This episode contains discussions of racism, starvation, cannibalism, violence, and death in some cases involving children. If this isn't something you want to hear about, this may be a good episode to skip. I also recommend listening to part one before moving on to part two, as some previous details will factor in some of the decisions made in part two. There will also be a part three, as I can't cover the whole story in just two parts.
Humans are fascinated by gore and violence, but even more so, the mysterious and unsolved. Interest in these disturbing and unpleasant subjects is called morbid curiosity, and it has gripped hundreds of people throughout the ages. I am one of those people. My name is Hally, and this is the Morbid Curiosity Podcast.
In part one of this episode, we covered the westward journey of the Donner slash Read Party, who were traveling in 1846 by Wagon Train from Springfield, Illinois, towards Sacramento, California, which at the time was a Mexican province. The emigrants, as they were called, joined up with another caravan, but separated in western Wyoming because they wanted to take a shortcut known as the Hastings Cut-Off. This route, which was actually untested, took them through the Wasatch Mountains, where they had to blaze their own trail through the mountainous woods. They then crossed the Great Salt Lake Desert, where most of their cattle, horses and oxen, died of dehydration, or ran off.
After this, they made their way through a treeless, swampy area, toward the Humboldt River, where they finally joined back up with the Proven California Trail. Soon, they entered the eastern foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It was now the end of October. Much of the party had made it to Trucke Meadows, including Patrick and Peggy Breen and their seven children, William and Eleanor Eddy and their two children.
Franklin and Elizabeth Graves and their six children, plus one grown and married daughter and her husband, Sarah and Jay Fostock, Lewis and Philippine Kesserberg and their two children, Amanda McCutchen and her daughter, Lavina Murphy and her five children, as well as her grown daughter, Harriet Pike and her two children, and Margaret Reed and her four children. Several teamsters, single adult men, hired to help drive the cattle and oxen, were also with them, including Charles Berger, Patrick Dolan, Milt Elliott, Joseph Reinhart, James Smith, Noah James, Augustus Spitzer, Young Antonio and Eliza and Bayless-Williams. The Donner family, which included George and Tenzin Donner and their five children, Jacob and Betsy Donner and their seven children, and their hired men, John Denton, Jean Baptiste Trudeau, Samuel Schumacher and Hiram Miller, were around seven miles or 11 kilometers back east along the Trucke River. The recently widowed Doris Wolfinger was also with them.
A small contingent of the party had gone ahead to find help and supplies at Sutter's Fort on the other side of the mountains. This group was made up of Charles Stanton, a teamster and William McCutchen. Another group had also gone ahead to find help, made up of James Reed, who had been exiled from the party for killing a teamster named John Snyder and Walter Heron, another teamster. The weather was growing steadily colder, and the threat of snow hung heavy in the clouds.
The Donner party now had a choice, attempt to make it over the Sierra Mountains before the snow began to fall or buckle down for the winter. The greens, the eddies and the cassoburgs had the healthiest animals and wanted to press on. The Murphy's, Graves and Reed's were considering a day of rest before moving on, and the Donners, their teamsters and the widowed Wolfinger were so far behind that they were likely to stay the winter despite their efforts to press on. It was eventually decided that the party would rest a day or so and then head to the mountain past just west of Truckee Lake.
The Sierra Crossing was supposed to be the hardest part of the journey, and the travelers wanted to prepare as much as possible. They made repairs to their wagons, tended their remaining livestock and hunted what game they could. Meanwhile, Reed and Heron had crossed the mountains and were close to starvation as they moved slowly towards Sutter's Fort, 90 miles or 145 kilometers away from the struggling Donner party. The two men were close to eating their horses when they came upon a familiar face in Bear Valley.
Stanton had just come from Sutter's Fort, with seven mules laden with supplies, as well as two Native Americans of the Muac tribe, who had been named Luis and Salvador by their slave master, John Sutter, owner of Sutter's Fort. It should be noted that at this time, racism and white supremacy were the norm among Americans. Other races and ethnicities were often treated as others, ignored or taken as slaves by white settlers. It's for this reason that we have so little information about Luis and Salvador and any other indigenous peoples the Donner party came into contact with and why the indigenous peoples of the area attacked or avoided the Donner party.
