Historical Facts Mormon Trail LDS Handcarts Pioneer Monuments Landmarks Maps Pictures History

Click on Thumbnail to enlarge

Article Link Bars Comment, Question, or Suggestion

Mormon Trail Historical Tidbits Oregon Mormon Trail Markers
Oregon Trail Willie Martin Handcart Company The Rescue
Sarah Crossley Journal Hole-in-the-Rock

Historical Facts of the Mormon Trail
by
O. Ned Eddins

Patty Bartlett Sessions Perrigrine Sessions Trail Tidbits

Four groups of people that paid as great a price as anyone to live in America were Native Americans, the Irish, the Chinese, and the Mormons. My own ancestors watched their farms burn as they were driven out of Far West, Missouri, and then Nauvoo, Illinois. I have never been, a church going Mormon, but I am extremely proud of my ancestors and their accomplishments. The Mormon pioneers not only "made the desert bloom", they did it without government funding, and none of them filed lawsuits against Missouri and Illinois for violating their civil rights.

On the 27th of October, 1838, Missouri Governor Lilburn W. Boggs signed the Mormon extermination order. The order declared, "The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated, or driven from the State, if necessary for the public peace". This military directive forced an exodus from Missouri of approximately ten thousand men, women and children. In mid-winter, the Mormon families were driven from their farms, homes, and lands. The vast majority of the Missouri Mormons resettled in Nauvoo, Illinois...my great-great- great grandparents Patty and David Sessions lost twelve hundred dollars in land and four hundred dollars in livestock and corn when they were driven from Missouri in 1838. Leaving their Missouri farm in the depths of winter, they stayed at one place on the road for fourteen days with nothing to eat but parched corn.

For the next seven years, Mormon converts came to Nauvoo, Illinois. Within a few years, Nauvoo had a population of twenty thousand, rivaling Chicago as the two largest cities in the state. The rapid growth of church membership, financial success of both members and the Mormon church, polygamy, and a well armed militia (Nauvoo Legion), fueled the intolerance of non-Mormons. While jailed in Carthage, Illinois, the leader of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, were killed by a mob on June 27, 1844.

The hatred and bigotry continued. In 1845, more than two hundred Mormon homes and farm buildings were burned in an attempt to force the Mormons to leave Illinois. Mob violence forced the church leadership to announce that the Mormons would leave Nauvoo for the West.

In a letter addressed to U.S. President James K. Polk in 1846, Brigham Young gave notice of the farewell:

"We would esteem a territorial government of our own as one of the richest boons of earth, and while we appreciate the Constitution of the United States as the most precious among the nations, we feel that we had rather retreat to the deserts, islands or mountain caves than consent to be ruled by governors and judges whose hands are drenched in the blood of innocence and virtue, who delight in injustice and oppression." Thus, they walked (quoted in B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church, 3:89-90).

Orson Pratt, a member of the church’s Council of Twelve Apostles sent a message to Mormons throughout the eastern and middle states, urging them to join the western migration. Pratt's message stated that we do not want one saint left in the United States. Let every branch in the east, west, north and south be determined to flee by either land or sea.

On February 4th, 1846, Samuel Brannan took two hundred and thirty-eight men, women and children aboard the Brooklyn to sail from New York City to Yerba Buena (San Francisco). The arrival in San Francisco of the Mormon emigrants doubled the population. Over the next two years, more than one hundred buildings were constructed by the new emigrants laying the foundation for the boomtown that would develop during the California gold rush.

By mid-February the exodus from Nauvoo was underway. While crossing Iowa, several settlements (Garden Grove, Mt. Pisgah) were built and crops planted by the first wagon trains. These towns were built to serve as way stations and re-supply points for the Mormons that would follow. By the middle of May (1846), it was estimated that sixteen thousand Mormons had left Nauvoo and crossed the Mississippi River. Many of them stopped to help establish the towns and farms in Iowa, but eventually all were headed for the Salt Lake Valley. The winter crossing of the rivers, streams, creeks and bogs of Iowa was the hardest part of the Mormon migration. Upon reaching the Missouri River, Kanesville (Council Bluffs) was settled on the Iowa side of the river, while Winter Quarters, on the west side of the river, was established in the area of present day Omaha, Nebraska.

Brigham Young gathered all of the information possible on the Salt Lake Valley and the Great Basin while in Nauvoo and later in Winter Quarters. Mountain Men and Father Pierre de Smet, a Jesuit missionary, stopped at Winter Quarters and provided information about the Great Basin area. Despite Samuel Brannan and mountain men advising against the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young’s insisted the Mormons would settle in a location no one else wanted. The Great Salt Lake Valley met the requirement in all respects.

