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Home , Mormon pioneers, Mormon Trail (Canada)

The : Five Works Reviewed

Amorette Hinderaker

“Pioneer heritage.” It was one of those phrases that I heard frequently as a child, always said with great reverence. Pioneer heritage is the phrase used by members of the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day to describe those amongst their membership who are the descendants of the early who traveled the Mormon trail to Salt

Lake City, between 1846 and 1868. It was the coming of railroad that would save future Mormons with enough money for rail fare the travails of the trip by wagon or handcart to Utah, and perhaps ironic for the group that the fabled golden spike that would mark the completion of the transcontinental railroad would be driven in Utah at

Promontory Summit, not far from , in 1869.

It was this pioneer heritage that would make it unbelievable, unacceptable to many, when I would leave the Church as an adult, for I confess now that I was born into this heritage, a sixth-generation member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day

Saints. I am descended from James Henry Rollins (a blog with his history copied from his autobiography, amongst the archival documents at BYU, here: http://jameshenryrollinspioneer.blogspot.com/ ), whose personal history tells of journeying to Salt Lake on the Mormon trail with the first group of pioneers in the company of the second President of the Church, . James Henry would stay, with his family, at Winter Quarters in Nebraska during the first winter on the trail to build and stock the fort that would mean safety to later travelers, would follow Brighamn

Young onward you Utah the following spring, and would care for his sister-in-law and her children on the trail when his brother-in-law was enlisted among the 500 Mormon men sent to march against Santa Fe in General Kearney’s Army of the West. These

events fill the pages of the books I have chosen to read for this review.

Historians of the plains have covered the westward movement of the Mormons

mostly as a footnote to the history of westward movement, unless the Mormon historians

are counted amongst the ranks of works on the Mormon trail. The Mormon trail follows

the that other westward pioneers followed in search of land, gold, and

fortune, up to in Wyoming, a location that lives in Western mythos not for

the Mormon crossing, but for its colorful namesake, . The trail carried the

Mormon settlers from exile in Nauvoo, , to Salt Lake City, Utah. Church President

Brigham Young led the first trailblazing expedition in 1846-1847. These pioneers, uncertain of what lie ahead after a difficult journey through , built Winter Quarters near present-day Omaha, Nebraska. Here, the first pioneers built cabins and huts to winter before journeying on in the spring of 1847. They arrived in Salt Lake City on July

24, 1847. This date is still commemorated as a Mormon holiday, . A map of the trail route is available here: http://www.mapsorama.com/maps/north- america/united%20states/utah/Mormon_Trail.jpg. Future groups of pioneers would travel by wagon and by handcart, many transported to Iowa City by train, then left to walk the remaining 1000 miles on foot pulling handcarts. (I have attached a photo of a statue at the Salt Lake City grounds that shows a pioneer pulling a handcart as an example of what these carts looked like. The photo was taken during a summer 2009 visit to

Temple Square.) Understanding the genesis of the trail and of the Mormon emigration to

Utah requires a brief background in the history of the Church.

Mormon History Leading to Utah: Extremely Abridged

In 1830, Church founder gathered a small group of followers

together in upstate New York to baptize the first six members of the faith and officially

form a Church. The formation of the Church, for Smith, marked the culmination of a

decade of work. Smith claimed to have been visited by an angel, the spirit of a member

of an early American tribe he believed descended from the Biblical Abraham. This

angel, Moroni, revealed to Smith the location of buried golden plates that contained an

ancient record of this and another ancient American tribe, and the doctrine of Jesus Christ

in the Americas. Smith received, and by mysterious divine means involving a gifted

breastplate and stone (said by Smith to be the urim and thummim of the Old Testament)

translated the gold plates. His translation would be published at the

just prior to his 1830 founding baptism.

Followers of were, almost from the outset, persecuted by locals for

their beliefs, and more frequently, for their close-knit and communal style of living.

