Chapter Four
“With Earnest Endeavor”
We buried our dead, got up our teams, and about 9 o’clock a.m. commenced ascending the Rocky Ridge. This was a severe day. The wind blew awful hard and cold. The ascent was some five miles long and some places steep and covered with deep snow. We became weary, sat down to rest, and some became chilled and commenced to freeze.
—Levi Savage
Snow continued to fall for the next few days, and it became evident that the relief wagons full of food, bedding, and clothing were waiting out the storm somewhere fairly close at hand. Captain Willie and Joseph Elder left the Saints at the Sixth Crossing of the Sweetwater to try and find the wagons and apprise the leaders of the destitute situation of the Saints by the Sweetwater.
Three days after their departure, the two men returned. They were followed closely by several covered wagons, each pulled by four horses.
As John Chislett recalled:
The news ran through the camp like wildfire, and all who were able to leave their beds turned out en masse to see them. . . . Shouts of joy rent the air; strong men wept till tears ran freely down their furrowed and sun-burnt cheeks, and little children partook of the joy which some of them hardly understood, and fairly danced around with gladness. . . . The brethren were so overcome that they could not for some time utter a word.1
Chislett was put in charge of the distribution of food and clothing and bedding, and reported:
That evening, for the first time in quite a period, the songs of Zion were to be heard in the camp, and peals of laughter issued from the little knots of people as they chatted around the fires. The change seemed almost miraculous, so sudden was it from grave to gay, from sorrow to gladness, from mourning to rejoicing. With the cravings of hunger satisfied, and with hearts filled with gratitude to God and our good brethren, we all united in prayer, and then retired to rest.2
It was October 23, 1856, and the ascent of Rocky Ridge—the Gethsemane of their sacrifice—was still ahead.
Rocky Ridge is known as the place where many members of the Willie company met their Maker. Although sixteen relief wagons had reached them by now, ten of the wagons continued on their way to try and find the Martin handcart company, known to be at least a week behind the Willie company. Only six relief wagons stayed with the Willie company, not nearly enough to help all those who needed assistance getting up the ridge. The weakest of the Saints were placed in the wagons, but most members of the handcart company still needed to pull their own handcarts through the snow to the top of the ridge.
John Chislett described how it was accomplished:
By all hands getting to one cart we could travel; so we moved one of the carts a few rods, and then went back and brought up the other. After moving in this way for a while, we overtook other carts at different points of the hill, until we had six carts, not one of which could be moved by the parties owning it.
I put our collective strength to three carts at a time, took them a short distance, and then brought up the other three. Then by travelling over the hill three times—twice forward and once back—I succeeded after hours of toil in bringing my little company to the summit.3
Levi Savage wrote in his journal of the harrowing day that the Willie company ascended Rocky Ridge:
We buried our dead, got up our teams, and about 9 o’clock a.m. commenced ascending the Rocky Ridge. This was a severe day. The wind blew awful hard and cold. The ascent was some five miles long and some places steep and covered with deep snow. We became weary, sat down to rest, and some became chilled and commenced to freeze. Brothers Atwood, Woodward, and myself remained with the teams, they being perfectly loaded down with the sick and children, so thickly stacked I was fearful some would smother.4
Julia was not as physically strong as her sister and, earlier in the journey when her health had given out, she had occasionally ridden in the handcart. By Rocky Ridge, Julia was in serious trouble. A family journal states that “Julia, worn out by the rigors of the journey, had all but succumbed to the onslaught of storm and exposure.”5 When Julia collapsed near the summit of Rocky Ridge, her face gray and her eyes lifeless, Emily stopped her handcart and came to her sister. She bent down and tenderly lifted Julia from the snow and helped her to the handcart. Together they moved forward to a camp at Rock Creek Hollow to survive yet another day. Martha and all of her children also made it to Rock Creek safely.
By all accounts, it took Levi Savage, John Chislett, Millen Atwood, William Woodward, and several others until dawn the next day to get all of the Saints to the camp at Rock Creek Hollow. Fifteen pioneers were buried that day, thirteen of them in a common grave.
Over the next ten days, the Saints pulled their handcarts to Fort Bridger, with more Saints perishing along the way. They continued to meet with rescue wagons, and although a few stayed with them, most of the relief wagons proceeded on to aid the Martin handcart company.
Notes Chapter Four: “With Earnest Endeavor”
Epigraph: Levi Savage in Olsen, Price We Paid, 152.
^3. Chislett in Olsen, Price We Paid, 150.