JOHNSON COUNTY IAGenWeb Project

Mormon Handcart Expedition 
originally printed in ICGS newsletter Jan 1996
For more information see a book   "Handcarts to Zion"  by LeRoy and Ann Hafen.

A bronze tablet on a boulder on the south side of old US Highway 6, now 5^th Street in Coralville, Iowa, has these words inscribed:

“South of this Boulder on the Banks of Clear Creek is the Site of the Mormon Brigade Camp.  In 1856 some Thirteen Hundred European Immigrants, Converted to the Mormon Faith, Detrained at Iowa City, the End of the Railroad.  Encamped here they made handcarts and Equipment for their Journey on Foot to Salt Lake City.”

During the hot, early summer days of May, June and July, 1856, some 1300 converts of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints arrived in Iowa City, the end of the railroad.  They had come across the Atlantic chiefly from England and Wales and were joined by a few emigrants from the eastern United States.  These tired and bewildered people found that their equipment was not ready, so they encamped along the banks of Clear Creek.

One handcart was built in Iowa City for every five persons to carry the seventeen pounds of baggage allowed, including food, bedding and clothing for the long march.  Each cart had two wooden wheels each three or four feet in diameter, with thin iron tires.  These were connected with a wooden axle and a small box was attached to carry the belongings.  Attached were wooden shafts about five feet long, connected with a cross-piece at the end.  These rickety carts were pushed and pulled along.

A wagon drawn by three yoke of oxen was provided for every hundred persons in addition to the carts.  In these were extra provisions and five tents allotted to the group.  A few of the very old and crippled were allowed to ride in the wagons, but most of the company,  - men, women and children alike, pulled the loaded handcarts, weighing about one hundred pounds each, over the rough trails.

Finally, after weeks of waiting in the camp at Iowa City, the handcart brigade got under way, leaving in five detachments.   The first, including 226 persons, left on 9 June; the second started two days later and a third, mostly Welsh converts began the march on 23 June.  These companies were small, had started relatively early in the season and so arrived in Salt Lake before cold weather began.

The last two companies were not so fortunate.  The fourth did not leave Iowa City until the middle of July, while the fifth company began the long trek 28 July.  Both these companies reached the mountains so late that they were caught in the early snows and many perished.  Finally, the Mormon leaders sent out a rescue party.  With their aid the remnants of the last two detachments reached the city of their dreams some four months after their start from Iowa City.

Ten handcart companies made the trip from Iowa City to Salt Lake City between 1856 and 1860.  A book by LeRoy and Ann Hafen, Handcarts to Zion, published by Arthur H. Clark Co. in Glendale California in 1960 lists the names of almost 3,000 who took part in this overland trek.