Teenager Patience Loader watched the large chunks of ice float down the freezing North Platte River in the fall of 1856. There was no other choice; James Martin, captain of their company of Mormon emigrants, said that they had to ford the river at Last Crossing. The cold October wind made unbearable the task of pushing and dragging the hand-drawn carts across. Patience, her sister and mother had no change of clothes, and there would be no time to stop and dry their drenched and freezing garments until they stopped for the night, many more miles and hours away. Exhibiting the great virtue her name symbolized, Patience and her family entered the icy flow. Later, she recorded her experience:

‘The water was deep and very cold and we drifted out of the regular crossing and we came near beign drounded the water came to our arm pits poor Mother was standing on the bank screaming as we got near the bank I heard her say for God Sake some of you men help My poor girls…Several of the brethren came down the bank of the river and pulled our cart up for us. Mother was there to meet us her clothing was dry but ours was wett and cold and verey soon frozen Mother took of one of her under skirts and put it on one of us and her apron for another to Keep the wett cloth from us for we had to travle several miles before we could camp.’

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Freezing and nearly drowned as she was, Patience nevertheless was saddened by the sight of a less fortunate handcart member: ‘When we was in the middle of the river I saw a poor brother carreying his child on his back he fell down in the water I never Knew if he drowned or not I fealt sorrey that we could not help him but we had all we could do to save ourselves from drownding….’

Young Patience Loader was one of nearly 3,000 Mormon pioneers who made the difficult and dangerous trek west in the most arduous and unusual manner–pushing or pulling small handcarts from Iowa City, Iowa, to the Great Salt Lake Valley, nearly 1,500 miles. Most other emigrants of the time used covered wagons for the long haul to Oregon or California. Only 10 handcart companies used this cheaper but more onerous means of traveling the trail between 1856 and 1860. Although the venture proved to be a folly, the rich heritage of sacrifice, austere determination and selfless charity became a legend among the migrating peoples of the West. For the emigrants who began the venture in the last two companies of 1856, Morman leader Brigham Young’s experiment became an ordeal of starvation and death, never to be forgotten.

The byword and motto of the Mormon faith, more properly known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, before the turn of the century was to ‘gather to Zion.’ From 1847 when the church first settled in Utah, tens of thousands made the trying trek to the Rocky Mountain ‘Kingdom.’ Some sold all of their possessions in order to finance the trip. ‘Saints’ from Britain and Europe crossed the Atlantic and joined ox-wagon trains heading for ‘Zion.’ For some Saints, however, the seemingly small amount necessary to become part of a wagon train–$45–was an unobtainable goal. Mill workers in England and coal miners in Wales would save for years to earn the money necessary to make the journey. Many became disillusioned at the delay and would leave the faith. In 1850, the church felt the urgent need to bring these faithful poor to the promised land. To meet this need, Young and his associates established the Perpetual Emigration Fund, which would provide the cost for an individual to make the trip, but then it was the individual’s responsibility to reimburse the fund to assist others with the same need. It was a 19th-century form of indentured servitude. The Fund survived for more than two decades, but more from individual contributions than installment paybacks.

In 1851, Brigham Young, as president of the church, devised a new and cheaper method of travel. He was inspired the year before when he observed hundreds of gold seekers walking to California. At the time, he said, ‘Yes, start from the Missouri River with cows, handcarts, wheelbarrows, with little flour and no unnecessaries and come to this place quicker, and with less fatigue, than by following the heavy trains with their cumbrous herds which they are often obliged to drive miles to feed.’ Yet, even the prophet had problems convincing his own people to travel by this new method, which, despite Young’s words, sounded more exhausting. Soon the handcart idea fell by the wayside, displaced by more pressing matters.

The Great Salt Lake Valley and the other mountain valleys experienced a devastating grasshopper plague in 1855. That winter was one of the worst to ever hit the Rockies. Hundreds of horses and cattle died from the severe cold and deep snows. In the spring of 1856, the church leadership found itself too low on funds to bring thousands of converts across the Great Plains.

Again the idea of constructing cheap, small handcarts surfaced, and this time the church took a very active interest. Mission leaders in Britain and Europe preached the necessity of gathering to Zion by any means available; to walk across the Plains pulling a handcart was blessed as a demonstration of faith and sacrifice. Many Europeans who could not afford the more expensive ox-wagon travel enthusiastically volunteered for the handcart approach. The church agents in the Midwest began promoting the use of handcarts, and soon the first ones appeared.

The handcart was of simple design–a small, 5-foot-long bed or box set between two narrow, lightweight wheels. Extending from the bed were two shafts connected at the end by a crossbar that one would lean against one’s chest or waist. Most carts were made of hickory with white oak for the spokes and wheel rims, elm for the hubs, though some had iron tires and axles. These vehicles could normally carry up to 400 or 500 pounds of provisions and stores. Some of the wealthier migrants could afford to have a hooped cover, like a wagon, called a ‘family cart.’ While iron axles and tires were great advantages for the long trek over rugged terrain, the most important factor in a handcart’s construction was the use of seasoned lumber and not green wood, which would not endure the dry, arid climate. The use of unseasoned wood proved to be one of the major underlying causes of the handcart companies’ tragedies along the trail.

In the late 1850s, the nation’s westward expansion of its railroads ended with the Rock Island Railroad terminals at Iowa City, Iowa. There was the beginning of the trail for all the westward-bound handcart companies and a good many wagon trains. Across Iowa, at present-day Omaha, Neb., was the great Mormon settlement of Winter Quarters–later called Florence. The famous Mormon Trail began there and followed the Platte River to the North Platte, then went cross-country to the Sweetwater, over the high summit of South Pass, down through the Bridger Basin area to Echo Canyon, and eventually through Emigration Canyon to the Great Salt Lake Valley.

After nearly 10 years in the Rocky Mountains, the Mormons had produced such capable and daring frontiersmen as Orrin Porter Rockwell, Levi Savage and Hyrum Kimball. They and others developed a reputation for crossing and conquering the Plains. When a new emigrant company organized in the Midwest, the ‘captain’ was normally a presiding elder or even one of the church’s Twelve Apostles returning from a mission to Britain or Europe. Every few weeks a new company began the trek across the Plains. The size of the groups varied from 100 to more than 600. In 1855, 4,225 Mormons made the trip. Then, from November 1855 to June 1856, some 4,395 gathered in Iowa City (or Florence) and organized into various companies, including the first handcart company.

Edmund Ellsworth led the first of the handcart companies. With some 274 migrants and 52 handcarts, Ellsworth struck out from Iowa on June 9; Daniel McArthur followed two days later with 221 people and 48 carts and four wagons. The companies had enough provisions to take them to Florence, where they would be restocked by the Mormons who farmed large tracts of land there and had provided assistance for the exodus for many years.

After Florence, the handcart travelers learned to follow the edict of transporting 17 pounds of luggage and belongings in each handcart, with the remaining space allotted to flour and other food. Before the companies set out, dishes, clocks, mirrors and silk dresses were sold and traded for provisions. Once the migrants were on the way, progress was slow and difficult at first, as many of them were mill workers and miners from the great industrial centers of Europe.

Brigham Young’s enthusiasm for the handcart experiment inspired others. As one optimistic forecast predicted: ‘Fifteen miles a day will bring them through in 70 days, and after they get accustomed to it they will travel 20, 25, and 30 with ease…the little ones and sick, if there are any, can be carried on the carts, but there will be none sick in a little time after they get started.’

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