Posted on 05/20/2010 5:49:38 PM PDT by Colofornian
As our own lives become more insulated, virtual, and comfortable, actual episodes of suffering and endurance have become popular stuff. Mt. Everest mishaps, perfect storms, cold mountains, you name it. The name we like best, though, is "Mormon Handcart Tragedy," three words we had never seen so strung before last summer, and now we notice the phrase everywhere. The latest appearance was in a 2004 feature story about the depredation in the New York Times. (Full ignorance disclosure: none of the Roadsideamerica.com Team are practicing Mormons)
During a trip last year, we saw two wax representations of the Handcart Tragedy in three days (Old West Wax Museum, Thermopolis, Wyoming and The Great River Arch, Kearney, Nebraska). In both cases, a wax man pulls a cart like a mule, up to his knees in snow and mud, while a wax woman and child (and in Thermopolis, Brigham Young himself) exhort him on. For any husband who thinks he got it rough with SUV payments and private school tuition, it’s a humbling image.
The Thermopolis figures are old, but the Great River Arch is a new Disney-designed multimillion dollar multimedia extravaganza, spanning over I-80. There, the handcart diorama shares space with a Cadillac convertible and railroad engines. But we’ve heard of cars and trains. What gives? What was the handcart tragedy, exactly?
It turns out back in July, 1856, a group of Mormon pioneers from England led by Edward Martin left Iowa and embarked on the 1,200-mile wilderness trek to Salt Lake City. Experts advised them that it was too late in the year to start, and that they didn’t have enough provisions. Many were too poor to purchase horses and covered wagons, so the men pulled their earthly belongings behind them in carts.
One thing led to another. The handcarts cracked and fell apart. The familes needed to leave behind the heaviest things, which happened to be blankets and winter clothes.
In October, in southwestern Wyoming near what is now the town of Alcova, the Martin party got trapped by a blizzard. After enduring sorrow and suffering that "Tongue nor pen can never tell," 150 of the 600 in the group died of starvation and exposure. The rest were rescued by a team from Salt Lake. (Note: Two who did not die were Butch Cassidy’s parents.)
For more than a hundred years, it remained a footnote. People had their own problems. But interest has grown, helped tremendously by the opening in 1997 of a Mormon Handcart Center near the Martin’s Cove site. Tourists come 1,000 a day during the summer months -- no one wants to be there in late October. Fun is fun, but…
The Center, which is in the middle of 12,000 acres, is owned and operated by the Mormon Church. They also have a 1,000 head cattle ranch on the land. Last September, after years of haggling, opposition from church and state separatists, and political backroom deals, the actual site of the tragedy, which sits on Federal Land, was leased to the Mormon Church.
Bryce Christensen, director of Mormon Handcart Historic Sites in Wyoming, has said: "There's a spirit here that seems to answer questions people are fighting with, that helps them reach deep in their souls. Even those who are not members of the church find a calmness and peace here that they comment on."
A visitor's center displays detail the sad story of the Martin Company. Bits of broken handcart hubs and spokes are cemented among the rocks of the fireplace there.
There are about 160 handcarts for visitors to pull, and organized two- or three-day treks involve hauling them to campsites (a distance of between three and six miles) and back, as well as spending some time for reflection in Martin's Cove.
But the handcart pulling craze is not limited to Martin's Cove. Every summer in Iowa City, the Mormon Trek Heritage Festival takes place off Mormon Trek Boulevard, adjacent to the University of Iowa’s Mormon Handcart Park. This is where the trip started. Along with barbecue, music and games, replica wooden handcarts are provided for people to pull across the prairie.
In fact, since the sesquicentennial of the Mormon Pioneer Historic Trail in 1996, handcart treks over various part of the Trail (1,300 miles from Nauvoo, IL to Salt Lake City, UT) have taken off. The Bureau of Land Management estimates that less than 1,000 people took part in LDS-sponsored handcart treks in 1999, but by the summer of 2002, the number had grown to more than 12,000.
