Fifty-eight years later: Jane Griffiths Fullmer, [Reminiscence], ibid.
As nineteen-year-old George Housley: George Frederick Housley, [Reminiscences], ibid.
In a stormy camp on the Sweetwater: Elizabeth Whitear [Sermon] Camm, Reminiscence, ibid.
Twenty-two years later: Jaques, “Some Reminiscences,” Salt Lake Daily Herald, December 22, 1878.
Providentially, it was here: Olsen, 391–92.
As Call later described his meeting: Anson Call, Autobiography and Journal, quoted in Olsen, 392.
That day, the ration of flour per adult: Bleak, Journal, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Elizabeth Sermon remembered: Camm, Reminiscence, ibid.
As Patience Loader recalled one such night: Archer, 87.
John Jaques had his own system: Jaques, “Some Reminiscences,” Salt Lake Daily Herald, January 5, 1879.
Twenty-two years later: Ibid.
At South Pass, the refugees were met: Olsen, 392–94.
At Fort Bridger, John and Zilpah Jaques: John Jaques, [Letter], http://www.lds.org/churchhistory; Archer, 219 n67.
From near Fort Bridger: Lola Simmons Hunter, History of Joseph Marcellus Simmons, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Joseph Wadsworth, one of the rescuers: Joseph Warren Wadsworth, [Autobiography], ibid.
In Echo Canyon: Jaques, “Some Reminiscences,” Salt Lake Daily Herald, December 22, 1878.
She would live to the ripe old age of eighty-six: http://www.lds.org/church history.
By now the snow was so deep: Wadsworth, [Autobiography], ibid.
The meeting with the residents: Jaques, “Some Reminiscences,” Salt Lake Daily Herald, December 22, 1878.
Years later, Louisa Mellor Clark: Louisa Mellor Clark, Reminiscences, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
But eighteen-year-old Langley Bailey: Langley A. Bailey, [Reminiscences], ibid.
Remembered George Housley: Housley, [Reminiscences], ibid.
Half a century later, Josiah Rogerson: Josiah Rogerson, “Martin’s Handcart Company, 1856,” Salt Lake Herald, December 1, 1907.
Rescuer Thomas Steed: Thomas Steed, “The Life of Thomas Steed from His Own Diary,” http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
And in the plainest of language: Margaret Ann Griffiths Clegg, Autobiographical sketch, ibid.
The last of all the Saints: http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Their retrospective estimates: Benjamin Platt, Reminiscences, ibid.; Mary Soar Taylor Moore, Biography of Mary Soar Taylor Moore, ibid.
Hafen and Hafen cite: Hafen and Hafen, 193.
LDS archivist and historian Mel Bashore: Mel Bashore, personal communication, September 2007.
Only four days after the Martin Company’s arrival: “Arrival,” Deseret News, December 3, 1856.
By the time the tidings of the last handcart company: “Arrival of the Hand-Carts at Great Salt Lake City,” The Mormon, February 21, 1857.
Heber Kimball acknowledged as much: Heber C. Kimball, “Remarks,” Deseret News, November 12, 1856.
At that same meeting in the Tabernacle: Brigham Young, “Remarks,” Deseret News, November 12, 1856.
CHAPTER 8: THE MORMONMAYFLOWER
The cynosure of the ten-acre square: http://www.ldschurchtemples.com.
Temple Square also encloses the rotunda-shaped Tabernacle: http://www.visit templesquare.com.
(Even faithful Saints joke): Ardis Parshall, personal communication, May 2007.
John Ahmanson’s “two-wheeled man-tormentor”: Ahmanson, 33, 35.
“Mormons are proud of our pioneer ancestors”: Ardis Parshall, personal communication, April 2007.
Elizabeth Stewart, born in 1829: Ardis Parshall, [Marriott Grandparents], unpublished typescript.
Marriott’s maternal grandfather was harder to find: “Autobiography of Elizabeth Stewart Marriott” [unpublished], quoted in ibid.
I spoke with Bill Marriott regarding the research: E-mail, Steve Lundgren to David Roberts, [April 2007].
“In conclusion,” Jaques wrote: Jaques, “Some Reminiscences,” Salt Lake Daily Herald, January 19, 1879.
