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Show up for CAMH and rise up for mental health. Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. This episode contains discussions of racism, starvation, cannibalism, 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 and two before moving on to this part three. As some details from previous parts will factor in some of the decisions made in part three. 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 Hallie, and this is the morbid curiosity podcast. In the previous parts of this episode, we covered the westward journey of the Donner slash read party, who were traveling by wagon train in 1846 from Springfield, Illinois, towards Sacramento, California.
They broke off from a larger caravan to take a shortcut across the Great Salt Lake Desert, called the Hastings Cut-Off. The Cut-Off turned out to be a disaster, and the party were nearly starved to death as they bushwacked their way across the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, slogged across the desert, and then struggled through the swamps to rejoin the true California trail. They made it to Trucke Meadows in the eastern foothills of the Sierra's, but where Maroon went in early snow hit, leaving drifts up to 10 feet or 3 meters on the ground. They slaughtered their oxen, but food was still running low.
Five people died just before Christmas, Bayless Williams, Jacob Donner, Samuel Schumaker, Joseph Reinhart, and James Smith. In a desperate attempt to seek help, 15 of the healthiest members of the party set out to cross the Sierra's on their own. Later known as the Forlorn Hope expedition, over half of the group died and were consumed by the rest of the expedition, who had no other alternative. Those that died were Charles Stanton, Franklin Graves, J.
Fosteck, Patrick Dolan, Young Antonio, Lemuel Murphy, and Luis and Salvador, who were enslaved Miwoks that were sent from Sutter's Forge with Charles Stanton to aid the Donner party earlier in the year. It took the survivors 33 days and help from the Miwok people of the area to find their way to a settlement called Johnson's Ranch in what is now Wheatland, California. The seven survivors were William Eddy, William and Sarah Foster, Mary Graves, Sarah Fosteck, Amanda McCutchen, and Harriet Pike. Meanwhile, James Reed, William McCutchen, and Hyram Miller, who had gone ahead to find help before the snows hit, were trying to find a way to get supplies from Sutter's fort in what is now Sacramento to the stranded Donner party, who were 90 miles or 145 kilometers away on the eastern side of Truckee Lake, now called Donner Lake.
Reed volunteered to fight in the war against Mexico in an effort to gain military aid, but was unable to reach the Donner party thanks to the snow. He and the rest returned to Sutter's fort, unsure how to proceed. While the Forlorn Hope expedition were struggling to make it across the mountains, the days and nights began to blend together back at the Truckee Lake camp. Patrick Breen became the datekeeper, because he kept his diary every day, starting on November 20th.
He recorded the weather, deaths, and the general state of the camp, where several families had buckled down in hastily constructed cabins and lean twos. This included Patrick and Peggy Breen and their seven children, Eleanor Eddy and her two children, Elizabeth Graves and her six children, plus Amanda McCutchen's daughter, Lewis and Philippine Kesserberg and their two children, Lavina Murphy and her five children, as well as her grown daughter, Harriet Pike's two children, and Sarah Foster's son, 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, Milt Elliott, Noah James, Augustus Spitzer and Eliza Williams. Around six to seven miles, or ten to eleven kilometers northeast of Truckee Lake, the Donner family and their Teamsters had taken refuge in a meadow area near Alder Creek.
It was here that Jacob Donner, Reinhardt, Shoemaker and Smith had died. George Donner was injured, one of his arms now necrotizing due to gangrene, from an infected cut on his hand. His wife, Tamsen and Jacob's wife, Betsy, were doing their best to lead the camp with the help of Teamsters John Denton, Jean Baptiste Trudeau, and Noah James, who had moved from the late camp to help at the Alder Creek camp. With them were Tamsen and George's five children, Betsy's seven children, and Doris Wolfinger.
No one had been surprised by Reinhardt's deathbed confession of the murder of Mr. Wolfinger. Spitzer, who had been an accomplice, was in the green cabin two week to rise from his bed. He was not punished as no one had the energy to spare.