Unlike most wagon trains, the Mormons did not use any Mountain Man guides. The Mormon migration was not a blind, wandering trek across the Plains. It was a carefully planned and organized journey to the Great Salt Lake Valley.

As the Pioneer Party was getting ready to leave for the Great Salt Lake Valley, John Taylor arrived with five hundred dollars worth of astronomical instruments and other technical equipment to provide accurate trail locations for future companies. The scientific equipment included two sextants, one circle of reflection, two artificial horizons, two barometers, several thermometers, and telescopes. Mormon pioneers traveling over the trail improved it and built support facilities for those that would follow. Ferries were established to help finance the Mormon migration.

Brigham Young and the pioneer party left Winter Quarters on April 5th, 1847 for the Salt Lake Valley. The Pioneer Company (Camp of Israel) consisted of one hundred and forty-three men, three women and two children. The company had seventy-two wagons, ninety-three horses, fifty-two mules, sixty-six oxen, nineteen cows, seventeen dogs, and some chickens. The three women were Harriet Page Wheeler Young (wife of Lorenzo D. Young), Clarissa Decker Young (wife of Brigham Young) and Ellen Saunders Kimball (wife of Heber C. Kimball). The two children were Isaac Perry Decker and Lorenzo Sobieski Young. Brigham Young and his advisers sought builders, mechanics, masons and resolute men to form the Mormon vanguard that would push the frontier beyond the Rocky Mountains. Chauncey Loveland a fifth generation grandfather was a member of the Pioneer Company. Three negro slaves accompanied the Pioneer Party, Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby.

Pacific Side of South Pass

Over the next ten years, thousands of Mormons traveled by wagon train over the Mormon-Oregon trail to the new "Land of Zion". By 1856, the number of Mormon converts had reached the point that wagon trains were too expensive. Brigham Young decided that the easiest, cheapest, and fastest way for large numbers of converts to reach the Salt Lake Valley was by handcarts. Five handcart companies were organized in 1856 to make the thirteen hundred mile trip from the railroad terminus at Iowa City, Iowa, to Salt Lake City. The first three handcart companies arrived in Salt Lake without problems, but the last two, the Willey Handcart Company and the Martin Handcart Company were trapped between Independence Rock and South Pass by deep snow and blizzards. The Willey and Martin Handcart companies had a total of nine hundred and eighty people with two hundred and thirty-three handcarts.

From 1856 to 1860, ten handcart companies made the journey from Iowa City and Florence (1857-1860), Nebraska to the Salt Lake Valley. Over the five year period of the Mormon Handcarts companies, two thousand, nine hundred and sixty-two immigrants walked over the Mormon Trail to Utah. Of the two hundred and fifty people that died during the handcart period, two hundred and twenty were in the Willie and Martin Handcart companies.

Mormon Trail Historical Tidbits:

The move West was considered by church leaders as early as 1842. Oregon, California, and Texas were considered as potential destinations. In 1844, Joseph Smith obtained John C. Fremont's map and reports describing the Great Basin and the Salt Lake Valley, which at the time Brigham Young started West in 1847 belonged to Mexico.

None of the information gathered at Winter Quarter, or from mountain men, about the Great Basin Desert had any effect on Brigham Young's goal of settling the Great Salt Lake Valley. Brigham had insisted from the start that the Mormons were going to settle in a place that no one else wanted. As is evident today, the "desert bloomed" under Brigham Young's leadership.

The exodus of the Mormons from Nauvoo, Illinois to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake occurred in two segments. The first segment, across Iowa to the Missouri River in February of 1846, took over four months to cover two hundred and sixty-five miles. The second segment, from the Missouri River to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, covered one thousand and thirty-two miles in four months.

It was during the first segment from Nauvoo to Winter Quarter that Brigham Young finalized his plan for the mass movement of wagon trains. The trains were organized into companies of hundreds, fifties, and tens. This division was based on able bodied men.

In December of 1846, Winter Quarters boasted five hundred and thirty-two log homes, eighty-three sod houses, and an untold number of tents and wagons that were used for shelter. Winter Quarters population was close to four thousand.

Inadequate shelter and food at Winter Quarters during the winter of 1846-47 resulted in approximately four hundred Mormons dying of malaria, scurvy, dysentery, and a host of other unidentified ailments.

