Martin's Cove

The best-known story from these days happened at the Sweetwater crossing on November 4, 1856: three eighteen-year-old rescuers carrying nearly the whole company over the icy river, then dying of it. Chad Orton's 2006 study in BYU Studies found it grew in the retelling. At least eighteen rescuers have been identified at the river that day, the three named men lived long lives, and some emigrants crossed in wagons or waded. The heroism was shared rather than invented.

What the plaque says

No 28 Erected June 22, 1933 Martin's Cove Survivors of Captain Edward Martin's handcart company of Mormon emigrants from England to Utah were rescued here in perishing condition about Nov. 12, 1856. Delayed in starting and hampered by inferior carts, it was overtaken by an early winter. Among the company of 576, including aged people and children; the fatalities numbered 145. Insufficient food and clothing and severe weather caused many deaths. Toward the end every campground became a graveyard. Some of the survivors found shelter in a stockade and mail station near Devil's Gate where their property was stored for the winter. Earlier companies reached Utah in safety. Utah Pioneer Trails & Landmarks Association & Citizens of Wyoming

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sun Ranch and Devil's Gate — 2.1 mi
  Tom Sun's 1872 cattle ranch at Devil's Gate, sold in 1996 to the church for whom the cove nearby is sacred, and the fight over who should hold that cove.
• Independence Rock State Historic Site — 7.5 mi
  A granite whaleback named before the wagons came, by trappers in 1824 or Sublette in 1830, and polished by wind until it took names easily.

More markers nearby

• The Pioneer Women — 2.1 mi
• The Oregon Trail — 2.1 mi
• Tom Sun Ranch — 2.1 mi
• Muddy Gap — 11 mi