Mormons were run out of Kirtland, . They next settled near Independence,

Missouri, from whence they were forced by an official extermination order issued by

Missouri Governor (a copy of the archived document is visible on the

State of Missouri website here: http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/findingaids/miscMormonRecords.asp?rec=eo)

and later Nauvoo, Illinois where they built a temple just before being forced by lynch

mobs from the area. It was Illinois that Church President and founder Joseph Smith was

jailed, and assassinated by angry locals. In the months following Smith’s death, the

Church, divided over who would succeed him as President, fell into splinter groups. The majority, however, followed second President Brigham Young. This group would remain

the formal Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Forced from their former homelands, the Mormons would follow Joseph Smith’s

doctrine to gather Zion, his belief in the Mormons as the new Israel, and commandment

to gather the followers into a new homeland. In 1846-1847, Brigham Young would lead

the first group of pioneers across the American plains and through the

to the of Utah. While this first journey across the Great Plains would be

marked with hardships and deaths, the travails of these first travelers would be far

exceeded by those who would follow. In the subsequent years, many more followers would cross the trail, including poor English and Welsh immigrants recruited by of Church. These would cross the trail on foot with handcarts, wooden carts with large wagon wheels pulled by hand.1 From these beginnings, the heart and

headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has remained in Salt Lake

City, Utah. The Church presently boasts both rapid growth and 13.9 million current

members worldwide.2 The historical works that follow in this review detail the journeys

of the various companies of pioneers on the Mormon trail, and incude the works of both

Mormon and non-Mormon historians.

Stegner, Wallace. The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail. New York:

McGraw Hill, 1964.

1 Historical information from Church history in the fullness of times. Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2003. 2 Statistical Report, 2009. Ensign 40(5), (May 2010): 28. Ensign is an official publication of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which publishes the official statistical report annually in May.

Stegner, one of the few non-Mormon historians to dedicate a significant work to the study of the Mormon trail, tells both the history of the trail itself and, through the journals of those who walked the trail, the personal histories of pioneers. Stegner’s prose, more novel-like than scholarly, colors his presentation of history with the narratives of those who survived the journey, both by wagon and by handcart. He begins his telling not with Mormon history prior to Joseph Smith’s death, but in 1845 Nauvoo, when plans to migrate west were already underway. He begins his telling by situating

Mormonism and its move to Utah in the larger picture of American history, something even the Church itself has struggled to accomplish. Stegner writes of Mormon persecution for what he considered antiquated beliefs in a new Zion and the ire-raising practices of communal living that resulted. “And yet,” Stegner writes, “in at least one way Mormonism was profoundly of its time and place: its movement was inevitable westward beyond the frontiers” (p. 5). The move westward, Stegner writes, may be attributed to the , which steeled the followers with the blood of martyrdom. But, plans for the move were already underway prior to Smith’s death.

Stegner mentions Smith’s own order for agents to hunt for the best route to the Missouri

River as early as 1843. Setting eyes further west, however, would wait for the leadership of Brigham Young.

Young would lead the first group of westward in 1846 after being run out of Nauvoo. This first group of trail blazers would take four months to reach the Missouri River, where they would set up winter quarters near present Council

Bluffs, Iowa in a move that Stegner calls pragmatism on behalf of Young. His decision to winter at the Missouri would ensure a safer passage for this first group of pioneers, but also set up a supply location along the trail for future followers. It was during this time that President Polk sent a scout, Captain James Allen, to recruit 500 Mormon men to march against Santa Fe and Southern with General Kearney’s Army of the

West. Stegner calls this move “tactical” for Polk who was offering an official olive branch over the guilt of allowing American citizens to be hunted and killed in Missouri3 and also insuring the loyalty of this group that now moved toward what was still Mexican territory. Stegner details Youngs response, which he also characterizes as tactical, feigning reluctance until Polk granted official permission for the Mormons to move into

Iowa on the west bank of the Missouri to set up their winter quarters. Polk responded with a deal with the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the Mormon winter quarters, and thus, the Mormons responded with the required 500 men.

Typical of other writers about the Mormon trail, Stegner tells of the suffering, the deaths, the sickness that the pioneers endured on their journey to Utah. He however, weaves individual narratives plucked from journals of the trail into his telling. He tells, for example, of one of the pioneers, Archer Walters, one of the handcart pioneers, who built coffins for the many who died with his company of pioneers on the trail, including his own wife and two children. Walters himself would die just two weeks after reaching

Salt Lake City.