In 1846, five hundred volunteers formed the Mormon Battalion to serve in the 1846-1848 Mexican War. The pay of the battalion, seventy thousand dollars, helped fund the exodus to Utah.

The Mormon Trail across Nebraska and Wyoming followed previously used emigrant trails. As the Mormon wagon trains traveled west, ferries were built and the stream crossings were improved for the trains that would follow.

Wagon Odometer - Scott's Bluff National Monument

The first wagon train to use an odometer was Brigham Young's Party in 1847. Based on William Clayton's suggestion, Orson Pratt designed a device that would fit on the axle of one of Heber C. Kimball’s wagons. A wheel odometer measured rotation of the wagon wheel, and from this the distance traveled could be determined. The odometer was not unique to the Mormons, but they were the first to use one on the Oregon-Mormon trail.

The Pioneer Party spent one hundred and twenty days on the trail. The average distance traveled was eight an a half miles per day. Three of the five handcart companies from Iowa City, traveling roughly three hundred miles farther, averaged sixteen weeks to reach the Salt Lake Valley. With the exception of the Martin and Willey Handcart companies, the handcarts traveled faster than the wagon trains from Winter Quarters.

Just over South Pass at Pacific Spring, Mountain Man Moses "Black" Harris informed the Mormons that the Salt Lake Valley was sandy and destitute of timber; no vegetation but the wild sage. Harris gave Brigham’s Party past issues of the Oregon Spectator, the first newspaper published on the Pacific Coast, and a number of copies of the California Star published by Samuel Brannan. Soon after the meeting with Harris, the Pioneers met "Peg Leg" Smith, who had a post near Bear Lake and then Jim Bridger from Fort Bridger.

Jim Bridger told Brigham Young that it was not prudent to bring a large population into the Great Basin until it is proven that grain can survive the cold. So skeptical was he [Bridger], that he told [Brigham] Young, “I would give $1,000 for a bushel of corn raised in the basin.”

On June 30th in the Green River Valley, Samuel Brannan rode into the Camp of Israel. He gave the Pioneers an account of the Brooklyn voyage to California, and told them of the Donner Party disaster from freezing temperatures and lack of food in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Brannan tried to convince Brigham Young of the virtues of going on to California.

Samuel Brannan started San Francisco's first newspaper, the California Star. California's first millionaire, Samuel Brannan fell from Mormon grace and died in poverty from alcoholism.

West of Fort Bridger, the Pioneer Party met Miles Goodyear. As the other mountain men had done, Goodyear downplayed the Salt Lake Valley as a place for the church. During a lengthy conversation, Goodyear mentioned his “farm”, Fort Buenaventura in the Bear River Valley (Ogden, Utah).

The Mormon Trail from Fort Bridger followed the trail of the Donner-Reed Party through the Wasatch Mountains. The final one hundred and sixteen miles, from Fort Bridger to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, was the most difficult of the second stage migration.

An advanced group of the Pioneer Party arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 22, 1847. Brigham Young, who was sick, arrived two days later on July 24, 1847.

On July 23, the advanced company moved to (present day) Four Hundred South and State Street (where the Salt Lake City-County Building now stands). That day, William Carter, George W. Brown. and Shadrach Roundy shared the honor of plowing the first furrows in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake.

Orson Pratt, one of the first Mormons to see the Salt Lake Valley, exclaimed, "an extensive scenery open before us, we could not refrain from a shout of joy which almost involuntarily escaped from our lips the moment this grand and lovely scenery was within our view."

Not all of the pioneer party was so enthusiastic about the Great Salt Lake Valley. Harriet Page Wheeler Young on viewing the Salt Lake Valley said, “Weak and weary as I am, I would rather go a thousand miles farther than remain in such a forsaken place as this.”...in 1892, when my grandmother first saw the log cabin on my grandfather's homestead in Star Valley (near Thayne, Wyoming), she hesitated for sometime before saying, "Nobody lives in a place like this." Just as the "desert bloomed", Star Valley is now regarded as one of the most beautiful valleys in the West.

By the time Brigham Young arrived in the Salt Lake Valley (two days later), Erastus Snow pointed to the progress of the advanced company. “We have the creek dammed and the water turned onto our land and several acres of potatoes and early corn already in the ground.”

Mormons were not the first white settlers in the Great Salt Lake Valley. In 1844-45, Miles Goodyear established Fort Buenaventura on the Weber River in present day Ogden, Utah.

Not wanting any other settlers in the Great Salt Lake Valley, the Mormons bought the property from Goodyear, who claimed to have a deed from the Mexican Government. In reality the Mormon Church paid Goodyear one thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars for nothing more than Goodyear's squatters rights to the land. James Brown moved into the fort in 1848 and renamed it, Fort Brown.

