Hyrum North Trek 2016

If you have seen Ephraim's rescue you would know the story of a boy named Thomas Dobson. I would beckon you to watch the movie but first read this passage to get just a short glimpse into the life of a healer and a young boy.

Ephraim Knowlton Hanks was a man who was called by Brigham Young to go and rescue the saints on the plains. This was something that the lord had been preparing him for, for most of his life. It was said that before Ephraim was even called by Brigham Young he had a dream where someone asked him, “The handcart people are in trouble and you are wanted; will you go and help them? I turned instinctively in the direction from whence the voice came and beheld an ordinary sized man in the room. Without any hesitation I answered “Yes, I will go if I am called.” I then turned around to go to sleep, but had laid only a few minutes when the voice called a second time, repeating almost the same words as on the first occasion.”

When it came time for Brigham Young to call the brethren some said “I can be ready in a few days.” Ephraim raised his hand and stated with firmness “Brother Brigham, I am ready now.” This was a distinct character in Ephraim.

According to the journal of Ephraim he stated, “In all my travels in the Rocky Mountains both before and afterwards, I have seen no worse. When at length the snow ceased falling, it lay on the ground so deep that for many days it was impossible to move wagons through it.” He had made the trip almost fifty times before. He was the mail contractor for the church during that time. Now we will tell you of the boy Thomas Dobson.

Thomas Dobson was a young man who had come from England with his mother. He was not happy about having to leave his home. He often complained to his mother of how much he hated the journey. Then just as the rescuers had arrived Thomas fell terribly ill. His feet had been almost completely blackened by frostbite. He was at his lowest point. He had accepted that his fate was death. Thomas began to feel remorse for his shortcomings. His mother had come to Ephraim to ask for a blessing. Ephraim thought that his feet would have to amputated because of the frostbite. His mother had the faith that he could be healed. This is what he said, “Will you believe the words I tell you?” His response was “Yes.” I then administered to him, and he was immediately healed. He got up, dressed himself, and danced a hornpipe on the end-board of a wagon, which I procured for that purpose.” This was said to have been one of the highlights of the camp. He a brought a spirit to the camp that helped the pioneers carry on the rest of that hard and terrible journey.

The Lord’s gospel is a another word for being ready when you are called. It is something that all must do in order to receive eternal life. I believe that the lord prepares us all for what we are needed for. He also forgives us, and gives us a chance lift those who are low. I leave you this with my testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know the church is true, his power is real and I hope we look to our ancestors experiences and find connections with the holy ghost. I end this story in name of our savior and redeemer even Jesus Christ amen.

Source: http://www.tellmystorytoo.com/pdf/RHanks_Ephraim_bio.pdf

- Hyrum North Stake 2016 Trek History Committee

"Father let mother have a little bigger part of the half ration. This shortage of food, together with having the three children with everything else we had in the handcart, made it too heavy for him to pull alone. In this hungry and also nearly worn-out condition, I have never forgotten how when I, a nine year old boy, would be so tired that I would wish I could sit down for just a few minutes how much good it would do to me, but instead of that my dear, nearly worn-out father would ask me if I could not push a little more on the Handcart.

"I will never forget how hungry I was all the time. When one of the teamsters, seeing two Buffalos near the oxen, shot one of them and the meat was divided among the whole handcart company. My parents also got a small piece which my father put in the back end of the handcart. That was in the forepart of the week. He said that we would save it for our dinner next Sunday. I was so very hungry all the time and the meat smelled so good to me while pushing at the handcart, and having a little pocketknife, I could not resist, but had to cut off a piece or two each half day. Although I was afraid of getting a severe whipping after cutting a little the first few times, I could not resist taking a little each half day. I would chew it so long it got perfectly tasteless. When Father went to get the meat on Sunday noon he asked me if I had been cutting off some of the meat. I said "yes," that I was so hungry that I could not let it alone. Then instead of giving me the severe scolding and whipping he did not say a word but started to wipe the tears from his eyes.

"As we had so little to eat I wondered why they did not shoot more Buffaloes when there were herds of many thousands traveling the opposite direction from which we were traveling. I afterwards learned that it was awfully dangerous to shoot into a big herd as they were easily stampeded and when stampeded they would run over emigrants or anything in their way. The morning that the one was shot there were only two separate from the herd near the oxen."

- Hyrum North Stake 2016 Trek History Committee

Falling asleep at the wrong place had greater hazards for six-year-old Arthur Parker. He had crept into the shade to rest during a morning break on a sultry June day in 1896 and had been left behind. His parents, Robert and Ann Parker, had assumed he was playing along the way with other children and did not miss him until they stopped that afternoon to make camp in the face of a sudden thunderstorm. It was then they realized Arthur was not with them.

