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Susannah Stone

Susannah Stone joined the Church in England when she was 18 years old, the only member of her family to join, and made the decision to emigrate to America when she was 25 years old. Sailing to America in May 1856, she was a member of the Willie Handcart Company. The following account was featured in the book, Follow Me to Zion, published in 2013.

One time, Susannah became so discouraged that she was ready to give up. At this lowest point, she received a miraculous prompting that helped her keep pressing forward:

   “Only once did my courage fail. One cold, dreary afternoon, my feet having been frosted, I felt I could go no further, and withdrew from the company and sat down to await the end, being somewhat in a stupor. After a time I was aroused by a voice, which seemed as audible as anything could be, and which spoke to my very soul of the promises and blessings I had received, and which should surely be fulfilled and that I had a mission to perform in Zion. I received strength, and was filled with the Spirit of the Lord and arose and traveled on with a light heart. As I reached camp, I found a search party ready to go back to find me, dead or alive. I had no relatives, but many dear and devoted friends, and we did all we could to aid and encourage each other.”

Susannah Stone married Thomas Lloyd after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley and they went on to have 14 children, 12 of whom survived past infancy. After Thomas’ death in 1894, Susannah moved to Logan, Utah where she lived out the remainder of her days, passing away in 1920 at the age of 89.

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Margaret Caldwell

Margaret Caldwell, age 40, had been widowed for nine years when she left Scotland for America with four of her children, ages 9 through 16. After her husband’s death, she had managed a boarding house, and with thrift and industry she saved enough to emigrate.

Walking so many miles across the plains was hard, but Margaret said that,

“after becoming accustomed to walking it wasn’t too bad.”

Traveling became harder when her 14-year-old son, Thomas, had an accident in Florence, Nebraska. Thomas roped a cow so a young girl could milk it, but the cow broke away and Thomas’s foot was caught in the rope. He fell to the ground and released the rope, but the cow turned on him, breaking his collarbone and leaving him unable to help pull the handcart. “This left me with a great deal of pulling to do,” Margaret recalled. The bone developed gangrene, and Margaret “had quite a time clearing it up.”

Pulling handcarts became increasingly hard as rations were reduced. When the Willie company reached the Sixth Crossing of the Sweetwater, the last of the rations were distributed. Recalling their last meager meal in these conditions, Margaret wrote,

“I boiled a small piece of buffalo meat, seasoned it with salt crackers and thickened it with a little flour, then divided it with others desperately in need of food.”

Two young boys remembered this meal for years afterward,

“as being the best thing they ever ate.”

At a time when Margaret and her family were at the brink of starvation, she reached out with charity to others.

When the family finally arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, Margaret’s 12-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, had to have some of her toes amputated. Nevertheless, Margaret counted her blessings. Thinking of so many who had died on the journey, she recorded, “I still had much to be thankful for.” She remarried soon after arriving in Utah and lived to be 71 years old.

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Joseph Elder

Joseph Elder, age 21, joined the Church in the Midwest in 1855. The next year, while he was attending McKendree College in Lebanon, Illinois, he decided to visit the Saints in St. Louis. There he met with Church leaders, who ordained him an elder and counseled him to change his plans so he could help the emigrants who would be crossing the plains that year. Feeling that it was his duty to serve, he left college and said farewell to his family and friends. He helped buy cattle and herd them to Florence, where he planned to stay until he could travel to Salt Lake City with a company of returning missionaries led by Elder Franklin D. Richards. However, when the Willie company arrived in Florence, emigration leaders approached Joseph and asked him to leave immediately with the company and drive an additional wagon, which would give them more provisions and supplies.

Despite the short notice, Joseph willingly joined the handcart company. He quickly proved himself capable of important tasks. He thought that he would travel with the company only until Elder Richards and the missionaries caught up with them, but when Elder Richards arrived, he saw that it would be beneficial for Joseph to stay with the company for the rest of the journey, and Joseph willingly did so.

“I chose to remain with the handcart company and to assist them all that I could,”

Joseph couldn’t have known at that time how important he would be in the survival of many members of the Willie company. When they arrived at the Sixth Crossing of the Sweetwater, they knew that rescue wagons were nearby, but their circumstances were so desperate that they couldn’t wait for the wagons to arrive. The next morning, James Willie and Joseph Elder went to search for the rescuers. They climbed Rocky Ridge, with “snow and an awful cold wind” blowing in their faces all day, and finally reached the rescuers after
a journey of more than 25 miles.

“When they saw us, they raised a shout and ran out to meet us,” Joseph wrote. “They could scarcely give us time to tell our story they were so anxious to hear all about us.”

The next morning, James Willie and Joseph Elder led the rescuers back to the Willie company’s camp. The plight of the company was shocking to the rescuers. They saw “men, women, and children weakened down by cold and hunger, weeping and crying,” Joseph wrote.

“Oh, how my heart did quake and shudder at the awful scenes which surrounded me.”

If he and James Willie hadn’t found the rescuers and guided them to the Willie camp, the rescue efforts may have come too late. The rescuers gave the company food, clothing, and hope.

