Did This Famous LDS Pioneer Story ACTUALLY Happen?

[00:00:00]Let's talk about the famous story of the Martin Handcart Company being rescued at Sweetwater in 1856.

[00:00:08]Last week, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uh was in the news due to their hopes to purchase federal land that includes the Sweetwater historic site. It's a spot where this handcart company was rescued during a blizzard in late 1856. The land is currently owned and overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. The church has tried to purchase this property for many years without much success, although they have succeeded in leasing the land for quite a while. And now there seems to be a genuine attempt to allow the transfer to happen, and I imagine that will happen over the next little bit. Now, I don't want to weigh in on the land acquisition itself. It's a complicated case. There is, as always and as should be, lots of red tape surrounding uh land associated with the Bureau of Land Management. And there are also more complicated issues, like indigenous claims on this land as sacred, which also need to be taken account. But I will say that as of now, it appears that those involved in this attempted land transfer are going about it the right way, unlike how they did it a couple of decades ago, prioritizing uh public access and rights and bringing all the lots of lots of stakeholders, which is why I assume this land transfer will go through over the next year or two.

[00:01:25]What I am interested in in this video is how the Sweetwater rescue story itself, or at least legends tethered to that Sweetwater rescue, reveal the broader tensions about how Latter-day Saints view the past, and importantly, how we learn about the past. Because there has been a mythic and untrue narrative that has cropped up about the Sweetwater, which is divorced from reality, but often tethered to people's understanding of a faith-promoting story. And today I'll talk about the experience that one BYU-Idaho religion instructor had when he tried to introduce his students to the more accurate history and why it didn't go the way he expected, but why the lessons were important. So, in this video I'll talk about the history itself. I'll highlight the relationship between the historical scholarship and some of the mythic legends that came out, and then I'll detail how this can cause some dissonance for believing members, and then use it as an example for approaching the conflicts within within LDS history. So, that's what we have on tap. Let's dig in. There's a lot of good, meticulous, and often diametrically opposed scholarship on the handcart companies. What can be agreed upon is that the handcart companies were introduced as an experiment by LDS leaders in the mid-1850s to solve a crisis. They had lots of Latter-Day Saint converts who were wanting to migrate to Utah back when that migration was a core part of what it meant to be a Latter-Day Saint. But, they didn't have the money to be able to take a more leisurely stroll, let's call it, or more importantly, and more seriously, have the resources necessary for that prolonged march. Cuz remember, this is a decade before the transcontinental railroad. And so, the handcart companies were introduced as a cost-saving measure to allow saints who did not have the proper resources to be able to make that voyage. And it was a risk, and this is where there are conflicting scholarly interpretations. Some who are saying that Brigham Young and the leaders were trying to save a penny for their own gain at the at the expense of these poor migrants, and that they should instead have poured in the church's resources.

[00:03:44]On the other hand, you have arguments that Brigham Young and other church leaders were very noble in their quest, that they believed that this was the best measure and this was indeed helping those who did not have the money and resources while also pooling the churches material for other things going on. As is often the case, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

[00:04:08]Um I am mostly persuaded by the scholarly arguments and I should emphasize I'm not an expert on the Pioneer migration and especially the handcart tracks, but in reading all their works I'm less convinced of the much more cynical approaches like in the in the book Devil's Gate or in Will Bagley's volumes, although I deeply appreciate the research.

[00:04:30]I don't think there is as much of a cynical decision-making process of Brigham Young and others, but I also don't think that the traditional apologetic approach of trying to absolve Brigham Young and other leaders of all their complicity is also accurate.

[00:04:47]In other words, I think Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and the other leaders, they saw this as a necessary and useful approach, but while also overseeing the risks. In other words, what I think what what I think these decisions did is it made these pioneers vulnerable to a disaster and they downplayed the risk of that vulnerability as they played up the potential of, you know, saving resources for other things cuz this was at a time when territorial Utah was going through a very tough financial period, which of course is going to lead to spiritual expressions like the Mormon Reformation and political conflicts like the Utah War. And 10 of the 12 handcart companies worked very well. The two that didn't, the Willie and Martin handcart companies, are in the end the handcart companies that we remember the most.

[00:05:39]Before I go much further, just a reminder that if you enjoy this type of content using the past and history to better understand ourselves, our community, how we got here, and how we look at our ancestry, I hope you subscribe to this channel. I do deep dives on topics every Monday. I connect the past to the present every Wednesday.

[00:05:58]And then I pull back the curtain on the historian's craft on Friday, examining classic books, uh interviewing authors of new works, or looking at the sources behind historiographical arguments so that you can become an expert in history as well. And if you want to give back, and I'm so grateful for the many of you who have chosen to give back and make this channel possible, you can become a member where for a nominal fee you get early access to the videos, you get little icons next to your name, and you can feel good about supporting public-facing rigorous scholarship.

