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One of the saddest tragic tales of days when pioneering the frontier in American History was a way of life is when the Donner Party became trapped up near Donner Pass freezing to death and facing starvation. The Donner Party was a group of emigrants from Illinois who were California bound. The two more prominent families traveling the trail would be the Reeds and Donners. Every decision that was made by the wagon trail meant a fatal one for some. For example when the party left Fort Bridger they decided to take a short cut which proved arduous thus causing delays. Then West of Salt Lake the party was running low on food as well as supplies. The party feared that they may not make the journey and doubts started to arise. Its the same doubts of pushing on while hiking only to get to deep in to get out.

It was 1846 at the time so there was no Carson City or towns like Truckee even in existence thus there were no towns to replenish. When the party reached Donner Lake which at one time was called Truckee Lake they decided to recover and rest. This would be a fatal mistake as the winter weather had arrived October 29th trapping them in and around the Donner Pass.

The snow continued storm after storm until drifts reached 22' in height and those that went out to seek help never came back. Eventually the animals would die and they would be eaten. Then after that food supply ran on out the party resorted to cannibalism. Family members had to eat other family members although their have been no signs of this actually taking place based on archaeological excavations we would have to assume that this may have been the only means of survival.

Most of the party set up tent camps and two cabins near Alder Creek while the other party members including all the Donners camped at the lake shore which is about a half miles hike away. The members of some of the party went insane which lead to blaming one another as the cold winds howled and supplies was running low. Imagine the horror that these people endured from October of 1946 to April of 1947. They huddled close together to keep warm for days which then turned into months which then turned into hell.

The two native American guides in the party died while the first person had died due to starvation. This would then be the cause for a course of action that is when the Forlorn Hope was formed which was composed of the strongest party members. They had no food or water just the will to hike a hundred miles seeking the aid of Sutter's Fort. The snowshoers were heroes however almost all of them nearly almost died.

Eventually four rescue teams from Sutter's Fort and the Sacramento Valley made attempts to get the party out of here. Each time they made it up to the lake they gathered more members from the Donner Party. Each week that passed more of those members also died from starvation and the cold. The party hunted any animals they could find or kill which included a bear, birds, fox and even a coyote. Sadly with little time to make winter preparations even animals were scarce.

By the time April came around at least nearly half of the party died while the last survivor was taken out of here. BTW even in April snow storms can still be as deadly today as they were over a century ago. I know I had a buddy who told me in May they were hit in Tuckee with 9 feet of snow over night in 2011 so its nothing to joke around about. You can only imagine being trapped in snowstorm after snowstorm trying to huddle in front of a campfire or in a tent to keep warm. This has to be torture for the Donner Party and their souls today I believe still speak of this tragedy.

I took interest in this location when I relocated to the area I decided to take my kids for a ride along the Truckee River. Only later did I realize that this location is as equally haunted as it is beautiful. Today there are houses surrounded the lake along with a fairly well known resort in the area. Tammy and I know someone who told us that living here was rather creepy. One night they came outside and saw the ghosts of the entire Donner Party in the woods staring back at them. There are gloomy feelings along the Emigrant Trail that follows takes you along Donner and Alder Creek. There are feelings of being watched and something in the air is amidst. Bad things no doubt happened when each man turned on himself in order to survive. Those that did not resort to cannibalism more then likely starved those that did made it out of here.

In 1918 the memorial was resurrected and the lake was named Donner Lake as well as turning the area into a state park dedicated to those who lost their lives here. It was a very sad site you had mutilated corpses laying around and animal bones. The people were cold and shivering some had to be carried out. Despite the tabloids and warnings pioneering never really halted it actually increased and more travelers from the east coast were fixed on spreading out to California. Allot of people on west coast had ancestors that made this very same journey if it were not for them some of you would not be here today just something to think about. These were true adventurers their were no roads or hotels you just took your belongings and pushed on.

In 1847 in June when the snow thawed a General Stephen Watts Kearney who was heading eastward reached what he called "Cannibal Camp" found what remains his Mormon Battalion could putting them all into the Breen Cabin. He then found anything else he could such as clothes, personal items etc and set it all on fire. He found the site appalling and did not want anything left behind in connection with the site. Two of the cabin sites today you can visit nothing stands however the trees are cleared as if something at one time stood here. Their is a museum on site that has artifacts, photos and anything in relation to the Emigrant Trail. I did tour the museum and seen an old wagon as well as some of the artifacts left behind. Not much remains from the pioneer days but what does is a true piece of early American History. We will work extensively with this area and its ghost of the past just as we will enjoy Donner Lake for what it is. Today children run around playing on its beaches and playgrounds never once even being aware of the dark history surrounding this place. Over a century ago those children would have been subjected to eat the deceased and so many of them lost there lives to the cold.

