Francis Webster: 'We Knew We Were Engaged in God's Work' — The Handcart Pioneer Who Never Regretted the Journey

Francis Webster was a member of the Martin Handcart Company who lived to old age in Cedar City, Utah. His testimony of the 1856 trek became one of the most quoted pioneer testimonies in Church history.

In his later years, a Church Sunday School class was discussing the handcart tragedy. Some were critical of the leaders who had sent the companies so late in the season. An elderly man in the back — Francis Webster — rose slowly to his feet, and what he said silenced the room.

'I ask you to stop this criticism. You are discussing a matter you know nothing about. Cold, historical facts mean nothing here, for they give no proper interpretation of the questions involved... Mistake to send the handcart company out so late in the season? Yes. But I was in that company and my wife was in it and Sister Nellie Unthank whom I have known for years was in it and we suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but was it a mistake to ask us to gather to Zion under those conditions? I have looked back many times to see whether I was sorry that I chose to come by the first chance I had and I have never been sorry.'

He then delivered the lines that have echoed through generations:

'I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it... I have gone on to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there.'

'Was I sorry that I chose to come to Zion in this manner? No. Neither then nor any minute of my life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in the Martin Handcart Company.'