The date is April 16th, 1846, and with a slow, lurching start nine wagons begin the twenty
five hundred mile journey from Springfield, Illinois, to the American west coast in California.
Split up into family groups, 87 would-be settlers are led by businessman James Frazier Reed.
He is following in the footsteps of a great migratory rush to the west coast, and has
plans to strike it rich by claiming his own stake in California.
Traveling with his wife, Margaret, he also hopes that the sea air and living on the coast
will help his wife's terrible migraines.
To prepare for the journey west, Reed has read a new book put out by Lansford W. Hastings,
'The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California.
In the book Hastings advertises a shortcut over easy terrain that could slash 340 to
400 miles off the trip west.
Hastings' route however has never been actually tested and is purely speculative, and in fact
Hastings hopes that he can build a business empire by rerouting settlers through this
route to Sutter's Fort, or modern day Sacramento.
Setting forth on a doomed route, Reed begins his journey with thirty two other settlers,
including the Donner, Graves, Breens, Murphys, Eddys, McCutcheons, Kesebergs, and Wolfingers
families.
They also bring along seven teamsters and several bachelors.
Reed and his wife are accompanied by their four children, Virginia, Patty, James, and
Thomas, as well as Margaret's 70 year old mother, Sarah Keyes, and two hired servants.
Sarah is so afflicted by consumption however- an old-time diagnosis for modern tuberculosis
or a number of other diseases and ailments- that she can hardly even walk.
Reed, who has to date been very successful in business, is convinced though that the
new route will be an easy one, and that he and his family will not have to suffer the
rigors of travel for very long.
In preparation for their trip he has ordered an extravagant two-story wagon with a built-in
iron stove, spring-cushioned seats, and individual bunks for each family member to sleep in.
The giant cart takes a whopping eight oxen to pull, and Reed's daughter Virginia dubs
it “The Pioneer Palace Car”.
The group estimates that the trip will take four months to cross the vast plains of the
American midwest , followed by the deserts leading up to the mountains, and then finally
through the mountains to the west coast.
Their first stop on this journey is Independence, Missouri, which is the main jumping off point
for both the Oregon and California trails- the main thoroughfares for travelers moving
out west.
The group has no idea, but on the very same day that the wagon train moves west, Lansford
Hastings is himself setting off east from California, eager to see what the shortcut
that he had written about in his guide book was actually like.
The wagon train began to pick up other families as it moved further and further west, swelling
its numbers.
On May 12th the party left Independence Missouri in the middle of a thunderstorm, an ill omen
for what was to come.
Just a week later though they joined with another wagon train led by an American cavalry
colonel, and continued pushing West until being held up by very high waters at the Big
Blue River in Kansas.
Here the party experienced its first death, with Reed's mother-in-law, Sarah Keyes, dying.
She was buried next to the river, and the party then built rafts to float their wagons
across the river.
Things were going as planned, and the expedition reached Fort Laramie in Wyoming just a week
behind schedule on June 27th, 1846.
There though James Reed ran into an old friend from back home in Illinois, who had just finished
traveling with Lansford Hastings as he made his way east from California to test the route
he himself had published, but never actually used.
Reed's friend warned him not to take the trail, telling him that the road that existed was
barely passable on foot and would be impossible to cross with wagons.
He also warned him of the vast desert and the tall Sierra Nevadas he would have to cross,
and strongly suggested that the entire wagon train take the old, well-used trail to California.
Reed however ignored the warning, and determined to get to California as quick as possible,
set off on Hasting's false trail anyways.
The group reached the Continental Divide on July 11th, and there they were met by a man
carrying a letter from Lansford Hastings himself.
In the letter Hastings assured the group that he would meet them at Fort Bridger and then
lead them personally through his route.
While doubts of the Hastings route had begun to permeate the group- specially after the
dire warning received in Fort Laramie- the group's fears evaporated at the thought of
Hastings leading them personally on the unproven trail.
Eight days later the group arrived at what is today Little Sandy River in Wyoming, and
here the trail split off in two directions- the traditional northerly, and longer, route,
and the unproven Hastings trail that promised to shave weeks off their travel time.