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[00:07:13]And also, mark your calendar for Wednesday, August 5th at 7:00 p.m.

[00:07:18]Mountain Time, which will be my next live YouTube discussion. I typically try to do these the first Wednesday of every month. I didn't do one this last month because we had the live in-person discussion with Dan McClellan, and Lindsay Hansen Park, and Blair Hodges, which was phenomenal. But now we're getting back to the live. It'll just be me this time, answering some of your questions, but especially focusing on the topic of the lingering issues of race in modern Mormonism, a topic that I've covered in a few recent videos that I have a bit more to say and I'm sure many of you have questions about. So, please mark your calendars again for Wednesday, August 5th at 7:00 p.m.

[00:07:53]Mountain Time here on this YouTube channel. All right, that's enough business. Let's get back to Sweetwater.

[00:07:58]The Willie Handcart Company had over 400 participants and the Martin Handcart Company had 576.

[00:08:05]Unlike the other 10 handcart companies that went off without a hitch, one of my ancestors was one in one of the other handcart companies and the only real good story that comes out of her trek was that she wore out her shoes not by walking during the day, but by dancing at night to give you a sense of how different their experiences are going to be to the Willie and Martin. Now, they these two companies, the Willie and Martin Handcart companies, got their start much later than the others. This is likely due to travel complications and a bit of mismanagement, but it's more due to mistakes rather than ill intentions. And what's notable when you look at their stories is it was the leaders who were actually urging them to hold out for the winter and start the next spring and it was the the commoners, those migrants, who were really pressing forward of wanting to go and it was their deal their zeal, their desire that that kind that got them into this issue where they start out late because not only did they start out late, but then the blizzard started early. The winter crept in earlier that year than past and so due to the mismanagement rather than ill intent, these handcart companies were facing a disaster and they were stuck in the plains in Wyoming heading into Utah without the provisions and dying at a pretty rapid rate. And when Brigham Young got word at the October General Conference, he raised a relief effort and many Latter-day Saints very bravely and dutifully and sacrificially sent their resources and moved out themselves to try to save them. So, by mid-October, the handcart companies were stuck in a blizzard. The Willie company was about 110 miles further along the tracks, and so they were the first ones to be rescued. And then by the time the Latter-day Saints reached the Martin company, things were really dire. It was a Herculean effort to pull them out of their dire straits, although many died.

[00:09:59]In the end, the Willie company lost about a lost about 75 70 members out of their 400. And the Martin company, which remember had 576, lost about last lost at least 145.

[00:10:13]So, this all was very tragic. And those who did survive often lost limbs or had other long-term health conditions resulting to resulting from frostbite and other horrible weather conditions. But, it's one part of that story which has gotten a lot more attention in recent years and was the origins of the mythic account.

[00:10:35]Now, the famous mythic account about Sweetwater, it came from a guide named Solomon Kimball, yes, from that Kimball family, when he recorded this account that gets repeated over and over again in official church settings and curriculum. Quote, "Three 18-year-old boys belonging to the relief party came to the rescue. And to the astonishment of all who saw, carried nearly every member of the ill-fated handcart company across the snowbound stream. The strain was so terrible and the exposure so great that in the later years all the boys died from the effects of it." When President Brigham Young heard of this heroic act, he wept like a child and declared publicly, "That act alone will ensure C. Allen Huntington, and George W. Grant, and David P. Kimball an everlasting salvation in the celestial kingdom of God worlds without end."

[00:11:26]You've probably heard this story before.

[00:11:27]As I mentioned, it's been repeated in many settings, including by Gordon B.

[00:11:31]Hinckley at least two times in general conference. It's also been re-enacted at many of the trek re-enactments by youth.

[00:11:38]I've heard from many stories from of young men having to carry the young women across a a fake frozen river, uh despite the fact that there are plenty of young women who are like, "I can carry myself."

[00:11:50]The problem is, of course, is that the historical record does not back up this particular story. The records are very clear that it was a group effort, everyone pitching in, and many of the women, of course, carrying themselves, not having to rely on these three young men. Orson Whitney wrote the first uh version of this myth, Orson Whitney, who's also connected to the Kimball family. Yeah, the first version appears about in 1888, which means 30 years past the actual event, and then Solomon Kimball writes his famous event in 1914. One of the ironies is that one of those young boys mentioned in having died from their horrible exposure due to their sacrifice, they were still alive at the time the story starts circulating that they had died during the during their sacrifice, which might have been quite a surprise to them.

