Tragedy in the Sierra Nevada, Part V

Read Part I

Read Part II

Read Part III

Read Part IV

THE FORLORN HOPE

On December 16th, 1846, yet another group set out from the encampment in an effort to make it through the mountains. This time, they went prepared. Charles Stanton and Franklin Graves had spent the previous two weeks making snowshoes. Graves, originally from the Green Mountains of Vermont, was perhaps the only member of the Donner Party familiar with winter survival in the mountains, and he knew how to make snowshoes. Using oxbows from their now useless yokes, Graves and Stanton had made enough snowshoes for a party of fifteen people to attempt crossing the mountains.

In later years, this party would come to be known as the Forlorn Hope, a euphemism usually applied to bands of soldiers chosen to lead an attack on a defended position where casualties are expected to be high.

The Forlorn Hope party consisted of the following people:

From the Graves family: Franklin Graves; daughters Mary and Sarah; Jay Fosdick, husband of Sarah.

Sarah Graves

Mary Graves

From the Murphy family: Sarah Murphy Foster and her husband William Foster; sister Harriet Murphy Pike, whose husband had been killed in the gun cleaning accident a month and a half earlier; brothers Lemuel and William Murphy, ages twelve and ten respectively.





These nine were joined by Amanda McCutchen, whose husband was with James Reed at Sutter’s Fort; William Eddy; Patrick Dolan, a family friend and traveler with the Breen family; Charles Stanton, who had already been to Sutter’s Fort and back; and Stanton’s Indian guides Luis and Salvadore, who were no doubt eager to return to their jobs with Captain Sutter.

Although only fifteen snowshoes were available, two other also joined the group. These were two teamsters named Charley Burger and Antonio. Practically nothing is known of Antonio – he was apparently a Mexican who had been hired by one of the families in Wyoming. Burger was among the German contingent, probably a teamster for the Donner or Keseberg families.

Patrick Breen records their departure on December 16th in his usual, terse style: “Company started on snow shoes to cross the mountains.”

William Murphy, being only ten years old, was chosen to make the trip without snowshoes.

William Murphy

According to his own account many years later, the party figured he was so young and lightweight that he wouldn’t sink into the snow. This proved wrong, and Murphy ended up returning to camp with Charley Burger, who also was attempting to make the trip without snowshoes.

The Forlorn Hope party left with enough provisions to last a week. This was all the camp could spare. In addition to making Sutter’s Fort and returning with more rations, the emigrants hoped that by relieving the camp of fifteen mouths to feed, their dwindling provisions might last longer.

On the first night, the Forlorn Hope made about four miles, camping at the western end of Truckee Lake. The next day, they crossed the mountain pass. Mary Graves would later describe it: “We had a very slavish day’s travel, climbing to the divide…I had a chance to observe the company ahead, trudging along with packs on their backs. It reminded me of some Norwegian fur company among the icebergs.”

The following day, December 18th, Charles Stanton began to give out, but the party moved on without him, knowing that the only chance of survival was to keep forging ahead. Stanton managed to stumble into camp several hours later. The party was traveling about five miles each day, and Stanton continued to fall behind, catching up only after the others had already camped for the night.

On the evening of December 21st, he never showed up in camp. They had left him that morning sitting at the previous night’s camp. The next day they camped early, then stayed there for two days, but Stanton was never seen again. His body was found several months later by rescue teams. His dream of a new life in California, articulated so beautifully in letters he sent on the wagon train, died there with him in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

DESPERATION SETS IN

Around the same time that Stanton disappeared in the mountains, bad news reached the families at Truckee Lake.

Milt Elliot and Noah James, both teamsters for the Donner Party, had been sent to Alder Creek back on December 9th by Charles Stanton. They took with them a letter Stanton had written to George Donner asking for a compass and tobacco to take with him on the snowshoe journey. They had never returned and the Forlorn Hope had gone ahead and left without the compass from Donner.

The emigrants at Truckee Lake had feared Elliot and James had perished attempting to get to the Donner families, but they returned on December 21st, about two weeks after they’d been sent. They brought with them news that four people had died at the Alder Creek camp – Jacob Donner and three teamsters: Samuel Shoemaker, Joseph Reinhardt, and James Smith.

Reinhardt was one of the Germans who, back in October, had stayed behind to help Mr. Wolfinger cache his wagon in central Nevada. Reinhardt had returned saying that Wolfinger was killed by Indians. On his deathbed, Reinhardt finally confessed, admitting that he had killed Wolfinger himself, no doubt because Wolfinger was reputed to be wealthy.

Evidence of the Donner Party’s increasing desperation becomes apparent in Patrick Breen’s diary at the end of December. His writing becomes more religious, and he includes prayers and exhortations to God. From December 23rd: “May Almighty God grant the request of an unworthy sinner that I am. Amen.” And again on Christmas Eve: “May God help us to spend Christmas as we ought considering circumstances.”

The party of the Forlorn Hope was faring no better. Deeply troubled by the loss of Stanton, who was essentially their guide, they made slower progress. Then, on the 23rd, they found themselves hopelessly lost in a driving storm of rain and sleet. Mary Graves later said: “We made good progress until the 8th day, when we got lost. It commenced raining and continued until the next day at night – then it commenced snowing and continued three days and nights.” They were unable to build a fire, they had no shelter, and their food had run out. They were unable to hunt because there was no game to be found. They were no longer certain they were on the right path. They were beginning to starve to death.