This is the first time that the story: Ibid.
“The question may be asked”: Ibid.
“In the history of any people”: Young, 200.
There was no doubt in Ann Eliza’s mind: Ibid., 221.
“Fifty years go by before people”: Lyndia Carter, personal communication, September 2006.
Even at that remove from the disaster: Ibid.
The reunion was held on October 4, 1906: Handcart Veterans Association Scrapbook, LDS Archives.
Jones’s brother Albert: Albert Jones, Address, http://www.lds.org/church history.
In a 1908 letter to Jones: Joseph F. Smith (First Presidency) to S. S. Jones, April 18, 1908, LDS Archives.
To make the record as full as possible: Rogerson, “Martin’s Handcart Company, 1856,” Salt Lake Herald, November 10, 1907.
A persistent rumor has it: William Slaughter, personal communication, April 2006.
Historian Lyndia Carter discusses this murky business: Lyndia Carter, personal communication, September 2006.
The Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University: Josiah Rogerson Handcart Collection, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.
Another persistent rumor has it: Lyndia Carter, personal communication, September 2006; Ardis Parshall, personal communication, April 2006.
As noted earlier, the Hafens were spurred: Hafen and Hafen, 12, 190.
The Hafens honestly concede: Ibid., 140.
“Taken in its normal operation”: Ibid., 194.
Like Israel of old: Ibid., 195.
So uncooperative, in fact: Stegner, vi.
Standing before the granite cirque in western Wyoming: Ibid., 306.
like that of 90 percent of the 32,273-odd visitors: Elder Hadley, personal communication, August 2005.
An expert on the design of the “replicas”: Ibid.
Some of the most assiduous students: Lyndia Carter, personal communication, September 2006.
In The Price We Paid, Andrew Olsen: Olsen, 444.
As mentioned, trail historians argue over whether: Lyndia Carter, personal communication, September 2006; Terry Del Bene, personal communication, February 2007.
Historian Lyndia Carter, who regularly speaks: Lyndia Carter, personal communication, September 2006.
For Mormons seeking to justify the disaster: Palmer, “Pioneers of Southern Utah: Vol. 6, Francis Webster,” The Instructor, May 1944, 217–19.
Moreover, the only memoir in Webster’s own hand: Francis Webster, Reminiscences, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
In Palmer’s 1944 telling: Palmer, “Pioneers of Southern Utah,” 217–19.
According to Lyndia Carter, substantial numbers: Lyndia Carter, personal communication, September 2006.
a pair of documentary films: Jack Hubbell, In Their Footsteps of Faith: The Story of the Willie and Martin Handcarts, 2006; Lee Groberg, Sweetwater Rescue, 2006.
The trading post was erected: Fort Bridger Historic Monument; Vestal, Jim Bridger, 182–91; Alter, Jim Bridger, 223-57.
And a carefully researched guidebook: Berrett et al., 147–48.
Here, we do know, the first two handcart parties: Ibid., 144.
In a few minutes, however, Lowry dashed: Sandra Lowry, personal communication, February 2007.
From 1867 to 1877: Berrett et al., 20.
I recalled Josiah Rogerson’s wistful evocation: Rogerson, “Martin’s Handcart Company, 1856,” Salt Lake Herald, November 3, 1907.
It began with a chance conversation: Susan Arrington Madsen, The Second Rescue, 12–13, 21–24.
As theologian Bruce R. McConkie explains it: McConkie, 72–73.
To enter heaven: Ibid., 779.
As Larsen explained to
me the plight: Lloyd Larsen, personal communication, August 2005.
“The ordinances are not secret”: Scott Lorimer, personal communication, August 2006.
By the end of this orgy of effort: Madsen, Second Rescue, 47.
“I would say we rescued”: Lloyd Larsen, personal communication, August 2005.
A good example is that of Heika Lorimer: Madsen, Second Rescue, 61–62.
Twelve-year-old Kristen Gard wrote: Ibid., 57.
Lyndia Carter was even more blunt: Lyndia Carter, personal communication, September 2006.
CHAPTER 9: A DAY OF RECKONING
Early on, Jones was voted by his peers: Daniel Jones, Forty Years, 70.