[00:12:40]Now, if you want the actual history of what happened, Chad Orton, who is an who was an LDS archivist, um I don't think he still has that role anymore, but he's performed great work for the church archives over the years, performed the meticulous work of capturing what actually happened. His article, The Martin Handcart Company at the Sweetwater: Another Look, was published in BYU Studies. And what's what's interesting is that the real history can be seen as faith-promoting. It's all these people willing to pitch in and save their community. You don't have to hoist all the bravery onto just three young men, nor declare that Brigham Young had declared that they had earned their exaltation in that one moment. We don't have records of the three boys doing all that work, and we definitely don't have records of Brigham Young making that proclamation. So, this could just be another example of of well-intentioned myth capturing the spirit of the rescue then being corrected by the historical record, the letter of the rescue. But it becomes more complicated and that complication hints at deeper tensions. So, a couple decades ago, John Thomas, a religion instructor at BYU-Idaho, wanted to use this story in his classroom on church history to talk about, you know, facts versus fiction, myths versus the historical record. And so, he assigned both Gordon B.

[00:14:00]Hinckley's telling of the famous Sweetwater rescue myth as well as a Chad Orton article article about the actual history. But it didn't go how it how uh how he planned it. I was very fortunate to hear him give a presentation on this at the Mormon History Association, which I loved uh hearing in person. This is why the Mormon History Association is great. And thankfully, he wrote later wrote about it in a Religious Educator essay, which I'll link to in the video description. But this is [clears throat] how he narrates what happened in that essay, quote, "Referring to that paragraph in Kimball's 1914 narrative, I asked my students something like, 'What's right and what's wrong with that account?' The first hands went up in the back where three or four male students sat as all returned missionaries. Soon after the first student started talking, I felt the heat rising on the back of my neck. He said that he only felt the spirit when reading the traditional account, that is, the Solomon Kimball account told through Gordon B. Hinckley.

[00:14:58]Then a nearby student weighed in. 'I don't see what's so wrong with that version anyway,' he said, questioning the value of revisiting the story. And one of them raised another issue. 'Why would President Hinckley use the story if there's something wrong with it?'

[00:15:11]Now, Thomas goes on and explains how he dealt with this and how it helped him reorient teaching in the classroom. And whether you are teaching Sunday school or you're not in the LDS Church at all. I think his account is very useful uh as a pedagogical exercise that I strongly recommend, which is why I linked to it in the video description, because it hits at some central questions. Why do people believe some stories and not others? How do some stories become part of a cultural canon?

[00:15:39]And how do you tell the truth? For a lot of people, like these students in Professor Thomas's class, the truth is determined by what an LDS apostle says, or how they feel the spirit, which of course goes into, of course, scientific notions of, you know, what what makes you feel good or bright or feeling the spirit. And so, it's an example of the importance of not just historical content, but historical literacy. That presenting mere facts is not enough about history. You have to present how history is done, and how we know what we know, in other words.

[00:16:14]So, Thomas's essay is a very thoughtful engagement with these issues within a devotional setting, I'll acknowledge.

[00:16:21]But, I'm also interested in what the story tells us about the cultural dynamics of faith. It's why some continue to refuse to accept accurate history. The famous saying from Boyd K.

[00:16:32]Packer, the LDS apostle, "Not everything that is true is useful." Which implies that the truth has to be useful to a degree, but useful to what? It shows how secular history can be dismissed. I don't trust what this archivist is saying, because I'd rather put my trust in an ecclesiastical authority, or my trust in a spiritual intuition that is more important than what I learn on the page. And so, knowledge is more than just an a complicated is more complicated than accumulation of facts. It's not just gathering together data, and laying it out one by one, it's interpreting it, and and it's engaging it. That's why the historian's craft is so important, but often so fleeting.

[00:17:17]Now, the church has wisely moved away from the classic Solomon Kimball account. When this story, the Sweetwater rescue, has been repeated in curriculum and general conference material, they no longer focus on the three men, although you will you will still still see it crop up from time to time because it takes a while for things to filter down to the bottom. And if the church ends up succeeding and purchasing the site on which the Sweetwater rescue took place and where it is now commemorating commemorated, I imagine that the material will be based on Chad Orton's excellent research rather than the the mythical Solomon [clears throat] Kimball story.

[00:17:55]But the lingering problems will still persist because when it comes to history, especially in the LDS church, where history often supplants theology or history is theology, the stakes are always so much more higher because who do you trust ties into things like institutional and ecclesiastical allegiance. And so that's why history has been such a touchstone within the LDS history, but why the Sweetwater rescue is such a poignant expression of it. I hope you enjoyed this video. If so, please hit the like button, share with others so we can broaden the conversation. Um subscribe if you enjoy the content and become a member if you want to give back. History has never been more relevant than is today, which is why I'm so pleased to have these conversations with all of you.