Worst Regional Conference Ever: John Larsen/Carah Burrell @JohnLarsen1 @nuancehoe | Ep. 1489

The Willie and Martin handcart companies remain the most tragic migration disaster in American religious history. Mormon Stories Podcast recently revisited this 1856 catastrophe with historians John Larsen and Carah Burrell, dissecting how Brigham Young’s cost-cutting experiment killed more than two hundred Latter-day Saints. Their analysis draws heavily from David Roberts’s 2008 book "Devil’s Gate," presenting a timeline of institutional failures that church curriculum still sanitizes into tales of pioneer faith.

Background: A Budget Solution Becomes a Death March

In 1856, Brigham Young faced a cash shortage. Rather than funding traditional wagon companies to transport European converts to Utah, he proposed handcarts. The idea seemed economical. Converts would push two-wheeled carts across thirteen hundred miles of prairie and mountain terrain, carrying their own provisions.

The plan ignored basic logistics. As Larsen notes, Young calculated that companies could cover fifteen miles daily and reach Salt Lake City in seventy days. The actual distance from Iowa City to Utah was roughly thirteen hundred miles, not the ten hundred fifty Young cited. To complete the journey before winter, converts needed to push twenty to thirty miles daily through brutal terrain while hauling seventeen pounds of belongings each.

Key Claims: When Green Wood Meets Winter

The physical infrastructure proved equally disastrous. When the Willie and Martin companies reached Iowa City, no handcarts awaited them. The church had commissioned carts but failed to ensure construction. Worse, builders used green, unseasoned wood because no lumber had been purchased in advance. Green wood warps. Wheels constructed from it disintegrated under load.