There is, in Salt Lake City, a historic site and park, This Is The Place State Park, that marks the fabled place where the first stopped and an infirmed Brigham

3 Here, Stegner is referring to the extermination order signed by Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs that allowed locals to pursue, hunt, and kill Mormons. See link earlier in this document to view the original order Boggs signed. Young proclaimed, at the point to the summit of Emigration Canyon, “It is enough. This is the right place. Drive on.”4 So deeply entrenched in the Mormon psyche is this phrase, this moment, that its mythos has become akin to scripture. Stegner, however, writes that there is, in fact, no record on the day that the wagons stopped here, July 24,

1847, that Young ever made such an utterance. In recognition of its mythical power, however, he writes, “Nevertheless one is glad that Woodruff either resurrected or happily misremembered Brigham’s words. If Brother Brigham didn’t make that reverberating phrase, he should have” (p. 168).

Stegner devotes a significant portion of his book to the Mormon handcart experiment, the Brigham Young plot hatched to bring poor British immigrants recruited by missionaries to swell the numbers of Mormons in Utah. These pioneers, brought to

America on Mormon ships, would be brought to Iowa City by train, then walk the remaining 1300 miles on foot pulling their supplies and belongings in handcarts. While there were many handcart companies, Stegner focuses on the first companies to cross in

1856, what he calls “the true climax of the Gathering, and the harshest testing of both people and organization” (p. 222). The fate that would meet these companies would call

Young’s leadership into question, and leave these poorest of pioneers to suffer the harshest of all Mormon journeys across the plains. Young would incorporate a private fund, the Perpetual Emigration Fund, or PE Fund, to pay for ship passage to American, then handcarts for these converts to the Faith. Funds were stretched to bring as many as possible to the new Zion in the Utah desert, a move that Stegner writes led to such tactics

4 This phrase was supposedly related years later by third Church President . as using the pioneers themselves as labor to build their own handcarts in Iowa City,

handcarts that should have been finished and waiting for them when they arrived there.

Stegner details the crossing of pioneers brought on four ships in 1856 from

Brittan. These Mormon converts were to cross in five handcart companies. The first

three groups would face hardships, deaths, and illness beyond anything faced by the 1847

pioneers. Their handcarts would be made from green lumber, and the sand of the

Nebraska sand hills would file the wooden axles, making constant repair necessary.

Stegner, in typical fashion, colors his telling of their passing with personal narratives, and

even moments of humor. He, for example, tells of the leader of the Ellsworth company

and his reputation with his followers. From the journals of those in the company, Stegner

pieces together distaste for Captain Ellsworth, who seemed to have a fondness mostly for

the young ladies of the company, in particular Mary Ann Bates and Mary Ann Jones,

both of whom, in the years of Church sanctioned polygamy, he would later take as wives

in Utah. Stegner writes, “something profound may be indicated about him by the fact

that he already had a wife named Mary Ann Dudley. As least, with his system of always

marrying girls of the same name, he saved himself awkward slips of the tongue” (p. 234).

It is the fates of the last two handcart companies of 1856, the Willie and Martin companies, that would become the subject of controversy in Brigham Young’s leadership history. Both the Willie and the Martin companies would leave Iowa City, also with self- built handcarts from inadequate green lumber, in late July. This late departure, the failure to have handcarts awaiting the pioneers and the subsequent delay, would spell disaster for the pioneers. In a move that Stegner calls “criminally careless” (p. 238) considering the lateness of the season, both companies would depart for Utah. Reaching Grand Island, Nebraska, the members of the Martin Company would debate wintering there, but decide

to move onward toward Utah. What they, and the Willie Company who was only a few

days ahead of them, would face would include harsh winter weather that would kill many

of the unprepared and underdressed pioneers. The pioneers would face particular

hardship at the Devil’s Gate area in Wyoming, and area later named for the Martin

Company, Martin’s Cove. Stegner writes that records differ in their totals, but between

135 and 150 of the Martin Company would die on their journey, 62 more from the Willie

Company.

When the survivors finally arrived in Utah, Young’s leadership would be called

into question. Why had the companies been allowed to leave so late? Why had supplies

and handcarts not been ready for them in Iowa City? Here, Stegner writes that Young

faulted and scapegoated Franklin D. Richards, President of the European Mission, who

had been responsible for the recruitment and passage of the pioneers. But, Stegner writes

that Brigham Young and the Church had overstretched their means, attempted to bring

too many with too little, and in their fervor, had cost many lives.

