The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate Part 29

Just at this moment some of them died, which afforded the rest temporary relief. Some sank into the arms of death cursing G.o.d for their miserable fate, while the last whisperings of others were prayers and songs of praise to the Almighty. After the first few deaths, but the one all-absorbing thought of individual self-preservation prevailed. The fountains of natural affection were dried up. The chords that once vibrated with connubial, parental, and filial affection were torn asunder, and each one seemed resolved, without regard to the fate of others, to escape from impending calamity.

So changed had the emigrants become that when the rescuing party arrived with food, some of them cast it aside, and seemed to prefer the putrid human flesh that still remained. The day before the party arrived, one emigrant took the body of a child about four years of age in bed with him and devoured the whole before morning; and the next day he ate another about the same age, before noon.

This article, one of the most harrowing to be found in print, spread through the early mining-camps, and has since been quoted by historians and authors as an authentic account of scenes and conduct witnessed by the first relief corps to Donner Lake. It has since furnished style and suggestion for other nerve-racking stories on the subject, causing keener mental suffering to those vitally concerned than words can tell.

Yet it is easily proved to be nothing more or less than a perniciously sensational newspaper production, too utterly false, too cruelly misleading, to merit credence. Evidently, it was written without malice, but in ignorance, and by some warmly clad, well nourished person, who did not know the humanizing effect of suffering and sorrow, and who may not have talked with either a survivor or a rescuer of the Donner Party.

When the Donner Party ascended the Sierra Nevadas on the last day of October, 1846, it comprised eighty-one souls; namely, Charles Berger,[19] Patrick Breen, Margaret Breen (his wife), John Breen, Edward Breen, Patrick Breen, Jr., Simon Breen, James Breen, Peter Breen, Isabella Breen, Jacob Donner,[19] Elizabeth Donner[19] (his wife), William Hook,[20] Solomon Hook, George Donner, Jr., Mary Donner, Isaac Donner,[20] Lewis Donner,[19] Samuel Donner,[19] George Donner, Sr.,[19] Tamsen Donner[19] (his wife), Elitha Donner, Leanna C. Donner, Frances Eustis Donner, Georgia Anna Donner, Eliza Poor Donner, Patrick Dolan,[20] John Denton,[20] Milton Elliot,[19] William Eddy, Eleanor Eddy (his wife), Margaret Eddy,[19] and James Eddy,[19] Jay Fosd.i.c.k[20]

and Sarah Fosd.i.c.k (his wife), William Foster, Sarah Foster (his wife) and George Foster,[19] Franklin W. Graves, Sr.,[20] Elisabeth Graves[20] (his wife), Mary Graves, William C. Graves, Eleanor Graves, Lovina Graves, Nancy Graves, Jonathan B. Graves, Franklin W. Graves, Jr.,[20] and Elizabeth Graves, Jr., Noah James, Lewis S. Keseberg, Philippine Keseberg (his wife), Ada Keseberg[20] and Lewis S. Keseberg, Jr.,[19] Mrs. Lovina Murphy[19] (a widow), John Landrum Murphy,[19]

Lemuel Murphy,[20] Mary Murphy, William G. Murphy and Simon Murphy, Mrs. Amanda McCutchen and Harriet McCutchen,[19] Mrs. Harriet Pike (widow), Nioma Pike and Catherine Pike,[19] Mrs. Margaret Reed, Virginia Reed, Martha J. Reed, James F. Reed, Jr., and Thomas K. Reed, Joseph Rhinehart,[19] Charles Stanton,[20] John Baptiste Trubode, August Spitzer,[19] James Smith,[19] Samuel Shoemaker, Bailis Williams[19] and Eliza Williams (his sister), Mrs. Woolfinger (widow), Antonio (a Mexican) and Lewis and Salvador (the two Indians sent with Stanton by General Sutter).

Stated in brief, the result of the disaster to the party in the mountains was as follows:

The total number of deaths was thirty-six, as follows: fourteen in the mountains while _en route_ to the settlement; fourteen at camp near Donner Lake; and eight at Donner's Camp.

The total number who reached the settlement was forty-five; of whom five were men, eight were women, and thirty-two were children.

