Crossing the Plains

Providence during the overland journey west by wagon and ox team. Every account below is a long-form, documented narrative from the archive.

128 accounts · drawn only from substantive narratives

Joseph Smith Digs a Shallow Well — Water Miraculously Provided for Zion's Camp (June 1834)

The Hickory-Stick Stand: Shadrach Roundy Turns Back Forty Men at Joseph Smith's Gate (June 1844)

Brigham Young's Miraculous Preservation and Location of Salt Lake City(1847)

Mormon Pioneers' Miraculous Provision of Quails During Migration(1840s)

Joseph F. Smith's Childhood Deliverance and Protection in the Wilderness(1846)

Elder E. H. Hanks's providential delivery of a buffalo(1840s)

Healing of Feramorz L. Young on the Plains(1880s)

Heber C. Kimball's prophetic promise of abundant clothing(1848)

Joseph Smith's Dream of William Law and Dr. Foster(1840s)

Joseph Young's miraculous preservation during the Haun's Mill massacre(1838)

Joseph Smith’s meeting and prophetic instruction to Pottawattamie chiefs(1843)

Don Carlos Smith's rescue of George Albert Smith from freezing(1838)

Joseph Holbrook Receives an Open Vision of Countless Solar Systems and Endless Creations While Mowing in His Field(1845)

Levi Jackman Is Healed of Malaria by Joseph Smith at Nauvoo(1839)

Zion's Camp Miracle Well - Joseph Smith Miraculously Provides Water in the Desert(1834)

Zion's Camp — Joseph Smith Digs Well and Miraculously Provides Water (June 1834)

Emily Dow Partridge: Daughter of the First Bishop, Plural Wife, Pioneer — 'Mormonism Came and Changed Everything'(1843)

Eliza Partridge: Plural Wife of Joseph Smith Who Kept Her Covenant Through Hardship and Pioneer Sacrifice(1843)

Levi Hancock: Musician, Missionary, and Witness to the Power of God at Morley Farm and Zion's Camp(1831)

Dan Jones: The River Captain Whose Chance Encounter with Joseph Smith's Stranded Boat Changed the History of Wales(1843)

Vision of Zelph the White Lamanite (Zion's Camp, June 3, 1834)

Zion's Camp - Water Miraculously Provided(1830s)

Arza Adams: The Man Who Carried the News of the Martyrdom to Nauvoo (1836–1889)(1844)

Caleb Baldwin: A Liberty Jail Companion of Joseph Smith and Pioneer of 1848(1838)

Heber C. Kimball Builds a Good House in Nauvoo with "Scarcely Anything to Begin With" — and Ends with a Span of Horses, a Wagon, and a Yoke of Oxen(1845)

A Scholar's Testimony of Joseph Smith(2021)

The Wheelwright Who Drove the Second Team into the Valley: Norman Taylor, Age Eighteen (1847)

With the Advance Company: Gilbard Summe of the Fourteenth Ten Enters the Valley (1847)

The Straw-Tick Shirt and the Prophecy Over It: George P. Billings Enters the Valley (July 1847)

The Vision the Carpenter Built: Truman O. Angell and the Salt Lake Temple (1847–1887)

At Eighty-One, Ezekiel Gleason Accepts the Gospel from His Pioneer Son (1857)

The Oldest Man in the Ranks: George Mills, Sixty Years Old on the Trail (1847)

The Hunter Who Kept Watch Over His Kill: Joseph Hancock's Night Alone on the Bluffs (May 1847)

Behold, There Shall Be a Record Kept: Horace K. Whitney, the Diarist of the Whole Exodus (1846–1847)

Healed at the Waters of the Loup: Elijah Newman's Baptism for Health (April 25, 1847)

Steadying the Capsizing Wagon: Andrew S. Gibbons' Platte River Rescue and Two Days Lost on the Prairie (1847)

The First Shoes Made in Salt Lake City: Norwegian Orphan Ellen Sanders Kimball of the Vanguard Company(1847)

Harriet Young's Mastiff Deliverance: An Armed Attack Turned Back at the First Home Outside the Fort(1847)

See That None Were Left Behind: Millen Atwood's Watch Over the Sick of the Willie Handcart Company (1856)

Ministering Angels to the Sick: Clara Decker Young, Youngest Woman of the 1847 Pioneer Company

The Rattlesnake Bite at Chimney Rock: Nathaniel Fairbanks' Healing on the Pioneer Trek (May 1847)