Stegner’s assessment of Richards as scapegoat, of Young as fervent overreacher,

would spur further writing on the fates of the Willie and Matin Companies including

Hafen’s work on the handcart pioneers, and the more recent exposition of the Devil’s

Gate incident by David Roberts.

Hafen, LeRoy, and Hafen, Ann W. Handcarts to Zion: The Story of a Unique Western

Migration 1856-1860. Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1960.

In prose less poetic than Stegner, yet more closely tied to sources, Hafen

and Hafen explore the history of the ten handcart companies that crossed the plains

beginning in 1856. The great handcart experiment, as it has come to be known, was

commissioned by Brigham Young to bring the maximum number of Latter-day Saints to

Utah for the minimum cost. Most of those who would travel by handcart were the economically destitute, recruited and converted from Brittan and Denmark by missionaries. Hafen and Hafen call Young’s plan a primarily economic decision that would cut the cost of transport in half and bring them to Utah faster than wagon trains.

Hafen and Hafen stress Young’s need for expediency of moving newly arrived

Americans to Utah, for most of those who came ashore but did not immediately move toward Utah would leave the Church before ever making the journey west.

Like Stegner, Hafen and Hafen write about the inadequacy of the handcarts these pioneers would pull across the plains and mountains. The carts were made from green hickory and oak that would crack, shrink, and warp as they were pulled across the dry plains in summer heat. Hafen and Hafen include a piece of a 1914 Salt Lake Tribune recollection of a pioneer who crossed the plains by handcart. His recollection describes the carts thus:

The carts were the usual width of the wide track wagon.

Across the bars of the bed of the cart we generally sewed a

strip of bed ticking or a counterplane. On this wooden cart

of a thimbleless axle, with about a 2 ½ inch shoulder and 1

inch point, were often loaded 400 or 500 pounds of flour, bedding, extra clothing, cooking utensils and a tent. How

the flimsy yankee hickory structure held up the load for the

hundreds of miles has been a wonder to us since then.

Like Stegner, Hafen and Hafen dedicated a significant portion of their work to the fourth and fifth handcart companies, the Willie and Martin companies, that faced hardship and death on the plains. Among historians, the reasons for the late departure from Iowa City that would cost the Willie and Martin companies so many lives has been the source of contention. Hafen and Hafen begin their exploration of the reasons for the late departure in England, where the ships that would carry the Mormon converts who would join the Willie and Martin companies left London much later than ships carrying other handcart pioneers. Hafen and Hafen write that the ships were late due to difficulty procuring adequate transport for larger numbers of new Mormons than expected. This late departure from England would bring the new Saints to America later, and thus to

Iowa City later.

At Iowa City, handcarts that should have been ready were not built. Hafen and

Hafen explore three reasons for this possible failure. First, Hafen and Hafen write that

Brigham Young always contended that Franklin D. Richards did not send adequate notice to Iowa City concerning the arrival of these pioneers, or their numbers. This information comes from Young’s firey tabernacle speech blaming Richards for the deaths of the 200 who perished on the plains. It is this speech that Stegner refers to as a scapegoating of

Richards. Second, Hafen and Hafen write that there was a genuine lack of materials and labor to build an adequate number of handcarts so soon after the first three companies had depleted Iowa City resources. This leads to Hafen and Hafen’s third contention that Young and other leaders believed the new Saints the perfect solution to the labor

problem: that they would be best served by helping construct the handcarts they would

pull across the plains. The time to build these carts, however, meant very late departures

from Iowa City. Willie Company would depart Iowa in the middle of August. Martin

was two weeks behind them. The doomed Martin Company would not leave Iowa until

August 27.

Hafen and Hafen devote significant time to the sufferings of the Willie and Martin

handcart companies. They write that both companies would run out of food around the

time they reached the Rocky Mountains. Both would be left without supplies at Fort

Laramie, and forced to try to make it to Fort Bridger without enough food rations. It was

in Wyoming that both companies would meet their doom. In what has become known as

the Devil’s Gate incident, both companies would meet snow and starvation around

present day Glenrock and Casper, Wyoming. A rescue wagon sent from Salt Lake City

by Brigham Young when he heard of the deplorable condition of these pioneers would

not reach them in time to save many. Martin Company would camp for several days

awaiting help at the Devil’s Gate area, christened in their honor, Martin’s Cove in 1992.

