Led by captains James Willie and Edward Martin, the doomed caravans of British and Scandinavian immigrants who had converted to Mormonism left Florence, Nebraska, in August 1856, according to WyoHistory. The Mormon church had started recruiting converts from Europe by this time, since most of the American Mormons had already moved out to Utah and founded Salt Lake City. In order to attract new converts to come help build their new religious paradise, the church offered to pay people's way out to the middle of nowhere, but drought and famine had done a number on its ability to collect tithes from its members. It was forced to cut costs somewhere.
Enter the bright idea of handcarts. Church leaders thought it would be easy enough for the new converts to just haul all their stuff out West just as winter was coming on. They maybe should have prayed — or at least thought — about it first.
Well, someone did. A sub-captain named Levi Savage warned the Willie party before they departed that they "were liable to have to wade in snow up to our knees, and should at night rap ourslevs [sic] in a thin blanket." He saw the lack of logic in embarking so late in the season, but his words went unheeded, and those hundreds of deaths became another one of the messed up things that actually happened on the Oregon Trail.
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