Description

Mary Bathgate Shelley

Mary Bathgate was a pioneer to remember. She was born and raised in Scotland and by some accounts worked for 40 years in the coal mines before she emigrated to the United States. Notwithstanding she was more than 60 years old she determined not to be a burden on her company. She became known as the leader of the footmen, meaning those who were not pulling handcarts. The plucky little old lady, leading her charges, would travel out in front of the handcart train, swing her cane and shout “Hurree for the handkerts!”

Then one day, August 16, 1856, somewhere near the sandhills of Nebraska, Mary sat down on a rock to rest when a large rattlesnake struck her on the back of the leg just above the ankle. Quickly she tied a tourniquet on it and sent a girl running for help. The entire train stopped and the men came immediately. “Before half an hour her leg had swollen to four times its thickness.”

Captain Dan McArthur relates the following, “When we got to her she was quite sick, but said that there was power in the Priesthood, and she knew it. So we took a pocket knife and cut the wound larger, squeezed out all the bad blood we could, and there was considerable…. We then took and anointed her leg and head, and laid our hands on her in the name of Jesus and felt to rebuke the influence of the poison, and she felt full of faith. We then told her that she must get into the wagon, so she called witnesses to prove that she did not get into the wagon until she was compelled to by the cursed snake.”

Mary had not ridden one mile since leaving Iowa City and only now got into the wagon because of the snake. She was very sick and rode all that afternoon, but the next day was out of the wagon, and as Captain McArthur put it was once again, “on the tramp” and cheering her company. She walked the rest of the way to Salt Lake City a living miracle to her company.

Mortality is a long trek, we can, pickle-sucker style, drag behind, whining and complaining, or, we can straighten out our attitude, get out front, and have some fun. Remember Mary Bathgate, “Hurree for the Handcarts!

Sources: https://history.lds.org/overlandtravel/pioneers/18106/mary-bathgate-murry-logan