Hafen and Hafen write that during a single cold night at Devil’s Gate, 19 died and were

buried in the snow the next day in ground too frozen to break for a proper grave. In their

nine day stay at Devil’s gate, the death toll for Martin Company would be 56. Help from

Salt Lake would come on October 28. Several more would die in the subsequent days.

Many more who survived would lose limbs, feet, or fingers to freezing. The total death

toll for Martin Company is estimated at 135-150. Hafen and Hafen report 67 dead (in contrast to Stegner’s 62) in the Willie Company. Despite the criticism of Brigham Young and his handcart experiment that ensued

almost immediately after the Willie and Martin companies were finally brought to Utah

with the aid of Utah rescue squads, Young was eager to continue transport of new Saints

to Salt Lake by handcart. In an effort to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method of

transport, Young sent an 1857 group of missionaries from Salt Lake City to Florence,

Iowa by handcart. Hafen and Hafen report that this group of missionaries, most of them

bound for Brittan to recruit new converts to the faith, arrived without a single fatality, all

in good health, in Florence in 48 days. Despite the fact that these missionaries were all

, traveling without young children or elderly passengers, their fast and safe

passage over the trail renewed Young’s faith in the method of travel. Four more handcart

companies would make the journey to Utah by handcart in 1857.

The sixth handcart company would be, Hafen and Hafen write, a real test of the

method of travel in the eyes of the Saints. The first company since Martin’s doomed

travels, the handcart pioneers led by Israel Evans would depart Iowa City on May 22,

1857 with 149 people. Hafen and Hafen report that the travelers experienced just one

death, and the birth rate ensured that they arrived in Utah on September 11 with more people than left Iowa City: 154. Shortly behind them came the seventh company led by

Christian Christiansen, also without significant loss of life. The ninth company led by

Daniel Robinson would lose only one child between Iowa and Utah, but Hafen and Hafen note that Robinson experienced significant loss between his home in Pennsylvania and

Iowa. He would lose three children before reaching Florence. The tenth and final handcart company would depart Florence Iowa on July 6, 1860 and arrive safely in Utah on September 24. After this company, the practice of handcart travel was abandoned by

the Church.

Hafen and Hafen write that the end of the handcart experiment may be attributed

to a few factors including an improved financial situation for the Church as the number of

Saints in Utah grew. This funding allowed Brigham Young to send wagon trains from

Salt Lake to pick up waiting pioneers at Florence, Iowa. This end to the brutal walk

across the plains was considered a natural choice for Hafen and Hafen. They write:

Also, however true it may be that some handcart companies got along better and made

faster time than did the ox trains; and however expedient it was at a certain period, to

urge emigration by this method; it is nevertheless true that it was a hard, almost inhuman

journey, and when a better and easier way was procurable, it naturally was grasped.

The inhuman journey faced by these handcart pioneers, particularly that of the

Martin and Willie Companies has been the focus of both Mormon and non-Mormon works. The suffering reported by both Hafen and Hafen and Stegner is brought into sharper focus through the original journals reported in Glazier and Clark’s collection of primary sources on the handcart journey.

Glazier, Stewart E., and Clark, Robert S., eds. Journal of the Trail. Salt Lake City:

Deseret Books, 2006.

Glazier and Clark compile clips of pioneer journals from the Mormon pioneers who traveled the Mormon trail both by wagon train and by handcart. Their use of all primary sources sheds light on the actual lived experiences of the pioneers, told in their own voices. The editors organize their journal clips chronologically, placing clips from the same company together around the same locations. This organization is intriguing,

pulling together a cohesive narrative of the entire journey as seen through the eyes of the

various pioneers who lived it.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has often been said to keep better records than the IRS. While this little quip may be said in humor, it holds a grain of truth. The faith has always prided itself in accurate records, accurate histories. Members are encouraged to journal to leave a real lived experience for future generations. Glazier

and Clark write and introduction in which they note that the first 1846-1847 appointed

one amongst their ranks, , as the trip historian to ensure that experiences

were recorded by at least one person. It is this system of recording, the journaling that

was encouraged on the trails, that have left the records that other historians have referred

to, and Glazier and Clark present in their original forms.

