Donner Party

The Donner Party was a group of California-bound American settlers caught up in the "westering fever" of the 1840s. After becoming snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1846–1847, some of the emigrants resorted to cannibalism.

The nucleus of the party consisted of the Donner and Reed families, some 31 people in all, who departed from Springfield, Illinois, in mid April 1846 for California. The emigrants arrived at Independence, Missouri, on May 11, 1846, and left the following day. They joined a larger wagon train, with which they traveled until they reached the Little Sandy River, in what is now Wyoming, where they camped alongside several other emigrant parties. There, those emigrants who had decided to take a new route ("Hastings Cutoff", named after its promoter, Lansford Hastings), formed a new wagon train. They elected George Donner their captain, creating the Donner Party, on July 19.

The party continued westward, encountering great hardships while crossing the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake Desert in present-day Utah. When they finally rejoined the California Trail near modern Elko, Nevada, they had lost three weeks' time on the "shortcut." They met further setbacks and delays while traveling along Nevada's Humboldt River.

When they finally reached the Sierra Nevada, a snow storm blocked the pass. Demoralized and low on supplies, about two thirds of the emigrants camped at a small lake (now called Donner Lake), while the Donner families and a few others camped about six miles (ten kilometers) away, at Alder Creek.

The emigrants slaughtered their oxen, but there was not enough meat to feed so many for long. In mid December, fifteen (ten were men, five were women) of the trapped emigrants, known as 'The Forlorn Hope', set out on snowshoes for Sutter's Fort, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) away, to seek help. When one man, Charles Stanton gave out and had to be left behind, the others continued; but they soon became lost and ran out of food. The next to die was Patrick Dolan(He said, "Were one to die, the rest might live"). William Foster wanted to kill Luis and Salvador (Native American guides) in cold blood and eat them but William Eddy stood up to him. The two natives ran away upon hearing this, only to be found near dead a few days later by the party and then killed. Caught without shelter in a raging blizzard, four of the party died. The survivors resorted to cannibalism. Three more died and were eaten before finally, nearly naked and close to death, seven of the original fifteen snowshoers reached safety on the western side of the mountains on January 19, 1847.

Californians rallied to save the Donner Party and equipped a total of four rescue parties. By the time the second of these parties arrived in March, the remaining emigrants at the Donner Lake camp had also begun to eat the dead. On April 29, the last refugee arrived at Sutter's Fort.

Of the original 87 pioneers, 41 died and 46 survived.

Donner Memorial State Park, near the eastern shore of Donner Lake, commemorates the disaster; the area where the Donner families camped at Alder Creek has been designated a National Historic Landmark.

References in culture

The band Alkaline Trio wrote a song about the Donner Party, entitled "Donner Party (All Night)", which contains the lyrics "And I wanted you to know/It was you that we were thinking of/As we quietly died in the snow/A place we'll never leave/A place we'd never want to call home/A place we'll call our final resting place in pieces". A later line in the song echoes this stating "And so we end this way no trace of us in spring ". It has been said that the song is using the Donner Party as a metaphor for a failed relationship.

Singer-songwriter Phil Ochs gave a humorous telling of the Donner Party story in his "The Ballad of Alferd Packer." [1]

The Excorcist has references to the Donner Party.

External links

New Light on the Donner Party by Kristin Johnson, a recognized authority on the ill-fated wagon train; features accurate biographical information, a chronology, primary documents, and much more.
The Donner Party Dan Rosen's website features a comprehensive chronology of the disaster and much additional material.
The Donner Party (1992) is a film by Ric Burns in the PBS documentary series American Experience. Includes a transcript of the film, along with other material.
The diary kept during the period November 20, 1846 – March 1, 1847, by Patrick Breen, one of the travelers, is available in hypertext as well as color scans of the pages, at the Online Archive of California website.
Donner Party Bulletin No. 15 First-person report on the Alder Creek presentation at the Society for Historical Archaeology Conference; rebuts media distortions. January, 2006''