The rain and sleet proved to be the precursor to yet another monstrous blizzard, felt by both the Forlorn Hope and the remainder of the Donner Party at Truckee Lake and Alder Creek.

The fourteen remaining members of the Forlorn Hope got snowed down in a hastily built camp in the western foothills of the mountains. Using a technique apparently suggested by William Eddy, they sat in a close circle on a blanket, with their legs touching. Then they covered themselves completely with blankets, using their own bodies, in essence, as the structures of a tent. As the snow piled up on top of the human tent, it closed the gaps between the quilts, allowing their body heat and breath to keep them warm. According to William Eddy, they “camped” like this for the better part of two days.

Back at Truckee Lake, Patrick Breen wrote on Christmas day:

Began to snow yesterday about 12 o’clock. Snow all night and snows yet rapidly…Great difficulty in getting wood…Offered our prayers to God this Christmas morning. The prospect is appalling, but hope in God. Amen.

Virginia Reed said of that Christmas day: “Christmas was near, but to [those who were starving] its memory gave no comfort. It came and passed without observance.”

The next day, Breen recorded that this most recent blizzard dropped about two feet of additional snow, making the total snow around the camp roughly nine feet deep.

Read Part VI

Tragedy in the Sierra Nevada, Part IV

Read Part I

Read Part II

Read Part III

SNOWBOUND

Within just a few days of William Pike’s death, on October 27th, 1846, Charles Stanton and his two vaqueros reached the Donner Party at Truckee Meadows.

Charles Stanton, a bachelor traveling with the Donner Party

Stanton was welcomed like a prodigal son, only it was Stanton throwing the feast. His seven mule-loads of provisions was a welcome relief for the emigrants. John Breen would later write: “We traveled up the river a few days, when we met the excellent Stanton, returning with…mules and provisions…an act for which he deserves the love of every soul of that suffering company.”

Heavy clouds and winds had been looming over the mountains for some time, but Stanton assured them that the passes were clear and that there would be no problem crossing into California.

Once Stanton had arrived with provisions, those still resting in Truckee Meadows began heading along the Truckee River, southwest toward the Nevada/California border and the final run into Sutter’s Fort.

Truckee River in winter

This trek took them deep into the mountains where the threat of snow continued to loom. The caravan was spread out over several dozen miles, each little group traveling in its own miniature caravan. Elitha Donner, daughter of George, later stated: “Father was Captain of the [company] at one time but as the teams failed on the long journey we camped apart from the rest…sometimes we would be ahead, sometimes behind.”

Elitha Donner - fourteen during the winter of 1846-47

Other accounts from survivors suggest that it was rainy and cold during this part of the journey, with snow visible on the mountain peaks.

By the 30th of the month, most of the party had reached the eastern end of Truckee Lake, which today sits just to the west of the city of Truckee, California, and is known as Donner Lake.

Truckee (now Donner) Lake

In 1846, the city was not there and it was mostly mountain wilderness. Beyond the lake lay the final series of mountain passes that would lead the Donner Party to their destination.

The main pass now known as Donner Pass, looking back on Truckee Lake to the east

They were roughly 90 miles from Sutter’s Fort – a journey of three or four days in wagons with good weather.

About this same time, James Reed finally reached Sutter’s Fort, where he procured more provisions for the caravan and made plans to return to them immediately.

Sutter's Fort

He later wrote that he asked Sutter if he would “furnish…horses and saddle to bring the women and children out of the mountains…[Sutter] at once complied with the request.” Reed also met up here with William McCutchen, the party member who had originally ridden ahead with Charles Stanton, but who had remained at Sutter’s Fort because of an illness.

William McCutchen was about thirty in 1846

Reed and McCutchen now began making plans to head back to the caravan, expecting to meet them in the Bear River Valley, which lay just west of the mountain pass the Donner Party had just reached.

Their trip, however, would be delayed. According to Reed:

The second night after my arrival at Captain Sutter’s, we had a light rain; next morning we could see snow on the mountains. The Captain stated that it was…heavy for the first fall of the season.

William Graves, with the Donner Party on the other side of the pass, wrote about that first snow as well: “On the 30th of October, 1846, we camped in a pretty little valley about five miles from [Truckee] Lake; that night it snowed about eight inches deep.”

William Graves was sixteen in 1846

Fearing more snow, some of the families ahead of the main body of the caravan attempted to forge ahead through the pass.

A famous lithograph of the Donner Party attempting to get through the pass that now bears their name

In a diary that emigrant Patrick Breen began keeping on November 20th, he wrote about their arrival at Truckee Lake and their attempt to cross the mountain: “Came to this place on the 31st [of October]…we went on to the pass – the snow [was] so deep we were unable to find the road…within 3 miles of the summit [we] turned back.”

John Breen, Patrick’s son who was a teenager at the time, later gave a more detailed and stark account of the genesis of the Donner Party tragedy:

In the morning it was very cold, with about an inch of snow on the ground. This made us hurry our cattle still more…We traveled on, and, at last, the clouds cleared, leaving the towering peaks in full view, covered as far as the eye could reach with snow…We pushed on as fast as our failing cattle could haul our almost empty wagons…Daylight came only to confirm our worst fears. The snow was falling fast on that terrible summit over which we yet had to make our way. Notwithstanding, we set out early to make an effort to cross. We traveled one or two miles…At last, [the snow] was up to the axle of the wagons. We now concluded…it was impossible to advance…So we hitched to the wagons and returned to the valley again, where we found it raining in torrents…[The rain] cleared off in the night, and this gave us hopes; we were so little acquainted with the country as to believe that the rain in the valley was rain on the mountain also, and that it would beat down the snow that we might possibly go over. In this we were fatally mistaken.

