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IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP/KSL News) -- Mormon church President Gordon B. Hinckley praised the courage and determination of the handcart pioneers Sunday, saying their trek from Iowa to Utah 150 years also serves as a lesson in the power of faith.
Hinckley, who will be 96 later this month, spoke at the closing ceremony of a three-day symposium on the Mormon Handcart Trek. Last Friday marked the 150th anniversary of the day the first group of newly converted Mormons, most having arrived weeks before from Europe, departed Iowa City, pushing and pulling their belongings in two-wheeled, wooden handcarts, on a 1,300-mile journey to the Salt Lake Valley
Historians estimate that about 3,000 survived the ordeal, but about 250 died along the way from hunger, illness and exposure to early winter storms in Nebraska and Wyoming.
Hinckley, the 15th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said the legacy and sacrifice of the pioneers is reflected in the church's modern day strength and mission.
"We have become a power for good in the world, but we must ever look back to those who paid so terrible a price in laying the foundations of this great latter-day work," Hinckley, told more than 2,200 members from across the Midwest.
"There is no chronicle of greater suffering and terrible experience than this chronicle. God bless their memories to those of us who live in comfort and ease," said Hinckley, who as president is revered by Mormons as a prophet.
The pioneers were followed the first wave of Mormon immigrants who fled the East Coast in the early 1830s then later, in 1847, when they fled Nauvoo, Ill., after the shooting death of founder Joseph Smith. More than 70,000 Mormons cut a swath to Salt Lake City across the plains known as the Mormon Trail.
Today, the church is one of the fastest growing in the world, with a membership of more than 12.5 million in 26,600 congregations across the world.
In 1856, Iowa City marked the end of the railroad lines that brought the pioneers from Boston and New York. The pioneers spent their time here building handcarts and gathering provisions for the journey across the Great Plains.
Altogether, seven companies embarked on the trek in the summer of 1856. But two companies, known as the Willie and Martin companies, didn't leave until July and paid a steep price by October winter weather closed in as they reached western Nebraska and the mountains in southern Wyoming.
Hinckley, now in his 11th year as head of the church, said while none of his ancestors were part of the handcart trek, his family is no stranger to the perils of the Mormon migration.
Hinckley said his grandfather was a member of a wagon company that ventured west in 1850. It was near Fort Kearney, Neb., that his grandfather's wife and brother died after a bout with cholera.
Hinckley also noted how tragedy struck the ancestors of his late wife, Marjorie Pay Hinckley, who died in 2004. A woman named Mary Penfold Goble, one of the 1856 handcart pioneers, died just before entering the Salt Lake Valley.
The Mormon migration stands out in America's western expansion because its motivation had nothing to do with fortune or making a living off the land, Hinckley said.
"There were other movements, but all of these were for economic gain," Hinckley said. "the Mormon migration was religious in its purpose. There is nothing to compare to it."
The LDS Church's Museum holds one of the few original handcarts that crossed the country in the 1860s.
Mel Bashore, Libarian, LDS Church History Dept.: "For the most part, everyone who started to come to Utah, got here... And the fact that many, here in Utah now, and in the west, are descendants of those pioneers who reached here..."
For years, their descendants have followed in their footsteps recreating handcart treks.
Paul Willie shared his family photographs, including one of his great-great grandfather, Capt. James Willie. Capt. Willie was the leader of one of two ill-fated handcart companies that became stranded in snowstorms and had to be rescued. Paul Willie He says it's important to take time now to remember those who went before.
Paul Willie, great-great grandson of Capt. James Willie: "This incredible migration is being remembered 150 years later...That it hasn't been forgotten and the drama of crossing the plains is still a little part of our blood..."
