Handcart Companies and the Cost of Mormon Migration: Stories from the 1850s and 1860s
How poor Mormon converts walked across America with handcarts—and the human toll of a desperate, under-resourced migration strategy.
- Handcart companies were Brigham Young's cost-cutting solution to move poor converts to Utah when funds ran low after 1856.
- Families walked 1,300 miles pulling handmade carts with minimal supplies, facing starvation, disease, and freezing conditions.
- The 1856 and 1860 winter disasters killed hundreds, yet the program continued for over a decade.
In the 1850s, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints faced a financial crisis. Shipping poor European converts by wagon to Utah was expensive, so church leadership under Brigham Young devised an alternative: handcart companies. Starting in 1856, converts would pull small, two-wheeled wooden carts across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains themselves, carrying only essentials and walking alongside oxen-drawn supply wagons. Between 1856 and 1868, roughly 10,000 people—mostly poor Scandinavian and British immigrants—participated in handcart migration. It was cheaper for the church. For the migrants, it was often catastrophic.
How the Handcart System Worked
Each handcart company consisted of 400 to 500 people divided into smaller units. A family or small group would share one handcart—a simple wooden frame about four feet long with two large wheels, capable of holding roughly 17 pounds per person. Supplies included flour, sugar, salt, and a few cooking utensils. Oxen-drawn wagons accompanied each company, carrying heavier items like tents and flour mills, but space was limited. Families walked 15 to 20 miles per day, starting before dawn and stopping at dusk. The journey from Iowa or Missouri to Salt Lake City took four to five months.
The carts themselves were often poorly built by inexperienced craftsmen. Axles cracked, wheels broke, and repairs were makeshift. Handcarts offered no protection from weather and no room for the sick or elderly. Pregnant women and children walked alongside, sometimes for hours in rain, dust, or snow. Rations were calculated to barely sustain life at a normal pace; any delay meant hunger. The church supplied minimal medical care, and there were no contingencies for early winter or unexpected hardship.
The Disasters: 1856 and Beyond
The first five handcart companies in 1856 departed late in the season. The Martin and Willie companies—the last two—left Iowa in July and were caught in early snow in the Rocky Mountains in October. Temperatures plummeted. Food ran out. People froze to death in their tents. The Willie company lost 67 of 404 people; the Martin company lost 145 of 576. Bodies were buried in shallow graves on the trail. Survivors reported eating leather, tree bark, and the oxen that had pulled their carts. Children died in their parents' arms. The 1860 Edward Martin company faced similar conditions and lost another 56 people.
These weren't anomalies—they were predictable outcomes of an underfunded system pushed to its limits. Relief parties from Salt Lake City eventually reached the stranded companies, but only after weeks of exposure. Brigham Young's response was not to halt the program but to adjust it slightly: he discouraged late departures and sent better supplies in some years. Yet handcart migration continued until 1868, and smaller disasters recurred regularly. Pneumonia, dysentery, and malnutrition claimed lives almost every season, even in 'successful' years.
Why It Mattered—and Why It Continued
The handcart system reveals a stark tension in Mormon settlement history. For the church, it was pragmatic: the program saved thousands of dollars per company and allowed rapid population growth in Utah. For participants, it was a gamble with their lives, justified by religious faith and the promise of a gathering place where they could practice their faith freely. Most converts knew the risks were real—letters and reports from earlier companies circulated—yet they came anyway, driven by poverty, religious conviction, or both.
The program persisted because the converts kept arriving and the church kept needing them. Handcart companies were also a form of communal labor that reinforced group identity and religious commitment. Surviving the journey together created bonds and proved one's devotion. Church leaders framed the suffering as redemptive—a test of faith. Criticism from outside observers (and some church members) about the safety and ethics of the system was largely ignored or dismissed as anti-Mormon persecution.
- Approximately 10,000 people migrated via handcart between 1856 and 1868.
- Estimated 400–500 deaths occurred during handcart journeys, though exact numbers are disputed.
- The 1856 disasters alone claimed over 200 lives.
- Most participants were poor European converts, many unable to speak English.
The Aftermath and Historical Legacy
By the 1870s, improved rail connections made handcart migration obsolete. The church shifted to railroad immigration, which was faster and safer. Survivors of the handcart companies became revered figures in Mormon culture—their suffering was reframed as heroic sacrifice that built Zion. Monuments were erected, and their stories were told to reinforce faith and community identity. For decades, the focus was on their courage rather than on the preventable nature of many deaths or the church's cost-cutting decisions.
Modern historians and descendants have revisited these accounts with more critical eyes. Primary sources—diaries, letters, and oral histories—document not just hardship but also the hope, humor, and mutual aid that sustained people. They also reveal the decisions that made disasters worse: late departures, insufficient rations, poor planning, and the prioritization of speed and cost over safety. The handcart companies remain a powerful symbol in Mormon history, but one now understood as more complex and morally ambiguous than earlier celebratory accounts suggested.
Sources
- Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Handcart Pioneer Database and archival records.
- Hafen, LeRoy R., and Ann W. Hafen. Handcarts to Zion (1960) and subsequent scholarship on handcart company records.
- Olsen, Steven L. 'The Price We Paid: The Cost of the 1856 Handcart Disaster' and related demographic studies.
- Primary sources: Diaries and letters from Martin and Willie company participants, held in church and university archives.