P. G. Sessions - Southeast Corner Independence Rock

My great-great grandfather, Perrigrine Sessions traveled the Oregon-Mormon trail in 1847. He was a Captain of Fifty in the second wagon train to arrive in the Salt Lake Valley...fifty able bodied men, counting the families would be over two hundred people. The wagon train of six hundred and sixty wagons traveled the one thousand and thirty-two miles from Winter Quarters to the Salt Lake Valley with 124 horses, 9 mules, 2,213 oxen, 887 cows, 358 sheep, 35 hogs, and 716 chickens (City of Bountiful, Leslie Foy). On reaching the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young sent Perrigrine north with some of the animals to keep them away from the newly planted crops. The first settler of Sessionsville (Bountiful, Utah) and his family spent the winter with their wagon backed up to a dugout in the bank of Big Hollow (250 West 2nd North in present day Bountiful).

Perrigrine Sessions - Bountiful Utah Inscription

A monument was erected in 1995 at the corner of Main and Center streets in Bountiful, Utah to honor the first settler of Sessionsville...Perrigrine Sessions. In 1855, the name was changed to Bountiful.

One of Perrigrine's wives, Sarah Crossley, came to Utah in 1856 with the Martin Handcart Company. The Martin Handcart Company was stranded in heavy snow and cold not far from Devils Gap at Martins Cove, while the Willey Handcart Company was stranded near the summit of South Pass. Sarah Crossley's account of the suffering is guaranteed to bring a lump in your throat, or a tear to your eye.

My great-great-great grandparents, David and Patty Sessions were called to go with the first company to clear a trail between Nauvoo and the Missouri River. Patty was given the responsibility of midwifery. Among the hundreds of pioneers that left Nauvoo, Patty delivered nine babies on the bank of the Mississippi River.

The next summer at the age of fifty-two, Patty Bartlett Sessions walked beside an ox team in her son Perrigrine's company from Winter Quarters to the Salt Lake Valley. Besides driving the ox team, Patty kept a complete day diary, delivered babies, and treated the sick.

Upon arriving in Utah, "Mother Sessions" delivered the first male child born in the Salt Lake Valley. Known as the Mormon-Midwife, Patty Bartlett Sessions delivered three thousand nine hundred and seventy-seven babies. She died at the age of ninety-seven.

To put this number of deliveries in perspective, Dr. O. L. Treloar practiced (only doctor during World War II) in Afton (Star Valley), Wyoming for over thirty years. During this time, Dr. Treloar delivered just over three thousand babies in a predominately Mormon community.

Patty Sessions' diary listed some of the home remedies that were used on the Oregon Trail:

...Salve for old sores: Bark of indigo weed root, boiled down beeswax, mutton tallow, a very little rosin.
...For jaundice: Take one tablespoonful of castile soap shavings, mixed with sugar, for three mornings; then miss three until it has been taken nine mornings a sure cure.
...For bowel complaint: take one teaspoonful rhubarb, one fourth carbonate soda, one tablespoon brandy, one teaspoon peppermint essence, half-teacupful warm water; take tablespoonful once an hour until it operates.
...For vomiting: Six drops laudanum, the size of a pea of soda, two teaspoons of peppermint essence, four cups water; take a tablespoonful at a time until it stops it; if the first does, don't repeat it.
...Heart-burn: Laudanum, carbonate soda, ammonia, sweet oil, camphor. Also for milk leg inflammation or sweating.
...For gravel: dropsy and for fits: Indian hemp root.
...For gravel: wild rose berries boiled long. Drink the tea.
...Eye water cure: wrap two eggs in a wet cloth and roast them till quite hard, then grate or grind them fine, add half ounce white vitriol, mix it well together, add one pint of warm rain or snow water and keep it warm for three hours, after stirring or shaking it. strain it through a fine thick flannel and bottle it up for use.

A book on Patty Sessions...Mormon Midwife The 1846-1888 Diaries of Patty Sessions, Donna Toland Smart, editor...was the Winner of the 1997 Evans Handcart Prize.

I like to think that my interest in western history comes from my ancestors. Between 1847 and 1854, every Grandfather and Grandmother in my direct-line ancestry traveled over the Mormon Trail (thirty-three in all). The oldest, John Parker, was eighty-two, and the youngest was my maternal great-grandfather, Mathew Gilby. Mathew had his fourth birthday in August of 1851, while walking to Utah.