By Christmas, the struggling emigrants had given up on the forlorn hope expedition. They had been gone for two weeks, and it was around this time that Patrick Green, first mentioned cannibalism in his journal, saying that Lavina Murphy was considering it, and also that her mental state was deteriorating rapidly. The donors were living solely on field mice at this point. On Christmas Day, another large snowstorm buffeted the lake camp and Alder Creek.
The reeds at least had a memorable Christmas day, as Margaret Reed brought out a meager stash of dried fruit, beans, tripe, and bacon that she had been saving. Most of the other families had a revolting gelatinous broth of boiled animal bones. It was awful, but it filled her stomachs. By December 27th, the snow was over nine feet or 2.5 meters deep at Trucke Lake.
Wood was hard to gather, as any cut logs would fall deep into the snow, and had to be dug out to be collected and were then wet from the snow. Charles Berger died in Kesserberg's lean-to on December 28th. Kesserberg and Spitzer put the body out in the snow and then divided Berger's possessions. On New Year's Day, 1847, Margaret Reed took the family dog, Cash, out of the cabin, and killed him.
She told her children that he had died to feed them. They were sad, but also very glad to have something to eat. The whole family lived on the dog for several days, using every part of it for food. Even so, after that, they were again hungry.
In desperation, Margaret Reed, Virginia Reed, who was 13, milked Elliot and Eliza Williams, placed the rest of the Reed children with the brains and graves, and went on their own expedition to find help. They spent four nights lost in the snow before returning to the lake camp, just in time to shelter from another severe snowstorm. Soon after, the reeds left their half of the graves cabin and moved in with the brains. There were now 15 people in the brain cabin.
It was a tight fit, but with so many people, at least it was warm. Throughout January, the whole of the Donner party became despondent, and the mothers who were caring for so many children began to detach themselves from those that weren't their own. All except Peggy Breen and Margaret Reed, who managed their families with strict frugality. They even had their children continue to study grammar and other lessons to pass the time.
Peggy Breen was especially frugal, dispersing meager rations of dried oxen to her children, but also to Virginia Reed, who she liked. In the Murphy cabin, things were descending into chaos. Lavina Murphy was becoming more and more mentally unstable. She was quite snowblind and very weak.
Her son, John Landrum, was also fading quickly. On January 22, another huge blizzard covered the cabins, keeping everyone's snowbound for days. On January 27, during a break in the snow, Philippine Kesserberg visited the Breen cabin. She informed them that her newborn son had died three days before, and that she buried him in the snow.
She also mentioned that she'd seen Lavina Murphy and that she seemed to be going insane. Her son's Landrum, Bill, and Simon were all in a bad way. Days later, when Lavina came to Peggy Breen begging for food, Peggy relented and gave her some for her sons. Despite her aid, Landrum Murphy died soon after.
Landrum was the first of several child deaths that took place in early February. Harriet McCutchen, age one, whose parents had left her with Elizabeth Graves when they went to get help, died and was buried in the Graves cabin on February 2nd. Margaret Eddy, another infant, died on February 4th, and her mother, Eleanor, followed quickly after on February 7th. On the 8th, Augusta Spitzer died.
He had been ignored for days before he passed. On the 9th, Milt Elliot, one of the most beloved members of the Donner party, died in the Murphy cabin. He was buried in the snow by Margaret and Virginia Reed. Meanwhile, Margaret Reed's husband, James Reed, was still trying to get help for his family, despite the high risk of a rescue in the dead of winter.
At the same time, he was buying up property. He wanted to have something for his family when they finally made it to California. Reed also had to fulfill his promise to serve in the war with Mexico. He was made a lieutenant and did his best to carry out his orders and keep up the morale of his troops.