According to the NY Times piece, cart-pulling ceremonies are held everywhere from Russia to Florida. And handcarts were present, though not center stage, in the pageantry of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.
The desire to pull a handcart over the prairie seems to us an odd combination of test-your-strength and test-your-faith. It's like wanting to carry around a big cross. Both are made of wood, but at least the cart has wheels, and is not further burdened by two thousand years of predecessor weirdoes ruining the image when you tell your friends back home about it.
And what, exactly is the message of the handcart? "Go ill-prepared into the wilderness?" Ignore the warnings of those more knowledgeable than you, and risk the lives of your children, because with God’s help and your own fortitude, 75% of you will live?
The pioneers weren't forced to make the trip, like on the Trail of Tears or the Bataan Death March. They brought it on themselves, over a many-month period, when at any time, a sane decision to wait until next year would have kept things from spinning out of control.
There's a reason we have things insulated and virtual these days. It's better than freezing to death with no food.
“(Note: Two who did not die were Butch Cassidy’s parents.)”
Was Butch Cassidy a Mormon?!?
(Yes, a "Jack" Mormon)
"Go ill-prepared into the wilderness?" Ignore the warnings of those more knowledgeable than you, and risk the lives of your children, because with God’s help and your own fortitude, 75% of you will live?
God does not ask us to be idiots.
Last September, after years of haggling, opposition from church and state separatists, and political backroom deals, the actual site of the tragedy, which sits on Federal Land, was leased to the Mormon Church.
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And yet the “actual site of the tragedy” of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, where the mormons by order of Briggy Ypoung murdered 140 unarmed men, woman, children and babes-in-arms on 11 Sept 1857, is owned by the mormon corporation and they refuse to lease it or sell it to the descendants of the victims...
I thought many had set out with handcarts and crossed the Mississippi on the frozen ice because there was no time to wait for spring and build rafts. That there were tragedies along the way, yes.
But so were there with covered wagons. Read the tragic history of the Jayhawkers sometime who made a fatal choice and tried to reach California through it was Death Valley, I think; some did survive. Also the Donner Party tragedy.
So one must be careful not to view the handcarts with a juandiced eye. Are these displays an attempt to make the Mormons look bad whether we agree with their religious views or not in the eyes of visitors? Despite differences, there is much we can learn from them today.
It's a curious thing, but the Mormons along with the Amish and perhaps other segments of society are more prepared to survive an unforeseen future event because they have maintained survival skills plus they tend to have a strong sense of community.
There were no babes in arms killed. Only those over eight years old. The twelve or fifteen who were eight or younger were adopted out into the settlements.
You're referencing the mid-1840s...most Mormons hung out @ Nebraska through that winter. And I believe these families had way too much to carry than what could be carried on mere handcarts.
As this story indicates, the handcarts were utilized more by the poorer folk who couldn't afford wagons/horses, especially immigrants.
Are these displays an attempt to make the Mormons look bad whether we agree with their religious views or not in the eyes of visitors?
You'll notice that most of this article paints a "positive" worthwhile revisitation of this historical event...it's only at the very end (last two graphs) where the writer wonders out loud if there was some opposite message to consider about this historical event other than the slightly historically revised official Mormon version.
...the Mormons...tend to have a strong sense of community.
(So did Jim Jones' Guyana group...very strongly knit together...to the point that when one acted, a domino effect was set off...to their ruin)
Seriesly - between the Catholic and Mormon threads, the purpose of FR is being diluted.
#1...the Mormon mass murderers didn't ask for birth certificates before they commenced executing helpless, defenseless children, mothers & fathers.
#2...Even if they had, 8 yo were "fair game" because Lds hold that children are innocent angels only "up to" age 8. (And ya gotta remember the other reason here for killing the older ones was to eliminate as many credible witnesses to this 9/11 terrorist event as possible)
#3...how did you know "no babes in arms killed?" We know the Lds pioneers who were involved in the massacre were from the Utah communities of Parowan and Cedar City. Are you a Parowanian? Are you descended from one of the perps? If not, have you gained access to any journal entries of the massacre written by a mass murderer to absolutely know that "no babes in arms" were "killed?"
