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Living Through the Donner Party Diamond, Jared Discover; Mar 1992; 13, 3; Proquest Central Pg

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Living Through the Donner Party Diamond, Jared Discover; Mar 1992; 13, 3; Proquest Central Pg Living Through the Donner Party Diamond, Jared Discover; Mar 1992; 13, 3; ProQuest Central pg. 100 "Mrs. Fosdick and Mrs. Foster, after eating, returned to the body of [Mr.] Fosdick. There, in spite of the widow's entreaties, Mrs. Foster took out the liver and heart NEARLY A CENTURY AND A HALF AFTER IT from the body and removed the pened, the story of the Donner Party remains one of arms and legs .... {Mrs. Fosdick} the most riveting tragedies in U.S. history. Partly was forced to see her husband's heart that's because of its lurid elements: almost half the broiled over the fire." "He eat her body party died, and many of their bodies were defiled in and found her flesh the best he had ever an orgy of cannibalism. Partly, too, it's because of tasted! He further stated that he the human drama of noble self-sacrifice and base LIVING THROUGH THE obtained from her body at least four pounds offat.'" "Eat baby raw, stewed some ofJake and roasted his head, not good meat, taste likr sheep with the rot." -GEORGE STEWART, murder juxtaposed. The Donner Party began as just Ordeal by Hunger: The Story of another nameless pioneer trek to California, but it the Donner Party came to symbolize the Great American Dream gone awry. • By now the tale of that disastrous journey has been told so often that seemingly nothing else remains to be said-or so I thought, until my friend Donald Grayson at the University of Washington sent me an analysis that he had published in the Journal ofAnthropologi- cal Research. By comparing the fates of all Donner Party members, Grayson identified striking differences between those who came through the ordeal alive and those who were not so lucky. In doing so he has made the lessons of the Donner Party universal. Under more mundane life- B y A R E D D A M 0 N D II ustrations by M chae Paraskevas DISCOVER lliiiJ MARCH 1992 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The nineteenth-century survivors of the infamous Donner Party told cautionary tales of starvation and cannibalism, greed and self-sacrifice. But not until now are we learning why th,e survivors survived./ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. threatening situations, who among us mapped deserts and mountains proved rejoined the usual California Trail in too will be "lucky"? far more difficult than finding a foot­ Nevada. Grayson's insights did not depend path. Not until 1841 was the first at­ In the summer of 1846 a number of on new discoveries about the ill-fated tempt made to haul wagons and settlers wagon parties set out for California pioneers nor on new analytical tech­ overland to California, and only in 1844 from Fort Bridger. One, which left niques, but on that most elusive ingre­ did the effort succeed. Until the Gold shortly before the Donner Party, was dient of great science: a new idea about Rush of 1848 unleashed a flood of emi­ guided by Hastings himself. Using his an old problem. Given the same infor­ grants, wagon traffic to California re­ shortcut, the party would eventually mation, any of you could extract the mained a trickle. make it to California, albeit with great same conclusions. In fact, on page 104 As of 1846, when the Donner Party difficulty. you'll find the roster of the Donner set out, the usual wagon route headed Party members along with a few per­ west from St. Louis to Fort Bridger HE PIONEERS WHO sonal details about each of them and in Wyoming, then northwest into Ida­ would become the their fate. If you like, you can try to fig­ ho before turning southwest through members of the Don­ ure out for yourself some general rules Nevada and on to California. However, ner Party were in fact about who is most likely to die when at that time a popular guidebook author all headed for Fort the going gets tough. named Lansford Hastings was touting Bridger to join the The Lewis and Clark Expedition of a shortcut that purported to cut many Hastings expedition, 1804 to 1806 was the first to cross the miles from the long trek. Hastings's but they arrived too late. With Hastings continent, but they didn't take along ox­ route continued west from Fort Bridger thus unavailable to serve as a guide, drawn wagons, which were a require­ through the Wasatch mountain range, some of these California-bound emi­ ment for pioneer settlement. Clearing a then south of Utah's Great Salt Lake grants opted for the usual route instead. wagon route