Many politicians felt the war was immoral, including Abraham Lincoln, who felt the leaders of the American side were no better than mercenaries being corrupt and underhanded in their methods of securing resources and land. On January 2nd, the Battle of Santa Cruz ended in America's favor, ending the war. On January 26th, Reed was discharged. His obligation fulfilled.
Reed didn't know about the Forlorn Hope expedition, nor the plans of the men of Johnson's Ranch, to send a rescue party into the sierras. He had, however, made several connections with local politicians and well-connected military men, and now had the financial support of many of them to attempt another rescue. Not long after, news of the Forlorn Hope expedition's arrival at Johnson's Ranch on January 16th reached the California coast, as well as the efforts for a rescue. The men of Johnson's Ranch asked for Washington Bartlett, the leader of what would later be known as San Francisco, to offer $3 to every man who volunteered for the mission.
While the San Francisco group spent time preparing, the men of Johnson's Ranch began setting up a base camp in the western foothills of the sierras for resupplying rescue groups and the donor party. The closest place to get those supplies was Sutter's Fort, 40 miles or around 64 kilometers south of the ranch. Sutter was also willing to pay the volunteers. The first relief team soon came together and was made up of seven mounted men from Sutter's Fort, led by a key lug lover and reason tucker.
They were joined by seven others when they made it to Johnson's Ranch. William Eddie, who was still quite weak, was adamant about accompanying them. They set out on February 5th in a torrent of rain. They made it 10 miles or 16 kilometers through the mud and then another 15 miles or 24 kilometers the next day.
When the sun finally came out, they spent the third day resting and drying all their equipment. The day after, they crossed the Swollen Bear River and camped on the snow line at Mule Springs. The next morning, William Eddie realized he was far too weak to be of any use, so he and several others guided the pack animals back to the ranch, leaving the supplies at the Mule Springs Base Camp. On February 11th, the 10 remaining rescuers set out from Base Camp, each with 50 to 75 pounds or 22 and a half to 34 kilos of supplies on their backs.
As they trekked, they lightened their loads by leaving food caches hanging in trees. That way, they would have something waiting for them on their return journey. As the group traveled, the snow got deeper and deeper. By February 13th, they made it to Bear Valley.
The snow was deep, but it had a hard crust on top that supported their weight as they walked across it. However, that night, it snowed, soaking the group yet again, so that they had to take another day to dry off. Three of the men said they could go no further and promised to catch the supplies they carried back at Mule Springs. To keep the last six men steady, Tucker said he'd give them each $6 a day if they'd continue.
That's around $200 in today's U.S. currency. Storms continued and the snow got deeper as the first relief team continued towards Truckee Lake. They fought snow, cold and altitude sickness.
On February 19th, Truckee Lake came into view. The relief team could see nothing but drifts of snow. There were no apparent signs of life. The men called out and eventually a woman emerged from one of the larger snow piles.
Others soon followed. The trapped emigrants were emaciated, filthy and delirious. Many were too weak to walk more than a few steps. Their cabins reeked of wood smoke, rotting raw hides and vermin.
Dead party members lay in the snow around the cabins. Many unburied as the emigrants hadn't had the strength to do so. When they saw the relief team, however, life seemed to return to their eyes. The Reed family was ecstatic to hear that James Reed was alive and on his way.
The first relief team didn't mention the Forlorn Hope expedition yet, thinking it would be best to keep their spirits elevated for now. The team doled out rations to the people at the lake camp, but only small amounts, as a feast would have hurt them more than helped them at that stage of starvation. During a long period of starvation, the body stops secreting digestive juices, stomach muscles shrink, and the pancreas and liver go into a sort of hibernation. The body begins to draw nutrients from within, mainly from fatty tissues.
Therefore, when food becomes available again, it's safest to start with small amounts so that the body can slowly come out of starvation mode. If too much food is consumed, poor digestion, choking, bloating, and sometimes death by cardiac arrest can occur as the body can't immediately process the nutrients it's taking in. The relief team was informed that nine people had died at the lake camp by that point. The survivors hadn't resorted to any extreme measures yet, but they had been close.