The group of settlers argued amongst themselves about which route to follow, and at last the
majority of the wagon train decided to go north along the safer and well known route.
The minority took the Hastings cutoff, and elected George Donner as their new captain.
The group reached Fort Bridger on July 28th, but found no sign of Hastings save for a letter
saying that Hastings had already left along with another group of emigrants and that the
wagon train should catch up.
The group rested here for a few days, making repairs to their wagons and stocking up on
supplies- believing that only seven more weeks lay between them and California's sun-drenched
coast.
On August 6th the group reached the Weber river and discovered another note left behind
by Hastings.
In this note he warned the group not to follow him through Weber Canyon as the route said
to do because the Canyon had become virtually impossible.
He implored them to take a different trail though the Salt Basin and then the two groups
could link up.
James Reed and two other men rode ahead on horses to find and catch up with Hastings,
which they did on the south shore of the Great Salt Lake.
Hastings then accompanied Reed only part of the way back in order to point out the new
route the wagon train should take, and once more encouraged them on their way.
Amongst the pioneers though, faith in Hastings' trail was fading and a vote was taken, with
the majority opting to try the new trail rather than backtracking- this would be a fatal mistake.
The way forward proved arduous and difficult, with the group forced to clear trees so that
their wagons could pass through.
The group was making less than two miles a day, and eventually they were forced to abandon
some of their wagons and the supplies they carried.
The pioneers began to blame Hastings, and morale sunk even lower when on August 25th,
the caravan had another death to consumption, Luke Halloran.
By now a real fear that they would not make it through the mountains before winter began
to set in, as in twenty one days the group had made it only thirty six miles.
Supplies were running low, and fall was rapidly approaching.
On August 30th the pioneers made it through the thick forests and set out on the Great
Salt Lake Desert.
According to Hastings' guide the trip would only take two days, but what the pioneers
didn't realize is that the desert sand was very moist and deep, bogging down their wagons.
Not only was their progress severely slowed, but on the third day their water supply was
almost completely out.
A number of oxen had also run away, and others had died.
The group was forced to abandon even more wagons, and a trip that was supposed to have
taken two days to cross eighty miles had taken five days.
On the day the party made it out of the desert an inventory of the food discovered that supplies
were dangerously low- even more ominously though that very night the first snow fell
on the mountains, covering the peaks with a fine layer of white.
The group sent two men, William McCutcheon and Charles Stanton, ahead to Sutter's Fort
in California in order to bring back supplies, for without them the party would never make
it through the mountains.
On September 26th the group finally reached the original path laid out by Hastings in
his guide, though the detour Hastings had himself pointed out to them in person had
added 125 miles to their route through very difficult mountain and desert terrain- exactly
the type of terrain that Hastings' original route had promised to avoid.
Resentment of Hastings and even Reed was now bordering on full-blown mutiny, but the group
pushed on regardless.
Tempers flared however, and on October 5th, two wagons became entangled and the first
act of violence visited the caravan.
John Snyder, the teamster of one of the wagons, became frustrated and began to whip the helpless
oxen.
Reed ordered Snyder to stop, but when he wouldn't stop Reed grabbed his knife and stabbed the
teamster in the stomach, killing him.
The group voted on how to mete out justice, and though some favored hanging Reed- no doubt
helped along by their resentment of his choice to lead them on the Hastings trail in the
first place- in the end Reed was banished from the wagon train.
He let his family behind and rode off to the west with another man, never to be seen again
by the group.
The Donner Party pressed on along the Humboldt River, and in an attempt to ease the burden
on the thoroughly exhausted animals, everyone who could, disembarked their wagons and walked.
Two days after the death of Snyder, an older Belgian man was turned out of Lewis Keseburg's
wagon and forced to walk.
The elderly man had severely swollen feet and was unable to keep up, and thus he knocked
on the doors of every other wagon but was turned away each time.
The last anyone saw of him he was left sitting under a large sage brush, completely exhausted
and unable to walk.
The group left him behind to die alone.