The Donner Party found the mountain passes blocked with heavy snow.

From Donner Pass, looking back at Truckee Lake

They naively believed, however, that since it was raining in the valley, it must also be raining in the mountains. This led them to believe that the rain would wash away the snow, and perhaps within a few days they could make it through. They retreated back to the eastern end of Truckee Lake were a cabin had been built several years earlier. The region was relatively flat, with plenty of timber, wildlife, and available fishing. It seemed a reasonably good place to set up a temporary encampment, and the company built two more structures next to the first one.

A lithograph of the encampment on the eastern shores of Truckee Lake

Roughly 59 people holed up into those three cabins on the eastern shores of Truckee Lake. According to later accounts, the Breen family moved into the pre-existing cabin. The Murphy and Eddy families built a cabin some 150 yards away, against a rocky precipice that formed one of the walls of the structure.

The Murphy-Eddy cabin was built against this rock

About half a mile away, the Graves family and the Reed family built a third cabin, apparently much larger than the other two. Louis Keseberg and his clan built a lean-to against the Breen cabin.

The two families who were not among those at the lakeside camp were the Donner brother families. The Donners, by this time, had been bringing up the rear of the caravan. Several days earlier, the wagon driven by George Donner had broken an axle and Donner had seriously injured his hand trying to fix it. According to one of his daughters: “[His hand] was cut across the back…it was useless to him. He got it cut while repairing the wagon.”

Because of his injury and the delay the broken axle caused, the Donner families and those traveling with them ended up camped about six miles behind the rest of the party when the snows finally hit around November 1st. They were in a region known as Alder Creek, and the blizzard struck with such suddenness that they had no time to build any sturdy structures.



According to one Donner daughter: “We had no time to build a cabin. The snow came on so suddenly that we had barely time to pitch our tent.” Instead, the Donners built lean-tos of quilts and buffalo hide. One of their hired hands, a man named Jean Trudeau, later said:

The snow came on with blinding fury, and being unable to build cabins we put up brush sheds, covering them with limbs from the pine trees. It was the 1st of November, I think, that we went into that camp of snow and suffering.

Over the next several days, the emigrants at Truckee Lake made several more abortive attempts to cross the mountain passes, each time finding them completely impassible, even without the wagons. The snow continued to fall in heavy waves. From the various accounts of those first few days, the snow was anywhere from three to four feet deep.

By the 4th or 5th of November, it became apparent that the Donner Party wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. They began to hunt game and slaughter their own cattle. From William Eddy’s recollection, as told by writer Quinn Thornton: “On [November 5th, the families] commenced killing their cattle. Mr. Eddy also killed his ox.”

Meanwhile, Reed and McCutchen, despite the snow in the mountains, attempted to return to the Donner Party. The snow grew steadily deeper as they reached the Bear River Valley and proceeded into the mountain passes. Eventually, some of their horses got stranded in the snow and they were forced to abandon them. James Reed, writing in the third person for literary purposes, would later write: “They…attempted to pursue their journey on foot, [but since they had no snow shoes, they] were obliged to abandon all hope of passing the huge barrier of snow…[G]athering their horses together, they returned to the valley.”

Facing defeat and knowing there was no hope of getting through the passes before spring, Reed and McCutchen returned to Sutter’s Fort. They consoled themselves with the assumption that the Donner Party had plenty of food to last through the worst of the winter months. Reed wrote:

I also gave [Sutter] the number of head of cattle [the Donner Party] had when I left them. He made an estimate, and stated that if the emigrants would kill the cattle, and place the meat in the snow for preservation, there was no fear of starvation until relief could reach them.

Little did they know that the vast majority of the caravan’s cattle had been lost throughout October – after Reed had left – due to exhaustion and attacks from Indian tribes.

BAD GETS WORSE

“It snowed [for] eight days with little intermission after our arrival here.”

So said Patrick Breen in his diary, which he kept from November 20th, 1846, to March 1st, 1847.

Patrick Breen

The title page of Breen's diary

By the time he started his diary, the Donner Party had accepted that they would spend much of the winter at Truckee Lake, with the Donners at Alder Creek six miles away. While they knew that their provisions were not as robust as Reed and McCutchen – on the other side of the pass – believed them to be, the company must, at this point, have figured their chances were fairly good. They were holed up in cabins with plenty of clothes and animal hides and firewood to keep them warm. Food was scarce, but with rationing, hunting, and fishing, they must have believed they could make it through the worst of the winter until they could either leave or James Reed could lead a supply caravan to them. William Eddy seems to have been the hunter of the group, and he had some success early on in finding game, including the killing of a reported 800 pound bear around November 15th.

Throughout the remainder of the month, the company slaughtered its remaining cattle, as the animals couldn’t live in the snow-covered terrain, and although they had no salt for curing the meat, the bitterly cold temperatures kept the meat frozen until it was needed. In Patrick Breen’s first diary entry, from November 20th, he wrote: “We now have killed most part of our cattle, having to stay here until next spring and live on poor beef without bread or salt.”