The next morning, Catherine Pike, less than a year old, died. This was unfortunately expected by the trapped emigrants, as she had had nothing to eat for weeks. With heavy hearts, tucker, and two other relief team members headed for the Alder Creek camp. What they found was devastating.
George Donner was dying, his whole arm completely kangrenous. Though starving like everyone else, Tamsen seemed in fair health, and they offered to take her back with them across the sierras, but she refused to leave her husband's side. Instead, she volunteered her two daughters, Elitha and Lyanna, to go. Betsy Donner also chose to stay, as did her son Solomon Hook, who was snowblind and suffering mental instability.
William Hook, George Donner Jr., Doris Wolfinger, and Nora James all volunteered to leave, however. Jean Baptiste Trudeau wanted to leave as well, but he was told to stay and help Tamsen and Betsy. The relief team left a full woodpile and some provisions at both camps, and assured the survivors that more help was on its way. Tamsen stated that they had better be right, because there was only one thing left to do if they ran out of provisions again.
The relief team knew she meant that their only source of food would be the bodies of the dead. Before we continue talking about the relief effort, let's pause for a word from our sponsors. and a 30-day free trial of Audible.com by going to www.audiblechild.com slash mcp. You can also find this link on our Facebook page and website.
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And now back to the podcast. On February 22nd, the first relief team set out with those integrants that could travel, a total of 23 people, many of them small children. This included Edward and Simon Breen, ages 13, and about 8. Elitha, little George, and Leona Donner, ages 13, 9, and 12.
John Denton, who was around 30, George Foster, age 4, Eleanor, Levena, and William Graves, ages 15, 12, and 17. William Hook, age 12, Noah James, who was a teamster for the donors between 17 and 20 years old, Philipine Kesserberg, 23, and her infant Ada, Mary and William Murphy, ages 14 and 10, Naomi Pike, age 3, Margaret Reed, and her children Virginia, James Jr., Tommy, and Patty. Eliza Williams, age 31, and Doris Wolfinger, age 20. Immediately, Tommy and Patty Reed were exhausted and were brought back to the Breen cabin.
The Breens were unhappy to take them back and had to be bribed with extra food rations. Margaret Reed hesitated to leave them behind, but made Akila Glover, the leader of the first relief, swear on his status as a mason to go back for them. Margaret's husband was also a mason, and it was only the promise of another mason that made her trust that Glover would return for them. The rest of the relief party made it to the head of the lake that night, still on very meager rations.
The march out was as difficult as it had been for the hope, except that this time there were young children in the group. It was extremely slow going to get them through the deep snow. The first food cache on their way back had unfortunately been raided by pine martens, and the next one wasn't for 20 miles. Four of the relief team members were sent ahead to retrieve it.
That left three of the first relief team to keep the emigrants moving. John Denton quickly began to lag behind. He was completely snowblind and very weak. Eventually, he asked John Tucker, the other leader of the relief team, to leave him behind.
All he said was to let the second relief team know where he was. Tucker gave him some rations, made him a small fire, and then did as Denton asked, leaving him where he was. The rest of the party made it to the next camp, but overnight, baby Ada died. Philippine-Kesserberg was inconsolable and couldn't bear to leave the body behind.
Tucker said he would carry the child for her, but once the group began to move, he buried the child off the path, unable to carry anything that wasn't necessary for their survival. The group was able to travel another five miles, or eight kilometers, before making their next camp. Their rations gone, they ate the rawhide from their snowshoes. On February 26, the first relief group reunited with two of the members they sent ahead, who had a good amount of dried beef with them from one of the caches.
The other two, Akila Glover and John Rhodes, had continued ahead to the next cache to bring it back. A fire was built, and the group ate. They then traveled one more mile before settling down for the night. On their way toward Mule Springs for the supplies, Glover and Rhodes were surprised to meet James Reed and the second relief team.