Joseph Elder was a person who put the needs of others before his own. Throughout the emigration of 1856, he showed that he had a willing heart and was ready to do whatever he was asked. He didn’t murmur or voice regrets when the journey of the Willie company became difficult. In his later life, he maintained his disposition to be of service whenever needed. He served the Lord in many ways, such as completing multiple missions, one of them to Europe in 1878.

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Emily Hill

(Picture titled “As Sisters in Zion” by William Whitaker of Julia and Emily Hill.)

When Emily Hill was 12 years old, she became interested in the Church, but her parents were very opposed to her interest. She was finally baptized when she was 16, along with her 19-year-old sister, Julia. Four years later, Emily and Julia left England to gather with the Saints. After reaching America, they traveled to Iowa City and started west with the Willie handcart company. Although the journey seemed daunting, Emily steeled herself for it. “I made up my mind to pull a handcart,” she wrote later. “A foot journey from Iowa to Utah, and pull our luggage, think of it!” Julia was unable to walk for part of the way and had to be carried in a handcart.

Emily became a poet of some accomplishment and left a record of her handcart journey in a poem she wrote in 1881 titled “Hunger and Cold.” The poem described the Sixth Crossing camp, when the last of the company’s rations had “utterly vanished”:

Not a morsel to eat could we anywhere see, Cold, weary and hungry and helpless were we.

The surroundings were “desolate,” with nothing in view but “snow covered ground.” She wrote that the company could just as well have been adrift in the middle of the ocean, “shut off from the world” as they were. Nevertheless, they maintained hope and trusted in God:

On the brink of the tomb few succumbed to despair. Our trust was in God, and our strength was in prayer.

When the rescuers arrived, Emily remembered hearing their shouts and cheers as they entered the camp:

Oh, whence came those shouts in the still, starry night, That thrilled us and filled us with hope and delight?

The “Boys from the Valley” were their “saviors,” and the camp cheered them loud and long. These rescuers had soft hearts and courage “like steel” to leave their homes and undertake such a difficult task. “They rushed to our rescue, what more could they do?” Emily asked. When the rescuers saw the condition of the people, they wept “like children.” They quickly started cooking fires and preparing “nourishing food.” Emily never forgot the selfless sacrifice of these men:

God bless them for heroes, the tender and bold, Who rescued our remnant from hunger and cold.

Years later, Emily said that she never would have reached the “city of the Saints” had it not been for the “compassionate people of Utah,” who donated food and clothing, and for the rescuers, who sacrificed so much to help them.

During her life in Utah, Emily had 10 children and became a prolific poet. She wrote the words to the hymn “As Sisters in Zion.”

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John Oborn

John Oborn’s family joined the Church in 1843 and soon thereafter felt prompted to gather to Zion. However, their very limited means didn’t allow them to act on these promptings until 1856. John, the youngest son in the family, was 12 years old at the time. The family sailed to America and then traveled by train and boat from New York to Iowa City.

Of the Willie company’s journey across the plains, John later wrote, “God only can understand and realize the torture and privation, exposure, and starvation that we went through.” Conditions were so bad at the Sixth Crossing camp that John described it as “the most terrible experience of my life.” With their rations gone and winter upon them, it was hard to think they could survive. “We had resorted to the eating of anything that could be chewed, bark and leaves from trees, etc.,” John recalled. “We youngsters ate the rawhide from our boots. It seemed to sustain life and we were very thankful to get it.”

As John later remembered this life-or-death situation, the coming of the rescuers remained vivid: “When it seemed all would be lost, . . . and there seemed little left to live for, like a thunderbolt out of the clear sky, God answered our prayers.” The rescuers brought life-giving food and supplies. John remembered that one of the men was particularly kind to their family: “He seemed like an angel from heaven. We left our handcart and rode in his wagon, and slowly but safely he brought us to Zion.” John’s father, however, died just 10 days before the family reached the Salt Lake Valley, giving “his life cheerfully and without hesitation, for the cause that he espoused. We buried him in a lonely grave.” John remained a faithful member of the Church for the rest of his life.

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Mary Hurren

Mary Hurren was 7 years old when she left England with her father, mother, and two younger sisters. Other family members who accompanied them were her grandfather, David Reeder; her aunt, Caroline Reeder; and her uncle, Robert Reeder.

In the beginning, each day brought new adventures and fun for Mary. There were other young children to play with, and her Aunt Caroline was especially kind. But the journey became more difficult as time went on. First her grandfather, who had been weak for some time, died when the company was just west of Fort Laramie. Two weeks later, her aunt, who was only 17 years old, died and was buried near Independence Rock.

With little food remaining, the people grew weaker. By the time they reached the Sixth Crossing of the Sweetwater, most of their provisions were gone. One morning, Mary’s father uncovered a piece of rawhide, about a foot square,
in the snow. He scraped off the hair, cut the rawhide in small strips, and boiled it. Mary chewed the pieces of boiled rawhide like it was gum, sucking out what flavor and nourishment she could get.

