The Fated Donner Party

Elisha Stephens who brought the first wagon train across the Sierras via the Truckee Pass in 1844, inspired other to try to do the same.  One such man, George Donner 62, his brother Jacob, 65, and James Reed set out from Independence, Missouri in May 1846.  A large party from the onset, they added others along the way until they came to the Little Sandy River (Wyoming) where they decided to split into two trains.  One went to California along the Fort Hall route without problems.  The Donner party of 89 people decided on a shortcut from a guidebook they had read by Lansford Hastings.

Hastings' cutoff was certainly 400 miles shorter than the California Trail, but it was more hazardous and look longer.  By the time they reached the Sierras, it was late October and the snows were already beginning in the Truckee Pass (renamed Donner Pass). 

The party dug in for the winter.  Supplies gave out.  Seventeen men, women, and boys were sent westward to scout out relief expeditions in the snowed-in mountains.  Those left behind slowly starved.  By the time the survivors of the scouting party reached help, their fellow pioneers left behind had eaten all the livestock and pets.  When the first of the rescue teams reached them in February 1847, some of the pioneers had gone mad, others were dead, and a few were dying and too weak to move.  And some had survived by eating the corpses of their deceased fellow travelers.  It was a gruesome sight.

In all, 45 of the Donner Party perished in the Sierras that winter, including George Donner and his wife Tamson who refused to leave her dying husband when the rescue party arrived.  Most of the survivors recovered remarkably well, even urging their friends back east to come join them but with a warning:  "Never take no cut ofs and hury along as fast as you can." 

Yes I guess you take the long road home in this case!

Next time...James Reed and Family's Survival Story
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On March 6, 1889, the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin registers Aspirin, the brand name for acetylsalicylic acid, on behalf of the German pharmaceutical company Friedrich Bayer & Co.