The first entry in Breen's diary

During a lull in the weather, when most of the snow in the valley had apparently melted, a party of about twenty emigrants set out to see what the mountain passes looked like. They returned after finding twenty-five feet of snow in the passes and spending a night trying to keep a fire going on the crust atop the deep snow. As John Breen would later recall: “This report put an end to further effort…which made the prospect for men with families of small children gloomy in the extreme.”

Despite these setbacks, the Donner Party was not entirely discouraged. Near the end of the month, another party planned to set out to find a passage through the mountains. One of them was Milt Elliot, who had been the driver of the Reed Wagon. George Donner gave him a note, dated November 28th, 1846, to deliver at Sutter’s Fort:

This is to certify that I authorize Millford [sic] Elliott and make him my agent to purchase and buy whatever property he may deem necessary for my distress in the mountains for which on my arrival in California I will pay cash or goods or both.

The party never managed to leave. That night, another massive blizzard struck. On November 30th, Patrick Breen wrote: “Snowing fast…about 4 or 5 feet deep, no drifts. Looks…likely to continue…no living thing without wings can get about.” Then, the next day: “Difficult to get wood. No going from the house. Completely housed up.”

By December 2nd, Breen noted that the snow in the valley was six feet deep – no doubt over the doorways of the cabins. He appears to have still been in good spirits, however. On the 5th of December, he wrote: “Fine clear day. Beautiful sunshine. Thawing a little. Looks delightful after the long snow storm.”

Although they didn’t know it, the Donner Party was experiencing one of the worst and earliest winters in the recorded history of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Warm, moist air from the Pacific Ocean had sped across the California mainland, colliding with cold, dry air in the mountains. This led initially to a rain/snow mix, followed by drier snow that accumulated to ski-slope depths. While these sorts of weather patterns are not uncommon in the Sierra Nevada, they don’t usually happen as early as they did in 1846, or with the same intensity.

The Donner Party was literally buried under snow in the mountain wilderness. The seven mules brought by Charles Stanton from Sutter’s Fort – kept alive until now because Sutter expected them to be returned – died in the snowstorms. This, of course, was no great tragedy to the hungry emigrants of the Donner Party. The problem was that the snow was so deep they couldn’t find the carcasses to scavenge from. According to Patrick Breen, the company spent several days looking for the mules with no success. “No account of mules,” he wrote on December 6th.

As December progressed, the situation went downhill quickly. Food was running out. The emigrants had already been on strict rations for a month and were hungry and weak. The snow was so deep there was no possibility of hunting. Truckee Lake was frozen solid, and no one knew how to ice fish. Food became a commodity jealously guarded. In his diary entry of December 9th, Breen wrote: “Some having scant supply of beef. Stanton trying to [get food] for his Indians [and himself]. Not likely to get much.”

On that same day, August Spitzer, one of the teamsters of George Donner, arrived at Breen’s doorstep, having trekked several miles through the snow from the Donner family camp at Alder Creek. The Donners were apparently not willing to share their food with him any longer. The Breen family took him in, and Patrick Breen described him as “so weak [from starvation] that he cannot live without help.”

Snow continued to fall through the following days. On December 13th, Breen noted that it was now about eight feet deep on level ground.

If you look closely near the bottom, you can see the entry of December 13th, "snow 8 feet deep on the level"

Two days later, the first death occurred at the winter camp.

Baylis Williams, a hired hand for the Reed family, succumbed to the rigors of the previous few months. He and his sister, Eliza, had both worked for the Reed family for a number of years prior to the journey west. According to Virginia Reed, Baylis was in poor health even before they left Illinois. In later accounts, she asserted that Baylis died because of his pre-existing ill health: “[Baylis Williams] passed away before starvation had really set in.” In any case, Williams was buried in the snow near the Reed cabin.

Read Part V

Tragedy in the Sierra Nevada, Part III

Read Part I

Read Part II

ONWARD TO THE SIERRA NEVADA

George and Jacob Donner and their families had been several days ahead of the main caravan when the incident between Reed and Snyder occurred. When Reed caught up with them, they offered to let one of their drivers, Walter Herron, go with him to Sutter’s Fort.

The caravan continued westward, and yet another member of the party succumbed to the rigors of the journey. A certain Mr. Hardcoop, a Belgian who owned a farm near Cincinnati, Ohio, and who was apparently a teamster for the Keseberg family, was unable to keep up with the wagon train, walking on foot as many of them were by this time. Around October 8th, he was left behind to rest while the caravan moved forward. According to William Eddy in the account written by Quinn Thornton, they left him “sitting under a large bush of sage…exhausted and completely worn out…his feet had swollen until they burst.” That night, fires were lit to guide him to where the wagons had made camp. Hardcoop never came and no one was willing to return for him. He was never heard from again.

The fatigue of the journey and attacks by tribes of Indians continued to take a toll on the caravan. Oxen and pack animals died of exhaustion or were stolen or shot by Indians in the night, and wagons had to be abandoned every few days for lack of teams to pull them. The families continually combined their belongings into the ever dwindling wagons and most spent the majority of the time walking rather than riding.

Emotions and tempers continued to run high. Patrick Breen, one of the few pioneers who still had a horse, had refused several days earlier to go back for Mr. Hardcoop.

Patrick Breen

William Eddy, who had encouraged Breen and others to return for Hardcoop, was still fuming over the incident. A week or so later, Breen’s horse got stuck in a mud pit and he appealed to Eddy to help him free it. According to Eddy, he “referred [Breen] to poor Hardcoop and refused.” The horse died.

