The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate Part 31

Messrs. Eddy and Foster of the Third Relief had travelled with him on the plains, starved with him in camp, and had had opportunities of talking with him upon their return to the cabins too late to rescue Jimmy Eddy and Georgia Foster. Had they believed that he had murdered the children, would those two fathers and the rest of their party have taken Simon Murphy and the three little Donner girls and left Keseberg _alive_ in camp with lone, sick, and helpless Mrs. Murphy--Mrs. Murphy who was grandmother of Georgia Foster, and had sole charge of Jimmy Eddy?

[Footnote 28: Should be spelled Keseberg.]

[Footnote 29: General Kearney and escort, accompanied by Edwin Bryant.]

[Footnote 30: McGlashan's "History of the Donner Party" (1879).]

[Footnote 31: The old Alcalde records are not in existence, but some of the survivors of the party remember the circ.u.mstance; and Mrs. Samuel Kybert, now of Clarkville, Eldorado County, was a witness at the trial.

C.F. McGlashan, 1879.]

IV

LEWIS KESEBERG

In March, 1879, while collecting material for his "History of the Donner Party," Mr. C.F. McGlashan, of Truckee, California, visited survivors at San Jose, and coming to me, said:

"Mrs. Houghton, I am sorry that I must look to you and your sisters for answers to the most delicate and trying questions relating to this history. I refer to the death of your mother at the hand of Keseberg."

He was so surprised and shocked as I replied, "I do not believe that Keseberg was responsible for my mother's death," that he interrupted me, lost for a moment the manner of the impartial historian, and with the directness of a cross-questioning attorney asked:

"Is it possible that Mrs. George Donner's daughter defends the murderer of her mother?"

And when I replied, "We have no proofs. My mother's body was never found," he continued earnestly,

"Why, I have enough evidence in this note book to convict that monster, and I can do it, or at least arouse such public sentiment against him that he will have to leave the State."

Very closely he followed my answering words, "Mr. McGlashan, from little girlhood I have prayed that Lewis Keseberg some day would send for me and tell me of my mother's last hours, and perhaps give a last message left for her children, and I firmly believe that my prayer will be granted, and I would not like you to destroy my opportunity. You have a ready pen, but it will not be used in exact justice to all the survivors, as you have promised, if you finish your work without giving Keseberg also a chance to speak for himself."

After a moment's reflection, he replied, "I am amazed; but your wish in this matter shall be respected."

The following evening he wrote from San Francisco:

You will be glad to know that I have put Harry N. Morse's detective agency of Oakland upon the track of Keseberg, and if found, I mean to take steps to obtain his confession.

In less than a week after the foregoing, came a note from him which tells its own story.

SACRAMENTO, _Midnight, April 4, 1879_

MRS. E.P. HOUGHTON, DEAR MADAM:--

Late as it is, I feel that I ought to tell you that I have spent the evening with Keseberg. I have just got back, and return early to-morrow to complete my interview. By merest accident, while tracing, as I supposed, the record of his death, I found a clue to his whereabouts. After dark I drove six miles and found him. At first he declined to tell me anything, but somehow I melted the mood with which he seemed enwrapped, and he talked freely.

He swears to me that he did not murder your mother. He declares it so earnestly that I cannot doubt his veracity. To-morrow I intend plying him closely with questions, and by a rigid system of cross examination will detect the false-hood, if there is one, in his statement. He gives chapter after chapter that others never knew. I cannot say more to-night, but desire that you write me (at the Cosmopolitan) any questions you might wish me to ask Keseberg, and if I have not already asked them, I will do so on my return from San Francisco.

C.F. MCGLASHAN.

After his second interview with Keseberg and in response to my urgent appeal for full details of everything relating to my parents, Mr.

McGlashan wrote:

I wish you could see him. He will talk to either you or me at any time, unless other influences are brought to bear upon him. If I send word for him to come to Sacramento, he will meet me on my return. If you and your husband could be there on Thursday or Friday of this week, I could arrange an interview at the hotel that would be all you could wish. I asked him especially if he would talk to you, and he said, "Yes."