On October 16th the exhausted and beleaguered group finally reached the gateway to the Sierra
Nevada in what is today Reno, Nevada.
They were almost completely out of food and what oxen remained were utterly exhausted.
Incredibly, three days later one of the men sent ahead to Fort Sutter returned with seven
mules loaded with beef and flour, two Indian guides, and news of a different path through
the mountains.
The new path was difficult but was clear, and would see the party through safely.
The caravan then camped for five days in order to rest their exhausted animals and prepare
for their final push- the decision to wait and rest however would prove to be fatal.
The wagon train pushed forward to the base of the summit to the mountains, and here George
Donner's wagon axle broke and forced him to fall behind along with twenty two others who
would help him with the repairs.
The group pressed on but snow began to fall, and the two indian guides along with one of
the party members pressed forward to judge the quality of the trail.
As the three made it to the summit on horseback they were unable to press forward any further
due to the heavy snowfall, and on their way they discovered that five feet of snow had
already buried their original tracks.
The party retreated to the eastern end of a lake that would come to be known as Donner
Lake, and built cabins to house the group, hoping that the early snow would eventually
melt and let them pass to the other side of the mountains.
Six miles behind the main group, the Donners were forced to build shelters from tents,
quilts, buffalo robes and brush.
The group would eventually make two attempts to cross the summit, but twenty feet of snow
trapped them on the wrong side of the Sierra Nevadas.
To their horror, the settlers realized that they were effectively snowed in, and began
to build shelters to last the winter.
On the other side of the mountains, James Reed and the other party member who had been
sent ahead to look for supplies, tried to trek up the mountains from the opposite side
in order to rescue their families.
Unfortunately as they made their way up the mountains the falling rain became snow, and
just twelve miles from the summit, they were unable to go any further.
The two returned to Sutter's Fort hoping to recruit more men and supplies for the rescue,
but the American-Mexican war had already drawn away most of the men.
The Donner Party was stuck, and would have to last the winter on dwindling supplies.
Realizing that their supplies would never last the winter, the caravan sent a group
of five men, nine women, and one child to attempt to make the summit on foot.
Their meager rations ran out on the sixth day, and yet the group continued to brave
high winds and freezing weather.
One member, Charles Stanton, fell out of the group, utterly exhausted and snow blind, and
implored the rest to press on without him.
He would never be seen again either, and soon after four others would die.
With no other choice, the group was forced to cannibalize the dead and press on, carrying
strips of frozen human meat in their pouches to munch on as they delved ever deeper into
the mountains.
By the time the group made it to the other side of the mountains on January 19th, 1847,
eight of the party had died, and seven been cannibalized by the survivors.
Those that had made it across the mountains however managed to rally others to send rescue
expeditions.
On February 5th the first rescue party of seven was sent into the mountains, and on
February 19th reached the lake.
The camp was in such disrepair that the men believed the camp to be deserted, until a
skeletal figure appeared from out of the snow.
Twelve of the survivors were already dead and forty eight remained- with many of them
having gone crazy or barely clinging to life.
Because the small rescue party had not been able to bring any pack animals with them,
they were unable to give the survivors many supplies, and were only able to guide 23 refugees
back to safety.
En route, two of the children would end up dying however.
By the time that the Donners and the main group was rescued, evidence of widescale cannibalism
showed that many of the dead had been eaten by the survivors.
A full two-thirds of the men had died, while two-thirds of the women and children had lived-
the men giving up their rations and winter clothing for the women and children.
Of those who had set out on Hastings' foolhardy route, forty one died and forty six survived,
nearly half the group wiped out to starvation, disease, and exposure.
Stories of the Donner party's tragedy spread around the nation via newspaper, with many
readers blaming the settlers for their own foolhardiness.
In the end, Hastings was never held responsible for any deaths, though emigration to California
fell off steeply after news of the tragedy, only to pick back up after news of a gold
rush swept the United States.
How would you have survived if stuck in the mountains with no food for the winter?
Do you think cannibalism is ever ok?
Let us know in the comments, and as always if you enjoyed this video don't forget to
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