Elizabeth Whittear Sermon was one of hundreds of people who found themselves in a struggle for life in the fall of 1856 as they walked toward Utah as part of the Mormon handcart companies.
Many in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints used provisions of a program instituted in 1849 when the church allocated $5,000 to create the Perpetual Emigration Fund, or PEF.
The goal was to pay for the transportation costs for the converts to help them reach Utah.
-Edward
This never made sense to me. A man or woman and a horse would be many times faster and safer. And carrying all that excess crap is stupid. A gun, food, a blanket and a coat is all you need. Travel light and you can travel fast.
ReplyDeleteIf they could fit everything they owned in a handcart, I doubt they could afford a horse. Not only that, but some of the areas they traveled through had damned little water or graze for a horse.
DeleteImagine modern men/women having to push/pull a 15-20 pound cart cross country ..
ReplyDeleteJD
One of my gg grandfathers helped with the rescue effort. His hauled a load of onions (behind a team of mules supplied by Brigham Young ) and a man he was with killed a buffalo before they met the Martin Company at Icy Slough, halfway between Martin's Cove and Sixth Crossing. That area is bleak in mid-summer and unforgiving in winter. I get down that way about once a year and the wind is unrelenting.
ReplyDeleteAmazing what people would go through to leave the US even in the 1850s. If only the "celebrities" of today who promised us to leave would go through even a bit of that effort.
ReplyDeleteTalk is cheap .
DeleteHowever, it wasn't talk in the case of the Latter-Day Saints - they faced executive (governor) orders of extermination and expulsion .
Rebuilding burned homes and businesses, again. and jail, or possibly even death, was what it was costing the Mormons. At State sanctioned rates.
The railroad terminus was here in Iowa City and the Mormon camp was west of the Iowa River near the confluence of Clear Creek (The Mormon Handcart Park is located off of present day Mormon Trek Blvd)
ReplyDeleteThey built the carts in situ - contrary to the painted redering the carts were actually pushed, not pulled