Okla-homey
2/19/2008, 07:09 AM
February 19, 1847: Rescuers reach Donner Party
161 years ago today, the first rescuers from Sutter's Fort (in Sacremento) reach the surviving remnants of the Donner emigrant party at their snowbound camp in the high Sierra Nevada Mountains.
The events leading up to the Donner party tragedy began the summer before, when 89 emigrants from Springfield, Illinois, set out overland for California in the summer of 1846.
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/2124/ddddddddddduntitledml9.png (http://imageshack.us)
The group of 89 emigrants had begun their western trek under the leadership of the brothers Jacob and George Donner. Unfortunately, the Donner brothers had recently read The Emigrant's Guide to Oregon and California, the imaginative creation of an irresponsible author-adventurer named Lansford Hastings, who wanted to encourage more overland emigrants to travel to the Sacramento Valley of California.
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/6619/dddddddddddddddddonner208zh1.gif (http://imageshack.us)
The Donners innocently accepted Hastings' claim that a shorter route he had blazed to California would cut weeks off the usual trip and agreed to place the fate of the wagon train in his hands once they reached Fort Bridger, Wyoming. From that point forward, the men, women, and children of the Donner Party were doomed.
Though the so-called Hastings Cutoff was indeed shorter than the usual route, Hastings' glowing descriptions of his trail irresponsibly downplayed its many difficulties, as the Donner party soon discovered.
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/8236/dddddddddddddddddonnercart1pr9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The Hasting's Cut-off trailed south of Salt Lake.
After following a boulder-strewn and nearly impassable route over the Wasatch Range in Utah, the party embarked on an arduous six-day trek across the desert-a journey that Hastings had promised would take only two days. Lightening their loads by abandoning chairs, family heirlooms, wagons, and livestock to be swallowed up by the blazing sands, the emigrants struggled onward towards the Sierra Nevada.
Hastings' "shortcut" had cost the Donner group so much time that they now risked being trapped in the high mountains if an early snowstorm chanced to fall. Unfortunately for the luckless emigrants, just such a snowstorm arrived on the night of October 28. The next day the Donner party was snowbound in the Sierras near modern-day Truckee CA. Then it really got ugly.
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/9107/dddddddddddddddonnerpassandroutevj6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The panicked emigrants constructed makeshift tents out of the canvas from their wagons, hoping a thaw might still save them. Warmer weather never came, and by mid-December their food supplies were running low. All agreed that if they did not send for help the entire party would starve to death.
Fifteen of the strongest emigrants set out west for Sutter's Fort on December 16. Three weeks later, having endured violent storms and been reduced to cannibalism to stay alive, seven of the original fifteen man team reached an Indian village, where news of the disaster was quickly dispatched to Sutter's Fort.
On January 31, a rescue party set out from Sutter's Fort. When they arrived at Donner Lake on this day, the men saw nothing but tall white drifts of snow and ice. The men yelled out a hello, and a woman's head appeared above the snow. "Are you men from California or are you from heaven?" she asked. As the other survivors emerged from their snow-covered shelters, one writer recorded that, "It was if the rescuers' hallo had been Gabriel's horn raising the dead from their graves. Their flesh was wasted from their bodies. They wept and laughed hysterically."
As the world soon learned to its shock and horror, the survivors managed to live by eating the remains of group members who perished in the freezing cold of the Sierra winter.
After feeding the starving emigrants as much as they safely could, the rescuers began their evacuation. It was the first food the survivors had eaten that didn't used to be someones aunt or uncle. Other rescue parties arrived soon after to help. The last group of survivors finally made it to their destination in April 1847, almost a year after they had begun their trek in Missouri.
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/5641/dddddddddddddddonnerpartyzoombi9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
James F. Reed and his wife, Margret W. Keyes Reed, seen in this photo taken in the 1850s, were survivors of the tragic Donner Party. The Reed family was one of only two families who survived the ordeal intact.
Of the 83 members of the Donner Party who were trapped in the mountains, only 45 survived to reach California.
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/4300/dddddddddddddddddcutbonejq8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Archeological evidence of Donner Party cannibalism. Human bone dug at the site bearing "chop" marks.
