The Three Young Men Who Carried Hundreds Across the Freezing Sweetwater River

On November 4, 1856, the Martin Handcart Company reached the Sweetwater River in present-day Wyoming. The river was icy and swollen. The pioneers — already starving and near death — had to cross it.

Three young men from the rescue party — C. Allen Huntington, George W. Grant (son of Captain George D. Grant), and David P. Kimball (son of Heber C. Kimball) — waded into the freezing water and physically carried the weakened pioneers across, one by one, for hours.

The crossing was witnessed by many survivors and rescuers. Patience Loader wrote that she was terrified of the icy water after having previously crossed the North Platte. The three young men made trip after trip across the river until all who could not cross on their own had been brought safely to the other bank.

Decades later, President David O. McKay told this story at General Conference. After the talk, an elderly man sought him out — he had been one of the three young men who had carried the pioneers across. He said that he had not felt the cold water, and that when people questioned whether God really exists, he always thought of that day at the Sweetwater.

BYU Studies has examined this story in detail, noting the three men's names and the physical reality of what they did: water-logged clothes freezing to their bodies in sub-zero temperatures, yet they persisted. Two of the three young men later suffered long-term health consequences believed to be connected to the exposure.

The Sweetwater crossing stands as one of the most sacred moments of the pioneer era — an act of pure Christlike service by three young men who gave their bodies so that others could live.