I dared not tell you about my interview until I had your permission.

Even now, I approach the task tremblingly.

Your mother was not murdered. Your father died, Keseberg thinks, about two weeks after you left. Your mother remained with him until the last and laid him out tenderly, as you know.

The days--to Keseberg--were perfect blanks. Mrs. Murphy died soon after your departure with Eddy, and he was left alone--alone in his cabin--alone with the dead bodies which he could not have lifted from the floor, because of his weakness, even had he desired. The man sighs and shudders, and great drops of agony gather upon his brows as he endeavors to relate the details of those terrible days, or recall their horrors. Loneliness, desolation was the chief element of horror. Alone with the mutilated dead!

One night he sprang up in affright at the sound of something moving or scratching at a log outside his cabin. It was some time before he could understand that it was wolves trying to get in.

One night, about two weeks after you left, a knock came at his door, and your mother entered. To this lonely wretch her coming seemed like an angel's. She was cold and wet and freezing, yet her first words were, that she must see her children. Keseberg understood that she intended to start out that very night, and soon found that she was slightly demented. She kept saying, "O G.o.d! I must see my children. I must go to my children!" She finally consented to wait until the morning, but was determined that nothing should then prevent her lonely journey. She told Keseberg where her money was concealed, she made him solemnly promise that he would get the money and take it to her children. She would not taste the food he had to offer. She had not tasted human flesh, and would hardly consent to remain in his foul and hideous den. Too weak and Chilled to move, she finally sank down on the floor, and he covered her as best he could with blankets and feather bed, and made a fire to warm her; but it was of no avail, she had received her death-chill, and in the morning her spirit had pa.s.sed heavenward.

I believe Keseberg tells the truth. Your mother watched day and night by your father's bedside until the end. At nightfall he ceased to breathe, and she was alone in the desolate camp, where she performed the last sad ministrations, and then her duty in the mountains was accomplished. All the smothered yearnings of maternal love now burst forth with full power. Out into the darkness and night she rushed, without waiting for the morning. "My children, I must see my children!"

She arrived at Keseberg's cabin, overwrought mentally, overtaxed physically, and chilled by the freezing night air. She was eager to set forth on her desperate journey without resting a moment. I can see her as he described her, wringing her hands and exclaiming over and over again, "I must see my children!"

The story told by Mrs. Farnham and others about finding your mother's remains, and that of Thornton concerning the pail of blood, are unquestionably false. She had been dead weeks, and Keseberg confessed to me that no part of her body was found by the relief (Fallon) party.

My friend, I have attempted to comply with your request. More than once during this evening I have burst into tears. I am sorry almost that I attempted so mournful a task, but you will pardon the pain I have caused.

Keseberg is a powerful man, six feet in height, with full bushy beard, thin brown locks, and high forehead. He has blue eyes that look squarely at you while he talks. He is sometimes absent-minded and at times seems almost carried away with the intensity of his misery and desolation.

He speaks and writes German, French, Spanish, and English; and his selection of words proves him a scholar. When I first asked him to make a statement which I could reduce to writing he urged: "What is the use of making a statement? People incline to believe the most horrible reports concerning a man; they will not credit what I say in my own defence. My conscience is clear. I am an old man, and am calmly awaiting my death. G.o.d is my judge, and it long ago ceased to trouble me that people shunned and slandered me."

He finally consented to make the desired statement, and in speaking of your family he continued: "Some time after Mrs. George Donner's death, I thought I had gained sufficient strength to redeem the pledge I had made her before her death. I went to Alder Creek Camp to get the money. I had a difficult journey. The wagons of the Donners were loaded with tobacco, powder, caps, school-books, shoes, and dry goods. This stock was very valuable. I spent the night there, searched carefully among the bales and bundles of goods, and found five hundred and thirty-one dollars. Part of this sum was gold, part silver. The silver I buried at the foot of a pine tree, a little way from camp. One of the lower branches of another tree reached down close to the ground, and appeared to point to the spot.