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/2633/dddddddddddddddddonnerpartymemorialzs5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
A memorial to the Donner Party at California's Donner Memorial State Park near Truckee
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/515/insane7zozw3.jpg
161 years ago today, the first rescuers from Sutter's Fort (in Sacremento) reach the surviving remnants of the Donner emigrant party at their snowbound camp in the high Sierra Nevada Mountains.
The events leading up to the Donner party tragedy began the summer before, when 89 emigrants from Springfield, Illinois, set out overland for California in the summer of 1846.
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/2124/ddddddddddduntitledml9.png (http://imageshack.us)
The group of 89 emigrants had begun their western trek under the leadership of the brothers Jacob and George Donner. Unfortunately, the Donner brothers had recently read The Emigrant's Guide to Oregon and California, the imaginative creation of an irresponsible author-adventurer named Lansford Hastings, who wanted to encourage more overland emigrants to travel to the Sacramento Valley of California.
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/6619/dddddddddddddddddonner208zh1.gif (http://imageshack.us)
The Donners innocently accepted Hastings' claim that a shorter route he had blazed to California would cut weeks off the usual trip and agreed to place the fate of the wagon train in his hands once they reached Fort Bridger, Wyoming. From that point forward, the men, women, and children of the Donner Party were doomed.
Though the so-called Hastings Cutoff was indeed shorter than the usual route, Hastings' glowing descriptions of his trail irresponsibly downplayed its many difficulties, as the Donner party soon discovered.
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/8236/dddddddddddddddddonnercart1pr9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The Hasting's Cut-off trailed south of Salt Lake.
After following a boulder-strewn and nearly impassable route over the Wasatch Range in Utah, the party embarked on an arduous six-day trek across the desert-a journey that Hastings had promised would take only two days. Lightening their loads by abandoning chairs, family heirlooms, wagons, and livestock to be swallowed up by the blazing sands, the emigrants struggled onward towards the Sierra Nevada.
Hastings' "shortcut" had cost the Donner group so much time that they now risked being trapped in the high mountains if an early snowstorm chanced to fall. Unfortunately for the luckless emigrants, just such a snowstorm arrived on the night of October 28. The next day the Donner party was snowbound in the Sierras near modern-day Truckee CA. Then it really got ugly.
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/9107/dddddddddddddddonnerpassandroutevj6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The panicked emigrants constructed makeshift tents out of the canvas from their wagons, hoping a thaw might still save them. Warmer weather never came, and by mid-December their food supplies were running low. All agreed that if they did not send for help the entire party would starve to death.
Fifteen of the strongest emigrants set out west for Sutter's Fort on December 16. Three weeks later, having endured violent storms and been reduced to cannibalism to stay alive, seven of the original fifteen man team reached an Indian village, where news of the disaster was quickly dispatched to Sutter's Fort.
On January 31, a rescue party set out from Sutter's Fort. When they arrived at Donner Lake on this day, the men saw nothing but tall white drifts of snow and ice. The men yelled out a hello, and a woman's head appeared above the snow. "Are you men from California or are you from heaven?" she asked. As the other survivors emerged from their snow-covered shelters, one writer recorded that, "It was if the rescuers' hallo had been Gabriel's horn raising the dead from their graves. Their flesh was wasted from their bodies. They wept and laughed hysterically."
As the world soon learned to its shock and horror, the survivors managed to live by eating the remains of group members who perished in the freezing cold of the Sierra winter.
After feeding the starving emigrants as much as they safely could, the rescuers began their evacuation. It was the first food the survivors had eaten that didn't used to be someones aunt or uncle. Other rescue parties arrived soon after to help. The last group of survivors finally made it to their destination in April 1847, almost a year after they had begun their trek in Missouri.
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/5641/dddddddddddddddonnerpartyzoombi9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
James F. Reed and his wife, Margret W. Keyes Reed, seen in this photo taken in the 1850s, were survivors of the tragic Donner Party. The Reed family was one of only two families who survived the ordeal intact.
Of the 83 members of the Donner Party who were trapped in the mountains, only 45 survived to reach California.
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/4300/dddddddddddddddddcutbonejq8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Archeological evidence of Donner Party cannibalism. Human bone dug at the site bearing "chop" marks.
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/2633/dddddddddddddddddonnerpartymemorialzs5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
A memorial to the Donner Party at California's Donner Memorial State Park near Truckee
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/515/insane7zozw3.jpg