Handcart Song (I), The

DESCRIPTION: "Ye saints who dwell on Britain's/British/Europe's shore, prepare yourselves for many more." "For some must push and some must pull" as the Mormons head west with their handcarts. The song praises how the Saints work together to make the migration.
AUTHOR: Words: William Hobbs (source: Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest)
EARLIEST DATE: 1932 (Daughters of Utah Pioneers, according to Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest); 1946 (collected from Lalovi M. Hilton)
KEYWORDS: emigration travel
FOUND IN: US(Ro)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Hubbard-BalladsAndSongsFromUtah, #209, "Handcart Song" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Cheney-MormonSongs, pp. 64-66, "The Handcart Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia2, p. 595, "The Handcart Song" (1 text)
Greenway-FolkloreOfTheGreatWest, p. 252-253, "The Handcart Song" (1 text)
Fife/Fife-SaintsOfSageAndSaddle, pp. 67-70, "(Ye Saints who dwell on Britain's shore)" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest, pp. 197-198, "The Handcarts, I" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #4748
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Handcarts" (subject)
cf. "Handcart Song (II)" (subject)
cf. "The Handcart Song (Missionary)" (subject)
cf. "The King of the Cannibal Islands" (tune, according to Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest)
NOTES [287 words]: When the Mormons were driven out of Illinois and Missouri, they did not have the funds to afford a great migration. So Brigham Young came up with the idea of moving them west to Deseret (Utah) in handcarts.
According to Claudia Lauper Bushman and Richard Lyman Bushman, Building the Kingdom: A History of Mormons in America, Oxford University Press, 1999, 2001, p. 44, "The handcarts were open wagon boxes about four feet square with two large wheels. A man or woman stepped between wooden shafts in front and, with a shaft under each arm, pulled the wagon or pushed against a crossbar in front. Each wagon held a few personal possessions and four or five hundred pounds of food, clothing, bedding, and cooking utensils. The leaders estimated that fifteen miles a day would bring the walkers to Utah in seventy days initially, but with a little practice they could travel faster. The handcart movement led more than three thousand poor Saints to walk with their carts to Zion between 1856 and 1860."
The migration to Deseret was long and difficult and encountered many tragedies; Brigham Young and Co. were wildly optimistic about the feasibility of long-distance travel over great distances on poor to non-existent roads. A less stubborn people would surely have turned back. That Mormonism survived the ordeal is a credit to the determination of those who followed the trail. On balance, though, it was a very bad idea. To be sure, it was becoming clear that the Mormons just weren't acceptable to most normal Christians and needed to find a way to separate themselves. And they didn't have any money to travel by better means. So there may not have been any good ideas available if one wished to remain a Mormon. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: CAFS2595

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