If you really want to get a more in depth timeline and history of this region you can read the articles I posted below. You can also click the links below wikipedia has a great write up on incident. There is also a diary site which has all the diaries written from 1846 leading all the way up from the first snowstorm to resorting to cannibalism and the final days. More then often we as Americans take advantage of all the amenities what we forget is that over 150 years ago it was do or die!

Copyright By
Lord Rick
Founder
Author, Producer and Talk Show Host


 
Left: George Donner Right: James Reed
These two men led the Donner Party over a thousand miles till there friends and family members became trapped in what was one of the most horrific pioneer tragedies in western American History!


            

       

    

The Donner Party
Courtesy: http://www.inn-california.com/articles/history/donnerparty.html
    Early in April 1846 the nucleus of the Donner Party climbed into their wagons and started west from Springfield, Illinois. The original party was composed of the families of George Donner, Jacob Donner and James Reed. Early in May they reached Independence, Missouri and were joined by a number of others. Out of Independence, the Donner Party proper was composed of 88 persons traveling in more than 40 wagons. They came from Illinois, Iowa, Tennessee, Missouri, Ohio, New Mexico, Spain, Belgium and Germany. Others joined the party for part of the trip, but were not involved in the tragic events that took place in the Sierra Mountains later that year.

     Travel across the prairies was hard but the party did not have any unusual difficulties in the early part of the trip. At the end of May the ninety year old mother of Mrs. James Reed died of exhaustion near what is today Manhatten Kansas. The Donner Party celebrated July 4 at Fort Laramie. On July 20, at Little Sandy River, George Donner was elected Captain of the train. At Fort Bridger the party learned of a new route pioneered by Lansford W. Hastings that was said to save 300 miles as compared with the then established Fort Hall route. While most wagon trains were taking the Fort Hall route the Donner Party decided to take the Hastings Cut Off to the Great Salt Lake.
   
    On August 3 they crossed the Weber River without incident. There they found a letter from Hastings who was piloting another party of 66 wagons down the Weber Canyon. Hastings warned against following them down the canyon due to the rugged nature of the terrain. Instead his letter suggested that they take a vaguely described route across the mountains. The cross-mountain route turned out to be extremely difficult and took thirty days rather than the week that they had been told to expect. They camped near the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake on September 3 where another of their party died of consumption. In crossing the desert west of Salt Lake the party suffered additional hardships and lost a number of livestock.

    While in the desert it was decided that they would run out of provisions before they could cross the Sierras. Two volunteers were sent ahead to Sutter's Fort to obtain additional supplies. At Gravelly Ford a fight broke out which resulted in John Snyder being killed by James Reed. George and Jacob Donner and their families were both two days ahead of the rest of the party at the time of the fight. Reed saw the incident as self defence, but the party ruled against him and ordered his expulsion. His family managed to get his rife to him and a bit of food, but were not able to prevent his ouster. Reed left the camp and walked away to the west.
   
        At the sink of the Humboldt the party ran into serious trouble when Indians made off with more of their livestock. From that point on most of the party had to walk. Another death from exhaustion occurred on October 9 when a sixty year old man lay down beside the trail to die. The party moved on without him. On October 14 another man disappeared without anyone being able to determine what happened to him although Lewis Keseberg was suspected by some of having murdered him for the money that he was carrying. On October 19 Charles Stanton, one of the two volunteers that had been sent ahead, returned from Sutter's Fort with five mules loaded with provisions and two Indian guides. The party continued on to the vicinity of present day Reno where they decided to rest their remaining livestock before ascending the east face of the Sierras. While in camp a man was accidently killed while loading a pistol.

    The weather began to change as they started up into the mountains. They reached Prosser Creek on October 28. There was six inches of snow on the ground. The winter season was a month earlier than usual in the high country, their remaining livestock were exhausted, their provisions were low, and they were badly frightened. The party panicked and spread out between Prosser Creek and Truckee Lake as individual families tried to decide what to do. A number of individual family efforts were made to cross the mountains and one concerted effort was attempted before all concluded that it was impossible to get the wagons through the snow. The party erected shelters and began to try to cope with the freezing conditions as best they could.   

Conditions were awful. On November 12 a party of fifteen of the strongest members of the party set out from Truckee Lake on foot in an attempt to get assistance from Sutter's Fort. They were unable to break through the deep snow and returned to camp that night. Snowshoes were made and several new efforts were attempted. None were successful. Early in December all of the remaining livestock plus the Stanton mules wandered away in a storm and were lost in the deep snow. The weakest individuals were close to death from starvation and exposure. On December 16 another effort was made by fifteen members of the party. The weather was fair and this group made it out of camp and up into the mountains.

