Pioneer Stories - The James and Elizabeth Cunningham Family

"We are now in the desert, or wilderness, a wave-like country without woods, only a few trees,” wrote Peter Madsen, a Danish member of the Willie company, on August 17, 1856. It was George Cunningham’s 16th birthday and his sister Catherine’s 18th. The Cunningham family had crossed Iowa and was beginning the 1,000-mile trek across Nebraska and Utah Territories. The Willie company journal recorded “a smart shower or two” that day, as well as some counsel from subcaptain Millen Atwood that this was the last chance for any of the handcart travelers to change their minds about continuing to Utah. The Cunningham family was resolute about going to Zion. They had dreamed of it in their native Scotland for nearly 15 years. George was only a year old at the time of his parents’ baptism and was raised “in the strictest sense of the word a Mormon.” He recorded: "The faith, religion, and piety that was then implanted on my mind in my infancy has never been eradicated and I believe never will be. I have often thought of the two thousand young men which we read of in the Book of Mormon, who had faith instilled into them by their mothers and the good effects it had on them. ... My experience was much like theirs." Indeed, the entire Cunningham family was strengthened in their journey to Zion by the unfaltering faith of the mother, Elizabeth. During their years of Church membership before emigrating, the Cunningham home was always open to the missionaries. George wrote: “I have known my mother to go time after time and borrow money to give to them to help them along, when she saw no earthly chance to pay it back. But she was so full of faith, she would always say that the Lord would open up the way for her. ... He invariably did, too.” Elizabeth not only taught trust and reliance on the Lord to her family but worked alongside them to prepare for the time they could gather with the Saints. She and her daughters worked long hours in the textile industry, spinning and weaving for wages and for their own clothing and linens. George said that his mother was “a rustler in the greatest sense of the word.” James Cunningham and his sons worked in the coal mines. A man of poor health, reportedly from black lung, James did his best to support the family. George began working in the mines at age 7, after only two years of schooling, and continued until he left Scotland at age 15. He recorded: "[I often worked] twelve or fourteen hours a day, sometimes not seeing the light of heaven for a whole week, only on Sunday. ... The air [was] so bad that a lamp would not burn. No one knows the dangers and privations experienced there, only those who have gone through the same. In the spring of 1856 the chance opened up for us to immigrate to this country, for which I was truly thankful." With the help of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund and the handcart plan, the Cunningham family left their community as pioneers—reportedly the first Latter-day Saint emigrants from the town of Dysart. They left behind their daughter Agnes (age 29) and son Robert (21), who stayed in Scotland with their spouses and children; both Agnes and Robert emigrated later. Elizabeth and James and their younger children traveled by train to Glasgow and then by steamship to Liverpool, where they boarded the sailing ship Thornton with more than 700 other Saints. Most of these passengers would eventually make up the Willie handcart company. The weeks on the Atlantic Ocean must have been refreshing compared to the bad air and long hours in the coal mines and loom shops. Although the voyage was long and often cold and foggy, George enjoyed it. “The Captain took a northerly route,” he wrote, and “we saw at different times some very large icebergs towering up in the sky like huge mountains.” Growing up with Book of Mormon stories influenced how George felt when the family arrived at Castle Garden in New York City: "I well can remember the first step that I made on American soil. " I had been taught to believe that it was a land of promise, blessed above all other lands, and although only a small boy of fifteen years of age, I felt like thanking God for the blessings I then enjoyed."  Several days later, after the Saints arrived in their Iowa City camp, George reflected on a Bible story as he described one night’s thunderstorm that caused the firmament to seem “entirely in a blaze.” The torrential rains and strong winds created hardship as there were not yet enough tents for everyone. George wrote: "Water was swimming everywhere, everyone in an uproar. Children were crying, mothers sighing. ... Of course, some growled and repined about the good homes they had left. Indeed, many felt like the ancient Israelites who looked back and moaned after the leeks and onions of Egypt." The three weeks in Iowa City went more smoothly after cloth was procured and tents were made. The Cunningham family occupied a large round tent with at least 14 other people, ranging in age from 4 months to 67 years.  There were five such tents in the group of 100 led by subcaptain William Woodward. Like the Cunningham family, many in this group were from Scotland.    While the Cunninghams and the rest of the Willie company crossed Iowa, opportunities abounded for them to give up or become discouraged. George reported: "While [we were] traveling along, people would mock, sneer, and deride us on every occasion for being such fools as they termed us, and would often throw out inducements to get us to stop. But we told them we were going to Zion, and would not stop on any account. ... People would turn out in crowds to laugh at us, crying “gee” and “haw” as if we were oxen. But this did not discourage us in the least, for we knew that we were on the right track." 

On September 3, about two weeks after leaving Florence, the Willie company made a long drive and did not reach camp until sunset. The oxen and cows had been turned out to feed with a guard watching them when a herd of buffalo stampeded near the camp. At the same time, a severe storm came up. George wrote: "Every man ran to help put up the tents, and the cattle guard ran to help save the women and children also, thinking that the storm would subside after a little and they would tend to their cattle again, but it kept up the whole night, and it soon became as dark as pitch and all hands had to hold on to the tents to keep them from going up. The prairie was flooded in a few moments. The thunder roared most deafeningly, accompanied with the most vivid flashes of lightning which seemed to electrify everything. ... Oh, for the pen of the poet. Oh, for the brush of the artist. Had they been there! But such thoughts are above the power of my pen to describe." 

