Journal Excerpts from the Willie Handcart Company

Despite the hardships these Saints went through to get to the Salt Lake Valley, their faith was unshakable. It was surely strengthened by promises given them such as the following excerpt shows:

Friday, September 12, 1856, near North Platte, Nebraska, Willie Company Journal

“Pursuant to a previous threat or promise, Captain Atwood pulled down a tent or two this morning (about an hour and a half after the horn had blown), exposing the serene features of its sleeping inmates, much to their chagrin, and the amusement of bystanders. Some of the sleepers wanted to draw the tent back over them as a covering, but it was a “no go” . . .

This evening President Franklin D. Richards . . . arrived just before dusk in 3 carriages and 2 wagons. . . . President Richards then addressed the Saints, expressing his satisfaction at their having journeyed thus far, and more especially with handcarts, and . . . which he knew had proved, and would prove their salvation, if they would hearken to, and diligently obey counsel to the letter. In which even, he promised, in the name of Israel’s God, and by the authority of the Holy Priesthood, that no obstacle whatever should come in the way of this camp, but what they should be able, by their united faith and works, to overcome, God being their helper. And, that if a Red Sea should interpose, they should by their union of heart and hand, walk through it like Israel of old, dryshod. On the same conditions, he promised that though they might have some trials to endure as proof to God, and the brethren, that they had the true “grit.”

Account quoted from Journal of the Trail, Glazier and Clark, 1997, p42.