    The fifteen traveled through drifts that ranged in depth from twelve to sixty feet. They were poorly clothed, had inadequate rations, and were physically rundown. Several of them went snow blind. At night they set fire to a dead tree for warmth. The first to die was Charles Stanton, the man who had brought provisions from Sutter's Fort. On the fourth day heavy snow began to fall and the party actually discussed who among the fourteen should die so that the others might live. The storm raged around them for four days. Additional members of the party began dying and eventually the survivors turned to cannibalism of the dead in a desperate effort to sustain life. Late in January 1847 the seven survivors reached an Indian village. The Indians fed the the emaciated men and women acorn mush and assisted them to reach the Johnson Ranch. A few days later they were able to go on to Sutter's Fort.

    After being ejected from the Donner Party James Reed was joined by Walter Herron who had been traveling with the Donners' wagons ahead of the main party. The two men managed to cross the mountains and reach Sutter's Fort sometime late in December. Sutter assisted them with provisions, livestock, and an Indian guide so that they could return to assist the trapped party. Their effort was thwarted by deep snow and they returned to seek more help from United States naval personnel in Yerba Buena. The naval officers and men were sympathetic but had official duties that limited their ability to become involved. The civilian community, however, supplemented what the Commander of the Northern District of California (Captain J.B. Hull) could provide and a sizeable relief effort was organized.
   
        The War with Mexico was in progress and events in California had siphoned off many able bodied men. Even so, within a week of the arrival at Sutter's Fort of the seven from Truckee Lake, provisions were assembled and a group of volunteers were recruited by John Sutter and Alcalde Sinclair to mount a relief effort. Reasin F. Tucker was chosen to lead the party. Several days into the mountains they reached Mule Springs and set up a base camp. The snow was so deep that the horses and mules could go no further. Ten of the party continued on by foot carrying heavy packs. It was February 11, 1847. Two weeks later on February 24 the relief party led by James Reed camped at Mule Springs.

    In the campsites at Truckee Lake conditions had worsened. Storms had created drifts that smothered everything in snow. When a tree was felled for firewood it would disappear into the snow. Maintaining a fire was difficult at best and sometimes impossible. People's extremities froze and further limited their ability to care for themselves. Brush huts, tents, and makeshift cabins were all buried in the drifts. Every bit of food was consumed. Wolves prowled the edges of the camps and made it difficult to protect the dead. Many of them were kept with the living in their huts. Eventually the majority of people engaged in cannibalism. (The Reed family appear to have been the only group of survivors that managed to reach Sutter's Fort without having to consume human flesh.) The situation was horrendous.

    On February 19 the Tucker relief party reached Truckee Lake and distributed their limited supplies. On February 22 twenty three of the Donner Party left the lake with the seven in Tucker's Party helping them. The leader wore snowshoes and the rest walked in his trail. It soon became evident that two of the Reed children were not strong enough to make the trip and had to be sent back to the lake. After Acquila Grover (one of Tucker's relief group) promised to go back for the children on the next relief party, Mrs. Reed continued. In all instances during this long travail deciding who would leave the Truckee Lake campsites and who would stay was an extremely difficult decision. Supplies of food, strength of individuals, parental responsibilities, and a host of emotions all played a part in the decision-making. It is impossible for people who were not involved to completely understand more than the enormity of the horror.

    During the first day march Keseberg's baby died and was buried in the snow. Two days later a man in the group sat down beside the trail physically unable to continue. The relief party built a fire, left him a small amount of food, and continued on. On February 27 they ran out of food and found that the cache of supplies they had left at Summit Valley had been eaten my wild animals. They were still a long distance from safety and would have starved to death if the Reed relief party had not come upon them. (It will be remembered that this was the man that had earlier been forced to leave the party.) Reed's wife and two of his children were in the Tucker group. He provided all with food and then continued on toward Truckee Lake.   

The Tucker group continued on toward Sutter's Fort. When they reached a second cache of food they attempted to ration food to the nineteen survivors to prevent complications from overeating, but one boy secretly ate too much and died as a result. Another man collapsed and died of exposure and weakness while in camp. The rest made it to Sutter's Fort.

    Reed's ten man party reached Truckee Lake on March 1. They distributed provisions and seventeen persons including Reed's two children were selected to accompany the party back to Sutter's Fort. Three of Reed's party stayed behind to help the remaining members of the Donner Party, most of whom were too weak to help themselves. Two of the three soon decided to leave and try to catch up with the Reed party. The third made the same decision a few days later. One of the Donner Party decided to accompany him and they invited Mrs. Tamasen Donner to go along. Mrs. Donner was strong enough to make the trip but stayed behind to nurse her dying husband, Jacob Donner.
   
