Published June 4, 2006. Reprinted with permission from The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa .
Faith & Fate
150 years ago some Mormons started trek from Iowa
Drew Kerr, The Gazette
IOWA CITY -- Megan Fuja, whose great-great-grandfather John Watkins was a bugle player on the Mormon Trek of 1846 and 1847, had no idea of the role Iowa City played in that history until a new job pulled her here.
She learned, though, at Iowa City's Mormon Handcart Park.
Now, as the 150th anniversary of the Mormon handcart pioneers' departure from Iowa City approaches, she finds herself as one of numerous locals determined to reinvigorate the local link to the past.
"I saw the park and said, 'Oh, my goodness,' " said Fuja, chairwoman of the Iowa City Handcart Commemoration Committee. "It's great because, as with any place where you know people have been seeking some sort of freedom, it always leaves behind a special spirit to it."
The park, on the west side of the University of Iowa campus adjacent to the apartments at Hawkeye Court, is just part of the story. The trek sent oft-persecuted church members on a dangerous hike to a promised Zion in Salt Lake City.
Fuja hopes a sesquicentennial celebration here Friday through Sunday, June 11, emboldens efforts to increase the visibility of the Mormon culture.
Included in that are plans to record oral histories of ancestors and a nearly $12,000 diorama showcasing a handcart replicated so closely that even nails were shunned in favor of the hollowed-out peg design used in the late 1800s.
The diorama, to be unveiled in September, will land in the soon-to-be permanent home of the Johnson County Historical Society. That group began, without a single Mormon, in 1967 as the Mormon Trek Memorial Foundation.
"It's just one of those wonderful stories that we want to tell," Margaret Wieting, the group's executive director, said.
The handcart - a man-powered sort of wheelbarrow - has what historians call legendary significance in Iowa City. Nearly 3,000 westward mobile emigrants in 10 brigades lost the luxury of train traveling between 1856 and 1860 because the train tracks ended in Iowa City.
Largely from England, the group represented fewer than 5 percent of Mormons going west, said Fred Woods, executive director of the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation. He is a Brigham Young University professor helping to organize efforts in Iowa. "It's a very small thing in the whole American experience, but I assure you the Mormons don't forget it," said Woods, who will talk about that during a commemoration that is planned.
The church's emigration fund had been depleted 150 years ago. Cash-strapped members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spent weeks camping near Clear Creek and waited for handcart supplies.
A handful of local companies then pieced together the cumbersome hickory or oak carts and started on June 9, 1856, to manually pull them 1,300 miles across the plains. The roughly 3-foot by 4-foot design - with a single axle, wooden wheels and usually a covering - was proposed by then-church president Brigham Young to slice transportation costs.
Traveling to Utah with a handcart required around $975 in today's money, compared with the $7,000 to $12,000 to outfit a wagon and feed oxen, Woods said.
"The only reason they were doing this is because it was the cheapest way to go at the time," he said. "They were willing to forsake it all for the Gospel."
To ease the burden of manually dragging the 200-pound carts, adults got 17 pounds of rations, while children were allotted just 10 pounds. Often provisions were left on the trail to further relieve the stress of pushing and pulling.
The idea proved to be both ingenious and foolhardy. Historians point out that some 220 people died when two companies - Martin and Willie - had a delayed exit and froze in the bitter cold of Wyoming.
Traveling in a group of more than 900 people and 233 handcarts, those who didn't die lost limbs to frostbite before being rescued.
"Overall, the system worked," said William Hartley, a BYU researcher who will speak at a symposium at the Iowa Memorial Union that coincides with the festivities. "But there were, of course, some tragedies."
Despite the hardships, Hartley said the church's pledge to take all those who wanted to go was a driving force.
"The concern for moving all the poor was quite enormous," he said.
Today, the church headquarters are in Salt Lake City. The temple those pioneer church members built has become Utah's largest tourist attraction.
Contact the writer: (319) 339-3162 or drew.kerr@gazettecommunications.com
Mormon Handcart Trek Sesquicentennial
Friday
7:30 a.m.: Opening ceremonies, Mormon Handcart Park
8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.: Handcart Trek Symposium, Second Floor Ballroom, Iowa Memorial Union
Saturday
10 a.m. to 3 p.m.: Handcart Pioneer Festival, Mormon Handcart Park5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.: Handcart Pioneer Commemorative Program, Iowa City Stake Center, 570 Dublin Dr.
Sunday, June 11
9 a.m. to 10 a.m.: Interfaith devotional, Second Floor Ballroom, Iowa Memorial Union
7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.: Closing ceremony, Hancher Auditorium (tickets required).
On the Net
See more about the celebration at www.handcartpioneer.com