Memorable World History/Authors

History of the Donner Party (Part III)

Charles Tyler Stanton

The snowshoes proved to be awkward but effective on the arduous climb. The members of the party were neither well-nourished nor accustomed to camping in snow 12 feet (3.7 m) deep and, by the third day, most were snowblind. On the sixth day, Eddy discovered his wife had hidden a half-pound of bear meat in his pack. The group set out again the morning of December 21; Stanton had been straggling for several days, and he remained behind, saying he would follow shortly. His remains were found in that location the following year.

The group became lost and confused. After two more days without food, Patrick Dolan proposed one of them should volunteer to die in order to feed the others. Some suggested a duel, while another account describes an attempt to create a lottery to choose a member to sacrifice. Eddy suggested that they keep moving until someone simply fell, but a blizzard forced the group to halt. Antonio, the animal handler, was the first to die; Franklin Graves was the next casualty.

As the blizzard progressed, Patrick Dolan began to rant deliriously, stripped off his clothes, and ran into the woods. He returned shortly afterward and died a few hours later. Not long after, possibly because Murphy was near death, some of the group began to eat flesh from Dolan's body. Lemuel's sister tried to feed some to her brother, but he died shortly afterward. Eddy, Salvador, and Luis refused to eat. The next morning, the group stripped the muscle and organs from the bodies of Antonio, Dolan, Graves, and Murphy. They dried them to store for the days ahead, taking care to ensure nobody would have to eat his or her relatives.

William H. Eddy

After three days' rest, they set off again, searching for the trail. Eddy eventually succumbed to his hunger and ate human flesh, but that was soon gone. They began taking apart their snowshoes to eat the oxhide webbing and discussed killing Luis and Salvador for food before Eddy warned the two men, and they quietly left. Jay Fosdick died during the night, leaving only seven members of the party. Eddy and Mary Graves left to hunt, but when they returned with deer meat, Fosdick's body had already been cut apart for food. After several more days—25 since they had left Truckee Lake—they came across Salvador and Luis, who had not eaten for about nine days and were close to death. William Foster shot the pair, believing their flesh was the rest of the group's last hope of avoiding imminent death from starvation.

On January 12, the group stumbled into a Miwok camp looking so deteriorated that the camp's inhabitants initially fled. The Miwoks gave them what they had to eat: acorns, grass, and pine nuts. After a few days, Eddy continued on with the help of a Miwok to a ranch in a small farming community at the edge of the Sacramento Valley. A hurriedly assembled rescue party found the other six survivors on January 17. Their journey from Truckee Lake had taken 33 days.

Rescue

Reed attempts a rescue

James F. Reed made it out of the Sierra Nevada to Rancho Johnson in late October. He was safe and recovering at Sutter's Fort, but each day he became more concerned for the fate of his family and friends. He pleaded with Colonel John C. Frémont to gather a team of men to cross the pass and help the company. In return Reed promised to join Frémont's forces and fight in the Mexican–American War. He was joined by McCutchen, who had been unable to return with Stanton, as well as some members of the Harlan-Young party. The Harlan-Young wagon train had arrived at Sutter's Fort on October 8, the last to make it over the Sierra Nevada that season. The party of roughly 30 horses and a dozen men carried food supplies and expected to find the Donner Party on the western side of the mountain, along the Bear River below the steep approach to Emigrant Gap, perhaps starving but alive. When they arrived in the river valley, they found only a pioneer couple, migrants who had been separated from their company who were near starvation.