Pioneer Stories - Captain Edward Martin

Today's trek thought is the story of Edward Martin, the captain of the Martin Handcart Company.  I think he is a remarkable man who displayed amazing faith and compassion throughout the trek.  Of particular interest to me is his tenacity to his faith and love for the gospel.  His story is larger than simply the handcart trek of 1856 but extends throughout his life. He consistently wrote of his faith in God and his love for the gospel. He was called upon to sacrifice so much but he did not complain, which I believe made him the perfect person to lead the saints on the trek, as he had previously personally experienced heartache and loss for the Gospel's sake. He was an amazing example both to the saints in his company as well as to us now.  
(The following came from "The Price We Paid")

Edward Martin was born in Preston, England, in 1818. He was among the earliest English converts when he was baptized by Elder Orson Hyde in the River Ribble in 1837. He married Alice Clayton in 1840, and early the next year they left for America. After steaming up the Mississippi River from New Orleans, they arrived in Nauvoo in April 1841 and were greeted by the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Edward and Alice Martin settled in Nauvoo for five years, living in a small home they built down the hill from the temple. Having been apprenticed as a painter in England, Edward helped paint the Nauvoo Temple and the interior of Joseph Smith's store. Edward also played the violin and was an original member of the Nauvoo band. The highlight of the Martins' time in Nauvoo came during the last few months, when they were endowed and sealed in the Nauvoo Temple.

The Martins also knew grief and tragedy in Nauvoo. First came the martyrdom of Joseph Smith in 1844. Then came the death of their oldest child, Lucy Ann, in 1845. Then came the expulsion from the city in 1846. Edward and Alice and their two surviving children, Mary Ellen and Edward, were among the thousands who left nearly everything behind and crossed the Mississippi River in February 1846.

After being driven out of Nauvoo, the Martins toiled for five months to cross Iowa, a distance of 300 miles. In July they finally arrived at Iowa's western border in the area of Council Bluffs, where difficulties continued to multiply. On July 14 their youngest child died. Six days later, Edward left his grieving wife, who was pregnant again, to serve in the Mormon Battalion. 

Edward Martin was gone from his family for nearly 18 months. During all this time, Alice and Mary Ellen stayed at Winter Quarters. There Alice gave birth to the Martins' fourth child, a son who lived only five months. Edward Martin never saw him.

Edward completed his service with the battalion in July 1847 and started for Salt Lake City. After another long march, he arrived there in October, less than three months after the first pioneer company. He immediately began inquiring about his wife and learned that she was still at Winter Quarters. Although it was late in the season, a week later he began the 1,000-mile journey eastward, and on December 10, 1847, he was finally reunited with Alice and Mary Ellen. He estimated that since being driven from Nauvoo less than two years earlier, he had traveled 6,120 miles, most of it on foot, all of it—even the military march for his new country—motivated by his testimony of the restored gospel. "The suffering and privations we had to pass through I say nothing about," he wrote, "but suffice it to say we did it for Christ and the Gospel's sake."

After three years in Salt Lake City, in August 1852 Edward Martin was again called to leave his family, this time to return to his homeland as a missionary. He arrived in England in February 1853. He visited his mother and stepfather in Preston and then went to Scotland, where he labored more than two years. His letters to Alice are invariably positive about his mission. "My whole heart is engaged in this work," he wrote soon after arriving in Scotland, "and I feel determined by the help of Almighty God to do right. I am busily engaged all the time travelling from branch to branch and doing business in the capacity that I am called to act in."

In April 1855, President Franklin D. Richards asked Edward Martin to come to Liverpool to work in the Emigration Department of the mission office. Edward stayed there for a month and then returned to Scotland. His service must have been commendable because the next year he was asked to return to the office for most of the emigration season. During these last few months of his mission, he helped oversee the emigration of more than 4,400 converts, the largest number to that time. When that season's emigration work was finished—and the time away from his family was approaching four years—Edward Martin boarded the Horizon for home.

He had was appointed by Franklin D. Richards to preside over the Saints on the Horizon. The Horizon carried 856 passengers, the largest company to leave England during the emigration season of 1856. The Horizon also carried the highest proportion of passengers who received financial assistance from the Perpetual Emigration Fund. Nearly 75 percent—635 people—received such assistance. By comparison, less than half of the other Saints who emigrated in 1856 received assistance from the fund, and only about one-fourth of those who emigrated in 1855 had received it. The high proportion of Perpetual Emigration Fund passengers is a significant factor in the story of the Martin company. Because the resources of the fund were limited, Brigham Young instructed President Richards to give priority to "those who have proven themselves by long continuance in the Church." The people who received this assistance, then, were not only poor but also generally long-time members of the Church who had proven their faithfulness. Having a large number of such people would repeatedly evidence itself for the benefit of this company during the forthcoming journey.

Edward Martin was 38 years old when he finished the handcart trek. In the 15 years since coming to America, he had personally known more adversity than most families experience in generations. He had endured the exodus from Nauvoo. Six of his first seven children had died. During six of those 15 years he had been away from his family in arduous military and Church service. But none of this compared to what he had just experienced with his handcart company. Raw horrors he could not have imagined were permanently etched in his mind. Even worse than seeing the suffering was being unable to provide any relief to the constant appeals for help.

As Edward Martin entered the Salt Lake Valley for the first time in more than four years, he must have wondered how much more he would be called upon—and be able—to bear. As it turned out, tragedy would continue to stalk him. Two wives and eight more children would precede him in death.

What kind of leader was Edward Martin? During the voyage across the Atlantic, he had looked after the welfare of more than 850 people by visiting every part of the ship six or seven times a day. One of the people under his care, Josiah Rogerson, recalled, "Every deck and its division received his daily surveillance, not as a spy or Boss, but as a brother and friend charged with keeping their safety and welfare."

While overseeing nearly 600 people on the handcart trek, Edward Martin was equally vigilant. Josiah Rogerson recalled: "If he ever gave any thought as to his health or fatigue, we fail to remember it. . . . To the end of our fearful journey . . . he was everywhere [that] he was needed and responded to every call of sickness and death. When our company was traveling, he was in the front, in the center, and in the rear, aiding, assisting, and cheering in every instance needed."

An incident that is perhaps most revealing about Edward Martin's leadership is his showing of empathy toward Elizabeth Sermon. During one of the most bleak, bitter days in Wyoming, she had shivered out a question to him. Her husband was near death, and her sons' feet were so frozen they would have to be amputated. Her question was one that hundreds must have wearied him with: Is help coming? Edward Martin's answer reveals his anguish, his compassion, and the hope that he somehow kept alive:
"It makes me very sorrowful to see such sickness and distress that the Saints are enduring," he began. "There are a great many frosted feet from lack of shoes, and from six to ten are dying daily. I almost wish God would close my eyes to the enormity of the sickness, hunger, and death among the Saints." But then he continued, "I am as confident as I live that [President Young] has dispatched the relief valley boys to us, and I believe they are making all the haste they can. . . . God bless you, sister, for the dutiful kindness to your husband and sons in this dark hour of trial."

Edward Martin died in Salt Lake City on August 18, 1882, at age 64. Of his 21 children 14 or 15 had preceded him in death. He was survived by his wives Eliza and Rachel, who both remained widows for more than 30 years. In his patriarchal blessing, Edward Martin had been told that he would lead thousands to Zion. In the midst of adversity that would have broken most men, he dedicated many years of his life to fulfilling this promise.