Sentenced to Burn at the Stake: The Deliverance of Tippets and Woolsey on the Winter Dispatch Run (1846–47)(1847)

The Sagebrush Beacon and Six Pounds of Flour: Lyman Curtis, First Into the Valley and Home Again (1847)

The Blacksmith of the First Company: James Davenport's Forge on the North Platte (1847)

Three Days on a Waterless Desert: The Finding of Hosea Cushing, Survivor of the Walker War (1853)

The Night Guard Who Timbered the Tabernacle: Barnabas L. Adams of the First Company (1847)

Jens Nielson — Crippled Willie Handcart Survivor Testifies the Hole-in-the-Rock Trek Was More Severe (1879–1880)

The Luman Andros Shurtliff Poor Camp Rescue: The Poorest of the Poor and the Sickest of the Sick(1846)

The Accidentally Shot Ox and the Timely Steamboat at the Poor Camp (1846)

An Angel in a Dream Directs Dying Mary Lightner to Brother Cutler — and She Is Healed (1845)

The Kirtland Camp's Peaceful Passage Through Mansfield, Ohio (1838)

Samuel Taylor Orton Hears Divine Voice and Witnesses Halo of Light Around Brigham Young(1856)

Oscar Winters' Pioneer Comrade's Final Song(1840s)

Apostle Marriner W. Merrill's Miraculous Preservation in North Mill Creek Canyon(1855)

John Henry Smith's Miracle Survival in Provo River(1856)

A. Milton Musser's providential rescue of a wagon team in a stampede(1857)

Healing of a Child through Priesthood Administration during Handcart Journey(1850s)

Apostle Marriner W. Merrill's Prophetic Promise of Sustenance(1853)

John Young Jr.: Brother of Brigham Young, Baptized in 1833, Present at the Kirtland Temple Anointings

David W. Patten's miraculous protection of a mother and child during a storm(1838)

Marriner W. Merrill's Testimony of Jesus(1850s)

Isaac James: Free Black Convert Who Crossed the Plains and Settled Utah as One of Its First Black Pioneers(1847)

William Clayton Writes 'Come, Come, Ye Saints' — Inspired Hymn Born of Frontier Faith(1846)

Moses Martin Witnesses the Beauty of God's Creation on the Prairie March(1834)

A company of Saints' encounter with Indians(1868)

Preservation of Saints from the Caroline railway accident(1866)

Edwin Pettit's Escape to Zion — Hidden Alone on the Prairie, Then Delivered Across the River Disguised as "Mary Ann" (1846)

Eli B. Kelsey's Prophecy of Ships of Saints from London(1850s)

Richard Badham's stabbing and miraculous recovery(1843)

Caroline Angell Holbrook Healed After Seven Sisters Washed and Anointed Her with Oil (Salt Lake City, c. 1852)(1850s)

Elder D. Spencer's Prophetic Assurance and Strengthening of the Saints at Mormon Grove(1855)

Temple Miracles During COVID-19: The 72-Hour Marathon of November 2020

Hannah Settle Lapish Trades Her Jewelry for 700 Pounds of Flour(1860)

Ann Elizabeth Walmesley Healed of Consumption at Her Baptism (1837)

Marriner Wood Merrill Pinned Alone Under a Log in Millcreek Canyon — Freed and Loaded by an Unseen Hand(1850s)

The Utah War — 'The Hand of God Is Visible in All Things': Deliverance Without Battle (1858)

Ephraim Hanks Heals Thomas Dobson’s Frozen Feet and Dying Illness Near Fort Bridger—Dobson Rises, Sings, and Dances (1856)

The Stanley Davis Family — The Flour Sack That Would Not Empty (1853)

Louisa Mellor Clark Finds a Warm Pie in the Road After Praying for Her Dying Mother — Martin Handcart Company (1856)

Jane Grover Speaks to Hostile Indians in Their Own Language After They Seize Father Tanner's Wagon (1848)

Brigham Young's Promise Saves Thirteen-Year-Old Mary Goble's Frozen Feet from Amputation (1856–1857)

Joseph Smith's Instruction to Spare Rattlesnakes during Zion's Camp (1834)

Suzannah Goldthorpe — Spiritual Confirmation of the Restoration(1853)

Joseph Houston — The Panguitch Quilt Walk(1864)

Susanna Porritt Barnes — Vision of the Salt Lake Valley(1840s)

Hannah Terry — Vision of the Temple in the Mountains(1846)

Pioneer Survival and a Lifetime of Service(1852)

The Gift of Tongues and Healing in the Stirling Settlement(1899)