    A few days after leaving the lake the Reed group was hit by the full fury of a powerful winter storm. Reed exhausted himself in preparing a camp for the group and became an invalid. They were forced to remain in what became known as "Starved Camp" without provisions for several days while the storm howled around them. Once again a number of the party including Reed suffered from snow blindness. Following the death of two people it was decided that the relief party had to move on to obtain supplies that would be sent back to the remaining fourteen at Starved Camp. Reed took his two children with him and one other joined them. When they reached their base camp a third relief party was organized and sent back to assist the people at Starvation Camp.

    When the third relief party reached Starved Camp only eleven persons remained alive and once again there was gruesome evidence of cannibalism. Three of the relief party were designated to assist these eleven while the remainder pushed on to Truckee Lake. Of the eleven only two could walk, nine would have to be carried back to the base camp and anther storm was gathering in the mountains. John Stark literally carried many of the people back to the base camp on his back. Carrying one person forward a distance, putting him down in the snow and going back for another person. Repeating this over and over again until everybody was safely to the base camp.
   
        The remainder of the third relief party, led by George Foster, reached Truckee Lake in the middle of March. They distributed what provisions they could to the survivors. Once again they urged Tamsen Donner to leave with them. Once again she declined to stay instead with her dying husband. (Mrs. Donner did, however, agree to send her three daughters out with the third relief party.) Keseberg was still in camp and a variety of stories have been told as to his motivation and activities during this period. Several stories say that he enjoyed eating human flesh and claim that he murdered people to eat them. Another theme that was common was that he was healthy enough to leave but remained in camp to steal valuables from the rest of the party. Keseberg denied these stories and explained instead that he was lame and could not walk. In any case he did not accompany the third party out of the campsite.

    Following the safe return of the third relief party a fourth led by Captain W.O. Fallon arrived at Truckee Lake on April 17. The only person left alive was Keseberg. Fallon and his party believed that Keseberg had murdered Mrs Donner and almost hung him They decided to abandon him instead. When they left Truckee Lake Keseberg followed them. On the way out he discovered the body of his baby who had died during the Tucker party's exit from the mountains in February. 





Courtesy: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WWdonnerP.htm

The Donner-Reed wagon train was made up of twenty vehicles and the party included George Donner (wife Tamsen and five children and a family friend, John Denton), Jacob Donner (wife Elizabeth and seven children), James Reed (wife Margaret and four children), Patrick Breen (wife Peggy and seven children and a family friend Patrick Dolan), William McCutcheon (wife Amanda and one child) and William Eddy (wife Eleanor and two children). Also in the wagon train were three teamsters working for Donner (Noah James, Samuel Shoemaker and Jean-Baptise Trubode) and five people employed by Reed (Baylis Williams, Eliza Williams, Milton Elliott, James Smith and Walter Herron).

Lavinia Murphy, a widow from Tennessee, was accompanied by four unmarried daughters and two married daughters and their families (William Foster, his wife Sarah and one child; William Pike, wife Harriet and two children). There was also Charles T. Stanton, a businessman from Chicago, who was travelling on his own.

The party was completed by a group from Germany. This included Lewis Keseberg and his wife and two children. Keseberg also brought with him three employees, Karl Burger, Joseph Reinhardt and Augustus Spitzer. The wagon train also included two Germans known as Hardkoop and Wolfinger.

The Donner-Reed wagon train left Independence, Missouri, for Sutter's Fort in May, 1846. Later that month, James Reed's mother-in-law died next to the Blue River in Kansas. She was to be the first of large number of people to die on this journey. The party followed the Oregon Trail until they reached Fort Bridger on 28th July.

At the fort the party met Lansford Hastings. He was busy attempting to persuade Oregon-bound emigrants to go to California by way of what became known as the Hastings Cutoff. Hastings claimed that his route would remove 300 miles from the distance to Sutter's Fort. His cut-off involved crossing the Wasatch Mountains, round the Great Salt Lake to the south, then due west to the Humboldt River in Nevada, before returning to the main trail from Fort Hall.

Hastings told people that the desert was only 40 miles across and that they would find water after 24 hours. It was in fact 82 miles wide and water was only to be found after 48 hours of travelling. Hastings told George Donner and James Reed that three wagon trains had already opted for this route.

The Donner Party had made poor time so far and was already some way behind most of the other wagon trains travelling from Independence to Sutter's Fort. They knew they had to cross the Sierra Nevada before the snowfalls that would their path to Sutter's Fort. This usually happened in early November. Although they were on schedule to reach the mountains by late summer they were worried about other delays that could mean being blocked by the winter weather. They therefore made the decision to take the advice of Lansford Hastings and take the proposed short-cut.

On 31st July the Donner Party left Fort Bridger. They did not come out of the Echo Canyon until the 6th August. What they expected to take them four days had actually taken them seven days. They found a letter from Lansford Hastings advising them to camp at the Weber River and to send a man ahead to find him so he could show them a new route to California. James Reed and Charles T. Stanton went off in pursuit of Hastings. When they found him he refused the offer of becoming the personal guide to the Donner wagon train. Instead he drew a rough map of the new route.

