Though relatively few Latter-Day Saint pioneers crossed the overland Trail with a handcart, those handcart pioneers have become representative of the entire pioneer trail experience. The experiences of the Willie and Martin handcart companies in late 1856 have particularly come to represent the whole of the Latter-Day Saint handcart experience. This is not an accurate representation. This episode of History of the Saints presents the larger story of the Latter-Day Saints and handcarts.

There were three other hand cart companies that made the trek before the Willie and Martin companies made their tragic journey across the plains in late 1856 - accomplished the journey with great success. See the stories of the Ellsworth, MacArthur, and Bunker handcart companies.

By the 25th of June, 1856, the first three handcart companies had outfitted and departed in Iowa City. The next day, another group of 856 saints arrived from England. A second group arrived twelve days later. They were mostly the poor, and they would be the Saints of the Willie and Martin handcart companies. They would experience tragedy in multiples before their journey was through, most of that due to the fact that their ships arrived in America so late. That is the focus of this episode: Why were those ships - the Thornton and the Horizon - so late?

August 16, 1856, the Willie Handcart Company, led by Captain James Grey Willie, pulled out of Florence, Nebraska, bound for the Salt Lake Valley. They were about 400 in number with some 85 handcarts. There had been an earnest discussion, centering around Levi Savage, about whether to continue so late in the year. When the discussion was over, about 100 people who had been with the company from Iowa City chose not to go on. This episode tells the story of those in the Willie Company who did go on. Why did they continue toward Zion, and could they have all stayed on the Missouri River had that been the decision?

The story of the Willie and Martin handcart tragedy is not just one story of a single group; it is a story of many distinct groups interacting over a period of months. This episode focuses primarily on the Willie Company stranded on the plains of Wyoming, President Brigham Young and his brethren in Salt Lake City, and those heroic rescuers who left hearth and home to help their fellow Saints. This is the story of the rescue.

It was the morning of October 21,1856, when Captain James Willie and Joseph Elder led the relief wagons into their camp at the sixth crossing of the Sweetwater. The company was suffering terribly. Several had died, and more would likewise succumb. Though the company had been found, they were not yet safe; in some respects, the worst of the ordeal was yet in front of them. But at that moment, the rescuers were greeted as angels from heaven when they entered the camp.

A large group of Latter-day Saint emigrants left Liverpool on May 25,1856, on the ship Horizon. They arrived at Iowa City July 8,1856. They were the poorest of the Saints to emigrate that year, three-fourths of them being women, children, and the elderly. A large number of them were organized into two handcart companies - the Havens Company and the Martin Company. They left Iowa City and arrived in Florence, Nebraska, on August 22, 1856. As with the Willie Company, there was a serious discussion at Florence about whether to go on, and the camp voted overwhelmingly to continue. Three days later, with the two companies now combined under the leadership of Captain Edward Martin, they set out for the Salt Lake Valley. They would become known to history as the Martin Handcart Company.

November 2, 1856, the Martin Handcart Company with the help of rescuers reached Devil's Gate, Wyoming, and an old abandoned fort there called Fort Seminoe. However, they could not stay there; it was too exposed and cold. They had to find a place more sheltered from the elements - and that shelter, Martin's Cove, has become immortalized in Latter-day Saint history. This is the story of the rescue of the Martin Company.

While modern history celebrates the saga of the Willie and Martin handcart companies, it all but overlooks those who traveled right along with them through the same storms and privations - the Hunt and Hodgett wagon companies. This is their story.

By December 15,1856, the last of the emigrants had made it to Salt Lake City. Their arrival was neither the end of their sufferings nor the end of the story. The whole episode was considered a tragedy, an embarrassment-an event not often spoken of for decades to come. Yet somehow, over time, the tragedy of the Willie and Martin companies changed from a regrettable mistake to a badge of honor-a symbol of faith and courage. Those few with handcarts came to symbolize for many the entire pioneer migration experience. This episode explains how that happened.

Just before the rescue of the handcart companies got underway in 1856, there was a dramatic movement of reform among the Saints led by President Young's fiery second counselor, Jedediah M. Grant. It has come to be called the Mormon Reformation, and it remains one of Mormonism's most misunderstood historical events.

The Mormon Reformation started in earnest in September 1856 and ended in the spring of 1857. Intense preaching and calls for repentance produced notable improvements but also some excesses. Strong admonitions at the top led to some unfortunate excesses at some local levels - but too many have tended to focus on the excesses and overlook the fact that reformation produced a spiritual uplift across the Church.

The Latter-day Saints had known persecution from the beginning, having been driven as a people from New York and then Ohio. The Saints thought they had found a home in Missouri in 1838, only to have hostilities erupt and escalate into a war of extermination against them. A few years later they left Nauvoo, Illinois, for a new home in the Rocky Mountains. Here they hoped to be safe from mobs ever after. So imagine their shock and trepidation when they learned in July 1857 that a federal army was coming against them. This event in history is seldom remembered but it was a dark time for the Latter-day Saints as a people. It was the Utah War!

United States President James Buchanan considered the Latter-day Saints in Utah in a state of rebellion and dispatched an army to put them down. This episode follows that army on its march to Utah and shows the reactions of the Saints in Utah to that army.

The stage was set for war. A federal force was poised on Utah's doorstep, and the Saints were unclear of that army's intentions. Governor Brigham Young declared martial law, and the people prepared for the worst. It was into this emotionally charged environment that the Baker-Fancher party, a large group of overland emigrants bound for California, entered the territory. The results would be catastrophic.