Stanton informed Reed and Heron that William McCutchen had become ill and was recovering back at the Fort. Stanton gave Reed and Heron some of the provisions he carried and then kept on his way back east toward the Donner party. Unaware of the supplies headed their way, the forward contingent of the Donner party began to move again, following the Truckee River toward Truckee Lake and the mountain past that would get them over the Sierras. Temperatures were falling and the clouds looked heavy with snow.
Patrick Dolan whooped when he recognized Stanton coming towards their wagons with his supplies. Stanton was deemed a hero as he passed out flour, beef jerky, sugar, beans and tea. He then rode on to do the same for the Donners, who were still a ways behind. After passing out all he had, he returned to the reeds in the forward contingent.
Reed supplied, the party continued on their way. While camping just north of Crystal Peak, they were attacked by a party of indigenous raiders who shot to 19 of their cattle, injuring them. George Donner's wagon axle snapped and the rear contingent had to stop and repair it. During these repairs, an axe came down on George Donner's hand, cutting him badly.
Eventually the wheel was repaired and they pressed on, but this injury would have severe consequences later. It was raining in the valley, but the party could see that the rain had become snow in the mountains. It was early in the year for snow, but the emigrants were also a month behind schedule. Little did they know that the winter would also end very late that year, making it one of the longest and most severe winters on record for the area.
It was nearly November by the time the forward contingent made it to Truckee Lake, a glacier-fed lake at the eastern foot of the Sierra's. Almost vertical walls of granite bordered its northern and southern side, the only outlet being a small pass on the northwestern edge called the Fremont Pass. Pines covered the rocky ground and there was little game to be seen, as most animals had already moved to lower ground with the chill weather. On October 30th, a snowstorm hit just as the forward contingent reached Truckee Lake.
The next day they struggled onward through the snow. They passed an abandoned cabin on the eastern side of the lake. It had been built two years earlier in 1844 by the first emigrants to take wagons over the Sierra's, opening the Truckee route to Sacramento. The next day, another snowstorm more severe than the first, pelted the travelers.
The Breen family backtracked to the abandoned cabin and took shelter there. However, the roof was collapsing, so they stayed nearby in their wagons. The Breens planned to try again for the pass in the morning, but when they awoke, they found three feet or one meter of snow on the ground. Still, they yoked their weakening oxen and made it two miles toward the pass before having to backtrack to the cabin once more.
After feeling defeated, they began to repair it, worried they would truly be stuck at the lake for winter. They also killed some of their cattle, stashing the meat in snow and using the hides to repair the roof. Stanton, the Murphys, Eddies, Graves and Kesserbergs thought they could make it over the mountains before another snowfall. They planned to leave the wagons and use the oxen and cattle as pack animals and the mules to carve out a trail.
They would travel by foot, even Lewis Kesserberg, who had accidentally pierced his foot by stepping on a sharp willow branch. Confusion over what to take and what to leave behind stalled their plan to leave at dawn. Many families still had goods they would need in California, like bolts of fabric, dinnerware and clothing. Several people knew it was ludicrous to try and take these things, but their logic did not prevail.
Either way, the oxen didn't want to take the loads placed on them, so it was slow going to get them to move. The group approached the pass around noon, but by then the snow was waste deep and the trail was buried. Charles Stanton and one of the Miwokmen went ahead to scout. They reached the summit and saw that it would be difficult to attend the pass, but it could be done.
When they returned, they found the exhausted emigrants digging out places to sleep for the night around a tree they had set a light. Stanton tried to rally them, but no one wanted to risk the pass. The sky was already darkening with snow clouds. Indeed, it snowed all night.
By morning, there were drifts of snow up to 10 feet or 3 meters deep. The pass was now totally blocked. Defeated, the group backtracked to their wagons and then to the cabin where the brains were holed up. Meanwhile, the donners were still struggling to catch up.
They wanted to be somewhat close to the rest of the party for safety in numbers. Eventually, they came to a small meadow at the junction of Alder Creek and Prosser Creek, 6-7 miles or 10-11 kilometers northeast of Truggy Lake. There wasn't any snow there just yet. George and Jacob Donner and some of the teamsters said about building a cabin, but they were also weak from starvation that they had to stop building when the walls were only four logs high.