The Donner Party entered the Wasatch Mountains on 12th August. They soon discovered they had to chop their way through aspen, cottonwood and tangled undergrowth to make a route for the wagons. Over the next few days they had to dislodge boulders and build causeways across swamps in order to reach the valley of the Great Salt Lake. The twenty-three wagons of the Donner Party was now joined by the Graves family and their three wagons. As Virginia Reed later recorded the new group consisted "of Franklin Graves, his wife and eight children, his son-in-law Jay Fosdick, and a young man by the name of John Snyder."

It was now the 27th August and they still had to cross the Salt Desert. Members of the party now realised they were in serious trouble and now had only a small chance of crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains before the winter snows blocked their route. The faster wagons pushed on ahead and the slow, heavily laden wagons of the Reeds and Donners were by now falling further and further behind.

The Donner Party reached Pilot Peak on 8th September. To enable them to keep up, the Reeds and Donners had to abandon some of the heavy goods they were carrying. They also abandoned three wagons and increased the number of oxen pulling the remaining wagons. Members of the party were also having doubts about whether they had enough food to last them before they reached California. It was therefore decided to send two men, Charles T. Stanton and William McCutcheon ahead to Sutter's Fort in order to purchase provisions for the wagon train.

The Donner Party now started out towards the Humboldt River. On the 30th September they reached the main trail from Fort Hall to Sutter's Fort. However, by this time the rest of the 1846 wagon trains had long gone and were already in California. The Donner Party now had trouble from the Paiute. They stole two oxen and two horses. They also fired several arrows at the wagon train and wounded some of the animals.

On 5th October, 1846, another disaster struck the Donner Party. James Reed and John Snyder had an argument about one of the wagons. Snyder lost his temper and hit him over the head with a bullwhip. Reed drew his knife and stuck it into Snyder's body. Snyder mumbled: "Uncle Patrick, I am dead." His prediction was correct and Lewis Keseberg immediately began to set up a wagon tongue as a makeshift gallows. William Eddy used his gun to insist that Reed would not be lynched. The others agreed and after much discussion it was decided that Reed should be banished from the wagon train. He was forced to make his way to Sutter's Fort on horseback without weapons. To many in the party this was equivalent to sentencing Reed to death.

Soon afterwards Lewis Keseberg ejected one of his employees, Hardkoop, from his wagon. He was never seen again and it is not known whether he died of starvation or was killed by local Native American tribes. This was followed by the disappearance of another German named Wolfinger. Joseph Reinhardt and Augustus Spitzer later confessed they had robbed and murdered Wolfinger.

The Donner Party now had to cross a 40 mile desert. Over the next three days the wagon train suffered repeated attacks from groups of warriors. During this time they stole 18 oxen, killed another 21 and wounded many others. Since most of their animals were now dead or stolen, the party was forced to abandon their wagons. The party reached the Truckee Lake at the end of October.

On 19th October Charles T. Stanton arrived back from Sutter's Fort with seven mules loaded with food. William McCutcheon had been taken ill and had been forced to stay at the fort. However, Stanton had brought back with him two Indian guides to help them get to California. Stanton also brought news that James Reed had successfully reached California. On 20th October Foster killed his brother-in-law in a shooting accident.

The Donner Party now began its attempt to cross the the Sierra Nevada mountains. A few snow flurries made them realise they were in a desperate race for time. In the distance they could see that the peaks were covered in snow. On 25th October a Paiute warrior opened fire on what was left of the animals. He hit nineteen oxen before being killed by William Eddy.

The migrants ploughed on but when they got to within three miles of the summit they found their way blocked by five-foot snowdrifts. They were now forced to turn back and seek cover in a cabin they had passed at the foot of the mountain. Meanwhile James Reed and William McCutcheon had set out with enough food to keep the Donner Party alive for the winter. However, they had found their path blocked and had to return with their pack mules to Sutter's Fort.

The surviving members of the wagon train now set about constructing a camp next to what later became known as Donner Lake. Patrick Dolan, Patrick Breen and his family moved into the abandoned cabin whereas Lewis Keseberg built a lean-to against one of the walls. William Eddy and William Foster built a log cabin. So also did Charles T. Stanton. His cabin was to house the Graves family and Margaret Reed and her children. George Donner managed to construct a primitive shelter for his family.

The Donner Party was desperately short of food. The remaining animals were killed and eaten. Attempts to catch fish in the river was unsuccessful. Some of the men went hunting but during the next two weeks they were only able to kill one bear, a coyote, an owl and a grey squirrel. It was clear that if they stayed in the camp they would all die of starvation and on 12th November thirteen men and two women made another attempt to get to Sutter's Fort. However, they found their way blocked by a 10 foot snow drift and returned to camp.