through the West's un- across the Salt Lake Desert, and finally Others, however, decided to try the Hastings Cutoff anyway. In all, 87 peo­ ple in 23 wagons chose the cutoff. They consisted of 10 unrelated families and 16lone individuals, most of them well­ to-do midwestern farmers and towns­ people who had met by chance and joined forces for protection. None had had any real experience of the western mountains or Indians. They became known as the Donner Party because they elected an elderly Illinois farmer named George Donner as their captain. They left Fort Bridger on July 31, one of the last parties of that summer to begin the long haul to California. Within a fortnight the Donner Party suffered their first crushing setback, when they reached Utah's steep, brush­ covered Wasatch Mountains. The ter­ rain was so wild that, in order to cross, the men had first to build a wagon road. It took 16 backbreaking days to cover just 36 miles, and afterward the people and draft animals were worn out. A sec­ ond blow followed almost immediately thereafter, west of the Great Salt Lake, when the party ran into an 80-mile stretch of desert. To save themselves from death by thirst, some of the pioneers were forced to unhitch their wagons, rush ahead with their precious animals. to the next spring, and return to retrieve the wagons. The rush became a disorganized panic, and many of the animals died, wandered off, or were killed by Indians. Four wagons and large quantities of supplies had to be abandoned. Not until September 30- two full months after leaving Fort lJ IS C 0 \. F R II!D .\1 .\ R C H 1 9 9 2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Bridger-did the Donner Party emerge from their fatal shortcut to rejoin the California Trail. By November 1 they had struggled up to Truckee Lake-later renamed Donner Lake-at an elevation of 6,000 feet on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada, west of the present-day Cali­ fornia-Nevada border. Snow had already begun to fall during the last days of October, and now a fierce snow­ storm defeated the exhausted party as they attempted to cross a 7 ,200-foot pass just west of the lake. With that storm, a trap snapped shut around them: they had set out just a little too late and proceeded just a little too slowly. They now faced a long winter at the lake, with very little food. Death had come to the Donner Party even before it reached the lake. There were five casualties: on August 29 Luke Halloran died of "consump­ tion" (presumably tuberculosis); on Oc­ tober 5 James Reed knifed John Snyder in self-defense, during a fight that broke THEY cuT OFF and roasted flesh from the They debated drawing lots as to who corpses. restrained only by the rule that no should be eaten, or letting two peo­ ple shoot it out until one was killed out when two and could be eaten. teams of oxen one partook of his or her own relative's body. Both proposals were became entan­ rejected in favor of gled; three days later Lewis Keseberg they boiled hides and blankets to make waiting for someone to die naturally. abandoned an old man named Hard­ a gluelike soup. Gross selfishness be­ Such opportunities soon arose. On koop who had been riding in Kese­ came rampant, as families with food re­ Christmas Eve, as a 2 3 -year-old berg's wagon, and most of the party re­ fused to share it with destitute families man named Antoine, a bachelor, slept fused to stop and search for him; or demanded exorbitant payment. On in a heavy stupor, he stretched out his sometime after October 13 two Ger­ December 16 the first death came to arm such that his hand fell into the fire. man emigrants, Joseph Reinhardt and the winter camp when 24-year-old A companion pulled it out at once. Augustus Spitzer, murdered a rich Ger­ Baylis Williams succumbed to starva­ When it fell in a second time, however, man named Wolfinger while ostensibly tion. On that same day 15 of the no one intervened-they simply let it helping him to cache his property; and strongest people-S women and 10 burn. Antoine died, then Franklin on October 20 William Pike was shot men, including Charles Stanton and the Graves, then Patrick Dolan, then as he and his brother-in-law were two Indians-set out across the pass on Lemuel Murphy. The others cut off cleaning a pistol. homemade snowshoes, virtually with­ and roasted flesh from the corpses, re­ In addition, four party members had out food and in appallingly cold and strained only by the rule that no one decided earlier to walk out ahead to stormy weather, in the hope of reaching would partake of his or her own rela­ Sutter's Fort (now Sacramento) to bring outside help.
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