In early 1856, John Rowe Moyle and his wife Phillippa Beer left England to emigrate to the United States. When they arrived in Iowa City, they found that no wagons were available to carry them across the plains to Utah, so under a program instituted by Brigham Young, emigrants used handcarts to transport their possessions. Wanting to reach the Great Salt Lake Valley before winter, John and his family volunteered for the Edmund Ellsworth Company, the first handcart company. They began crossing the plains in June 1856, pulling and pushing their cart and walking more than 1,000 miles, and they arrived in Salt Lake on September 26, 1856. John was so exhausted and worn out that his hands resembled "Bird Claws," but through great hardship, faith, and determination, the family endured.