That's when the snow began to fall on them. They quickly assembled lean twos of pinebows with raincoats and blankets for roofs. A tent was also quickly erected and the families and their teamsters all huddled inside these two structures. It snowed for eight days straight.
All the travelers could do was tend to their fires, gather wood, and maintain steps in the snow so they weren't completely buried. The cattle and mules were missing, likely buried in the snow. Some were shot to eat while they could still be found. All parts were saved to eat or use to repair their shelters.
The locations of the carcasses were also marked so that the emigrants could go back and get whatever the snow preserved. The Kesserbergs, Spitzer, and Burger set up a lean-to shelter on the west side of the Breen cabin. Dolan and Young Antonio were welcomed in with the Breens. Around 200 yards or 183 meters south of the Breen cabin, the eddies, fosters, pikes, and murphy's erected a small cabin against the side of a large boulder using pine logs.
The graves built a large two-room cabin about half a mile or one kilometer downstream of the other cabins. It was a sheltered spot closer to the trees. Each room in the cabin had a fireplace and its own door. The graves and the cutchens moved into one room and the reeds and their teamsters moved into the other.
Stanton, Luis, and Salvador also moved in with the reeds. It's not known why they set up so far from the others, but the division of the cabin was done to give each family its own space. There were now 80 people camped out in Truckee Lake Valley in two separate camps. Over half of them were under 18 years old.
There were 59 people around the lake and 22 at Elder Creek. They were sheltered, but provisions were still running low. Some families still had cattle while others didn't. And as before, many families were resolved to look after only their own.
Morale was not good. Meanwhile, on October 28th, James Reed and Walter Heron finally made it to Sutter's Fort. They reunited with William McCutchen, who was feeling much better. Also at the Fort were Owl Russell, Edwin Bryant, and William Boggs, members of a Wagon Caravan that Donner slash Reed Party had joined earlier in the journey.
They told Reed that the United States had gone to war with Mexico and that President Polk was looking for volunteers to fight at the Los Angeles garrison, hoping he might gain military aid for a rescue effort, Reed volunteered, with the caveat that he be allowed to take provisions back to his family and the rest of the Donner Party before active duty. John Sutter was happy to equip Reed and McCutchen, who volunteered to go back with him. With the cash collateral from Reed, Sutter gave the man 30 horses, a mule, a hind quarter of beef, and a large supply of beans and flour. They were also given two more miwok slaves called the keros to help drive the animals through the snow, which had yet to fall on this side of the mountains.
They left Sutter's Fort in the first days of November, riding through four days of rain. When they reached the head of the Bear River in the western foothills of the Sierra's, they found 18 inches or 46 centimeters of snow. On November 5th, the rain in the valley became snow and grew to around two feet or 60 centimeters deep at the foot of Emigrant's Gap, the spot where the trail through the Sierra's came down into the valley. Near the gap, they found a small camp, a man named John Curtis and his wife were stranded in their wagon.
Reed gave them some of the supplies and promised to divide them back to Sutter's Fort on his return journey. Reed and McCutchen continued up into the mountains, struggling through the snow. They soon lost the trail in the sea of white. They were between 10 and 12 miles or 16 to 19 kilometers from the summit, but the trail was impassable.
The snow was just too deep. Frustrated and more worried than before, Reed and McCutchen created a cache of the supplies on the mountainside and turned back towards Sutter's Fort, taking the Curtis's with them as they went. Back at Truckee Lake, the Emigrants had begun the process of trading and butchering the cattle and oxen that were left. The meat was stored in the snow, quickly freezing in the cold.
The blood and organs were consumed quickly, usually as stew. The bones were cracked open to get at the nutritious marrow that lay within, and the hides were cleaned and placed on the shelters to reinforce them. Every day, William Eddie borrowed a rifle and went hunting, but game was sparse. He was able to bring down an owl and a fox at one point and gave half to William Foster, who lent him the gun.
Finally, on November 12th, the snow stopped. Charles Stanton, Franklin Graves and 11 others made an attempt to get to the pass and ascend to the mountains, but the snow was 10 feet or 3 meters deep by that point, making the journey impossible. Thankfully, the next day, Eddie was able to bring down a grizzly bear and her cub. Franklin Graves helped him drag the carcass back to camp and the two shared out the meat to the other people camped around the lake.
