By Mike Donahue
Moapa Valley Progress
For two days last week three companies of Moapa Valley “pioneers” dragged, pushed and hauled 30 loaded handcarts from Logandale on a trek down the Muddy River to St. Thomas in a brief but accurate depiction of the struggles of the earliest Mormons crossing the Great Plains.
Between 350 and 400 people participated in the handcart trek included more than 250 members of the Logandale LDS Stake Young Men’s and Young Women’s groups, according to Willie Frehner, second counselor of the Logandale LDS Stake presidency.
Through hazy clouds of dust, modern travelers attired in pioneer garb fought their way up steep inclines; down long, abrupt slopes; over rough and rocky terrain, and through deep sandy stretches on a meandering trail laid out to lead them from the Logandale Stake Center on St. Joseph Street to the small ghost town of St. Thomas.
St. Thomas was once a thriving community originally settled in 1865-66. It was abandoned in 1938 when Lake Mead backed up behind Hoover Dam inundating the town.
As the handcart trek concluded in St. Thomas on Saturday, it became part of “St. Thomas Alive,” an event arranged to “bring St. Thomas back to life for a day,” said Dustin Nelson, an event coordinator.
Each handcart was assigned the name of an actual St. Thomas resident and the group on the trek became the family of that resident. There were 10 handcarts to each company.
Although the 20-mile walk to St. Thomas and then back to the Overton Wildlife Management Area (OWMA) last Friday and Saturday was hardly epic in proportion, its organizers explained the trip was an effort to help acquaint youth in Moapa Valley, 14 to 18 years old, with their religious history.
“The goal of the trek was to help the youth understand the heritage of the Muddy River Mission,” Frehner said. The mission was established to expand the Mormon presence westward and help provide protection for travelers between Salt Lake City and California.
On the initial leg of the journey, trekkers participated in a series of “difficulties” designed to test the mettle of the young pioneers, according to Lindsey Dalley, president of the LDS Logandale Stake Young Men’s organization.
In one instance on Friday, just after dark, the males were pulled away from the trail forcing the women to continue the passage alone from the bottom of a steep, rocky hill.
After singing the unifying hymn of “As Sisters in Zion,” the women went to work.
In a stunning display of grit, determination and personal might, the women and girls fought their way up that precipitous mount in the dark, one handcart at a time, to emerge dusty, out of breath but victorious at the top with their 30 handcarts. The carts, when loaded with the belongings of the travelers, each weighed between 150 and 200 pounds.
One young woman, 17-year-old Bryanna Sheldon, not only helped pull her own cart to the top, but then returned to the bottom time and time again to help all the others up the sheer slope as well – a perfect demonstration of the pioneering spirit of the early LDS faithful, Frehner said.
Wendy Mulcock, president of the Logandale Stake’s young women’s group, said everyone on the handcart trek was asked to dress in historical, period attire that included hats, bonnets, shirts, pants, dresses and skirts. Thankfully, modern hiking boots and tennis shoes were allowed.
“We believe that dressing as pioneers accomplished several things,” she said. Not only did it give the kids a more accurate pioneer handcart experience, but dressing alike helped unify the group as a whole.
“Dressing a certain way makes a person feel a certain way, has an effect on each of us as an individual,” Mulcock said. Therefore, dressing as pioneers, helped increase feelings of unity during the trek, she said.
The entire 20-mile-handcart-trek ran from the Stake Center in Logandale to the OWMA Friday afternoon/night; to St. Thomas Saturday morning and then back to the OWMA Saturday afternoon.
Travelers were served three meals on the trail including a stew Friday night, homemade biscuit and egg sandwiches Saturday morning and then a hearty, meaty chili with cornbread Saturday noon in St. Thomas, Dalley said.
Throughout the trek last week, organizers also arranged a series of vignettes, stories and events designed to help make the trail a living history. At various points trekkers passed a marriage ceremony; a group of men skinning a pig; a family of settlers burying a dead infant; a scene of mob violence against the Mormons and other scenes.
Additionally, other actors on the trail told stories of actual events from the history of Moapa Valley and St. Thomas.
On Friday evening, the youth enjoyed and appearance by film actor Jasen Wade who starred in “17 Miracles” a film about the Woolley and Martin handcart companies journey across the plains. Wade related profound insights and feelings that he had experienced while working on the film.
Handcarts were never formally used by the Muddy Mission settlers on the trail from Utah to establish St. Thomas in the 1860s, but they are an important part of the Mormon pioneer tradition.
“Our goal on the trek was to reconnect with that tradition, so the kids got a historical but contemporary view of the era,” Dalley said.
Handcarts have a unique and important place in the history of the LDS Church. Some 70,000 Mormon pioneers struggled across the Great Plains between 1846 and 1869 to escape religious persecution and settle what is now Utah. Like most settlers heading west, Mormons generally traveled in wagon trains. In 1856, however, to accommodate rising numbers of converts in Europe, and to offset some of the extreme costs of the arduous journey from the East, as well as try and speed the passage of members to Utah, church President Brigham Young ordered that handcart companies be formed.
As a result, more than 3,000 faithful crossed the plains in 10 handcart companies between 1856 and 1860 when the last formal handcart train was formed. Less than 10 percent of the pioneers who crossed the plains did so in handcart companies.
Nevertheless, handcart pioneers are an important part of LDS Church history. They represent the sacrifice and faithfulness of early church members who not only made the laborious journey across the Plains, but did so with brute strength and might of character while pulling, dragging and hauling their belongings in the backbreakingly heavy and awkward conveyances.
Handcarts and the early settlers are honored in many LDS Church pageants, functions and commemorations including Pioneer Day celebrations, and now as part of St. Thomas Alive.