On February 13, Reed and the growing party of volunteers, made of mostly experienced frontiersmen, had moved towards Sutter's Fort. On the same day, the California Star newspaper published an article that criticized the Donner Party's decision to try the Hastings Cut-Off. They also made public the lurid details of the forgotten hope expedition, already with several embellishments to the story. However, Reed and the second relief team were too busy organizing the rescue to read such things.
Reed had scheduled a ship to meet them at Sutter's Fort with supplies, but it hadn't arrived on time. Reed and McCutchen rode ahead to Johnson's Ranch, where William Johnson supplied them with cattle to butcher and dry. The rest of the team arrived shortly after, but the supplies were still delayed. There were ten members altogether.
The second relief team set out from Johnson's ranch on February 22 at sunrise, following the same path as the first relief team. Reed was overjoyed to hear from Glover that his family was alive and mostly well. On February 27, the second relief team went another four miles, about six and a half kilometers toward Truckee Lake, before coming upon a scattering of survivors along the trail. They were met with great joy.
Reed embraced his family and then continued on his path toward Truckee Lake with the second relief team. He was determined to collect his remaining two children and help the others still stalk at the lake. The first relief party continued westward toward Johnson's Ranch. They made it to the next supply cash and camped for the night.
William Hook became suddenly ravenous, tore into the cash, then climbed a tree to eat all he could stuff in his belly. In the morning he was very ill and was left behind with one of the relief team members and two other emigrants who had eaten too much. William Murphy also stayed behind as his feet were so frost-pitten that they had to be cut from his shoes. That day, William Hook died from cardiac arrest brought on by overeating.
He was buried under a tree just off the path. On March 1st, the first relief party made it to Mule Springs. So had Reed's stock of supplies. A barefoot William Murphy also made it the next day.
They were now out of the snow and could ride mules the rest of the way to Johnson's Ranch. There they met up with the survivors of the Forlorn Hope expedition. While the safe survivors celebrated, the second relief team made its way east and up the mountains. They found the camp of John Denton, but he was nowhere in sight.
By March 1st, they made it to the lake camp. The snow had melted slightly, so the cabins were now visible. The second relief team went from cabin to cabin handing out food. The stench from the Brene cabin was overwhelming, but all five of the Brene children and the two Reed's were still alive.
There had been no deaths since the first relief party had left. However, Patrick Brene reported some disturbing news. He suspected that the other cabins had resorted to cannibalism to survive, and possibly those at Alder Creek as well. Morale had faded after the first relief team had left.
The Brene's had eaten their dog, and Lavina Murphy had said she thought it best to eat the dead before the wolves found them in the melting snow. Patrick Brene wasn't sure she had done so, but her mental state was so unstable that he guessed she had. The donors had said they would begin eating the dead on February 22nd, and that date had long passed. These next descriptions of the lake camp come from the members of the second relief team.
Some may have been exaggerated, but the accounts were corroborated by multiple people, so I feel comfortable sharing them. A warning, however, it's quite gruesome. The starving emigrants had done what it took to survive, and many suffered more than just physical ailments afterward. Reed and McCutchen hurried to the Murphy cabin and found Lavina in a childlike state drifting between laughter and tears.
Simon had managed to take care of himself, but George and James were barely alive. The relief team fed and bathed them. Not far from the Murphy cabin, Reed and McCutchen found the mutilated body of Milt Elliott. His face and head were intact, but the rest of his body had obviously been butchered and cannibalized.
They found Kesserberg in his lean-to, lying in his own excrement, his foot completely useless. Kesserberg, who had never liked Reed, must have been humiliated as Reed helped to bathe him. They left him with rations and moved on. At the graves cabin, they found everyone inside so emaciated that they were skeletal.