The party rested for a few days and then a party led by William Eddy and Charles T. Stanton made another attempt to reach safety. On 21st November they returned to camp defeated. Soon afterwards Baylis Williams died. This motivated the stronger members of the party to make one last attempt to cross the mountains.

On 16th December fifteen members of the party left the camp and headed for the summit. This became known as the Forlorn Hope group. Aided by better weather, this time they managed to cross the mountain pass. On 20th December they had reached a place called Yuba Bottoms. The following morning Stanton was not strong enough to leave the camp. The rest were forced to leave him to die.

William Eddy now took responsibility for leading the group to safety. On 24th December they were out of food and too weak to go on. The group came to the decision that the only way they could survive was to resort to cannibalism. That night Billy Graves and a Mexican called Antoine died. The following day Patrick Dolan also passed away and on 26th December they began cooking Dolan's arms and legs. At first only three members of the party, Eddy and the two Indian guides, refused to eat the meat. However, over the next two days they succumbed to temptation and resorted to cannibalism. They now had a fourth body to consume as Lemeul Murphy died that night.

On 30th December the party, much stronger after their cannibal feast, set off again. However, the weather deteriorated and they were once again forced to halt and make a camp. Out of food, the group began talking about murdering Luis and Salvador, the two Indian guides. Eddy argued against this idea and he secretly told Luis and Salvador that they were likely to be murdered if they remained. That night, while the others slept, they left the camp.

William Eddy and Mary Graves now volunteered to go out hunting. Eddy managed to kill a deer but by the time they got back to the camp Jay Fosdick had died. This supplied more meat for the six remaining members of the group.

The next day the party found the dying bodies of Luis and Salvador. Eddy was unable to stop William Foster killing the two Indians. This created conflict between Eddy and Foster and it was decided that they could no longer work together. The group now split up: Foster, his wife and sister, Harriet Pike made up one party whereas Eddy travelled with Mary Graves, Sarah Fosdick and Amanda McCutcheon.

On 12th January, Eddy's group reached a Paiute village. They took pity on the travellers and gave them a corn meal. This gave them the strength to move on and five days later found another village. This time they were given a meal of pine nuts. Eddy then paid a warrior a pouch of tobacco to act as a guide to Sutter's Fort. This he agreed to do and after a further six mile walker, Eddy reached his destination. When he heard the news James Reed quickly organized a relief party to go back and find the rest of the Forlorn Hope group.

Johann Sutter and Captain Edward Kern, the commanding officer at Sutter's Fort, offered to pay $3 a day for anyone willing to form a relief party to rescue those still camped at Donner Lake. Only seven men agreed to accept this dangerous task and on 31st January the small team led by Daniel Tucker left the fort.

James Reed successfully brought back William Foster, Sarah Foster, Harriet Pike, Mary Graves, Sarah Fosdick and Amanda McCutcheon. He now began preparing a second relief party. He organized a public meeting where he raised $1,300. He used this money to buy supplies and to hire six more men. William Eddy also agreed to guide the team back to the Donner Lake and they departed on 7th February.

Several members of Tucker's party threatened to turn back when they reached Bear Valley. The snow was ten feet deep. Tucker was forced to pay the men $5 a day to anyone who completed the journey. On 18th February they managed to reach Donner Lake. The first person they came across asked: "Are you men from California, or do you come from heaven?" They discovered that a large number had died of starvation. This included Franklin Graves, George Donner, Jacob Donner, Eleanor Eddy, Margaret Eddy, Samuel Shoemaker, James Smith, Joseph Reinhardt, Lantron Murphy, John Denton, Harriet McCutcheon, Augustus Spitzer and Milton Elliott. It also became clear that the many of those still alive had resorted to cannibalism in order to survive.

Reed's rescue party arrived soon afterwards. It was decided to try to help as many people as possible to Sutter's Fort. However, a large number were too weak to make the journey back and had to be left behind. After reaching safety William Foster and William Eddy agreed to lead another rescue party to Donner Lake. They were eventually able to bring back all those who had survived the ordeal.

The Donner Party was the worst disaster in wagon train history. Forty-two emigrants and two Indian guides had died. However, the remaining forty-seven travellers survived.


How the Donner Party Worked

by Tim Faulkner

The Donner Party set up camp on the shores of this lake in California, now known as Donner Lake.

The story of the Donner Party looms large in American folklore. On April 14, 1846, this group of immigrants embarked on a 2,500-mile journey from Springfield, Ill., to San Francisco -- but, because of bad timing, terrible advice and even worse weather, only a fraction of them reached their final destination. The Donner Party has become legendary because of the extremity of the situation and also because of what the group did to survive a hellish winter in the Sierra Nevada mountains. As food became more and more scarce, and as members of the group began dying from starvation and illness, the rest of the party resorted to cannibalism as a means of survival.