Captain Grant asked about our provisions: Ibid., 71.
On taking stock of provisions: Ibid., 72.
During the first few days: Ibid., 71–72.
Finally Jones had to sever: Ibid., 74.
The hope of Jones’s men: Ibid.
The only solution was to slaughter: Ibid., 74–75.
Sometime in December: Ibid., 76, 78.
A day or two before Christmas: Ibid., 76.
It is a rather astonishing document: Ibid., 76–77.
“Game soon became so scarce”: Ibid., 79–80.
Jones only hints at the dissension: Ibid., 80.
By March 4, “the last morsel”: Ibid., 84, 86.
It was not until February that the first Indian: Ibid., 80–81, 83–84.
These Indians of the plains years back: Ibid., 83.
By March, the Snakes and Bannocks: Ibid., 87–88, 91–92.
Finally, in late spring: Ibid., 102–3.
The goods we were guarding belonged: Ibid., 102–5.
If Jones expected to be greeted as a hero: Ibid., 109.
With these sorts of rumors flying about: Ibid., 107–8.
“I began to feel pretty good”: Ibid., 108.
Thus, speaking in the Tabernacle: Young, “Remarks,” Deseret News, November 26, 1856.
At the same November 2 meeting: Grant, “Discourse,” Deseret News, November 12, 1856.
On December 1, Young’s “sledgehammer”: Bigler, Forgotten Kingdom, 129.
In a typical letter: Brigham Young to Ezra T. Benson, January 26, 1857, LDS Archives.
And to demonstrate the efficacy of that plan: Hafen and Hafen, 144–47.
“They were feeling fine after their trip”: Florence Courier, [n.d.], quoted in ibid., 148.
LeRoy and Ann Hafen call it: Hafen and Hafen, 144.
According to Ann Eliza Young: Young, 227, quoted in part in Bagley, “Two-Wheeled Torture Devices,” 41.
Thus Andrew Olsen: Olsen, 477.
Thus, in the 1857 company led by Israel Evans: Robert Leeming Fishburn, “Pioneer Autobiographies,” http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Of the same expedition, Susan Witbeck remembered: Susan Melverton R. Witbeck, Autobiographical sketch, ibid.
In the second 1857 company: Kersten Erickson Benson, Kersten E. Benson biographical file, ibid.
“In those five companies”: Olsen, 477–78.
Hafen and Hafen list the death toll: Hafen and Hafen, 193.
Yet two participants in the party later swore: C. C. N. Dorius, [Journal], http://www.lds.org/churchhistory. See also James Jensen, [Reminiscences], ibid.
Will Bagley calculates the death rate: Bagley, “Two-Wheeled Torture Devices,” speech at Sunstone Conference, Salt Lake City, August 2006.
His characteristically acerbic conclusion: Bagley, “Two-Wheeled Torture Devices,” 47.
And on that very day, September 11, 1857: For the Mountain Meadows Massacre, see Brooks, passim, and Bagley, Blood, passim.
The book is so disturbing to the faithful: Richard Turley, personal communication, August 2006.
Patience Loader, otherwise so vivid a memoirist: Archer, 89–92.
Levi Savage, who had faithfully kept his journal: Savage journal, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Sarah Hancock Beesley, a veteran of the 1859 handcart party: Sarah Hancock Beesley, [Reminiscences], ibid., quoted in Bagley, “Two-Wheeled Torture Devices,” 46.
(Hafen and Hafen list only a single death): Hafen and Hafen, 193.
On November 30, the day of the Martin Company’s arrival: Young, “Remarks,” Deseret News, December 10, 1856.
As recounted earlier: Adolph Madsen Reeder, Writings, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
In The Instructor for April 1944: William R. Palmer, “She Stood Tall on Her Knees,” 152–55.
(Palmer implies that all five children): Olsen, 256.
Nellie died in 1915: http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Palmer closes his tribute: Palmer, “She Stood Tall,” 155.
According to a Southern Utah University archivist: Janet Seegmiller, personal communication, February 2007.
The most remarkable may have been Jens Nielson: Olsen, 206–8.
Despite this handicap: David Roberts, Sandstone Spine, 128–33.