One of the First Nine British Converts(1837)

Witnessing the Miracle of the Quail(1846)

The Conversion of William Morley Black: A Pioneer's Witness of the Book of Mormon (Ohio, 1849)

Margaret McNeil Ballard: A Pioneer Woman's Recorded Sacrifice and Faithful Obedience(1856)

Henry Ballard: A Faithful Cache Valley Bishop and English-Immigrant Pioneer(1884)

Patience Loader Rozsa Archer: Martin Handcart Survivor Who Pulled Her Father's Share Through the Snow (1856)

James Ferguson: Sustained Through the March When Stronger Men Fell — A Soldier's Testimony of Divine Strength (1846)

Brother Christiansen's Dislocated Shoulder Healed Through Divine Power(1860)

William Woodward: A Soldier's Service Preserved Through Letters and Witness (Company D, 1846–1848)

James Dunn: Private, Company C — Mormon Battalion Veteran Who Marched Under Captain Hunter and Settled Utah After the War (1820–1892)(1846)

Samuel H. Brown: Battalion Veteran Who Settled Parowan — One of the First Colonizers of Iron County, Utah (1822–1906)(1846)

The Miracle of the Gulls: Seagulls Devour the Crickets and Save the Pioneer Harvest (1848)

Reddick Newton Allred: Mormon Battalion Quartermaster Sergeant Who Walked the Entire March and Lived to Write Its Account (1822–1905)(1847)

The Battalion’s Wages: ‘The Temporal Salvation of Israel’ — How Government Pay Funded the Westward Migration of the Saints (1846–47)(1847)

Levi Jackman: ‘Like Moses on Pisgah’s Top’ — Pioneer Diarist Who Worked on Two Temples and Saw the Valley for the First Time (July 19, 1847)

Baptisms for Health on the Trail: Levi Hancock Performs Healing Ordinance for Mormon Battalion Soldiers (August 18, 1846)

Brigham Young's Call to Rescue the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies (October 1856)

Franklin D. Richards: The Apostle Who Endorsed the Late Departure and Then Raced to Bring Help(1856)

Zina Diantha Huntington: The Gift of Tongues Came Upon Her at Baptism — And She Never Silenced It Again(1835)

Eliza R. Snow: 'It Will Take More Than This to Cure Me of My Faith' — She Walked Barefoot in Frozen Missouri and Did Not Break(1838)

Jedediah M. Grant's Two-Night Vision of the Spirit World on His Deathbed (1856)

Rescue of the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies (October–November 1856)

Patience Loader: A Stranger Appeared in the Snow and Said 'Travel On — There Is Help For You'(1856)

Joseph Toronto's Prophetic Dream — Donates $2,600 in Gold to Save the Nauvoo Temple(1845)

A Rescuer Dreamed of His Future Wife — and Recognized Her in the Handcart Camp(1856)

The Rescue of the Martin Handcart Company: Brigham Young Sends Everything Within One Hour(1856)

Mary Hurren: Her Father Refused to Amputate Her Frozen Legs — She Walked Again in Three Years(1856)

Peter McBride: His Father Made 25 Crossings of an Icy River, Then Died — and Peter Asked for His Fish Hooks(1856)

Joseph Smith’s Rocky Mountain Prophecy at Montrose(1842)

Edmund Bosley's Prophecy of Ezra Taft Benson's Conversion Fulfilled(1840)

Henry William Bigler's Companion Alpheus Harmon Dies Crossing Prairie in Winter(1842)

Benjamin F. Johnson Experiences Miraculous Improvement in Health During Flight from Kirtland(1838)

The Healing of Mary Fielding Smith's Oxen on the Plains(1848)

Mary Fielding Smith's Miraculous Recovery of Lost Oxen(1848)

Philo Dibble Shot in the Abdomen at Jackson County — Miraculously Healed by Newel Knight's Priesthood Blessing (November 1833)

Five Dollars Worth of Potatoes Becomes the Seed Capital for a Million-Dollar Farming Empire(1845)

Joseph Smith Prophesies Fair Weather for Zion's Camp — Fulfilled Precisely(1834)

Patriarchal Blessing to Mary Isabella Hales Prophesies She Will Be Brought Through Six Troubles — Fulfilled(1838)

Heber C. Kimball Prophesies Clothing Will Be Cheaper in Salt Lake City Than in New York — Fulfilled by Gold Rush Emigrants(1849)

Eliza Dana Gibbs Healed from Consumption Through Heavenly Manifestation(1833)