Heritage trails: Handcart pioneers and ferry crossings

Among our dozens of pioneer ancestors who crossed the plains in the nineteenth century, some on the Wells line are remembered particularly on the Wyoming trails.

If you stop at the Martin's Cove site where they have an emotional exhibit honoring the handcart pioneers and their rescuers, our individuals to keep in mind are Mary Bathgate, and Annie Thorne (Wells) and her mother Jane Thorne (Jemmett Golightly), all of whom suffered through the extreme conditions there, and Schuyler Everett, who was one of the rescuers. 

Reports from the Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel database say that "Jane was traveling as a widow and shared a PEF bond with her brother, James Thorn, who traveled with the Martin Company. Traveling in the company with her was her daughter, Anna Thorn. Mary Goble Pay's reminiscence tells a story of how James Thorn was found dead by Captain Hunt and Captain Spencer. She states that after he was found, Brother Pay took his watch and gave it to his sister, who was traveling with her daughter Anna." This was the John A. Hunt Company of 1856, a wagon company that traveled with the handcart groups and suffered similarly.

Mary Bathgate (sometimes using the surnames Murry and Logan) crossed the plains as an older woman with the Daniel McArthur Handcart Company in 1856, famously surviving a rattlesnake bite and then the late season travel, snows, and rescue.

At age 21, young Schuyler Everett was a Pony Express rider and one of the handcart rescuers sent out in 1856. He brought thirteen people back in his wagon, one boy dying en route. Did he remember meeting Annie Thorne, when his daughter Eliza Ann Everett married her son Saint George Wells more than thirty years later in 1899? Surely the families discussed this past connection?

list of rescuers

pointing to Schuyler's name

"Remember"

nearby Independence Rock

Further east, the town of Casper, Wyoming features the historic Fort Caspar Museum (yes, the two Casper/Caspar words are spelled differently). There is an exhibit there about the North Platte River Ferry Crossing featuring our ancestor Thomas Grover. Thomas was a boat captain on the Erie Canal before joining the LDS church, and his professional experience came in handy: as part of Brigham Young's vanguard 1847 group of pioneers, he was asked to stay behind at this location and run a ferry for the pioneers who would follow. 

This was the beginning of commercial ferrying in the Rocky Mountains. At one point his group ran out of provisions and survived on one skunk for three days; an Indian chief then rescued them with a kettle of buffalo meat, which Thomas said was the best meal he’d ever tasted. He reached Utah later that year, but returned east and traveled back and forth quite extensively running the Church's cattle business. 

Fort Caspar Museum

Ferry Crossing exhibit with example of Thomas Grover's ferry

"Thomas Grover, Captain (professional ferryman)"

museum exhibit inside about ferries

Thomas Grover's famous sign

artwork about the ferries

demonstration of how ferries work

ferry artwork

It is humbling to drive in a climate-controlled car full of provisions and cover the distance in just a few hours that these brave folks spent days and weeks struggling to cross and survive. We stop for gas and food and assume it will be there for us. We drive over a bridge and don't consider how hard that would have been to confront a river without a bridge or a ferry in place. We get frustrated when there's no WiFi service and hope our devices point us the right way when the map doesn't load; they trusted in providence when facing uncertain terrain and future direction. They suffered and worked so we can enjoy blessings, ease, and prosperity today--it is good to remember and appreciate.