Janetta McBride

Janetta Ann McBride was a 16-year-old English immigrant who became a heroine of the ill-fated Martin Handcart Company during its perilous 1,300-mile trek to Utah in 1856. When early winter storms struck the Wyoming plains, both of her parents collapsed from illness and exhaustion. The immense burden of pulling the family’s heavy handcart fell entirely upon Janetta and her 13-year-old brother, Heber, while Janetta simultaneously acted as a surrogate mother to her three youngest siblings, who were as young as three years old.

The conditions Janetta endured were unimaginably brutal. As her shoes completely wore away, she continued to brave the freezing mountain storms without footwear. Her younger brother Peter later recounted the agonizing sight of seeing Janetta carry water from the river, barefoot, actually leaving bloody tracks in the snow.

Tragedy struck at the icy crossing of the Platte River, where her father used his final ounce of strength to help the family across before passing away that night. Despite her profound grief and starvation, Janetta kept her surviving family moving until a rescue party from Utah finally reached them at the Sweetwater River. The McBrides arrived safely in the Salt Lake Valley in late November 1856. Janetta later married and continued her pioneering legacy as an early settler in Pima, Arizona.