This aspect of the Donner Party's story has been a grotesquely fascinating part of the American consciousness since it happened during the height of westward expansion. History buffs are still intrigued because of our forebearers' will to survive and the risks they took. Today, it's easy to forget the hardships that American trailblazers had to endure -- we don't necessarily think about the possibility of having to devour our fellow travelers when we step on the train for our morning commute or take our seat on a cross-country flight.

But the story of the Donner Party is a frightening reminder of what could be. Were it not for a few wrong turns, a bit of bad directions and a winter storm the likes of which had never been seen, the Donner Party would have been an unremarkably successful wagon train. But as it happened, it became a lesson of what can happen when everything goes wrong, a cautionary tale of manifest destiny and an unforgettable tragedy in American history. How did the Donner Party wind up isolated, in such desperate circumstances?

 The Journey

  The Donner-Reed Party planned on following a well-traveled route to the California Trail. They would travel west to St. Louis, northwest to Wyoming and Idaho, and then southwest through Utah and Nevada, over the Sierra Nevadas and into California. The trip was supposed to take six months -- but it ended up taking two years.

  The Donners and Reeds decided to split up when the group reached Little Sandy River, Wyo., in July 1846. The Reeds stayed on the familiar trail, but the Donners -- 23 wagons strong -- had heard about a new shortcut, the Hastings Cutoff. They decided to travel on to Fort Bridger, Wyo., and meet up with Lanford Hastings, who had discovered the new route. But they arrived in Fort Bridger a few days late and discovered that Hastings had gone without them.

Hastings wrote a widelycirculated open letter to all westward travelers urging them to usethis route, even though he hadn't tried it himself. He promised that itwould reduce travel by at least 350 miles, cutting three weeks off thejourney. He also claimed that the roads were smooth, hard and level,that here was no threat of attack from aggressive local tribes, andthat there was plenty of water and grass for animals. This misguidanceled directly to the Donner Party's monstrous fate.

So the Donner Party (87 people plus two American Indian guides) followed the shallow trail blazed a few days earlier by Hastings' group, covering about 12 miles a day. When the trail reached the Red Fork of the Weber River in Utah, they discovered a note from Hastings warning that the route was very bad. The land was so rugged that the group crossed only 16 miles in 36 days -- and then they hit a stretch of desert 80 miles long. Taking the shortcut ended up costing the group four wagons, three weeks and 125 unnecessary miles. They finally reached the California Trail on Sept. 31, 1846.

  On the first of November the party reached the eastern border of the Sierra Nevadas as a heavy snow was falling. Bad weather and dwindling supplies conspired to keep them at camp through one of the longest and coldest winters on record -- and they had only 150 more miles to go. The group set up two different camps: Almost two-thirds settled on the banks of a lake; the rest, including the families of Jacob and George Donner, went six miles away to Adler Creek. Little did they know that the worst was yet to
come.

The Forlorn Hope

The Forlorn Hope expedition set off from Donner Lake in December 1846 to find help.
  The Donner Party, stranded on the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada mountains, hunkered down for the winter of 1846-47, which would turn out to be one of the harshest on record.

  As the food supply ran out, the group became more and more desperate. First, they killed and ate their pack animals. When that meat was gone, they hunted deer, rabbits and foxes. Then they ate their dogs, boiled blankets and rawhide into a gluelike soup, and consumed bark and twigs. Families hoarded what little they had, neglecting their starving companions. On Dec. 16, six weeks after they arrived in the foothills, the first person died of starvation.

  On that day, a party of the 15 strongest members -- 10 men and five women -- embarked with their Indian guides through the snow and storms, hoping to reach the pass and bring aid to their camps. The group, called the Forlorn Hope, wore homemade snowshoes (and so are sometimes referred to as the Snowshoe Group). They carried almost no food with them as they traveled the 100 miles to Sutter's Fort, Calif., which they reached on Jan. 18, 1847. Ten of them didn't make it.

  Six days into the Forlorn Hope's trek, Charles Staton, overwhelmed by starvation and exhaustion, begged the others to leave him there to die. It wasn't until the ninth day of the expedition that the topic of cannibalism was brought up for the first time, and the group discussed the proper circumstances for it. They thought about drawing straws or dueling, but eventually they agreed that they'd just wait for someone to die -- and that no one would consume the flesh of a relative. That night, a traveler named Antoine (or Antonio) died of starvation. The remaining members of the party cut off his flesh and roasted it over a campfire. Others soon followed -- the Forlorn Hope ate three more men, and things started turning violent.