The use of the Oregon-Mormon trail by the Mormons lasted from 1847 to 1869. Seventy thousand Mormons traveled over the trail during this period. Use of the Mormon Trail stopped in 1869 with the driving of the "golden spike" at Promontory Point, Utah, for the transcontinental railroad.

State of Deseret

In July 1849, Church Authorities wrote a constitution for statehood; the U.S. Constitution and the Iowa Constitution of 1846 were used as guidelines. When Church Authorities petitioned Congress for a new state, they requested the state be named Deseret. The proposed state boundaries were set at: Oregon on the north, Green River on the east, Mexico on the south, and the Sierra Nevada on the west, including a portion of the Southern California seacoast...Congress turned down the proposed State of Deseret, primarily because of the practice of polygamy.

The Mormon Trail article was written by O. Ned Eddins of Afton, Wyoming. Permission is given for material from this site to be used for school research papers.

Article References and Article Citation are at bottom of article.

Do you need an easy personalized gift? My first historical novel Mountains of Stone will be signed with your message, and along with a picture CD, mailed directly to anyone you designate. Click on book cover for details.

Mountains of Stone contains an abridged account of the important aspects of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, as well as, some of the major Hudson's Bay and North West Company explorers. The extensive bibliography for Mountains of Stone served as background information on the articles for this website.

There have been many requests for copies of pictures from the website, and I have put the best pictures, and others from Jackson Hole, Yellowstone, Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, and Star Valley, Wyoming, on a CD. The pictures make beautiful screensavers, or can be used as a slide show in Windows XP. When ordering Mountains of Stone, request the CD and I will send it free with the book.

Mountains of Stone Picture CD

Winds of Change, sequel to Mountains of Stone, will be published this summer. All of the people that purchased Mountains of Stone (except the dead beats) will be notified by email when Winds of Change is available. For those that ordered Mountains of Stone, the price for Winds of Change will be the same. For those on the Mountains of Stone list, it will not hurt to fill out the Winds of Change order form in case there is an email foul up. To view chapter headings click on Winds of Change.

Winds of Change is concerned with the early effects of westward expansion on the Northwest and Plains Indians. The time frame for Winds of Change is 1810 to 1813. My plan was for Winds of Change to go through the rendezvous system, but there was just too much interesting history associated with Tecumseh and the Northwest Indian Wars, Mountain Man-Indian Fur Trade, Factory Trading System, Astorians, and Western Expansion across the Mississippi River.

Chapter Headings

The Piegan
Fort Raymond
War Rumbles
Osage Post
Tecumseh
General William Clark
St. Louis
The Spanish
Comanche
Cheyenne
Winds of Change
Indian Horse
Astorians
South Pass
Bibliography
Addendum

An addendum was added to Winds of Change that covers a collection of short historical facts related to the Rocky Mountain and Canadian fur trade and the Oregon and Mormon migrations. At the close of the Rocky Mountain Man Rendezvous in 1840, the first settler family traveled the Oregon Trail--western expansion had begin. Within the next ten to fifteen years, over five hundred thousand people migrated to Oregon, Utah, and California.

The back cover of Winds of Change.

Winds of Change - Back Cover

Anyone that wants to be placed on the pre-order list, please click on the picture below and fill out the form, and you will be eligible for the pre-publication price.

To send a comment, a question, or a suggestion click on Mountain Man.

To return to the Article Link Bars click on Mountain Man logo.

Citation: Eddins, Ned. (Name of Article). Thefurtrapper.com. Afton, Wyoming. 2003.

References:

Cornwall, Rebecca, and Leonard J. Arrington. Rescue of the 1856 Handcart Companies. Vol. 11 of the Charles Redd Monographs in Western History. Provo, Utah 1981.

Hafen, LeRoy R., and Ann W. Hafen. Handcarts to Zion: The Story of a Unique Western Migration, 1856-1860. Vol. 14 of the Far West and the Rockies Historical Series. Glendale, Calif., 1960.

Lund, Gerald N. Fire Of The Covenant. Bookcraft Publishing, Salt Lake City, Utah. 1999. - an excellent book.

Internet Sites:

Schindler, Harold. Camp of Israel. Salt Lake Tribune web site, 1997.

Schindler, Harold. Handcart Company Articles (several). Salt Lake Tribune web site, 1997.

http://www.americanwest.com/trails/pages/mormtrl.htm

http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/daily/history/1844_1877/handcart_eom.htm

http://www.lds.org/gospellibrary/pioneer/02_Nauvoo.html