The occupants accepted food, ate it, and then lay back down in their soiled beds. On March 2nd, the team made it to the Alder Creek camp. As they approached, they saw Trudeau holding what looked like a human thigh. He said it belonged to Jacob Donner, and that the rest had already been eaten.
The team found a scattering of bone and half-carved limbs near the tents. Jacob Donner's body lay nearby, butchered. George Donner was still alive, but barely. While Betsy and Tamsen seemed frail but alive, the children looked quite healthy and well fed.
James Reed chose not to write about this in his own diary, but a widely published newspaper article in 1847 claimed to have based their report on Reed's notes. The article contained vivid and exaggerated descriptions of the children and their, quote, unholy feast, end quote. Reed offered to take three of the children with him and Tamsen, but she refused yet again to leave her husband's side. Reed left the Alder Creek camp with Mary Donner, age eight, Solomon Hook, age 15, and Isaac Donner, age five.
Trudeau was again frustrated that he wasn't chosen, but Reed left three members of the second relief team, Clark, Katie, and Stone, to help him until the next relief party game. They also left nine pounds of beef and eleven pounds of flour for them to ration for the next few weeks. Fourteen people from the lake camp were chosen to leave, including all of the greens, the graves, and the last two Reed children, making a total of 17 immigrants, leaving with the second relief team. Only three of them were adults, Patrick and Margaret Breen and Elizabeth Graves.
The rest were largely under ten years old. Only five people remained at the lake camp, Lewis Kesserberg, the Venus Murphy, and her son Simon, little George Foster, and the Eddy children, Margaret and James. The second relief party left the lake on March 3rd. Many of the children had to be carried.
They made it to the north side of the lake on the first day, and not much further on the second day. Their food supply was already nearly gone, so some of the team were sent ahead to scout and retrieve caches of food. On the night of the third day, it began to snow. Gail force winds swirled around the group as their fire melted through the snow, sinking deeper and deeper.
Reed and Patrick Breen both fainted, but were soon revived. Mary Donner burned her foot in the fire as she couldn't feel that it was a flame, while her brother Isaac silently passed away next to her. The storm raged for two days, dying down around noon on the fifth day out from the lake camp. The emigrants were exhausted, and many refused to move from where they were.
After Reed explained that they would surely die if they stayed, he and the other team members left them with wood for several days, and continued without them. This camp would later be known as the starving camp. It would be several days before the third relief team could reach them. Reed and the second relief team went on with Solomon Hook, Tommy and Patty Reed.
All were frostbitten within a few miles travel. Patty began hallucinating, so Reed carried her on his back, sharing his body heat with her. The whole group left a trail of blood from their frostbitten feet as they went. That night at camp, Katie and Stone appeared, carrying heavy packs that did not contain food.
The second relief team were suspicious, but too tired to ask questions, but it was obvious they had abandoned the emigrants they were supposed to have helped. It was later discovered that, though Tamsen had begged them to take her three remaining daughters with them, they had instead dropped them off at the Murphy cabin. They had also taken a large amount of the Donner's silverware, silks and other valuables. They had also passed the starving camp, saw the brains clustered around a fire in a deep pit in the snow and moved on without a word.
The next morning, the group moved out. It was their fifth day without food. Eventually, they met a party carrying supplies from the Mule Springs camp, where Reed's supplies were now sitting with the men who had transported them. The supply man had refused to take them up the mountain, fearing for his life.
The second relief party ate and was able to make it to Mule Springs the next day. William Foster and William Eddy met them there and agreed to take some of the supplies to the starving camp. They were joined by Hiram Miller and Stone. Several of the supply man's team also volunteered to go.
Reed then guided the emigrants back to Johnson's ranch. He would eventually reunite with the rest of his family, none of whom had resorted to eating human flesh during their ordeal. For the reeds, the nightmare was over. However, it was ongoing for those at the starving camp and those at Truckee Lake.