On November 20th, Patrick Breen began a diary. This is the only first-hand account of the events at the lake camp that winter. It was written on eight sheets of paper folded into a 32-page booklet. The entries are short and to the point, and don't contain much emotion, but do summarize exactly what was happening.
It's from this diary that we can glean most of what occurred. However, there is no such written source for the donner camp at Alder Creek. Breen included information about it whenever someone made the trek there and back, but for the most part, we don't have much information about the Alder Creek camp's daily activities. It wasn't until recently that archaeologists actually located the campsite, more on that in part three.
As the snow began to melt, another group began to prepare for an escape and rescue expedition. Twenty-two people, most from the lake camp, including six women and the two miwak vacaros, felt the risk would be worth it. They set off with the seven mules and a few supplies on November 21st. They made good time and actually made it through the past to the western side of the sierras, however, inviting over whether to leave the struggling mules behind caused the group to eventually turn back.
On the 24th, more snow dumped on the lake camp and the leaders of this escape group, Stanton, Graves and Eddie, decided it was unsafe to try again. They were wise not to go. It didn't stop snowing again until early December. Wood became scarce, and the animals that were left quickly died and were buried under the snow.
When people finally emerged from their cabins, they took apart their wagons to burn as firewood. When that ran out, they used small pieces of their cabins to start fires on whatever green or wet wood they could find. Augusta Spitzer was so weak he could barely sit up. The brains took pity on him and moved him from the crowded Casaburg lean-to into their cabin.
Margaret Reed spent much of her energy passing out small rations to her children and helping Eliza Williams tend to her brother Bayless, who was also very weak. The healthier folk began building snowshoes for another expedition attempt on the next clear day. At the older creek camp, Tams and Donor was caring for her husband, whose whole arm was now showing signs of infection. Jacob Donor was on his deathbed, as were Samuel Shoemaker, Joseph Reinhart and James Smith.
They were all too weak to do anything, so the Donor women continued to gather firewood and shore up the shelters as best they could. The food situation at Elder Creek was dire. They boiled the bones of their animals to a gelatinous broth as well as cooking the now moldy hides that had been serving as their roof. They also caught an eight field mice that tried to shelter in their tents as well as pine needles and twigs.
Bayless Williams was the first to die on December 15th. His body was buried in the snow not far from the Reed Graves cabin. Jacob Donor was the first to die at Elder Creek Camp soon after. He was also buried in the snow.
Shoemaker Reinhart and Smith followed shortly after. On his deathbed, Reinhart confessed to the murder of Mr. Wolfinger. He and Spitzer had shot him, probably hoping to return some day and loot the buried Wolfinger wagon.
Milled Elliot and Noah James came from the lake camp to help bury the men and to show Jean Baptiste Trudeau how to probe the snow with hooked sticks to search for buried cattle. They also brought a letter from William Eddy, requesting a compass for the next expedition. Another heavy dumping of snow kept both Elliot and James at the camp for a few days. When it finally let up, Elliot went back to the lake camp, hoping to join the expedition, but James stayed at Elder Creek to help the donors.
However, Elliot didn't make it back to the lake camp in time to join the expedition, who didn't wait for him to return with the compass. We'll find out whether or not this was a mistake after a word from our sponsors. Our regular sponsor is audible.com. Audible can provide you with interesting and engaging audiobooks.
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You'll have my eternal gratitude. And now back to the podcast. In 1881, 34 years after the terrible winter of 1847, author Charles F. McGlashan had enough of the lurid and embellished stories of the Donner Party.
Therefore, he published a more factual account of their ordeal with the help of several of the survivors. In that book, entitled The History of the Donner Party, A Tragedy of the Sierra's, McGlashan named the expedition that set out on snowshoes on December 16, 1846, The Forlorn Hope. The name is unfortunately fitting, as you'll soon hear. The group was made up of 17 members of the Donner Party, 10 men, five women, and two children.
