James G. Willie: From English Convert to Handcart Captain — Led His Company Through Death and Into Zion

James Grey Willie (November 1, 1814 – September 9, 1895) was born in Hampshire, England, emigrated to America in 1836, and joined the Church in 1842. He came to Utah with the first pioneer company in 1847, then returned to England as a missionary in 1852.

It was at the end of that mission that he was called to lead the ill-fated fourth handcart company — 404 souls — on what became the most deadly civilian migration in American history. Willie had been the presiding elder aboard the ship *Thornton* from Liverpool to Boston; those same emigrants formed the core of his company.

When the company left Omaha on August 17, 1856, they were already dangerously late. By mid-October they were caught in violent snowstorms in central Wyoming. Flour rations dropped to a few ounces per person per day. The elderly and young began dying.

Willie himself pushed ahead through the snow to find the rescue party. He met George D. Grant's wagons at Pacific Springs and rode back with them to his company. When the rescue wagons appeared on the horizon, the pioneers wept. One survivor recorded that they fell on their knees in the snow and prayed.

Willie survived and settled in Mendon, Utah, where he became mayor, postmaster, and a pillar of the community. He founded Mendon's first Sunday School in 1863. The entire town of Mendon turned out for his funeral in September 1895. James G. Willie's life was a sustained act of faith: from an English boy who crossed the ocean for the gospel, to a captain who led hundreds through the valley of the shadow of death.

Fuller account of this event (as retold in Go and Bring Them In, Ensign, December 2006):

On October 20 Captain James Willie and Joseph Elder left the Willie company and headed west on mules to search for the promised supply wagons. Meanwhile at the rescue party camp on October 20, Harvey Cluff volunteered to take a sign and place it in a conspicuous place at the main road. In facing the northern blast up hill, he later wrote, I found it quite difficult to keep from freezing. I had only been back to camp a short time when two men [James Willie and Joseph Elder] rode up from the Willie handcart company. The signboard had done the work of salvation.