William Eddy

On October 15th, an Indian raiding party killed more than twenty head of cattle from the caravan. Among those who lost all their cattle in this raid was a German man by the name of Wolfinger, who was traveling with his wife. Hardly anything is known about this couple other than their German heritage. They appear to have been traveling with the Keseberg family, who were also German. In any case, Wolfinger decided to stay behind to cache his wagon since he no longer had cattle to pull it. The company, however, had no interest in waiting for him and continued on. Two other men of the group, Augustus Spitzer and Joseph Reinhardt, stayed behind to help Wolfinger finish the job. Not much is known of these two men either, although their names give away their obvious German heritage. Reinhardt appears to have been an associate of Wolfinger’s; Spitzer – though German like the other two – was apparently a hired hand for the Donners.

Like so many other events up to this point, it is unclear exactly what took place, and the later accounts vary, but several days after staying behind to help Wolfinger cache his wagon, Spitzer and Reinhardt rejoined the caravan without Wolfinger. They told the other emigrants that their little party had been attacked by Indians and Wolfinger, who was apparently quite wealthy, had been killed. Some members of the caravan were apparently suspicious of this story – least of all Wolfinger’s wife – but there was no time to investigate and the company continued on. The truth would not come to light until several months later.

Continuing westward, the party began breaking up into smaller and smaller groups. According to John Breen:

After leaving…the Humboldt [River], the company, as if by mutual consent, dissolved or gradually separated; some wanted to stop and rest their cattle; others…were in favor of pushing ahead as fast as possible, as provisions were getting short.

John Breen, son of Patrick. John was about fourteen years old in 1846.

On October 22nd, unbeknownst to the Donner Party, James Reed and his traveling companion Walter Herron met up with Charles Stanton in eastern California, having finally made their way across the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Stanton had visited Sutter’s Fort and was returning to the caravan with seven mules loaded with supplies and provisions of flour and meat. Sutter had also sent two Indian guides along with him, vaqueros named Luis and Salvadore. Stanton’s original traveling partner, William McCutchen, had stayed back in Sutter’s Fort due to illness. Reed vowed to continue on to the fort for more provisions, while Stanton and his vaqueros continued eastward back toward the Donner Party.

Walter Herron, the hired hand of the Donners who had traveled with Reed after his banishment, stayed on with another nearby wagon train due to fatigue from the difficult journey he’d had with Reed. He thus passed out of the story of the Donner Party, a convenient fact which he no doubt treasured in later life.

Meanwhile, the Donner Party had finally reached Truckee Meadows – modern day Reno, Nevada. Sitting at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, Truckee Meadows offered a good regrouping spot for the arduous mountain journey that marked the end of the California Trail.

The Sierra Nevada mountains, with Truckee Meadows (now Reno) situated in the valley.

Apparently feeling confident that their trek was almost over, and not overly concerned about the possibility of an early snow in the mountains, the caravan encamped in Truckee Meadows for the final two weeks of October, resting their remaining cattle and their understandably wearied bodies.

Around October 25th, another member of the caravan met an untimely end. The Murphy family was the largest single family traveling with the Donner Party. The widowed mother, Levinah Murphy, brought along seven children, two of whom were married with children of their own.

Levinah Murphy, matriarch of the Murphy family

These two Murphy daughters were married to men named William Pike and William Foster. The two Williams had apparently decided to head to Sutter’s Fort to gather provisions. At this point, no one knew what had become of Stanton and McCutchen or Reed and Herron, and the party was no doubt anxious about having enough provisions to get them through the mountain passes of the Sierra Nevada.

While Foster and Pike were cleaning their guns in preparation for setting out on their journey, one of the pistols misfired, shooting Pike through the back and killing him.

This picture was taken in later life. In 1846, Foster was 31.

Mary Murphy, their mutual sister-in-law, would later write: “He died in about one half hour, and in that time he suffered more than the tongue can tell.”

A portrait of Mary Murphy. She was fifteen in 1846.

Foster, apparently not wanting to travel alone and no doubt grieved at his brother-in-law’s death, remained in camp.

The Donner Party had now lost five of its members since its inception in Wyoming in late July. Most of the pioneers must have expected that the worst was over and that they would soon be settling in to new homes and towns in California.

Their expectations, of course, couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

Read Part IV

Tragedy in the Sierra Nevada, Part II

Read Part I

HASTINGS CUTOFF

Heading southwest into Utah, the Donner Party found a note from Hastings stuck inside a bush along the trail. He advised them not to take the route his own party was taking – through the rocky Weber Canyon of the Wasatch Mountains in northeastern Utah. Reed and several others left the party and rode ahead to meet Hastings for advice. With the help of Hastings, Reed scouted out a slightly different course, then met back up with the Donner Party wagon train on August 10th, 1846.

The Wasatch Mountains

With James Reed piloting the group, the Donner Party made their way through the mountainous area east of the Great Salt Lake.

James Reed

James’s daughter Virginia, who was about twelve years old at the time, later said:

Only those who have passed through this country on horseback can appreciate the situation. There was absolutely no road, not even a trail…Heavy underbrush had to be cut away and used for making a road bed.

It was during the early part of August that the Graves family joined the Donner Party. Until this time, they had been part of a different wagon train several weeks behind. With the Donner Party slowed down in the mountains of Utah, the Graves’ caught up with them, swelling the numbers of the group to well over 80.

