Handcart festival: First trekkers embarked 150 years ago
E-mail story
It's easy. Send a link to the story you were just reading to a friend. Just fill out the form on this page and we'll send it along.
Your name and e-mail address are transmitted to the recipient. Otherwise, it is considered private information; see Privacy policy.
IOWA CITY, Iowa — Exactly 150 years since the first handcart pioneers embarked from this eastern Iowa town, a group of Latter-day Saint youth set off on a 14-mile trek from the spot where those pioneers camped, signaling the start of three-day handcart sesquicentennial in Iowa City June 9-11.
In addition to the handcart trek and a youth conference service project, events included a daylong symposium at the University of Iowa, a Handcart Pioneer Festival, a commemorative program and an interfaith devotional. The observance was capped by a fireside featuring President Gordon B. Hinckley and President Boyd K. Packer, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve, transmitted over the Church satellite system (see related story).
"From this location, a total of seven handcart companies began what must be considered one of the most unique western migrations in the history of the country as poverty-stricken converts to the Church ... began walking and pushing and pulling handcarts toward their destination in the valley of the Great Salt Lake some 1,300 miles away," said symposium chairman Stephen Hunter as he launched the weekend's festivities.
He told the story of the first two handcarts that left from that spot in what today is Coralville, a suburb that adjoins Iowa City, the first on June 9 and the second on June 11, 1856. The first three companies were successful, he said, but "triumph turned to tragedy" when the last two to leave that year, the James Willie and Edward Martin companies, met with disaster because of a series of events that began with their late departure.
"It is these people we honor with this celebration," he said of the handcart pioneers. "But not only these pioneers, but also the people of this state and this city" for the compassion and assistance rendered the poverty-stricken travelers.
Greeting the crowd at the handcart park was Coralville Mayor Pro-tem Henry Herwig, who noted that those being honored arrived and departed 17 years before Coralville was incorporated as a city. "In 1856, the flour that each handcart carried was most likely ground at a mill less than a mile from where we stand today," he said.
Much of the original area along Clear Creek, where many camped, has been preserved by the city of Coralville, he said, and it remains much as it was a century-and-a-half ago.
At the Iowa City Iowa Stake's annual Handcart Pioneer Festival the following day, visitors pulled handcarts, engaged in pioneer crafts and games, looked for names of ancestors on a "memorial wall" and took in entertainment by Nauvoo Young Performing Missionaries and others.
Ali Pili, a Church member and Iowa City native, told of many structures and houses she has identified that would have been extant when the handcart pioneers were in the city. These include the "Old Capitol," dating from 1842, which was the territorial and first state seat of government until the state capital was moved to Des Moines soon after Iowa gained statehood.
On Saturday evening, a handcart pioneer commemorative program at the Iowa City Stake center featured a presentation by Paul Willie, president of the Mendon Utah Stake, who is a great-great-grandson of Captain James Willie who led one of the two ill-fated handcart companies. Citing journal and diary entries, he told the story of the Willie company's journey.
Musical selections were provided by members of the Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and Davenport stakes.
An interfaith worship service Sunday morning included homilies from representatives of six religious and cultural groups that were in the city in 1856 and one from President Andrew M. Hall of the Iowa City Stake. A men's chorus from the stake sang "Come, Come, Ye Saints."
The service was led by Loren N. Horton, senior historian emeritus of the Iowa Historical Society, who is Episcopalian. His wife, Carol, performed a song he had written in tribute to the handcart pioneers. The theme he selected for the devotional was how people of differing backgrounds and beliefs can work together peacefully and help each other in time of need.
E-mail: rscott@desnews.com
