Martin/Willey Handcart Companies

From 1856-1860,  3,000 Pioneers traveled to Zion in handcarts. Of the ten handcart companies only two met with disaster. On May 4, 1856, the Willey Handcart Company left Liverpool, England on a large ship. Their company of 590 people  had 88 immigrants from Scotland. The Martin Hand Cart Company had 665 people and left 3 weeks later.

They arrived in New York and then traveled by railroad to Iowa City, Iowa to be outfitted with handcarts, and supplies, but they were not expecting them so everything had to be gathered and made quickly. The green wood  used for the handcarts was not suitable for the long, hard travel.

The wheels were five feet in diameter. They had a single axle 4 1/2 feet wide and  the carts weighed approximately 60 lbs empty. The shafts were 7 feet long with a cross bar in front. Two hundred and fifty pounds of supplies were put inside, plus luggage. Many handcarts weighed 500 pounds as five persons were assigned to a handcart and each individual could put 17 pounds of clothing and bedding inside. There were 100 handcarts in the Willey handcart company with 5 wagons carrying food and tents that housed 20 people each.

They traveled to Florence, Nebraska where 100 people decided to winter there. There were not sufficient supplies or room for all of the company to stay. And so they traveled on.

The company continued on to  Ft. Laramie where normally there would have been  food and supplies for them to restock, but because no one knew they were coming there was nothing for them. The date was August 16. Rations were cut to 4 ounces of flour for each person per day which equaled 6.4 tablespoons.

Franklin D. Richards, European Mission President and twelve returning missionaries passed the hand cart companies and were surprised that they were on the trail. He was even more concerned with their poor conditions.  He told them that when he got to Salt Lake he would send wagons back to help them.

When he arrived in the Salt Lake Valley October 4, he told Brigham Young abut their plight. Brigham Young did not know that they were on the trail and immediately organized people that night to rescue the pioneers. "Go and bring in those people now on the plains, and attend strictly to those things which we call temporal...otherwise our faith will be in vain."


Rocky Ridge rises 700 feet over  2 miles.


When the company reached Rocky Ridge they had been without food for 3 days. The night before the rescue wagons arrived, George Cunningham saw them in a dream. They had 18 wagons filled with food, fuel, and clothing. When the wagons arrived the next day the company had voted to only keep two wagons and send the other 16 on to the Martin Handcart Company that was 76 miles behind them.

Winter had come early that year and the pioneers were not prepared physically or emotionally for the -11F weather. The snow measured 1-2 feet.

Now comes the Scottish Story of the Kirkwood Family: Margaret, age 46 widowed, Robert 21, Thomas 19, who is a cripple. He had been run over by a cart when he was 6 years old and his wounds never healed leaving him with ulcers on his legs. Then came James age 11, and Joseph age 4. Their father and two sisters had died prior to 1852. They were one of the first families of  converts in Scotland.

When the team of wagons saw Sister Kirkwood and that she had pulled/pushed Thomas in the cart with Robert's help, they told her she would never make it up Rocky Ridge and she would have to wait. She told them, "NO."

She had made it this far with Thomas in the cart and she was not stopping now. She called for James to come. She asked him if he would be responsible for Joseph and make sure he made it over Rocky Ridge. Would he promise her that? James said,  "YES." So for the next 27 hours, James carried Joseph on his back, on his shoulders and in his arms. When he reached the top of Rocky Ridge he could see the lights of the camp fires and carried Joseph there. He lovingly laid him down, collapsed from the exertion of the 27 hours and died. The next morning he was buried in a common grave with 12 others.

The Willey Handcart Company arrived in SLC November 3, 2015.

"Everyone of us came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives for we became acquainted with him in our extremities."  Francis Webster, a member of the Martin Company.

RESCUE is an action verb. To free from confinement, danger or evil, to save, to deliver, to recover. You are called to RESCUE your relatives, to find them one by one, their names, dates and stories. Will YOU do it?