PIONEER HERITAGE | Work in Progress

The Lake Family | James Lake Company (1850)

Philomena Smith Lake
​4th Great Grandmother

Samantha Lake Brimhall
​3rd Great Grandmother

James Lake Jr.
​4th Great Grandfather

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Company: James Lake Company
Date of Departure: June 1, 1850
Age at Departure:
​James Lake Jr. - 61
Philomela Smith - 56
Samantha Lake - 15
Length of Trek: 95 Days
Family Tree:
Me > Mom > Grandpa Brimhall > Logan Brimhall > Norman Andrew Brimhall > Samantha Lake > Philomela Smith and James Lake Jr.

What struck me the most about James and Philomena Lake was how they took such time to prepare for their journey. Though they were long time members of the church who had helped haul stones to build the temple in Kirkland, and though they had left Nauvoo with the saints who crossed the frozen Mississippi River in 1847, they waited 3 years before starting their own trek west. While others embarked from Council Bluffs, Iowa, they knew they would have to stay for a season and prepare for the journey. James ran a hand mill to help saints traveling through to grind their corn to provide food, and they settled in for the long term, buying property and working to prepare before making their way to Zion.
It must have been hard to see others move on without them and hard to be content with a life they knew they would abandon in due course; Still, they exercised patience.
By the time they embarked, they were prepared with “some forty cows and loose stock, over one hundred sheep, six yoke of oxen, three broods mares, and two good wagons, well laddened with supplies” (George Lake Journal), and James Lake was appointed head of their company, a captain of fifty teams.
God’s timing for them was very different from that of many other Saints at the time who felt compelled to get to Zion as soon as possible. Did those who went before them question their plans? Or admonish them to put their faith in God and “consider the lilies” instead of preparing as they did?

And yet, by waiting just two years, they were in a better position to heed God’s call, to serve and to lead others, and to ensure their own self-reliance in a time when the church had many destitute members to take care of in a land with limited resources. It’s a personal testimony to me of how God works with us individually- when some are called to “take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink,” others are commanded to “prepared every needful thing” (3 Nephi 13:25, Doctrine and Covenants 88:119). Waiting can be a refiner’s fire, patience a builder or character. For “if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear” (Doctrine and Covenants 38:30)

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The Steed Family | Milo Andrus Company (1850)

Caroline Rebecca Holland Steed
​5th Great Grandmother

Mary Ann Steed Hess
​4th Great Grandmother

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Company: Milo Andrus Company
Date of Departure: June 3, 1850
Age at Departure:
Caroline Rebecca Holland - 33
Mary Ann Steed - 11
Length of Trek: 88 days
Family Tree:
Me > Mom > Grandma Brimhall > Anna Laura Farnsworth > Eliza Ann Hess > James Henry Hess > Mary Ann Steed Hess > Caroline Rebecca Holland Steed

Caroline joined the church in England soon after her second child died in infancy. A missionary had preached to them about eternal life and salvation, and she would come to rely on the testimony she gained at this time throughout the trying years to follow.
Together with her husband and many of their family and friends, Caroline was baptized in the spring of 1942, and left to join the Saints in Nauvoo that same fall. Though much of their converted family joined them on their journey west, by 1949, death had claimed Caroline’s husband, much of his family, and all of hers except one of her brothers. In the years following the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, she found herself alone to raise three small children, including Mary Ann, who was 11 years old.
“Caroline didn’t have time to think of the past, the future must be planned for and this was for their trek westward. Teh first of May 1850, Caroline and her little family bade farewell to the lonely graves and [their home] with tears in their eyes they turned their face toward teh land of the setting sun, a new home and a new way of life was waiting for them over the prairie and into the mountains.”

Though she was well outfitted for the journey and joined together was a widowed father to make the journey easier for both families, Caroline had very little when she arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. She sold the outfit that had brought her across the plains, bought a small log cabin, and then had to find a way to feed and cloth her family. Though she was a beautiful seamstress, money and work were scarce, and she did her best with payments of farm produce and discarded clothing.
Even still, when one of her Steed relations returned from the handcart rescue company with with his niece, Sarah Steed, Caroline took her in, bathing her and dressing her in her own clothes.
She would eventually sell her little log cabin to the church, the land of which lies under the Northwest Section of the Tabernacle in Temple Square.
Caroline never remarried. She was self-reliant, hard working, and still had room to be generous. She would remain close to her children and posterity all of her life, with these words written on her grave upon her death: “Caroline Steed was a noble woman.”

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The Argyle Family | Edmund Ellsworth Handcart Company (1856)

Rebecca Jane Finch Argyle
​4th Great Grandmother

Mary Ann Argyle Standifird
​3rd Great Grandmother

Joseph Argyle Sr.
​4th Great Grandfather

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Company: Edmund Ellsworth Compnay
1st Handcart Company
Date of Departure: June 9, 1856
Age at Departure:
Joseph Argyle Sr - 37
Rebecca “Jane” Finch - 32
Mary Ann Argyle - 10
Length of Trek: 109 Days on foot
​Family Tree:
​Me > Mom > Grandpa Brimhall > Mary Hatch Brimhall > Maria Standifird Hatch > Mary Ann Argyle Standifird > Rebecca Jane Finch and Joseph Argyle Sr.