The family of James F. Reed and that of Patrick Breen survived in unbroken numbers. The only other family in which all the children reached the settlement was that of Captain George Donner.

Fourteen of the eighty-one souls const.i.tuting the Donner Party were boys and girls between the ages of nineteen and twelve years; twenty-six ranged from twelve years to a year and a half; and seven were nursing babes. There were only thirty-four adults,--twenty-two men and twelve women.

Of the first-named group, eleven survived the disaster. One youth died _en route_ with the Forlorn Hope; one at the Lake Camp; and one at Bear Valley in charge of the First Relief.

Twenty of the second-named group also reached the settlements. One died _en route_ with the First Relief; two at Donner's Camp (in March, 1847); two at Starved Camp, in charge of the Second Relief; and one at the Lake Camp (in March).

Two of the seven babes lived, and five perished at the Lake Camp. They hungered and slowly perished after famine had dried the natural flow, and infant lips had drawn blood from maternal b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

The first nursling's life to ebb was that of Lewis Keseberg, Jr., on January 24, 1847.[21] His grief-stricken mother could not be comforted.

She hugged his wasted form to her heart and carried it far from camp, where she dug a grave and buried it in the snow.

Harriet McCutchen, whose mother had struggled on with the Forlorn Hope in search of succor, breathed her last on the second of February, while lying upon the lap of Mrs. Graves; and the snow being deep and hard frozen, Mrs. Graves bade her son William make the necessary excavation near the wall within their cabin, and they buried the body there, where the mother should find it upon her return. Catherine Pike died in the Murphy cabin a few hours before the arrival of food from the settlement and was buried on the morning of February 22.[22]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph by Lynwood Abbott. ALDER CREEK]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DENNISON'S EXCHANGE AND THE PARKER HOUSE, SAN FRANCISCO]

Those were the only babes that perished before relief came. Does not the fact that so many young children survived the disaster refute the charges of parental selfishness and inhumanity, and emphasize the immeasurable self-sacrifice, love, and care that kept so many of the little ones alive through that long, bitter siege of starvation?

Mrs. Elinor Eddy, who pa.s.sed away in the Murphy cabin on the seventh of February, was the only wife and mother called by death, in either camp, before the arrival of the First Relief. Both Patrick Breen's diary and William G. Murphy, then a lad of eleven years, a.s.sert that Mrs. Eddy and little Margaret, her only daughter, were buried in the snow near the Murphy cabin on the ninth of February. Furthermore, the Breen Diary and the death-list of the Donner Party show that not a husband or father died at the Lake Camp during the entire period of the party's imprisonment in the mountains.[23]

How, then, could that First Relief, or either of the other relief parties see--how could they even have imagined that they saw--"wife sitting at the side of her husband who had just died, mutilating his body," or "the daughter eating her father," or "mother that of her children," or "children that of father and mother"? The same questions might be asked regarding the other revolting scenes pictured by the _Star_.

The seven men who first braved the dangers of the icy trail in the work of rescue came over a trackless, ragged waste of snow, varying from ten to forty feet in depth,[24] and approached the camp-site near the lake at sunset. They halloed, and up the snow steps came those able to drag themselves to the surface. When they descended into those cabins, they found no cheering lights. Through the smoky atmosphere, they saw smouldering fires, and faced conditions so appalling that words forsook them; their very souls were racked with agonizing sympathy. There were the famine-stricken and the peris.h.i.+ng, almost as wasted and helpless as those whose sufferings had ceased. Too weak to show rejoicing, they could only beg with quivering lips and trembling hands, "Oh, give us something to eat! Give us something to drink! We are starving!"

True, their hands were grimy, their clothing tattered, and the floors were bestrewn with hair from hides and bits of broken bullock bones; but of connubial, parental, or filial inhumanity, there were no signs.

With what deep emotion those seven heroic men contemplated the conditions in camp may be gathered from Mr. Aguilla Glover's own notes, published in Thornton's work:

Feb. 19, 1847. The unhappy survivors were, in short, in a condition most deplorable, and beyond power of language to describe, or imagination to conceive.

The emigrants had not yet commenced eating the dead. Many of the sufferers had been living on bullock hides for weeks and even that sort of food was so nearly exhausted that they were about to dig up from the snow the bodies of their companions for the purpose of prolonging their wretched lives.