The third relief team made good time and found the starving camp. There were 11 survivors down in the 24 foot or 7 meters deep snow pit which had protected them from the wind. Elizabeth Graves and her son Franklin had died. Their bodies as well as Isaac Donners had been partially cannibalized but the flesh of their three companions had fed seven children for five days, saving the brains from death.
A contingent of the third relief team dug them out and guided them back down to Johnson's ranch. Every member of the Green family and two of the Graves children made it back safely. The rest of the third relief team continued toward Truckee Lake. On March 13th, they reached the Murphy cabin.
They found that James Eddy and George Foster had died and been cannibalized. Mavina Murphy pointed a finger at Kesserberg saying he had been impatient for food and had strangled George Foster one night after promising to keep him warm. He had butchered the boy the next morning. Kesserberg denied killing the boy but he did admit to butcheting both boys to survive.
Both Foster and Eddy were outraged but they also realized that Lavina Murphy was not in her right mind so they weren't sure what to believe. Eddy was distraught, his whole family had died and their bodies cannibalized. The relief team decided to take Francis, Georgia and Eliza Donner and Simon Murphy when they left. Lavina and Kesserberg were left behind.
Before they could head to the Alder Creek camp, Tamsen appeared at the cabin. Lewis, Jacob Jr., and Elizabeth Donner, all children, had died. Betsy Donner had followed soon after. Clark, who had stayed behind from the second relief team, had hunted a bear cub which they ate until it ran out and then they had consumed Betsy.
Tamsen begged Eddy to take her son Samuel with him but he told her that they had to leave as soon as possible with those who could make the trip. He promised to get her daughters to safety. Again, Tamsen refused to leave her husband and son when Eddy asked her to come with them. The third relief team left no more than two hours after they had arrived.
As they moved, Clark and Trudeau caught up with them. Clark heaving a sack with more of the Donner's possessions in it. He said Tamsen had given it to him but that was impossible as she had been at the lake camp when he had left Alder Creek. Eddy and the rest were disturbed that Clark had chosen to take things rather than Samuel who would die about one week after the third relief team left.
The third relief team's journey out of the Sierra's was relatively easy as the snow was melting. They caught up with those being rescued at the starving camp and together made it to Mule Springs and then Johnson's Ranch. A fourth relief team was organized for the end of March but bad weather forced them to wait until April. Just before they left, the California Star newspaper published another embellished and gory article about the conditions at the lake camp.
This was the article that shaped the public perception of the Donner party for years to come, calling them inept, unworthy failures who had been driven to savagery. There were no signs of life when the fourth relief team had made it to the lake. However, there were many signs of death. While the reports have been exaggerated, it's safe to say that more cannibalism had occurred over the weeks at Kesseberg, Lavina, Tamsen, George and Samuel had been left alone and without food.
The team searched the lake camp, found no one alive and moved on to Alda Creek. The camp was strewn with personal items and the carcasses of oxen, cattle and humans were now visible through the melting snow. George Donner's body was found wrapped in a sheet but there was no sign of Tamsen. On their return to Truckee Lake, they found Kesseberg at the Breen cabin.
He was apparently dazed, wrapped in a blanket and surrounded by human bones. The team interrogated him and he told them Tamsen had died. Lavina, Samuel and George had died not long after the third relief team had left. Kesseberg admitted to eating Tamsen's body after she died.
As he was the last left alive, the fourth relief team agreed to take him with them. They scavenged some belongings to take back to the survivors and also as payment for themselves and then headed out. For the rest of his life, Kesseberg was branded a cannibal and a killer thanks to the shocking tales told about him by the fourth relief team. On April 29th, about a year after the Donner slash read party had left Springfield, Illinois, the last survivor of the party, made it to Sutter's Fort.
It had taken two months for the relief teams to rescue the survivors. 41 people had died. The death toll was highest among the very young and the very old and more males had died than females. Family groups had protected their own so the larger families Breen and Reed had fared best, neither suffering any losses.