The twelve or fifteen who were eight or younger were adopted out into the settlements.
I'm not sure what you're attaching to this gesture, if anything. (Maybe you're just neutrally stating historical reality). Rather than me guessing, perhaps you could state your motivation for mentioning this?
The reason I ask is that other Mormons have mentioned this and stated it as if this was some sort of humanitarian gesture. I don't know about you, but if we were heading down the freeway, and saw three caravan busses all pulled over, and everybody 8 & over massacred, and the 15-18 or so babies & children kidnapped, the kidnapping alone would be massive felonies, let alone what else occurred. I mean the Mormons held these babies and children for at least a year before the Army came in and rescued them, delivering them to their relatives.
You can set your settings so you don’t see Religion postings if you’re only interested in News articles.
Hope the golden scrolls weren’t in that cart. Or your decoder ring.
***So one must be careful not to view the handcarts with a juandiced eye.***
Years ago I read that it was Brigham Young who suggested the handcarts be made without iron tires or other iron parts. The whole thing was a disaster as the carts simply wore out and fell apart on the trail.
Kind of like telling a man he can make a boat with a hole in the bottom to let the water out!
(Did you mean Joseph Smith's alleged golden plates? Nahh...he said an "angel" laboriously carted them away back to heaven...but why did he need them, anyway? I mean, from all reports...Smith (a) was looking into a "hat" as he dictated the Book of Mormon translation -- and gold plates would have been too hefty to fit into a hat; and (b) he supposedly also used his pet rock, his "urim & thummim" -- and it's not like he ran his pet rock over the golden plates)
The twelve or fifteen who were eight or younger were adopted out into the settlements.
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The 17 children age 2 months to 7 who were spared were kiddnapped by the mormons...and never returned willingly..
The US Army had to go in 2 years later and pay Briggy Young $10,000 to get them back...
There were also children under 8 who were murdered... including babes-in-arms..
I’m not seeing how to do that...
Aliska, to understand this Mormon cultural joke, ya gotta understand a Book of Mormon story: And the Lord said: Go to work and build, after the mannerof barges which ye have hiterto built...And it came to pass that the brother of Jared cried unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, I have performed the work which thou hast commanded me, and I have made the barges according as thou hast directed me. And behold, O Lord, in them there is no light; whither shall we steer? And also we shall perish, for in them we cannot breathe, save it is the air which is in them; therefore we shall perish. And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: Behold, thou shalt make a hole in the top, and also in the bottom; and when thou shalt suffer for air thou shalt unstop the hold and receive air." (Ether 2:16, 18-20)
So, the Book of Mormon narrative presents the Mormon god as a bumbling idiot, instructing him to build a barge minus any air or light...and v. 17, which I didn't include says all of the sides (including top & bottom) were "tight like a dish" -- meaning like a ball just rolling on the ocean at the total mercy of winds, waves, currents, etc!...and then presents the Mormon god as "solving" the air/light problem by opening up a hole in the bottom of the barge!
Ah c’mon, Colofornian...
Them there book of mormon guys had gills like fish...
And it came to pass that it came to pass that Nephi thanked the mormon god and it came to pass for the hole in the top and it came to pass, and also for the hole in the bottom and it came to pass and then the mormon god said and it came to pass Behold and it came to pass I have given thee gills and it came to pass as the fish of the sea and it came to pas. And Nephi saith and it came to pass Why hastested thouest givenest usest gills and it came to pass as the fish of the sea and it came to pass and the mormon god saith and it came to pass I doest not know and it came to pass I just thought they might look pretty and it came to pass and Nephi saithed thank you mormon god we will findethest a use for them (Jonah 1:1-4)
Whoops thats Jonah in the bom not Jonah in the Bible
:)
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