Thornton's work contains the following statement by a member of one of the relief corps:

On the morning of February 20,[25] Racine Tucker, John Rhodes, and Riley Moutrey went to the camp of George Donner eight miles distant, taking a little jerked beef. These sufferers (eighteen) had but one hide remaining. They had determined that upon consuming this they would dig from the snow the bodies of those who had died from starvation. Mr. Donner was helpless, Mrs. Donner was weak but in good health, and might have come to the settlement with this party; yet she solemnly but calmly determined to remain with her husband and perform for him the last sad offices of affection and humanity.

And this she did in full view that she must necessarily perish by remaining behind. The three men returned the same day with seven refugees[26] from Donner Camp.

John Baptiste Trubode has distinct recollections of the arrival and departure of Tucker's party, and of the amount of food left by it.

He said to me in that connection:

"To each of us who had to stay in camp, one of the First Relief Party measured a teacupful of flour, two small biscuits, and thin pieces of jerked beef, each piece as long as his first finger, and as many pieces as he could encircle with that first finger and thumb brought together, end to end. This was all that could be spared, and was to last until the next party could reach us.

"Our outlook was dreary and often hopeless. I don't know what I would have done sometimes without the comforting talks and prayers of those two women, your mother and Aunt Elizabeth. Then evenings after you children went to sleep, Mrs. George Donner would read to me from the book[27] she wrote in every day. If that book had been saved, every one would know the truth of what went on in camp, and not spread these false tales.

"I dug in the snow for the dead cattle, but found none, and we had to go back to our saltless old bullock hide, days before the Second Relief got to us, on the first of March."

[Footnote 19: Died while in the mountain camps.]

[Footnote 20: Died _en route_ over the mountains to the settlements in California.]

[Footnote 21: Report brought by John Baptiste to Donner's Camp, after one of his trips to the lake.]

[Footnote 22: Incident related by William C. Graves, after he reached the settlement.]

[Footnote 23: Franklin W. Graves and Jay Fosd.i.c.k perished in December, 1846, while _en route_ to the settlement with the Forlorn Hope.]

[Footnote 24: One of the stumps near the Breen-Graves cabin, cut for fuel while the snow was deepest, was found by actual measurement to be twenty-two feet in height. It is still standing.]

[Footnote 25: Thornton's dates are one day later than those in the Breen Diary. Breen must have lost a day _en route_.]

[Footnote 26: The First Relief Corps took six, instead of seven, refugees from Donner Camp, and set out from the lake cabins with twenty-three, instead of twenty-four, refugees.]

[Footnote 27: The journal, herbarium, ma.n.u.script, and drawings of Mrs.

George Donner were not among the goods delivered at the Fort by the Fallon Party, and no trace of them was ever found.]

II

THE REED-GREENWOOD PARTY, OR SECOND RELIEF--REMINISCENCES OF WILLIAM G.

MURPHY--CONCERNING NICHOLAS CLARK AND JOHN BAPTISTE.

On the third of March, 1847, the Reed-Greenwood, or Second Relief Corps (excepting Nicholas Clark) left camp with the following refugees: Patrick Breen, Margaret Breen (his wife), Patrick Breen, Jr., Simon Breen, James Breen, Peter Breen, Isabella Breen, Solomon Hook, Mary Donner, Isaac Donner, Mrs. Elizabeth Graves, Nancy Graves, Jonathan B.

Graves, Franklin W. Graves, Jr., Elizabeth Graves, Jr., Martha J. Reed, and Thomas K. Reed. The whole party, as has been already told, were forced into camp about ten miles below the summit on the west side of the Sierras, by one of the fiercest snow-storms of the season.

All credit is due Mr. and Mrs. Breen for keeping the nine helpless waifs left with them at Starved Camp alive until food was brought them by members of the Third Relief Party. Mr. Breen's much prized diary does not cover the experiences of that little band in their struggle across the mountains, but concludes two days before they started. After he and his family succeeded in reaching the Sacramento Valley, he gave his diary (kept at Donner Lake) to Colonel George McKinstrey for the purpose of a.s.sisting him in making out his report to Captain Hall, U.S.N., Sloop of War _Warren_, Commander Northern District of California.