I put the gold in my pocket, and started back to my cabin; got lost, and in crossing a little flat the snow suddenly gave way, and I sank down almost to my arm-pits. After great exertion I raised myself out of a snow-covered stream, and went round on a hillside and continued my journey. At dark, and completely exhausted, and almost dead, I came in sight of the Graves's cabin, and sometime after dark staggered into my own. My clothes were wet, and the night was so cold that my garments were frozen stiff. I did not build a fire nor get anything to eat, just rolled myself up in the bed-clothes, and s.h.i.+vered; finally fell asleep, and did not waken until late in the morning. Then I saw my camp was in most inexplicable confusion; everything about the cabin was torn up and scattered about, trunks broken open; and my wife's jewellery, my cloak, my pistol and ammunition was missing. I thought Indians had been there. Suddenly I heard human voices. I hurried up to the surface of the snow, and saw white men approaching. I was overwhelmed with joy and grat.i.tude. I had suffered so much and so long, that I could scarcely believe my senses. Imagine my astonishment upon their arrival to be greeted, not with a 'Good-morning' or a kind word, but with a gruff, insolent demand, 'Where is Donner's money?'

"I told them they ought to give me something to eat, and that I would talk with them afterwards; but no, they insisted that I should tell them about Donner's money. I asked who they were, and where they came from, but they replied by threatening to kill me if I did not give up the money. They threatened to hang or shoot me. At last I told them that I had promised Mrs. Donner that I would carry her money to her children, and I proposed to do so, unless shown some authority by which they had a better claim. This so exasperated them that they acted as though they were going to kill me. I offered to let them bind me as a prisoner, and take me before Alcalde Sinclair at Sutter's Fort, and I promised that I would then tell all I knew about the money. They would listen to nothing, however, and finally I told them where they would find the silver, and gave them the gold. After I had done this they showed me a doc.u.ment from Alcalde Sinclair, by which they were to receive a certain proportion of all moneys and properties which they rescued. Those men treated me with great unkindness. Mr. Tucker was the only one who took my part or befriended me. When they started over the mountains, each man carried two bales of goods. They had silks, calicoes, and delaines from the Donners, and other articles of great value. Each man would carry one bundle a little way, lay it down, and come back and get the other bundle. In this way they pa.s.sed over the snow three times.

I could not keep up with them, because I was so weak, but managed to come up to their camp every night."

Upon receipt of this communication I wrote Mr. McGlashan from San Jose that I was nerved for the ordeal, but that he should not permit me to start on that momentous journey if his proposed arrangements were at all doubtful, and that he should telegraph me at once.

Alas! my note miscarried; and, believing that his proposal had not met my approval, Mr. and Mrs. McGlashan returned to Truckee a day earlier than expected. Two weeks later he returned the envelope, its postmarks showing what had happened.

It was not easy to gain the consent of my husband to a meeting with Keseberg. He dreaded its effect on me. He feared the outcome of the interview.

However, on May 16, 1879, he and I, by invitation, joined Mr. and Mrs.

McGlashan at the Golden Eagle Hotel in Sacramento. The former then announced that although Keseberg had agreed by letter to meet us there, he had that morning begged to be spared the mortification of coming to the city hotel, where some one might recognize him, and as of old, point the finger of scorn at him. After some deliberation as to how I would accept the change, Mr. McGlashan had aceeded to the old man's wish, that we drive to the neat little boarding house at Brighton next morning, where we could have the use of the parlor for a private interview. In compliance with this arrangement we four were at the Brighton hotel at the appointed time.

Mr. McGlashan and my husband went in search of Keseberg, and after some delay returned, saying:

"Keseberg cannot overcome his strong feeling against a meeting in a public house. He has tidied up a vacant room in the brewery adjoining the house where he lives with his afflicted children. It being Sunday, he knows that no one will be about to disturb us. Will you go there?"

I could only reply, "I am ready."