  Jay Fosdick, a 23-year-old traveling with his family, died of starvation (see How long can you go without food or water?). A Mrs. Foster, following the (however horrific) rules for the situation, cut up the body and boiled it, and the two Indian guides ate it. Jay Fosdick's father then hunted down the guides and shot them dead. The original group had dwindled to seven people when they limped into the settlement at Sutter's Fort. The harrowing journey lasted for 33 days.

  Now we know that the smaller expedition was forced to resort to cannibalism because they brought so little food with them, but were those who stayed at the original encampments forced into the same fate?

 The Donner Party Legend

Westward expansion slowed briefly after news of the Donner Party's plight, but it soon picked up again.
Although the Forlorn Hope was successful in reaching the outside world for help, that help came too late. The first of four rescue parties was sent out on Jan. 31, 1847, but, because of bad weather and a lack of supplies, the rescuers were continually delayed. By the time they arrived at the settlements at Donner Lake and Adler Creek on Feb. 22, many more had died. And people continued to die as the succession of rescuers arrived.

The first rescue mission was able to bring 21 survivors to safety. The second rescued 17, the third saved four, and the final party brought back one last survivor. Of the 87 people who took the Hastings Cutoff, 39 died. Everyone older than 50 perished, and most of the young children did, too.

And so, the tragedy came to an end. The hideousness of the ordeal quickly passed from truth to legend. Myths abounded and inflated, newspaper accounts exaggerated the truth, and much of it went unchecked for years. The California Star, a San Francisco newspaper, was the first to print the Donner Party's story, on Feb. 13, 1847. By today's standards, the piece reads like a tabloid article, full of shocking and grisly details.

The survivors went their separate ways and didn't communicate much for the rest of their lives.  Some published their diaries, some wrote memoirs, and some made official statements to the press and courts. Many, understandably, wanted to forget the whole thing and refused to talk about it. Nevertheless, the story was quickly cemented into the imagination of a country caught in the grips of a rush for gold and land. It was a cautionary tale that could slow down even the most gung-ho pioneer.

Teams of archaeologists have examined the two campsites for evidence of what really happened. Some claim that there's no physical evidence to prove that cannibalism took place -- they've found hearths filled with the bones of deer, oxen and rabbits, but no human remains were left behind. It's been argued that the survivors and rescue teams did what they could to give the deceased a proper burial, and that's why there is no forensic evidence of cannibalism. But the written word and testimonies of the survivors that attest to the brutal lengths that survivors went to.

After word got out about the Donner Party, emigration to California dropped severely. Hastings' Cutoff was deserted, and Lansford Hastings' reputation as a trailblazer was lost forever. The flow of westward immigrants all but stopped until early 1848, when gold was discovered in California. By 1849, more than 100,000 people had decided to put the Donner tragedy in the back of their minds and move west.

To learn more about the Donner Party, take a gander at the links on the next page.

Sources

DonnerPartyDiary.Com: Maps. http://www.donnerpartydiary.com/maps.htm
Education First: Donner Party. http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/donner/index.html
February 1847 Donner Party Diary Excerpts. http://www.donnerpartydiary.com/feb47.htm
McGlashan, C., Hinkle, B., and Hinkle, G., Eds. "History of the Donner Party: A Tragedy of the Sierra." Stanford University Press, 1940.
San Francisco Museum: First News Account of Donner Party. http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist6/donner.html
Science Daily: Cannibalism at the Donner Site Remains Unproven. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060113111909.htm
The Donner Party by Daniel Lewis: Eating the Dead. http://raiboy.tripod.com/Donner/id28.html
The Donner Party by Daniel Lewis: The Donner Party and Native Americans. http://raiboy.tripod.com/Donner/id38.html
The Donner Party by Daniel Lewis: The Religion of the Donner Party. http://raiboy.tripod.com/Donner/id15.html
The Donner Party by Daniel Lewis: The Story. http://raiboy.tripod.com/Donner/id23.html
The Expedition of the Donner Party and Its Tragic Fate by Eliza P. Donner Houghton. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11146/11146-h/11146-h.htm#CHAPTER_VIII
The Gutenberg Project: The Expedition of the Donner Party and Its Tragic Fate. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11146/11146-h/11146-h.htm
UtahCrossroads.Org: Donner Party Chronology. http://www.utahcrossroads.org/DonnerParty/Chronology.htm
UtahCrossroads.Org: Donner Party Myths & Misconceptions. http://www.utahcrossroads.org/DonnerParty/Myths.htm
UtahCrossroads.Org: Donner Party Roster. http://www.utahcrossroads.org/DonnerParty/Roster.htm
UtahCrossRoads.Org: First Relief Diary of George Tucker & M.D. Ritchie. http://www.utahcrossroads.org/DonnerParty/FirstReliefDiary.htm
Virginia Western University: Donner Party. http://www.vw.vccs.edu/vwhansd/HIS121/Donner.html








 

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