Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy

David Roberts

The back cover of this book calls Devil’s Gate “the greatest disaster in the history of American westward development.” Before the handcarts were made, Mormon elders traveled to the far distant England, or Scandinavia and urged their listeners forward, to gather, gather, gather. They offered promises of free land, employment, and a glorious eternal reward in the great beyond. Those who responded to the call of a New Jerusalem over the mountains and into the Great Salt Lake often did not make it to the end of their journey. The carts were poorly made, prepaid provisions were not provided, and the strengths of many simply faded along the way. The weather was brutal. This book tells how these failed experiments were interpreted as triumphs, and how tragedies became hymnals. For us, it will be a chapter or two in a grand plan, designed by the mouthpiece of the Lord, Brigham Young.