by Albert Philips on August 31, 1926
She was a pioneer of Utah. Seventy years of her life had been spent in the Salt Lake Valley. When a girl of nineteen years, she left her home in England, leaving father, mother and all that she might come to the Promised Land. On that long journey she endured hardships that are almost unbelievable, for she was with the last company of Handcart Pioneers under the command of Captain Edward Martin.
Monday she was laid to rest in the City Cemetery. This was Mrs. Annie Hicks Free. She had aided in every way possible to make the Salt Lake Valley and Utah what they are today and she lived to see the City, to which she came as a girl, grow from a straggling hamlet to one of the most beautiful cities in the land of her adoption.
The story of the handcart brigade has been told and retold and yet it can never be told as it was, of the horrors of the long 1300 miles. The story is pathetic in the extreme. Take the history of Mrs. Free. It is similar to others told me by the pioneers. The company of which she was a member, when it left Florence, Nebraska on Aug the 25th, 1856 consisted of 576 persons. They had 146 handcarts and 7 wagons. When the company arrived in Salt Lake City on Nov 30, 1856 after more than three months on the journey, it had been reduced to a handful of people. Their handcarts had been left scattered along mountain and plain and many, many graves dotted the praire and range, where a devoted poeple had joined the great majority in their effort to reach their Mecca in the Mountains.
Relief parties had been sent to meet the several companies of the handcart brigade and the one under Captain Martin, which was afterward known as the belated company, was reduced by death to a handful.
Daniel W. Jones who was a member of the relief force said, "They had given up all hope, their provisions were exhausted and most of them sick and worn out. That night several members of the company died." And this was what this aged Pioneer who has just passed on went through in order that she might worship her God as her conscience dictated. Her memory will always be cherished.