Who can imagine the rising panic these parents felt in the next two days as the company remained while the men searched for their son? Finally, on July 2, with no alternative, the company was ordered west. Robert Parker went back alone to continue searching for his missing child. As he was leaving, his wife pinned a red shawl around his shoulders and said words such as these: “If you find him dead, wrap him in the shawl to bury him. If you find him alive, use this as a flag to signal us.” Then with a sinking heart, she and their other children struggled on. Out on the trail each night Ann scanned the horizon for her husband, eyes straining for the sign. Day after frigthening day-nothing. Then, just at sundown on July 5, she saw a figure approaching from the east. In the last light of the setting sun she saw the glimmer of the bright, red shawl.

One of the diaries records, “Anne Parker fell in a pitiful heap upon the sand, and that night, for the first time in six nights, she slept.” On July 5, Archer Walters recorded, “Brother Parker came into camp with a little boy that had been lost. Great joy through the camp. The mother’s joy I cannot describe.” It seems the little boy, sick with illness and terror, had been found by a woodcarver who had cared for him until his father had found him.

- Hyrum North Stake 2016 Trek History Committee

George Cunningham was 15 years old when he left his native Scotland with his parents and three sisters to gather to Zion. George had begun working in a coal pit when he was only 7 years old to help support his family. He worked there for 6 years, sometimes for 12 to 14 hours a day. The air was bad in the coal pit, and he sometimes wouldn’t see the sun except on Sunday, his only day off. His family, who had joined the Church shortly after George’s birth, was grateful when the way opened for them to emigrate. George thanked God for his blessings when he arrived in America, a country he had been taught to believe was a “land of promise.”

Twenty years after arriving in America, George wrote a detailed reminiscence that included memories of his experi¬ences with the Willie company. He recorded that while the company was crossing Iowa, “people would mock, sneer, and deride us on every occasion for being such fools as they termed us, and would often throw out inducements to get us to stop. But we told them we were going to Zion and would not stop on any account.” George, who was a teenager at the time, didn’t allow the mockery to deter him. “People would turn out in crowds to laugh at us, crying ‘gee’ and ‘haw’ as if we were oxen. But this did not discourage us in the least, for we knew that we were on the right track. That was enough.”

George was able to give a glimmer of hope to the Willie company at a difficult time in their journey. On October 18 the company camped at the Fifth Crossing of the Sweetwater and had issued the last of the flour, leaving only one day’s rations of crackers. With people becoming weaker every day, many would die unless rescue came soon.

On October 19 the Willie company had to leave the Fifth Crossing and travel 16½ miles to meet the river again at the Sixth Crossing. The day dawned very cold, and some of the children who had been crying with hunger were now also crying because of the cold. After the people had traveled a few miles, a snowstorm blasted them for about half an hour.

While the company stopped to wait out the storm, George kept looking expectantly to the west. The previous night, he’d had a vivid dream. In this dream, the people “had started out on the road” in the morning. It had begun to snow, but “the storm had subsided some.” George continued:

I thought that I saw two men coming toward us on horseback. They were riding very swiftly and soon came up to us. They said that they had volunteered to come to our rescue and that they would go on further east to meet a company which was still behind us and that on the morrow, we could meet a number of wagons loaded with provisions for us. They were dressed in blue soldier overcoats and had Spanish saddles on their horses. I examined them, particularly the saddles, as they were new to me. I also could discern every expression of their countenance. They seemed to rejoice and be exceedingly glad that they had come to our relief and saved us.

That day, George was amazed when he actually saw two men, like those he had dreamed about, riding fast toward the company. He called out for everyone to look. “Here they come! See them coming over that hill,” he cried. Two men on horseback and two others in a light wagon quickly rode into camp. These men were Joseph A. Young, Cyrus Wheelock, Stephen Taylor, and Abel Garr - members of George Grant’s rescue company.

Five days earlier, George Grant had sent these men ahead as an express to find the handcart Saints. Members of the Willie company were overjoyed to see them. “[They] brought us the cheering intelligence that assistance was near at hand,” William Woodward recalled, and “that several wagons loaded with flour, onions, & clothing, including bedding, were within a day’s drive of us.” “They were saviors coming to [our] relief,” wrote Joseph Elder. The people told George Cunningham that he “was a true dreamer, and we all felt that we should thank God.”

After reaching Utah, the Cunningham family went to American Fork, where George lived the rest of his life. He married Mary Wrigley in 1863, and they became parents of 13 children. During his life he worked at day labor and railroad construction, owned a butcher shop, and was a teamster. He was faithful in the Church and active in community and political affairs.

As a boy, George Cunningham had come to America, dreaming of a better life and wanting to live among others who held his same religious beliefs. From his experiences, he learned that “the nearer he lived to God, the better he felt."

- Hyrum North Stake 2016 Trek History Committee

There is a monument marking the Sixth Crossing of the Sweetwater River and the rescue site of the Willie Handcart Company.  John Linford and eight other members of that company are buried there.

On the night of October 14, the Willie Company camped at Independence Rock.  A 17-year old girl, Caroline Reeder, died.  Flour rations were reduced even further.  Men received 10 oz., women 9 oz., children 6 oz., and infants 3 oz.