On August 22nd, after a final grueling ascent across a hill now famously known as Donner Hill, the Donner Party came into the Salt Lake valley, to the place where Brigham Young and his Mormons would plant their new holy city just a year later.

A plaque at the base of Donner Hill, near Salt Lake City

The members of the Donner Party were justifiably glad to be through the mountains, but the detour had taken a toll on the group’s unanimity. Already Hastings Cutoff was taking longer than expected, and the detour to avoid the tortuous Weber Canyon – as advised by Hastings and agreed upon by Reed – had ultimately taken the Donner Party longer to navigate, and had required extremely hard, backbreaking work.

On August 25th, a few days after reaching the flatter, desert area west of the Wasatch Mountains, the Donner Party suffered its first loss (the death of James Reed’s mother-in-law several months earlier had occurred well before the Donner Party was officially organized in Fort Bridger). Luke Halloran, a young man about whom very little is known, succumbed to tuberculosis. He had been traveling with a different group to California in hopes of finding the climate better suited to his condition. He fell ill along the way, however, and was abandoned by the group he was traveling with. George Donner had taken him in, allowing him to ride in the Donner wagons.

Continuing westward, the Donner Party trundled across the desert in the scorching heat of late August.

Satellite image of the Great Salt Lake. The Wasatch range is to the lower right of the picture. The Great Salt Desert extends along the left side of the picture.

Virginia Reed and Charles Stanton both wrote letters referring to temperatures consistently above 100 degrees. At the end of August, the party reached an area abundant with clean water, which they dubbed “Twenty Wells.” Camping there for a few days and stocking up as much as possible, they began a long, arduous trek through the waterless Salt Desert – west of modern day Salt Lake City.

The Great Salt Desert

They expected this journey to last two days. It ended up taking about ten.

Several days into the journey across the Salt Desert, the party began to run low on water and it became apparent that the cattle would have to be taken ahead to the watering holes known to exist on the other side of the salt pans. Leaving the wagons behind, the teamsters took the oxen and other cattle on ahead. The rest of the party waited for several days for them to return. When they didn’t come back, James Reed and several others went ahead to search for them. They discovered that many of the cattle had bolted upon smelling fresh water, and the teamsters had lost complete control over them. For nearly a full week the party searched for their cattle; many oxen and cows were recovered, but far more were lost. The Reed family lost more than anyone else, recovering only a single cow and a single ox. Reed was forced to abandon two of his wagons, piling necessities into the one remaining vehicle and distributing the rest among the other families. Virginia Reed would later write:

Our provisions were divided among the company. Before leaving the desert camp, an inventory of provisions on hand was taken, and it was found that the supply was not sufficient to last us through to California.

George Donner and another pioneer named Louis Keseberg were also forced to abandon a wagon each. These four wagons, left sitting in the sun in the Salt Desert, would remain there until rediscovered in the 1920’s.

Donner Party wagon remains photographed in the 1920's

After regrouping, the party finally came out of the Salt Desert, resting several days at the foot of Pilot Peak, at a spring now known as Donner Spring in northwest Utah.

Donner Spring

On September 10th, the caravan headed west again into Nevada, passing south of Pilot Peak and trundling across Nevada to intercept the California Trail that they had abandoned in Wyoming. Realizing, however, that their provisions were running low, the company decided to send two men ahead to Sutter’s Fort to gather the provisions the company would need to finish its journey. The two men who volunteered were Charles Stanton – the aforementioned Chicago bachelor who was traveling with the Donners – and Kentuckian William McCutchen, who left his wife and young daughter in the care of the Reeds.

With Stanton and McCutchen riding ahead, the caravan traveled across Nevada for the next two weeks, finally reaching the junction with the California Trail on September 26th. In a letter in July, as noted earlier, Reed had expected to reach Sutter’s Fort by the end of September. Instead, it took that long just to complete the Hastings Cutoff – a “shortcut.” It had taken the Donner Party about two weeks longer to complete the trek than the party led by Hastings, and compared to the time most parties took to follow the original route through Idaho, the Donner Party’s “shortcut” cost them a whole month.

This delay, of course, would ultimately lead to tragic consequences.

“THE MEN WERE IRRITABLE AND IMPATIENT”

Continuing now along the California Trail, the party followed Mary’s River (now called the Humboldt River) through central and western Nevada.

The Humboldt River

They were raided several times in the night by small bands of Indians, who stole cattle and oxen. Already short of these precious commodities, the company was slowed down even further, with many members now walking much of the time to relieve the burden on the depleted cattle teams.

By now, the Donner Party was understandably beginning to show signs of emotional as well as physical fatigue. John Breen, one of the children of the Breen family, would later write that “the men were irritable and impatient.”

John Breen

Because of poor decisions and some bad luck, they had already endured more hardships than the average wagon train heading along the California Trail. They were already several weeks beyond their hoped-for arrival date, and still had several hundred miles and a major mountain range to pass through before reaching Sutter’s Fort.

The first glimpse of a true breakdown in emotions occurred on October 5th, 1846. The events of that day are not entirely clear, but an argument broke out between the driver of the Reed’s wagon, Milt Elliot of Cynthiana, Kentucky, and the driver of the Graves’ wagon, John Snyder of Ohio. While ascending a particularly steep hill, Elliot’s cattle team became entangled with the team driven by John Snyder. This led to an argument which James Reed intervened in.