The next morning, the Willie company found that about 30 of their oxen were missing, having run off during the stampede. With other boys and men, George spent two days searching for the lost animals without success. Worried about lost time and supplies that would inevitably run short, they finally hitched up their milk cows to the wagons and lightened the loads by moving provisions to the handcarts. George said they “plodded along through the mud with all the courage that we could muster.” Besides pulling handcarts and assisting with children and camp duties, the young women of the Willie company did their part in helping the young men to muster that courage. Caroline, Betsy, and Margaret Cunningham were surely among those whom George praised: “Our bright young sisters helped us by doing all they could to encourage us in every shape, and whenever an opportunity afforded, they would try to cheer us along with their beautiful strains of vocal music. They seemed to have songs very appropriate for every occasion. This was much help to us under such stiff circumstances. ... ” 

George was not so exuberant as he wrote a blunt appraisal of circumstances leading up to the third week of October: "The nights now began to be very cold and the feed [for the animals] was very poor. Our provisions were running out fast. Starvation looked us in the face. ... The captain called us together and said that all the provisions were gone, except some few crackers which he had saved for the sick and the small children. ... He said ... that he would kill every critter in the train before any of us should die of starvation. ... Our captain intended to keep his word and commenced to kill off the cattle, but they were nearly as poor as we were. We used to boil the bones and drink the soup and eat what little meat there was. We greedily devoured the hides also. I myself have [taken] a piece of hide when I could get it, scorched off the hair on the fire, roasted it a little on the coals, cut it in little pieces so that I could swallow it, and bolted it down my throat for supper and thought it was most delicious." 

On the morning of October 19, the Saints were issued their last flour rations. About midday, they also experienced their first snowstorm. In these precarious circumstances, George remembered a dream from the previous night and told some of his Willie companions about it: "I dreamed a dream that ... we had started out on the road. I thought that I saw two men coming toward us on horseback. They were riding very swiftly and soon came up to us. They said that they had volunteered to come to our rescue and that they would go on further east to meet a company which was still behind us and that on the morrow we would meet a number of wagons loaded with provisions for us. They were dressed in blue soldier overcoats and had Spanish saddles on their horses. I examined them, particularly the saddles, as they were new to me. I also could discern every expression of their countenances. They seemed to rejoice and be exceedingly glad that they had come to our relief and saved us." 

Full of faith, George’s mother bore witness to the gathered crowd that “she knew the dream would be fulfilled, for it was [George’s] promise in [his] blessing to dream dreams and see things come to pass.” George recorded: "We therefore set out and to our great pleasure, every word of my dream was fulfilled. ... I spotted the two persons that I had dreamed of the night before, riding fast towards us. I called the fact to the attention of the crowd, being quite a distance off. I roared out, “Here they come. See them coming over that hill.” They told me that I was a true dreamer, and we all felt that we should thank God."  

Elizabeth Cunningham’s strength and her faith in the promises of God were manifest again during this difficult time. The Willie company crossed Rocky Ridge in a blizzard on October 23 and into the early morning hours of October 24. Some families and tent-mates became separated in the storm. Some who were too weak to walk were carried on the backs or in the handcarts of loved ones. The already overcrowded wagons bringing up the rear could not carry all the sick and disabled. Many of those who first reached camp struggled to find shelter and start small fires before returning on the trail to bring in those left behind.  It appeared that Betsy Cunningham had died before reaching camp. She was wrapped in a blanket and left by the side of the trail. The faith and determination of Betsy’s mother and others rescued her: "[Elizabeth] had been promised in Scotland that if she was faithful that she and all her family would reach Zion in safety. She went back to the child [and] she was brought back to camp and worked over. Some hot water was spilt on her foot which caused a quiver to go through the limb. ... They kept up their efforts until they brought her back to life." 

George recorded that the rescuers treated the Saints in the Willie company well. He also praised Captain Willie: “Our captain ... did his duty. He was badly frozen and came very close to dying.” George concluded his family’s story with few details but much gratitude: "At last we arrived at Salt Lake, where we were kindly cared for and well treated. The sick were doctored and then sent to the various settlements. We were sent to American Fork, where my home has been ever since. Here we met with many old acquaintances and soon formed new ones. Many were willing to help us. After gaining our strength back, we soon found employment and ere long were moved from the very poor circumstances which we had been placed in. I soon forgot my past troubles." 

After their forebears had lived in the Dysart area of Scotland for decades, working in the coal mines and textile factories, James and Elizabeth Cunningham became relatively prosperous landowners in Utah. Their posterity numbers in the thousands today. James Cunningham had continuing poor health, which prevented him from being a complete support to his family. Utah’s dry climate seemed to agree with him, however, and he lived to be almost 77 years of age. James suffered from an unnamed illness for three years before his death in 1878. His obituary states that he “remained faithful to the end. He leaves about one hundred children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and shortly before his death called his family around him and exhorted them to stand firm in the gospel.”

An ancestor of Elizabeth Cunningham said this: “Everyone needs heroes to emulate. My great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Nicholson Cunningham used grit and pluck to prod, push, and carry my Cunningham relatives from Scotland to Zion in the fateful year of 1856. I marvel at what she endured and overcame. She was an iron lady. I can only imagine what Elizabeth felt as her bedraggled group staggered into the Salt Lake Valley....No one remembers Elizabeth complaining about her hardships or regretting the family’s move to Utah...Her legacy is thousands of relatives of Scottish ancestry who now live in the Intermountain West.

The most important lesson that can be drawn from Elizabeth’s remarkable life is that ordinary people can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Elizabeth overcame losing her first husband and being a single mother. She overcame living in poverty and marrying a man who was only a modest provider and losing two of her children. Her brush with death in Wyoming brought out the strongest elements of her character. As the journey become more arduous, Elizabeth occasionally placed her depleted husband, James, on the handcart so they could keep up with the rest.

Elizabeth wasn’t the only humble woman who rose above herself in the handcart tragedy of 1856, but she is a sterling representative of that group. In her stressful life she achieved far more than could have been expected of her—my definition of a hero.

—Dale W Adams

Have a great week!

Sister McHood