Both had stashed away food and strictly rationed it. Many survivors lost toes to frostbite and suffered chronic physical and psychological disorders for a long time afterwards. Many became recluses while others slowly integrated back into normal society. Although the tales of cannibalism and the Donner party are true, they are widely exaggerated.
They did not eat members of their own family and most only ate the dead after they died naturally. For most of their lives, many survivors of the ordeal, including the Donners, never discussed the cannibalism or denied it had occurred. Other survivors admitted they had done so to stay alive. Georgia Donner was one of these, saying her mother had kept her alive and that was nothing to be ashamed of.
Trudeau also spoke of the cannibalism, though his account appeared in a widely embellished collection of morbid tales by Henry August Wise. Other authors likewise ran with the story, turning the Donner party into monstrous cannibal savages. The exaggerated story ran rampant for years. Newspapers printed forged diaries, declaring that the Donner party, especially Kesserberg, had eaten human flesh over that of animals, preferring the taste.
Kesserberg eventually sued for libel and won, but was only awarded one dollar by the court. As I mentioned in part two, there are parts of the story that are still being discovered. Archaeology of the Aldercreek camp and the oral history of the local indigenous tribes is now being explored and has revealed several things that were not mentioned at the time of the ordeal. The site of the Aldercreek camp was discovered in 2002.
It was difficult to find, as the Donners had only set up tents which don't leave as much archaeological evidence as cabins do. A large scatter of animal bones has been found and shows the processing patterns of starvation, meaning all the bones were used over and over until not much was left. Because of this, it's hard to tell what animal the tiny fragments belong to. While the relief teams said they saw butchered human bodies all over the camp, no human bone has yet been identified at the site.
However, some surprising finds were the bones of deer and rabbits which were not mentioned in the accounts. The presence of these animals could be explained by the oral history of the Washoe people, who have lived in the area for centuries. The location of the Aldercreek camp was only a few miles from one of their villages. Historically, the tribe winter much lower down in the mountains, but sometimes hunted in the area using snowshoes.
The oral account of the Washoe holds that the tribe attempted to help the starving strangers by leaving rabbits and wild potatoes near the camp. They once attempted to bring a whole deer, but when the white strangers saw them, they shot at them in fear. After the tribe observed the strangers eating the flesh of their dead, they avoided the camp out of terror. While this oral history has been overlooked or ignored in the past, the archaeology supports it.
There is clear evidence that some small, wild game was processed at the site, even though no accounts mention Indigenous peoples nor mysterious gifts of game. We will never know the exact truth, but the evidence so far backs up the Washoe account. This is why oral histories are valuable, and should be examined alongside archaeological and historical accounts. As I mentioned in part 2, the most factual historical account from close to the time of the ordeal is McGlashon's 1881 book, The History of the Dawner Party, A Tragedy of the Sierras.
For more recent books based on less exaggerated accounts, I recommend Ethan Rarek's 2008 book, Desperate Passage, The Dawner Party's Parallist Journey West, and Michael Wallace's 2017 book, The Best Land Under Heaven. Even with these more factual accounts, however, it's wise to keep in mind that the memories of those who survived are also fallible. It's been shown that high-stress environments negatively impact the accuracy of a person's memory. The Dawner Party were all under severe stress and possibly also suffered hallucinations brought on by starvation and hypothermia.
So, while the basics of what happened are clear, the minutiae of details may or may not be accurate. As with many events in history, we may never know the absolute truth of what happened. What the Dawner Party went through was traumatic, horrific, and tragic. The mere fact that they were driven by desperation to cannibalism in order to survive is disturbing, especially because it could have happened to anyone had they been in similar circumstances.
That's why the story drew so much fascination at the time. Something like this could still happen today and has happened not that long ago, such as the Uruguayan rugby team that was stranded in the Andes in 1972. This continuing fascination in what desperation drives a human to do is why the Dawner Party brings out our curiosity. The Morbid Curiosity Podcast was produced by H.
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