According to an early biography by writer Quinn Thornton – who wrote his story of the Donner Party primarily from interviews with survivor William Eddy – Snyder threatened to lash Reed with his whip, which caused Reed to produce a knife. Thornton stated:

[Reed] told Snyder that he did not wish to have any difficulty with him. Snyder told him that he would whip him “anyhow;” and turning the butt of his whip, gave Mr. Reed a severe blow upon the head, which cut it very much.

Reed responded by stabbing Snyder near the collarbone, puncturing a lung. According to Thornton’s account (as related by William Eddy), Snyder lashed Reed twice more, bringing Reed to the ground, but the damage to Snyder was already done. He died “in about fifteen minutes.”

Other accounts differ, however. Those whose sympathies lay with Snyder depicted the event as one entirely caused by Reed, who tried to cut his team in ahead of Snyder’s. William Graves, seventeen at the time and the son of Franklin Graves, for whom Snyder worked, later said:

Reed, at this time, was on the opposite side of the oxen from Snyder, and said to Snyder, “You have no business here in the way;” Snyder said, “It is my place.” Reed started toward him, and jumping over the wagon tongue, said, “You are a damned liar, and I’ll cut your heart out!” Snyder pulled his clothes open on his breast and said, “Cut away.” Reed ran to him and stuck a large six-inch butcher’s knife into his heart and cut off two ribs.

That account, of course, sounds unrealistic and melodramatic. What seems clear is that the two men got into an altercation of some sort, Snyder whipped Reed several times, Reed struck back, and Snyder ended up being mortally wounded. Other accounts from the day also suggest that Reed’s wife, Margaret, tried to stop the fight and was herself lashed by Snyder; whether on purpose or on accident is unclear.

Margaret Reed

Though he wrote often of the events of 1846-1847, Reed never gave his side of the story publically. It was apparently a touchy and difficult subject over which he must have felt enormous guilt. Writer Quinn Thornton confirmed this when he stated:

Mr. Reed, although the blood was running down over his face and shoulders from his own wounds, manifested great anguish of spirit, and threw the knife away from him and into the river.

Regardless of who was at fault or whether the killing was done in self-defense, it caused great trouble among the members of the Donner Party. Members of the Graves’ clan called for Reed to be hanged on the spot. Others acted with more moderation, assuring the Graves’ that Reed would be brought to trial upon the caravan’s arrival in California. In any case, Reed’s continued presence with the group promised to create unwanted friction, so the party voted to banish him from the caravan. Reed seems to have taken the decision with equanimity, helping first to bury the deceased Snyder, then heading off on horseback, promising to find Stanton and McCutchen –the two who had gone ahead for provisions and who had now been gone for about a month.

In the end, despite the party’s belief that Reed would stand trial for the death of Snyder, Reed was never charged or tried for any crime. This is no doubt the result of at least two reasons. First, with conflicting eyewitness accounts, it was never clear whether Reed had actually done anything other than justifiably defend himself against an attack. Secondly, after the unthinkable tragedies that would eventually befall the Donner Party, trying anyone for a crime afterward must have seemed rather silly.

Read Part III

Tragedy in the Sierra Nevada, Part I

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A more shocking scene cannot be imagined than that witnessed by the party of men who went to the relief of the unfortunate emigrants in the California Mountains. The bones of those who had died and been devoured by the miserable ones that still survived were lying around their tents and cabins. Bodies of men, women and children, with half the flesh torn from them, lay on every side.

DEPARTURE

On the morning of April 14th, 1846, three families from Springfield, Illinois trundled out of town in a train of nine wagons, following the California Trail. There were thirty-three people in all, including a number of teamsters hired to drive wagons and tend cattle. The group consisted of the brothers George and Jacob Donner and their families, along with the family of James Reed. Children accounted for nearly half of the thirty-three people in the group. One of those children, Virginia Reed, would later write:

Never can I forget the morning when we bade farewell to kindred and friends. The Donners were there, having driven in the evening before with their families, so that we might get an early start.



Not much is known about specific reasons why these families decided to head west, but the 1840’s were characterized by mass emigrations across the American frontier, and the Reed and Donner families no doubt had the same plans as the thousands of others who came before and after them: to find a better life in California.

Neither is much known about how the Donner families and the Reed family came to be traveling together. It has long been assumed that James Reed and George and/or Jacob Donner were friends, but there is nothing in the historical record to explicitly suggest this. Their decision to travel together may simply have been a practical one: safety in numbers.

Each of the three families took three wagons apiece – one for the family to live in, and two others loaded with provisions. These provisions would have included everything the family owned – clothes, blankets, dishes, pots and pans, toys, and six months’ worth of food – enough to get them to California. Virginia Reed mentioned that one of the Reed wagons even contained a brand new wood-burning stove. Additionally, each wagon was pulled by six to eight oxen, meaning there was a herd of over sixty animals.

The first leg of the journey brought the wagon train to Independence, Missouri, where they met up with a much larger group headed by Lexington, Kentucky native William Henry Russell. The Reeds and Donners attached themselves to this group. The Russell Party may have included as many as 1500 emigrants. They set out on the California Trail in about 250 wagons on May 12th, 1846.

THE CALIFORNIA TRAIL

Heading northwest out of Independence, the Donners and Reeds suffered their first loss when James Reed’s mother-in-law, Sara Keyes, died near Alcove Springs, Kansas.

