Iowa City stood on land that was still wilderness when it was chosen and surveyed in 1839 as the capital of the Territory of Iowa. Governor Lucas laid the cornerstone of the new capitol building on July 4, 1840, and the Legislative Assembly first met in a frame building in 1841 before moving the next year into the new stone capitol. For sixteen years, Iowa City served as the capital, hosting five sessions of the Legislative Assembly, six sessions of the General Assembly, meetings of the Territorial and State Supreme Courts, and Constitutional Conventions in 1844, 1846, and 1857. The State University was established there in 1847, with classes beginning in 1855, and the State Historical Society of Iowa was established there by law in 1857; when the Constitution of 1857 moved the capital to Des Moines, the University and Historical Society remained in Iowa City. In 1857, about 1,300 Mormon converts from Europe reached the railroad end-of-track in Iowa City with their money exhausted, and Brigham Young directed that they continue on foot with handcarts or wheelbarrows. While camped at what is now Coralville and awaiting the completion of their handcarts, the first company of 226 set out on June 7 through Homestead, Marengo, Newton, Des Moines, Adel, and Dalmanutha, joined the Mormon Trail of 1846 at Lewis, crossed the Missouri River north of Council Bluffs, and continued toward Salt Lake City. Two other handcart companies followed and all three arrived safely before cold weather, but the fourth and fifth companies suffered severe hardships and death before reaching Zion in present-day Utah.