Led by Franklin Graves and Charles Stanton, the group included two daughters, Mary Graves and Sarah Fostick, Sarah's husband, Jay, Amanda McCutchen, who was the wife of William McCutchen, Harriet Pike, Sarah and William Foster, William Eddy, Pat Dolan, Charles Burger, Young Antonio, Luis, and Salvador. Lemuel Murphy, age 13, and William Murphy, age 10, also accompanied them. Four men and three women were parents, who all left their children in hands of wives or trusted neighbors. The members dressed as warmly as they could and brought along an axe, a rifle, two pistols, gunpowder, and as much tobacco as could be spared to help with stress and hunger pains.
They also brought six days of meager rations and 13 pairs of snowshoes. Unfortunately, this left the Murphy boys and Charles Burger without. They quickly fell behind as the expedition set out. William Foster ended up taking William Murphy and Charles Burger back to the lake camp, but Lemuel Murphy promised he would keep up.
The group made it to the northwest head of the lake by nightfall. William Foster caught up, and the group made a small pair of snowshoes for Lemuel. The next day, they made it six miles, or nine and a half kilometers, camping just west of the summit. Most of the expedition had frostbite on their hands and feet by then, but they set out again at first light.
The sun was so bright that many suffered from snow blindness, which occurs when UV rays from the sun are reflected off the snow and into the eyes, a condition akin to sunburn on the cornea causing blurred vision, pain and swelling, and a feeling like sand is trapped in the eye. Stanton was the worst affected by this. Luis and Salvador led the way until nightfall when the group made camp. Stanton was the last one to reach camp.
The snow was 11 feet or 3.3 meters deep, and that night it began to snow again. The group began to doubt their decision to leave. Some of them suffered hallucinations, and the food rations were almost gone already. Still, they trudged on.
On December 21st, when the food was completely gone, William Eddy discovered a package in his pack from his wife. It contained a small amount of preserved grizzly bear meat. Eddy kept this to himself, and tried to make it last as long as possible. That morning, as the expedition prepared to leave camp, Mary Graves noticed Stanton sitting on a log near the fire, smoking his pipe.
He appeared to be staring numbly into the meager flames. She called to him, and he replied that the group moved on without him. After more than a week of slogging through the snow, the expedition had no idea where they were. They continued to hope Stanton would catch up, unsure if he was alive or dead.
They built large signal fires atop prominent hills, hoping he'd find them, but he never did. Days of freezing drudgery passed. The bodies and minds of the expedition members were deteriorating quickly due to starvation and cold. They tried to treat their frostbite by rubbing snow on it, which we know today would have only made things worse.
On Christmas Eve, having gone for three days without food, all but William Eddy, Luis and Salvador said they could go no further. Some wanted to turn back, but the women of the group pointed out that they'd never make it back. It's very likely that everyone was suffering from hypothermia and starvation, a combination which can cause weakness, dizziness, muscle pain, insomnia, hallucinations, and heart murmurs. They knew their end was near, but still tried to plan for survival.
Someone, possibly Patrick Dolan, finally suggested the unthinkable. They must eat a member of the group to survive. Shocked and horrified, the group resolved that the first person to die naturally would be eaten, but they refused to kill one of their own for food. Young Antonio died the next night after falling unconscious into the campfire.
Soon after, a massive snowstorm hit, the fire began to sink into the deep snow and wouldn't stay lit. The group made a makeshift tent by sitting in a circle and stretching blankets over themselves. It was warm inside, but they were still hungry. Franklin Graves died at 11 p.m.
That night, urging them to eat him before he fell unconscious. Patrick Dolan had a fit and tore off his clothes and boots in what we now call paradoxical undressing, which occurs in the later stages of hypothermia. He died soon after. After 36 hours in their makeshift tent, the group emerged as the icy wind and snow died down.
They set fire to a dead pine tree when they were unable to start one on the ground. Then they said about doing what they hoped they'd never do, butchering one of their own, Patrick Dolan, and roasting his flesh over the flames. No one could look at one another as they ate, and many wept as they did. Eddie, Luis, and Salvador refused to eat it.
Sarah and Harriet tried to get Lemuel to eat, but he refused. He began acting strangely, catching a mouse and eating it alive. He thrashed in bit at anyone who tried to subdue him. Eventually, he died as well.
