Browsing Tag

martin handcart company

10 posts

    MELLOR Jr., James: Inspirational Story

    Mary, however, was so hungry and faint that she finally told Louisa to go on without her. Louisa would have none of that. She instead walked ahead a short distance, kneeled down, and poured out her heart to the Lord to help them. She arose and headed back toward her mother on the same path she had just taken. She walked a short distance when she suddenly saw something in the prarie grass. It was a freshly baked pie! It was laying right side up, and the crust wasn't even broken. They both thanked the Lord for the immediate answer to her prayer, ate the pie, and resumed their tip toward the company. In the meantime, since they had not caught up with the company in the time expected, James Sr. had taken his handcart to go look for them. He found them and took them in the handcart back to camp.
    View Post

      BARLOW, James and Ann Crompton

      Ann Crompton Barlow was an English Mormon Emigrant, who felt the desire to bring her three youngest children, John (17), Jane (15) & Joseph Smith (7), to the Utah Territory to gather in "Zion" with the Saints. She was a widow, with meager means, thus was chosen to use the Perpetual Emigration Fund by the leaders of the Manchester Branch.
      View Post

        HIOTT, John: An Overlooked Pioneer

        As far as history is concerned he was a faceless cipher who passed through life leaving few tracks and no one to mark his grave. It is easy to overlook that John and thousands of other forgotten Utah pioneers like him were critical in settling the Intermountain West. They dug the irrigation ditches, herded the cattle, built the shelters, attended meetings, maintained the roads, cut fire wood, tended the ill, mostly followed orders, and buried the deceased without fanfare. The accomplishments of their famous leaders would not have been possible without the blood, sweet, and tears of humble people such as John Hiott.
        View Post

          BELLISON, James Thomas and Louisa

          Before many days, an incident occurred which tells a lot about James' attitude toward draft animals. His granddaughter, Pearl Allen Read, tells of the company coming to a bog of mud in the trail which caused many wagons to get stuck. As each team came to the bog, the Captain standing there would join the drivers in whipping the animals to get them through.When it was his turn, James forbade the Captain. "These are my animals and no whip is to be used on them." Although James' team pulled through the bog successfully, the Captain was angry and thereafter continued to find fault with this independent member of his company.James Thomas' life-long insistence that his animals be treated well was admired by those who knew him and was learned and perpetuated by his children throughout their lives.
          View Post

            GASKELL, Elizabeth: A Forgotten Pioneer

            Mature, single women who were early converts and emigrants to Utah have received short shrift in Latter-day Saint History.Although the two ill-fated handcart companies of 1856 suffered most of the deaths, several of the wagon companies that were bringing up the rear, including the one in which Elizabeth traveled, were also caught in the early winter storms that swept the barren highlands of Wyoming in October and November.
            View Post