The suffering experienced by the handcart companies received significant

attention in the works of both Stegner and Hafen and Hafen. In Glazier and Clark’s

volume, however, the suffering is highlighted in the words of the pioneers who

experienced it. Moreover, the journals are written in real time, on the trail, not as later

recollections. The lamenting tones, the dire words that pour from the pages of these

journals humanizes their misery in a way secondary sources can never hope to achieve.

In the Martin Company, for example, both Stegner and Hafen and Hafen write about

pioneers who lost limbs, fingers, feet, or toes to freezing. Glazier and Clark include a

journal entry from company member Alice Strong after the rescue wagons arrived at

Devil’s Gate. Her words bring into sharp focus the real suffering of the cold and its

effects on survivors. At times the most of us had to walk after being met by the

teams from Salt Lake and late in the day, and towards the

evening my shoes would nearly freeze to my feet and at

one time in taking off, some of the skin and flesh came off

with them. Some of the bones of my feet were left bare and

my hands were severely frozen (p. 89-90).

They include also a journal entry of John Jaques from Martin Company written as the company crossed the Platte before reaching Devil’s Gate. He records that an elderly individual by the last name of Stone fell behind the company, weakened by illness. The journal records, “he was never seen again, but a portion of what was supposed to have been his body was afterwards found and brought into camp, having been ravaged by the wolves” (p. 53).

While Hafen and Hafen report the death of 19 one night at Devil’s Gate, Glazier and Clark include various journal entries from the survivors of this night, one from a girl of 14, Patience Loader, who records that a man with no family stayed with her family and died in their tent that night. Her fear pours from her words as she reports to her mother she has not heard him breathe for an hour, and her mother asks her to check on him. She writes, “I got up but everything seemed so silent and dark and drear I said, ‘I cannot”” (p.

59).

It is noteworthy that this work, published by Church bookseller Deseret Book, does not promote Young or Richards fault for the doom of the Martin and Willie

Companies. Instead, this work reports the action of the Church at sending rescue wagons. In their introduction, Glazier and Clark write, “Brigham Young immediately sent out rescue parties, whose heroism literally saved hundreds of lives” (p. 8). This is not an opinion shared by David Roberts in his work on the Devil’s Gate incident.

Roberts, David. Devil’s Gate: Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart

Tragedy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008.

In his work on the Martin and Willie handcart companies, Roberts writes that the success of Mormonism, its very survival, may be directly attributed to Brigham Young’s finding a way to create a Mormon capitol, a new Zion, in the Utah Desert. Giving the religion a space to grow would ensure its survival, allow it to thrive to its current size.

The path to Utah, however, was paved with many lives, much suffering.

The duty to gather Zion was announced by Joseph Smith, but as Roberts writes, it was Young who would enforce it, would create a Mormon capitol. Roberts writes that

Young did what he thought necessary for the survival of the Mormons after they were exiled from Nauvoo. His work explores, more in depth than others, Young’s logic behind the handcart experiment. Roberts writes that Young and Franklin D. Richards were driven by more than just economics. They believed that pioneers would arrive faster, and more importantly, that with the few animals and possessions they would carry, they would be less at risk of attacks from Indians on the plains. Roberts also attributes

Young’s fervor for increasing the Mormon population in Salt Lake City “has everything to do with what was going on in the at the time” (p. 127). Roberts writes that Young worried that U.S. troops would invade the Utah territory and force control from him and the Church. If the Church had any hope of retaining power while there was a push toward statehood, Young needed a Zion that could repel invasion. That meant

numbers.

While Stegner refers to the scapegoating of Franklin D. Richards and blames

Young for leaving the suffering Martin and Willie Companies on the plains, official

Mormon sources have always upheld Young’s declaration of ignorance that these

emigrants even existed prior to a letter from Richards in October telling of their

condition, including Glazier and Clark. It was Richards’ letter that prompted Young to

send rescue wagons. Roberts, however, faults Young entirely for the disasters that befell

these pioneers. He writes that Young was, in fact informed of their presence on the

plains, but in his haste to increase the Salt Lake population, he took his chances that the

pioneers would arrive safely, even in freezing temperatures during a particularly harsh

winter. Roberts points to a letter dated June 11 from William Woodward to Heber

Kimball announcing the imminent arrival in Iowa of the Thorton Saints, one of the ships that had departed from Britain. The letter, Roberts writes, has a note on the back indicating its receipt in Young’s office on July 30, 1856.

