Two miles to the northwest at the foot of the Sweetwater Rocks lies Martin's Cove, where Captain Edward Martin's exhausted company of Mormon handcart emigrants sought shelter from a severe early winter storm in 1856. Low on provisions and traveling late in fall, the Martin Company first encountered winter weather in late October near present-day Casper. Of 576 men, women, and children, approximately 145 died along the trail before the survivors finally reached Salt Lake City on the last day of November. Daniel W. Jones recalled seeing the train strung out for two or three miles, with old men pulling carts, sometimes carrying sick wives or children, women pulling sick husbands, and little children six or eight years old struggling through mud and snow. As night came on, the mud froze on their clothes and feet. Jones and others tied riatas to the carts and helped as many of the most helpless as they could into camp, rendering assistance until the company finally arrived at Devil's Gate fort about the first of November. By then the winter storms had set in with full severity, the provisions brought for relief amounted to almost nothing among so many people, many were on very short rations and almost starving, and many were dying daily from exposure and want of food.