October 15 had them camped at Devil's Gate.   On the 17th, they departed camp along the Sweetwater.  Four more had died.  Their seventeen pounds of clothing and bedding was now altogether insufficient for their comfort.  Nearly all suffered at night from the cold.  Cold weather, scarcity of food, and fatigue from overexertion were all reasons the Saints were suffering.  Old and infirm people began to drop.  At first the deaths occurred slowly and irregularly, but in a few days at more frequent intervals, until  it became unusual to leave a campground without burying one or more persons. The young and strong also became victims.  They were worn down by hunger, scarcity of clothing and bedding, and too much labor from helping their families.  Dysentery was also a factor in their suffering and deaths.  Many fathers pulled his family's cart until the day preceding his death.  Some pulled their carts in the morning, gave out during the day, and died before next morning.

On October 18 the camp rolled on again to the Sweetwater and camped after crossing it.  One more died today--James Henderson, aged 27.  Eighteen year old Sarah James recorded they were cold all the time.  There was either rain or snow or wind.  Even when you wrapped up in a blanket, your teeth chattered.  Mary Hurren said she ate her three daily ounces of flour cooked as a gruel in a communal family pot.  For her hunger pains, she, her sister, and her brother chewed on pieces of rawhide stripped from the cart wheels.  Her shoes were torn at the seams and had holes in the bottoms, and at night there was very little bedding with which to bundle up.  Everyone's clothing was in rags; for shoes many tied strips of burlap or canvas about their feet.  Since leaving Florence, Nebraska, 22 people have died.

On Sunday, October 19, they rolled out of the camp at the Fifth Crossing of the Sweetwater.  They passed Ice Springs and Ice Slough about noon, and were soon in a snowstorm.  The news they had been hoping and praying for came when they were met by four brethren from the valley telling them that assistance was near at hand within a day's drive.  Four died before the day was over.  The party endured a sixteen mile grueling trek to water, where they didn't arrive until after dark.  A wagon took a wrong road and didn't arrive until after 11:00 p.m.  This was the Sixth Crossing of the Sweetwater.  The camp laid over until the 22nd of October, waiting for the rescue wagons.  The company was exhausted, freezing, sick and starving.  Four inches of new snow fell that morning; there was now more than a foot of snow on the ground.  Five more people died.

John Chislett recorded, "On the evening of the third day after Captain Willie's departure, just as the sun was sinking beautifully behind the distant hills, on an eminence immediately west of our camp several covered wagons, each drawn by four horses, were seen coming towards us.  The news ran through the camp like wildfire, and all who were able to leave their beds turned out en masse to see them.  A few minutes brought them sufficiently near to reveal our faithful captain slightly in advance of the train.  Shouts of joy rent the air; strong men wept till tears ran freely down their furrowed and sunburned cheeks; and little children partook of the joy which some of them hardly understood, and fairly danced around with gladness.  Restraint was set aside in the general rejoicing, and as the brethren entered our camp the sisters fell upon them and deluged them with kisses.  The brethren were so overcome that they could not for some time utter a word, but in choking silence repressed all demonstration of these emotions that evidently mastered them.  Soon, however, feeling was somewhat abated and such a shaking of hands, such words of welcome, and such invocation of God's blessing have seldom been witnessed.  May God ever bless them for their generous, unselfish kindness and their manly fortitude!"

The fourteen wagons carried flour, onions, bedding, and some clothing.

On the 22nd of October the company traveled eleven miles and camped near the Sweetwater River at the base of Rocky Ridge.  Despite the immediate relief, conditions remained drastic.  The weather was bad and there was little firewood at the new campsite.  The ground was either frozen or wet and muddy, making sleep a near impossibility.  Most slept wrapped only in a blanket or quilt and laid directly on the ground.

October 23rd found the Saints crossing Rocky Ridge.  Levi Savage wrote, "We buried our dead, got up our teams and about 9:00 a.m. commenced ascending he Rocky Ridge.  This was a severe day.  The wind blew hard and cold.  The ascent was some five miles long and in some places steep and covered with deep snow.  We became weary, set down to rest, and some became chilled and commenced to freeze.  The teams were perfectly loaded down with the sick and children, so thickly stacked I was fearful some would smother.  About 10 or 11:00 in the night we came to a creek that we did not like to attempt to cross without help, it being full of ice and freezing cold.  I left two others with the teams and started to the camp for help, but few tents were pitched.  Men, women, and children sat shivering with cold around their small fires.  Just before daylight they returned, bringing all with them.  Some were badly frozen, some dying, and some dead.  It was certainly heart rendering to hear children crying for mothers and mothers crying for children."  This night they camped at Rock Creek Hollow.

On the morning of October 24, thirteen more had died and were buried in a mass grave at Rock Creek.  The Saints remained to bury the dead and rest.

- Hyrum North Stake 2016 Trek History Committee