Like other writers, Roberts points to the suffering and deaths faced by the

handcart companies. His work differs from others in its outright blame of Brigham

Young for the doom of the companies who left late and met freezing temperatures and

low supplies. Beyond Stegner’s supposition that Richards was a scapgoat, Roberts

writest that Young was consciously aware of the plight of these pioneers, but gambled

with their lives to increase his growing kingdom in Utah.

Bennett, Richard E. Mormons at the Missouri: Winter Quarters, 1846-1852. Norman,

Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press

Bennett’s work on the Mormon trail, unlike those of his contemporaries, focuses

not on the trail experience itself, nor on the handcart companies. Instead, Bennett’s work

focuses on the Winter Quarters that the first Mormon expedition led by Brigham Young

built on the banks of the Missouri River in present-day Omaha. Bennett’s work follows the historical works of others concerning exile from Nauvoo. He focuses, however, on the winter of 1846-1847 spent at Winter Quarters.

Bennett writes that the first expedition met rougher roads, wetter weather, and a more strenuous journey than expected across Iowa. Iowa had exhausted the pioneers.

When they reached the western border, their will to continue gave way to uncertainty about what lie ahead on the trail to Utah. The company made the decision to build temporary quarters and spend the winter on the Missouri. During one of the early days of camp on the eastern side of the river, Bennett details the visit by Captain James Allen written about by both Stegner and Hafen and Hafen asking for 500 men to join a to march in the Mexican War. Like other writers, Bennett calls Young’s answer to this call strategic. President Polk would work a deal with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to allow the camp to move and build more permanent shelters on the west bank of the river.

Bennett writes that the Winter Quarters’ safety from invading tribes was not entirely dependent on this deal, but that Young bargained with local chiefs for the safety of the camp. Bennett writes that Omaha warriors who were wounded in battle with Sioux tribes were sometimes nursed and allowed to stay in Winter Quarters in return for peace with the tribe and the safety such peace provided. Young and , one of the members of the First Presidency, made similar deals with the Oto.

Bennett challenges many of the assumptions about American westward migration through his examination of Winter Quarters. American mythos has long promoted an individualized, self-made man vision of the move west. Pioneers in search of land, gold, and a new life made their individual treks to the West where they learned rugged self- reliance. Bennett confronts the reality of this mythos in Winter Quarters. The trail that many others would follow, he writes, was blazed by Mormon pioneers, and their survival on the plains had nothing to do with rugged individualism. Bennett writes, “Their survival depended on a high degree of social bonding, an economic order in which the private interests of the individual were made distinctly secondary to the welfare of the whole” (p. 112).

Winter Quarters was arranged as a city, not a camp, Bennett writes. It was arranged in blocks, lots, and homesites. Log cabins made individual homes for the families who wintered there. The Quarters had its own economic structure, and even cottage industries that made profit such as weaving baskets from willows and selling them. Bennett calls Winter Quarters Nebraska’s first city, a city that by the end of 1846 boasted a population of 3,483. Other Mormon camps remained on the east side of the

Missouri, bringing the total number of Mormons in and around Winter Quarters to around

7,000. Winter Quarters was, Bennett writes, Brigham Young’s first test as a city leader, his first foray into building Zion. The later success of Salt Lake City may be attributed to the lessons learned at Winter Quarters.

Works on the Mormon trail, on the Mormon pioneers, represent a small part of historical data on American westward migration. The books reviewed for this essay include a sampling of the information available on this group. While these pioneers were by no means the only individuals to travel the plains in search of a life in the American

West, their experiences show remarkable differences to the individual families who made their way west in search of fortune. In the end, the Mormon trail led the pioneers to Salt

Lake who would build a Mormon empire, one that is now home to the headquarters to the only uniquely American faith to gain broad world-wide membership.