Sweetwater Rescue

I am always amazed at the charitable acts of kindness and Christ like behavior reflected in the midst of affliction in the handcart movement. This particular painting is one of my favorite stories. I personally met with many descendants of one of the rescuers, C. Allen Huntington; the Turek family. I used them for models and staged this at Mammoth Creek here in Utah in the winter.

These people were stranded in the winter storms of Wyoming without food or shelter several hundred miles from any assistance. Those who came to their rescue put their own lives in jeopardy in order to save them.

John Jaques of the Martin Company wrote: : “The passage of the Sweetwater at this point was a severe operation to many of the company. It was the worst river crossing of the expedition and the last…The ice was three or four inches thick, and the bottom of the river muddy or sandy. I forget exactly how wide the stream was there,but I think thirty or forty yards. Before the crossing was completed, the shades of evening were closing around. Four members of the relief party waded the river, helping the handcarts through and carrying the women and children and some of the weaker men over.”

— Julie Rogers