Narrating the nadir of the expedition: Emily Hill Woodmansee, “Hunger and Cold,” http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
“Beefsteak was one thing”: Howard R. Driggs, “Handcart Boy,” The Children’s Friend, July 1944, 291.
According to Driggs’s memoir: Ibid.; also The Children’s Friend, September and November 1944.
A fourteen-year-old named George Harrison: http://www.lds.org/church history.
Lifting the flap of elkskin at the opening: Driggs, George, the Handcart Boy, 42.
In his 758-page Fire of the Covenant, Lund tries: Lund, Fire of the Covenant, xix.
They cannot cure themselves of uttering “Yah”: Ibid., 196.
Many Mormon readers: Personal communication, several women from West Valley ward, August 2006.
Thus on October 20, 1856: Lund, 543.
This party, made up of between 370 and 447 emigrants: http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
In his 1889 History of Utah: Bancroft, History of Utah, 421–22.
In his letter to the Frontier Guardian: “Letter from G. A. Smith,” Frontier Guardian, December 26, 1849, http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
At a 2005 session: W. H. Bagley, personal communication, August 2006.
According to Hannah S. Lapish: Hafen papers, Brigham Young University.
Even among church historians who hold that view: Michael Landon and Chad Orton, personal communication, May 2006.
In an informal lecture about the handcart emigration: Bagley, “Two-Wheeled Torture Devices,” speech at Sunstone Conference, Salt Lake City, August 2006.
Concentrating on what he calls: Bagley, “Two-Wheeled Torture Devices,” 5.
In the 1850s: Ibid., 7. The quotation is from Leonard Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 146.
At the same time that his schemes were threatening: Bagley, “Two-Wheeled Torture Devices,” 7.
In an angry speech: Arrington, Great Basin, quoted in Bagley, “Two-Wheeled Torture Devices,” 5–6.
Bagley was the first historian: Ibid., 12–13.
Thus in a report filed in the capital: Caleb Grant, [Report], http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
Even more explicitly, another member of Smoot’s team: Franklin Benjamin Woolley, Autobiography, ibid.
The Willie Company was made aware: James G. Willie Emigrating Company Journal, ibid.
Exactly what Young intended to do with a steamboat: Bagley, “Two-Wheeled Torture Devices,” 30–31.
Bagley grants that Franklin Richards’s sending on: Ibid., 21.
But in his view, the whole debacle was caused: Ibid., 13.
Bagley was also the first historian to argue: Bagley, Sunstone speech, August 2006.
As early as January 18, 1856: John Taylor to Brigham Young, January 18, 1856, LDS Archives.
By March 4, Taylor was so disturbed: John Taylor to Franklin Richards, March 4, 1856, ibid.
“We have had a great many calculations”: John Taylor to Brigham Young, April 16, 1856, ibid.
A June 30 letter from Young to Taylo
r: Brigham Young to John Taylor, June 30, 1856, ibid.
In August he pleaded with the Prophet: John Taylor to Brigham Young, August 18, 1856, ibid.
On September 18, in phrases that mingle exasperation: John Taylor to Brigham Young, September 18, 1856, ibid.
Having ignored all the warning flags: Brigham Young to John Taylor, October 30, 1856, ibid.
In February 1857, he sent the Prophet a letter: John Taylor to Brigham Young, February 24, 1857, ibid.
The baldest expression of that bedrock conviction: Fourteenth General Epistle, Millennial Star, April 18, 1857.
It was widely predicted by skeptical observers: See, for example, Germiquet, Brigham Young et la Secte Mormone, 173–74; or Beadle, Life in Utah, 524–26.
“He was a great American”: Will Bagley, personal communication, August 2006.
To the Prophet’s skeptical 1925 biographer: Werner, v.
For Bernard DeVoto: DeVoto, “Centennial of Mormonism,” 9–10.
John Bond, the twelve-year-old: John Bond, “Handcarts West in ’56,” http://www.lds.org/churchhistory.
And John Chislett mused upon the tragedy: T. B. H. Stenhouse, Saints, 313.
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Archer, Patience Loader Rozsa. Recollections of Past Days. Logan, Utah: 2006.
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———. Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints. Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1958.
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