The United States Army, under the command of Colonel Edmund Alexander, was marching on Utah, but when would they arrive and what was its intentions? No one knew for sure. But sometime on the morning of September 12, 1857, Governor Brigham Young received a messenger in Salt Lake City with alarming news. The army had marched on past Fort Laramie with the intention of entering Salt Lake City in the fall. With the safety of his people at stake, Governor Young declared martial law and sent out a Nauvoo Legion force called the Eastern Expedition.

Johnston's Army had gone into Winter Quarters near Fort Bridger on the eastern edge of Utah Territory, and General Daniel H. Wells had dismissed most of his Nauvoo Legion forces for the winter, though a small contingent settled in to spy on the army. War would wait for spring. While the Saints prepared and the army simmered in rage, Colonel Thomas L. Kane arrived in Salt Lake City to avert a war. This episode will discuss his efforts to effect reconciliation and will describe the army's march into Salt Lake City. Though some people know about the Utah War, perhaps few understand just how much misery and suffering it brought upon the Saints.

When the Latter-day Saints first came to the West, it was their intention to build up the kingdom of God in the Rocky Mountains. The key word is build. Throughout the pioneer period they built all kinds of buildings, from the most mundane to the most grand. Those buildings were and still are a unique blend of form and function that set the Latter-day Saints apart then and now. This episode of History of the Saints begins the story of building the kingdom.

When the Latter-day Saints arrived in Utah it was a wilderness, and out of that wilderness they were determined to establish a Zion society - one that embodied permanence, order, beauty, and worship. And though there were no trained architects among the early Saints, there were men who gave their all to fulfill in materials what prophets saw in vision. This episode of History of the Saints is about those early architects and some of the buildings they designed. We begin with Truman 0. Angell - born June 5, 1810, in Providence, Rhode Island.

One of the earliest revelations given to Joseph Smith was D&C 21:1, which admonishes, "Behold there shall be a record kept among you.... " Former LDS Church Historian, Elder Marlin K. Jensen, said, "A historic site is a record in a sense. There are many ways to keep that record, and one of the ways is to preserve a place, a building, an artifact that represents history." This episode of History of the Saints is about saving that history.

Martin Harris was there from the beginning. He helped Joseph Smith get to Harmony, assisted with the scribing of the Book of Mormon, helped finance its printing, and became one of the three witnesses of that sacred book. It was Martin who helped choose the first Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1835. Martin did much for the work, but then he fell away from the faith for nearly forty years. This is the touching story of Martin's return to the Church.

It was July 1830 when Emma Smith, the wife of the Prophet Joseph Smith, was commanded to "make a selection of sacred hymns, as it shall be given thee, which is pleasing unto me, to be had in my Church. For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart." Just as Mormonism came out of obscurity and established its own religious tradition, so too did that happen with music. Over the decades the Latter-day Saints have developed their own unique music tradition. This is the story of how that tradition developed.

One of the darkest times in American history was the Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865. It led to the death of approximately 600,000 soldiers and scarred the lives of millions. While the nation came apart in the East, the Latter-day Saints in the West watched with keen interest. This episode of History of the Saints is about the beginnings of the Civil War and the Latter-day Saints' perspective on that war.

The Civil War swept up the United States and poured forth hate and destruction across the continent. It forever altered the United States, ideologically and politically. More than 1 million casualties resulted from the war, with soldier deaths estimated between 600,000 and 800,000. The war even reached into the American West and involved those states and territories around Utah. Yet Utah as a territory and as a people, for the most part, sat out the war - watched from the sidelines. The question is - why? It may be shocking for some to realize, but the Latter-day Saints of 1861 were suspected of being secessionists - just like Southerners. This episode describes the low opinion the nation had of the Latter-day Saints.

The Civil War was the most devastating conflict in American history. And while the Latter-day Saints as a Church maintained neutrality in the conflict, there were those who did fight - on both sides. This would be the first national struggle that would see Latter-day Saints fight and die in battle. Yet for all of the war's pervasive reach into every corner of American society, only one unit of Latter-day Saints was ever called up.

The Bible makes it plain that there were times when the Almighty commanded His people to live in polygamy. When Joseph Smith inquired of the Lord as to how that could be just, he was given a revelation now known as D&C 132. As a result, the Latter-day Saints began to practice plural marriage. The principle was introduced in Nauvoo and was lived more openly during the Exodus. In 1852 it was announced to the world. This episode of History of the Saints answers various questions about life in plural marriage in early Utah.

"It is the duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery." Such was the key platform of the newly formed Republican Party, delivered June 17, 1856, at Music Fund Hall in Philadelphia. Within a short time, the nation was plunged deep into Civil War to decide the question of slavery, and the rest is history. In this episode of History of the Saints, we tell the story of the war that subsequently went forth against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members to eradicate the practice of plural marriage.

"That the Church may stand independent above all other creatures beneath the celestial world" was a revelation given to Joseph Smith in March 1832; it received a renewed emphasis among the Latter-day Saints in the decades of the 1860s and 1870s. Self-sufficiency became the call, and the Saints responded. However, there were challenges to that ideal. One of the greatest of those was posed by the coming of the railroad. With the railroad as a catalyst, a series of events followed that proved a great blessing to Latter-day Saints across the world.

President Brigham Young left St. George in January 1877 with renewed life and determination. Over the next eight months, he traveled the length and breadth of the territory, setting the Church in order. As soon as that mission was complete, he returned to Salt Lake, took sick, and passed away. The course that President Young set for the Church in the summer of 1877 is still largely the Church's plotted course to this day.

It is the oldest operating temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the first one built in the Intermountain West. Though the Salt Lake Temple was under construction at the time, the St. George Utah Temple would be the first to be dedicated. And therein lies the great story. The St. George Temple is a temple of many firsts, built by many for a single purpose.