First Responders

Today my 16-year-old is in Wyoming, near Martin’s Cove, pulling a handcart over dirt trails and across streams. As my wife and I helped him prep for the experience, I learned that my grandma’s grandfather, Robert Wilson, was one of the rescuers of the Willie-Martin handcart companies back in 1856. Pretty cool. (Thanks, Mom, for typing up the details and sending it to me and the tall boy.)

Robert Wilson was 30 years old when he crossed the plains with the Willard Richards Company. According to the journal of a fellow traveller, “On Thursd 28 Sept. 1848 . . . Robert Wilson caught a Sorrel horse white feet. 3 years old. Supposed Indians or californian horse.”

Compared to the handcart companies’ experience, my ancestor’s trip sounds downright heavenly, with “wild gooseberries, grapes, strawberries found up the hollows near the mill creek – hazle nuts growing in abundance[.] very warm day, air very warm eve.”

Eight years later, on Oct. 7, 1856, just days after Brigham Young made the announcement in conference that able-bodied men should go back and rescue the suffering handcart-bearing Saints caught in the early snowstorms, Robert Wilson (age 37) and another relative, Henry Woolley (age 35), joined the rescue party. They  travelled from Salt Lake City to Martin’s Cove, Wyoming, where the handcart companies were running out of food . . . freezing . . . and dying.

To get right to the point, here is an excerpt from Robert Wilson’s brother-in-law’s (William Blood’s) life sketch.

“The summer of 1856 was very dry and grasshoppers destroyed most of our crops. Many of the Saints started from the Missouri River to cross the plains with handcarts. There were men, woman and children in the company that left there late in the season. They were caught in a severe snowstorm and a call was made for men with horse teams to go and bring them in. They were out about two hundred miles in deep snow and severe weather. There was a large company of men with teams who answered the call. Father and my brother-in-law, Robert Wilson, were among the number. When they had traveled about one hundred miles, the snow had fallen so deep that it was almost impossible for teams to get through it. Not knowing how far away the handcart company was , many of the men became frightened lest they should not be able to return to their homes in the valleys , and as I have been told, the company turned their horses and started back. Father said, “I started to meet those handcarts and I will go and meet them or die trying.” On hearing these words, Robert Wilson said, “Henry, if you go on I will go on with you”. So these two started on alone and every other man in the company started back to the valley. They soon met some other teams coming from Salt Lake City with more provisions and horse feed. Also, they had word from President Young that they must go and meet the handcart company and bring them in.

Father and Robert Wilson met the struggling Saints several days before those who turned back could retrace their steps. They found the poor handcart company without food, some dead, and others badly frozen. They gave them what relief they could, then traveled on to the very last of the companies and moved them up to the main body. They loaded those fartherest behind into their wagons, and leaving the old handcarts, they came towards the valleys. They made a big camp by clearing the snow off and building big fires. The next morning the two teams returned and brought more into the camp and so on, until all the people had been brought into the camp. In this way they continued to work until they were met by those who had turned back. Here all the people were placed in wagons and they traveled as rapidly as possible to their homes in the valley. Some of those who were severely frozen lost their limbs and some died from hardships of the journey. It was a very trying time but the Lord blessed the brethren and enabled them to meet the belated immigrants and bring them and bring them into Salt Lake City.”

First on the scene. Sacrificing to help those in need. I feel blessed to have some of that blood running through me.

(If you have a pioneer ancestor who crossed the plains, you can find out their company and read trail excerpts on this cool site I used. http://www.lds.org/churchhistory/library/pioneercompanysearch/1,15773,3966-1,00.html) Here’s another great bit of writing I encountered as I researched this: http://www.lds.org/churchhistory/library/source/1,18016,4976-6178,00.html. The Ann driving the single team of oxen (at age 12) married Robert Wilson four years later in Salt Lake City.