The Argyle’s were converted to the gospel in England in 1853 and traveled to America in 1856 to join the Saints in Utah. The following excerpt is from a history written by Rebecca and Joseph’s great-grandchild:

“Believing the testimonies of the Elders, after a careful investigation, the family proclaimed themselves allies to such a faith. The spirit of gathering came upon them. They wished to cast their lot with the saints in Zion (America). Arrangements were planned and sufficient money saved for the whole family to come to America. On March 19, 1856, they bade their native friends farewell, embarked on the sailing vessel “Enoch Trane,” left all that was near and dear to them which this world had gained for them, going it seemed with the helping hand of divine power. Never did they think of faltering. Nor did they question the simplicities of this wonderful undertaking. Their hearts yielded to that spirit which taught: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all a earthly blessings shall be added to you.”
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Upon arriving in the United States, The Argyles made their way west to Iowa to join the very first handcart pioneers in the Edmund Ellsworth Company. It wasn’t until the day they were to embark that they came to fully realize that they would be walking every step of the way to Zion. At ten years old, Mary Ann was tasked with pulling one of the family’s two handcarts with her brother. Joseph pulled the other. That left Rebecca to shepherd her three youngest children, the youngest just 18 months old. Rebecca herself was pregnant.

Joseph was a tinner by trade. He had brought sufficient tools and a box of heavy tin in order to start a business in Salt Lake City. However, the company quickly discovered that the green wood of the newly built handcarts could not hold up to the rigors of the trail. After just two days time, Joseph set to work reinforcing the handcarts with his tin, ultimately using all of it to secure every handcart in the company over the course of their journey.
It took 109 days for them to walk the 1400 miles to the Salt Lake Valley. For six of those weeks, pregnant Rebecca carried her youngest child on a pillow in her apron because the little girl had become too ill to walk on her own. She nearly gave up, but the thought of protecting her helpless daughter and unborn child gave her the strength to keep going on her worst day.
Without having walked with them, knowing their remarkable story has made it part of my own. I feel a personal connection to the time of “the Restoration” and the history of my people and our faith. And I’ve considered what that should mean to me today.
Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles reminds us to take part int he ongoing restoration. In the September 2020 Ensign, he said, “Sometimes we think of the Restoration of the gospel as something that is complete, already behind us—Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, he received priesthood keys, the Church was organized. In reality, the Restoration is an ongoing process; we are living in it right now. It includes ‘all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal,’ and the ‘many great and important things’ that ‘He will yet reveal’ (Articles of Faith 1:9)… When our time in mortality is complete, what experiences will we be able to share about our own contribution to this significant period of our lives and to the furthering of the Lord’s work?f Will we be able to say that we rolled up our sleeves and labored with all our heart, might, mind and strength? Or will we have to admit that our role was mostly that of an observer?” Or a descendant?
And so I will try to take this to heart—How am I furthering the work of the Restoration today? How do I Hear Him to know what he would have me contribute? Do I have something to offer? Can I carry another? Am I listening and ready to act?

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Noah Brimhall | Handcart Rescue Company

Noah Brimahll
​3rd Great-Grandfather

Noah Brimhall originally traveled to the Salt Lake Valley as a single man. One account reports that he traveled to the valley with the family of William Hyde, arriving in July of 1850, but his own journals suggest he made the trek with his brothers, John and George Washington. He would meet and Mary Samantha Lake and settle in Ogden, Utah.
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After the call came to gather supplies and set out to rescue the handcart pioneers, Noah departed on October 7, 1856, leaving Samantha and their two young daughters behind. He was appointed captain of a rescue company of 30 men and teams which set out from Ogden.
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“In 1856 I went from Ogden City, Utah with about thirty brethren and as many wagons and teams to the rescue of the last Handcart Company of the Saints who were snowbound near the head of the Sweetwater. I think we started from Ogden about the 10th of October and were gone five weeks from home. Went a distance of about 200 miles. Snow all the way and deep in many places. On this ever memorable trip, I acted as Chaplin being appointed to that office by authority of the Church by Quorum President, Chauncey West, Bishop.”
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Family Tree: Me > Mom > Grandpa Brimhall > Logan Brimhall > Norman Andrew Brimhall > Noah Brimhall

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Me > Dad > Grandpa Cooley > Lillian (Lydia) Vaughn Strebel Cooley > Ethel Una Roberts Strebel > Adelberg Carlos Roberts (3) > Daniel Roberts (52, widowed) | Harry Walton/Garden Grove Company, May 17, 1851 (130 days)
​Me > Dad > Grandpa Cooley > Lillian (Lydia) Vaughn Strebel Cooley > Ethel Una Roberts Strebel > Martha Eliza York (infant) > Hannah Carter (40) and Aaron Merton York Sr. (42) | William Snow/Joseph Young Company, June 21, 1850 (102 days)
Me > Mom > Grandma Brimhall > Anna Laura Farnsworth > Eliza Ann Hess > Elizabeth White > Ann Eliza Adelaide Everett (4) | Jedediah M Grant - Willard Snow Company, June 19, 1947 (107 days)
​Me > Mom > Grandma Brimhall > Anna Laura Farnsworth > Eliza Ann Hess > Elizabeth White > John Stout White | Mormon Battalion
Me > Mom > Grandma Brimhall > Anna Laura Farnsworth > Wilford Burt Farnsworth > Mary Isabelle Tidwell > Susan Briggs Allen (17) and Peter Tidwell (21) | Isaac M Stewart Company, June 19, 1852 (70 days)
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