WASHINGTON, D.C. — Testifying before a congressional subcommittee, Presiding Bishop H. David Burton recounted the tragic history of the Martin Handcart Company while explaining why the Church is interested in buying Martin's Cove located in central Wyoming.

Photo by Greg Hill

Martin's Cove in central Wyoming was the scene of a tragic episode in the Pioneer migration west. The Church would like to buy the cove from the federal government and add it to the adjacent Mormon Handcart Visitor's Center.

Currently federal land, Martin's Cove is administered by the Bureau of Land Management. A bill has been introduced in Congress that would enable the Church to purchase it and make it part of the existing Mormon Handcart Visitors Center.

Bishop Burton appeared before the National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Resources on May 16 in Washington, D.C.

When the Church purchased the Hub and Spoke portion of the Sun Ranch in 1996, it made Martin's Cove accessible. Prior to that time, the working ranch was a private-property barrier between the highway and the cove.

It is on that ranch that the Church has developed its visitors center and a path to the cove. Bishop Burton told the subcommittee how the Church has invested its resources to provide facilities to accommodate visitors including a bridge, parking lots, public rest rooms, campgrounds and even handcarts.

Bishop Burton said: "I do not believe any other group, including the BLM, would have devoted the financial and human resources we have to establish Martin's Cove as the significant historical destination it has become."

Further explaining the Church's interest in the site, Bishop Burton quoted a portion of the dedicatory prayer offered by President Gordon B. Hinckley at the visitors center in 1997: "I dedicate this Mormon Handcart Visitors Center as a place where may be taught the history of the past. May the tale of the great migration of people be here remembered and spoken of with love. May all who come here do so with a spirit of reverence; as they recall the experiences of their forebears may a spirit of solemnity rest upon them."

The bill — H.R. 4103, "Martin's Cove Land Transfer Act," — was passed out of committee on May 22 for the consideration of the full house.

In the beginning of his remarks, Bishop Burton said: "In order to understand why Martin's Cove is such a sacred location to the Latter-day Saint people and to our Church, I must tell you the saga of the Martin and Willie Handcart companies of Mormon Pioneers."

Then, in the context of the Church's migration west, he related the sad story of the two handcart companies that were trapped by an early blizzard on the plains of Wyoming in October, 1856. He told of President Brigham Young's call for members in the Salt Lake Valley to go out and rescue the victims. He related how the rescuers reached the Martin company near its final crossing of the North Platte River near present day Casper, Wyo., and encouraged the suffering pioneers westward past Devil's Gate where they crossed the Sweetwater River into the cove for some protection from the bitter weather. He noted that many pioneers died in the cove. Finally, he said, the surviving handcart pioneers made it with their rescuers to the Salt Lake Valley in late November.

"The individual stories told from journals of the survivors and the roughly 200 who died from their ordeal are at once tragic, touching and triumphant," Bishop Burton said. "From that time to this, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have found inspiration from the stories of faith, dedication, sacrifice and suffering of the Willie and Martin Handcart companies in Wyoming."

The Church and the BLM have been working together to facilitate the activities at the cove under a five-year agreement that was signed in 1997. The agreement "permits the Church access from the privately held Sun Ranch properties north into Martin's Cove," Bishop Burton said. He was complimentary of the efforts of the BLM to cooperate with the Church in the development of the visitors center area. He noted that the BLM offered assistance in creating the trail into the cove on its land, though much of the actual work was done by Church volunteers from the Riverton and Casper areas of Wyoming.