The last scraps of food were distributed on the morning that James Willie and Joseph Elder set out from the Sixth Crossing camp to search for the rescuers. “The people were freezing and starving to death,” remembered Mary. “If help had not come when it did, there would have been no one left to tell the tale.”

The company’s prayers were answered the next day when the rescue wagons arrived. For the rest of her life, Mary had a joyful memory of that time:

As a small girl I could hear the squeaking of the wagons as they came through the snow before I was able to see them. Tears streamed down the cheeks of the men, and the children danced for joy. As soon as the people could control their feelings, they all knelt down in the snow and gave thanks to God for his kindness and goodness unto them. . . . [The rescuers] came just in time to save our lives.

But hard times weren’t over for young Mary. On the trail, her shoes had almost worn out, and her feet and legs were frozen. To keep her legs warm, her mother had wrapped them in rags. When the family reached Salt Lake City, Mary’s mother bathed her legs and feet with warm water to remove the rags. Her condition was so bad that doctors didn’t expect her to live more than a day or two. They later told her father that the only way to save her life was to have her lower limbs amputated. Her father objected, saying that “his little girl had not walked for a thousand miles across the plains to have her legs cut off .”

Mary’s parents did everything they could to restore health to her limbs. The flesh fell away from the calves of her legs, and the process of healing was difficult. “It was three long years before I was able to walk,” Mary said her feet hurt for the rest of her life. Nevertheless, she was grateful for even the hard things she had experienced. She said that if she had her life to live over again, “I would not want it any different.”  She lived to be 88 years old and became the mother of 13 children.

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George Cunningham

George Cunningham was 15 years old when he left his native Scotland with his parents and three sisters to gather to Zion. George had begun working in a coal pit when he was only 7 years old to help support his family. He worked there for 6 years, sometimes for 12 to 14 hours a day. The air was bad in the coal pit, and he sometimes wouldn’t see the sun except on Sunday, his only day off.

His family, who had joined the Church shortly after George’s birth, was grateful when the way opened for them to emigrate. George thanked God for his blessings when he arrived in America, a country he had been taught to believe was a “land of promise.”  Twenty years after arriving in America, George wrote a detailed reminiscence that included memories of his experiences with the Willie company. He recorded that while the company was crossing Iowa, “people would mock, sneer, and deride us on every occasion for being such fools as they termed us, and would often throw out inducements to get us to stop. But we told them we were going to Zion and would not stop on any account.”

George, who was a teenager at the time, didn’t allow the mockery to deter him. “People would turn out in crowds to laugh at us, crying ‘gee’ and ‘haw’ as if we were oxen. But this did not discourage us in the least, for we knew that we were on the right track. That was enough.”  George was able to give a glimmer of hope to the Willie company at a difficult time in their journey. On October 18 the company camped at the Fifth Crossing of the Sweetwater and had issued the last of the flour, leaving only one day’s rations of crackers. With people becoming weaker every day, many would die unless rescue came soon. On October 19 the Willie company had to leave the Fifth Crossing and travel 16½ miles to meet the river again at the Sixth Crossing. The day dawned very cold, and some of the children who had been crying with hunger were now also crying because of the cold. After the people had traveled a few miles, a snowstorm blasted them for about half an hour. While the company stopped to wait out the storm, George kept looking expectantly to the west. The previous night, he’d had a vivid dream. In this dream, the people “had started out on the road” in the morning. It had begun to snow, but “the storm had subsided some.” George continued:

“I thought that I saw two men coming toward us on horseback. They were riding very swiftly and soon came up to us. They said that they had volunteered to come to our rescue and that they would go on further east to meet a company which was still behind us and that on the morrow, we could meet a number of wagons loaded with provisions for us. They were dressed in blue soldier overcoats and had Spanish saddles on their horses. I examined them, particularly the saddles, as they were new to me. I also could discern every expression of their countenance. They seemed to rejoice and be exceedingly glad that they had come to our relief and saved us.”

That day, George was amazed when he actually saw two men, like those he had dreamed about, riding fast toward the company. He called out for everyone to look. “Here they come! See them coming over that hill,” he cried. Two men on horseback and two others in a light wagon quickly rode into camp. These men were Joseph A. Young, Cyrus Wheelock, Stephen Taylor, and Abel Garr—members of George Grant’s rescue company. Five days earlier, George Grant had sent these men ahead as an express to find the handcart Saints. Members of the Willie company were overjoyed to see them. “[They] brought us the cheering intelligence that assistance was near at hand,” William Woodward recalled, and “that several wagons loaded with flour, onions, & clothing, including bedding, were within a day’s drive of us.”

“They were saviors coming to [our] relief,” wrote Joseph Elder. The people told George Cunningham that he “was a true dreamer, and we all felt that we should thank God.”  After reaching Utah, the Cunningham family went to American Fork, where George lived the rest of his life. He married Mary Wrigley in 1863, and they became parents of 13 children. During his life he worked at day labor and railroad construction, owned a butcher shop, and was a teamster. He was faithful in the Church and active in community and political affairs. As a boy, George Cunningham had come to America, dreaming of a better life and wanting to live among others who held his same religious beliefs. From his experiences, he learned that “the nearer he lived to God, the better he felt.”