Five men and five women were left alive. They ended up consuming all of Patrick Dolan, Antonio, Franklin Graves, and Lemuel Murphy. No one ate the flesh of anyone they were related to. They also smoked much of the meat.
This would make it last a while and could be carried with them. On December 30th, the members of the Four Lorne Hope expedition left the spot they had named, the camp of death. As horrific as it had been, those four men had saved their lives. Though they were now fed, the expedition still had frostbite to deal with.
Their feet and hands were swollen and cracking. They were only able to move a few miles away from the camp of death that day. That night, Eddie, still starving after refusing to eat the flesh of his companions, broke down and ate some of the dried meat. The next day, the group was able to go about six miles or nine and a half kilometers, but left a trail of blood behind them from their frostpit and feet, which had begun to burst due to inflammation.
That night, they set a light another dead pine tree as their campfire and consumed the last of the dried human flesh. With their food source gone, they turned next to eating hide, shoelaces, and shoe leather, wrapping their feet in blankets instead. One of Luis's toes fell off as he walked due to frostbite. Jay Phosdick had slowed down.
William Foster had grown delirious and impatient. He proposed they killed the two Miwoks for food. William Eddie reminded him that Luis and Salvador were their guides and could lead them to safety, but the rest of the group were with Foster. Eddie quickly warned Luis of their plans, and both Luis and Salvador disappeared in the night.
The next day, Eddie went with Mary Graves to hunt. They spotted the bloody footprints of the Miwoks, but also saw a deer. Eddie shot it, but didn't bring it down. They followed it until it finally died.
Then they built a large fire and shot the rifle in the air to call the others to their location. However, the rest of the group had already made camp and refused to budge. Jay and Sarah Phosdick were trailing behind the rest. That night, Jay died.
William Foster found Sarah in the morning and brought her back to camp for venison, which Eddie and Mary Graves had also brought to camp that morning. The Foster then went back to find Jay Phosdick's corpse and butchered it, despite Sarah's pleas that they leave it be. It was roasted over the fire alongside the deer. Of the seven members left, the women were in the best physical shape.
Foster suggested to Eddie that they should kill one of them for food. His behavior had become more and more erratic as they traveled. That plan was dropped however, when the bloody footprints of Luis and Salvador were spotted again. The group found the two men dying in the snow.
Despite protests from Eddie, Foster shot them both, and the rest helped butcher and cook them. Eddie refused to eat their flesh. This was the only confirmed occasion when anyone in the Donner party killed another person in order to consume their flesh. The rest of the expedition members began to distance themselves from William Foster.
They worried he would try to kill them in their sleep, but thanks to a long-hoped-for stroke of luck, they didn't have to worry for long. Two days after the murder of Luis and Salvador, the group found a trail that led them to a miwock village. At first, the villagers thought the expedition members were ghosts due to their emaciated figures and bloody feet, but eventually they took them in and cared for them. The compassion shown by the Indigenous peoples of the area is often left out of the Donner party story and will be discussed further in part three.
The expedition members were passed from village to village until January 17th, when Eddie, who was recovering the fastest, was taken to Johnson's Ranch, 15 miles or 24 kilometers away from the closest miwock village. The miwocks left him there, where he was taken in by Matthew Dilrichi and his family. Words spread quickly among the other inhabitants of the ranch. The news of the missing Donner party had already made it to the ranch and they were surprised to see anyone that group had survived.
The men of the ranch collected blankets, food and medicine and brought it to the miwock village. They thanked them for caring for the starving settlers and brought the rest of the expedition members back to Johnson's Ranch. The forlorn hope expedition had been in the icy wilds for 33 days. Eight men had died and been consumed in order for the rest to survive, but survived they did, and now the outside world knew of the snowbound and starving people they had left behind.
As I mentioned in part one, if you want more information than I was able to relate in this episode, I recommend Michael Wallace's book, The Best Land Under Heaven. I also suggest reading the Glashions book, The History of the Donner Party, A Tragedy of the Sierra's, as well as Ethan Rerick's 2008 book, Desperate Passage, The Donner Party's Parallist Journey West. In part three, we'll discuss the long and arduous process of rescuing the trapped emigrants from the Sierra's, as well as the aftermath of their ordeal. Until next time, keep up that spark of curiosity.
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