Local Youth Reenact Trek For Religious Freedom

Local youth from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints will re-enact the Mormon Pioneer Exodus – 1,300 miles in handcarts and covered wagons to the Rocky Mountain West in search of religious freedom.

This year marks the second time the reenactment has been sponsored by the New Haven Stake. The “stake” unit geographically covers Danbury, Trumbull, Bridgeport, Waterbury, Southington, New Haven, Hamden, Madison, Guilford, and Old Saybrook, and all of the towns in between.

More than 100 teenagers, ages 14 to 18, will don mid-1800 clothing, load handcarts, and hike through 20 miles of logging trails in the Cockaponset State Forest in Haddam in remembrance of the pioneers who crossed the plains.

During the four-day trek, the teenagers are organized into “families” with adult couples acting as the “ma” and “pa.” The homemade cart weighs about 600 pounds when loaded and the teenagers learn to work together to push and pull the carts over crude logging trails.

At night, they sleep under the stars. During the day, the teenagers will learn pioneer skills such as candle making, black-powder shooting, and finger weaving. This year they will learn to make necklaces from juniper berries, gathered from the west, as the Indians taught the pioneers.

The teenagers hear pioneer stories throughout the trek – stories of valor, commitment, sorrow, and triumph. Many of the teenagers have ancestors that crossed the plains in search or religious freedom and hearing the pioneer stories helps to foster great pride in their heritage.