presentday Alkali Creek on the cutoff. On September 13th at Pacific Springs they found John Banks' wagon train. It had left Florence 10 days ahead of them. Handcarts regularly arrived in camp long before accompanying wagons, and handcart captains often complained that wagons slowed them down.
Even through the mountains they averaged over 20 miles per day. Proving their fitness, they climbed up and over Big Mountain in less than three hours. They camped at the foot of Little Mountain and the next day, September 26th, entered the Salt Lake Valley. There a welcoming committee headed by Brigham Young met them and treated them to a melon party. While Ellsworth's group feasted on melons, McArthur's handcart company pulled up and the two handcart groups joined the First Presidency, the Nauvoo Brass Band, H. B. Clawson's company of lancers, and many local citizens in a grand parade into the city. Hundreds of citizens joined them and spectators cheered.
Sixteen people had died. Some had questioned the ability of women and children to travel by handcart. Numerous children walked the whole way and Ellsworth said that women withstood the rigors of the trail better than men of comparable age. In the end, Ellsworth’s dream of handcart travel enabled thousands of Latter-day Saints to go to Zion who otherwise would not have been able to go.
(https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/KWNK-QMM)