“I am afraid your mother will not stand it many weeks, or indeed days, if there is not a quick change.”

James Reed wrote those words to his brother-in-law on May 20th, 1846, about a week or so before she died. Virginia Reed later wrote that her grandmother had been very ill before making the journey, and her other children encouraged her to remain in Illinois, but she was determined to see California before she died.

Sarah Keyes was buried with a short ceremony in Alcove Springs, and one of the teamsters – an Englishman named John Denton – carved a small gravestone for her.

A Kentuckian of Russell’s party, Edwin Bryant, wrote the following:

At 2 o’clock, p.m., a funeral procession was formed, in which nearly every man, woman, and child of the company united, and the corpse of the deceased lady was conveyed to its last resting place, in this desolate but beautiful wilderness…the grave was then closed and carefully sodded with the green turf of the prairie, from whence annually will spring and bloom its brilliant and many-colored flowers.

The wagon train of the Russell Party continued slowly across Kansas and Nebraska, following the Platte River. Around June 26th, the company arrived in Fort Laramie, in the southeastern corner of Wyoming. George Donner wrote in a letter home:

We arrived here yesterday without meeting any serious accident. Our company are in good health…Our provisions are in good order, and we feel satisfied with our preparations for the trip.

For some time, Reed had been discussing with the Donner brothers the possibility of taking an alternate route to California. Normally, the California Trail headed northward into Idaho, then back towards the southwest, through Nevada and into California. The previous year, however, a pioneer named Lansford Hastings had written a book about emigrations to Oregon and California, wherein he suggested an alternate route: cutting southward around the Great Salt Lake (through present day Salt Lake City), and reconnecting with the California Trail in Nevada.

Lansford Hastings

This became known as the Hastings Cutoff, and was believed to save some 300 miles – perhaps a month of traveling – over the normal route.



While in Fort Laramie, Reed and the Donner brothers met up with an acquaintance named James Clyman, who had just returned from California. He had traveled there earlier in the year with Lansford Hastings, and they had used Hastings’ proposed southern shortcut. Clyman advised Reed and the Donners not to use it, as it had proven to be fraught with difficulties and long desert stretches with little or no water.

The wagon train continued westward from Fort Laramie, reaching the Great Divide around the middle of July. Charles Stanton, a bachelor from Chicago who had joined up with the Donners in Missouri, wrote:

Dreams of my youth and of my riper years is accomplished. I have seen the Rocky Mountains – have crossed the Rubicon, an am now on the waters that flow to the Pacific! Should the remainder of my journey be as interesting, I shall be abundantly repaid for the toils and hardships of this arduous trip.

Charles Stanton

By the time the party reached Fort Bridger, in southwest Wyoming, Reed and the Donner brothers had decided to take the Hastings Cutoff, despite the warnings against it. Several other groups from the Russell Party had already taken the Cutoff, leading Reed to believe that a nice road would be opened for them. These travelers, numbering as many as sixty wagons, were being led by Hastings himself. Reed wrote:

Mr. Bridger informs me that the route we design to take is a fine level road, with plenty of water and grass…It is estimated that 700 miles will take us to Capt. Suter’s Fort, which we hope to make in seven weeks from this day.

Captain “Suter’s” Fort is a reference to John Sutter, already famous in California in the mid-1840’s, but destined to become famous across the country in 1848 when gold was discovered at his mill. Sutter’s Fort, located in modern day Sacramento, marked the end of the California Trail. Reed expected to reach it by the end of September.



His only concern was a waterless stretch of about forty miles along the shortcut through the desert. He seemed certain, however, that water would be found by the dozens of wagons that were already ahead of him on the trail. He wrote: “Hastings and his party are out ahead examining for water, or for a route to avoid this stretch.”

On July 31st, a group lead by Reed and the Donner brothers, and now including a number of other folks who had joined them from the original Russell Party, headed south, following the Hastings Cutoff. Among the people joining the caravan were families by the name of McCutchen, Keseberg, Murphy, and Breen. There were about seventy-five people in all, inside twenty wagons, and they had elected George Donner as the captain of the expedition.

Thus, it was in Fort Bridger, at the Little Sandy River, at the end of July, 1846, that the Donner Party was officially established.

Read Part II

Mini-Series Coming Soon

Just a quick update to let all my thousands of readers (ha) know that I haven't forgotten you. I know you are out there, just waiting for my words of wisdom, and I assure you that I will not let you down.

Seriously though, I've been working on a "historical account" that has taken me much longer than originally planned.

I started it early last week, expecting it to take me a couple of nights' work, like most of my essays. But I quickly discovered that it was going to be much longer and more in depth that I had thought, and now it has expanded into what is essentially a short novella. (A novella is officially describe as being between 17,500 words and 40,000 words. The first draft of my current project is about 20,000 words. "Novella" typically describes fiction; my current project is non-fiction, of course.)

So anyway, it's long and detailed, which means I am going to make it into a sort of "mini-series." It'll definitely be the longest single account that I've ever posted on my blog, but I hope by breaking it up it'll make it easier to read and more likely that people will actually read it.

In order to build the suspense and excitement for all my thousands of readers (ha), I'm going to refrain from saying what it is about, other than to mention that it has nothing to do with religion or theology, and it centers on a major historical event of the 19th century, and includes all sorts of action and adventure and blood and guts and death. And no, it has nothing to do with the Civil War.

Hope you enjoy!