Saving the Donner Party: And Forlorn Hope

By Richard F. Kaufman

Books, articles, and commentaries have told the story of how the storm of the century in the fall of 1846 trapped eighty-one innocent men, women, and children in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and how brave men risked their lives to save them. In Saving the Donner Party, author Dr. Richard F. Kaufman tells the story of the rescuers of the Donner Party.

During the last two decades, Dr. Kaufman has compiled a record of historical documents and letters from Sutters Fort State Park and the California State Library. He reviews the older literature with a more modern approach, introducing orbital satellite studies with panoramic descriptions of travel routes not seen before. Using historical weather statistics and tree ring technology, he presents a more thorough understanding of the so-called storm of the century that enveloped the Donner Party. His account focuses on the massive effort and expenditure of resources by the rescue parties, involving the progress of the Mexican War going on at that time.

Saving the Donner Party presents an in-depth interpretation of the event with surprising revelations that changed the historical setting and legacy of California, adding richly to the literature of this topic and updating the knowledge of the Donner Party episode.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Jul 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781480809390

Richard F. Kaufman

Richard F. Kaufman, PhD, received his PhD from the University of Texas and undergraduate degrees from the University of California Berkeley. He is an emeritus full professor at California State University, Sacramento, and has been in the academic field for forty years. Dr. Kaufman lives in the Sacramento area.

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Copyright © 2014 Richard F. Kaufman, PhD.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-0938-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-0937-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-0939-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014912649

Archway Publishing rev. date: 7/28/2014

Table of Contents

Introduction

A California Heritage?

Foolhardiness Calls for Relief

Organizing the Relief Parties

The On-Going Climax

Implications of the Sutter’s Fort Trials

The Debate over California’s Capitol Re-location

A Donner Party Legacy?

Author’s Note

1.   The California Setting, October 1846

The Johnson Ranch

Sutter’s Fort

2.   The Stanton Rescue Effort

A Distant Plea from the Donner Party

Stanton’s Supply Train and Indian Guides Lewis and Salvador

The Real Story

Back to the Campfire

C. T. Stanton’s List of the Donner Party as of September 9, 1846

3.   Reed’s Rescue Effort and Failure

Reed and Herron Arrive at Sutter’s Fort

The James Reed Rescue Mission

4.   What Happened to the Donner Party and James Reed’s San Francisco Appeal

Stunned Dumb like a Duck Hit in the Head

The Interim Regrouping

Reed’s Wild Trip to Yerba Buena (San Francisco)

The Shocking News from Johnson’s Ranch

5.   The Donner Party Try for Summit Pass

What has happened to the Donner Party?

The Hurry to Move Out

Author’s Note

6.   Stalled at the Truckee Lake

Seeking Shelter

The Walk to the Summit

7.   First Leg of the Journey - The Forlorn Hope Party

Who Should Go for Help?

Group of the Forlorn Hope (Snowshoers)

Author’s Note

Author’s Note

8.   The Wrong Turn and Camp of Death

Descending the American River

Author’s Note

The Camp of Death and Luck of the Draw

Authors Note

9.   Saving the Forlorn Hope Survivors

Departing the Camp of Death

Author’s Note

Guides Lewis and Salvador Leave the Group

Rescue of the Forlorn Hope Survivors

Authors Note

Survivors of the Forlorn Hope

10.   Public Outcry and the First Relief Party

The San Francisco Influence

The First Relief Party Departs Ahead of Reed and Woodworth

Tucker and the Magnificent Seven

The Magnificent Seven, the Return Trip

Eddy’s Estimate

The Second Relief Party

Reed’s Family Encounter in the Wilds

11.   The Disaster of the Second Relief Party

Outfitting Reed’s Second Relief Party

Finding Denton’s Body

Author’s Note

The Starved Camp

The Near Death Experience of Patty Reed

Author’s Note

12.   The Third Relief Party and Rescue of Starved Camp

A Third Relief Party to Rescue the Second?

Return of the First Relief Party and Formation of the Third

Authors Note

The Third Relief Party

Heroism of John Stark

Third Relief Party Reaches Truckee Lake

Author’s Note

The Eddy and Nicholas Clark Controversy

13.   Who’s Running the Show?

The Third Relief Party meets Woodworth

Return to Mule Spring and Sutter’s Fort

A Stinging Rebuke of Woodworth

Author’s Note

The Fourth Relief Party

14.   The Fifth Relief Party and Scapegoat Trials

W. O. Fallon and the Fifth Relief Party

The Trial of Lewis Keseberg

Countersuit by Keseberg

15.   The Final Call and Termination

General Kearny’s Call to the Donner Party Site

Survivor and Non-Survivors of the Donner Party as of April 15, 1847

16.   Epilog

What Happened to the Rescuers?

Bibliography

Credits

Endnotes

Introduction

A California Heritage?

This is a story about the rescuers of the Donner Party. What was thought to be the closing narrative of the Donner Party in the early years of the twentieth century, turned out to be only the beginning. Books, articles, and commentaries told the story how the storm of the century trapped eighty one innocent men, women, and children in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and how those brave men risked their lives to save them¹. It was an obsession to those of us who followed this incredible episode, and we were captivated by its intrigue. Master historian C.F. McGlashan was still interviewing survivors twenty-six years after the affair when he came up with no final conclusions. In the end, however, we got around to asking ourselves; what made it so important to change the American experience? After all, the disaster was no different than many others of that era, except for the veil of sympathetic emotion that surrounded the rescue efforts.

To sort out the main issues, let us begins with a brief on the Donner Party incident, followed by the final bell on the rescue and how it changed California history. New technology plays a large part in the investigation and advances our knowledge far beyond that of earlier writers. For instance, satellite photography with Google Earth, tree ring analysis, and previous literary accounts disclose information that is quite different than what those earlier writers thought it to be. The reader is invited to read these findings in the Author’s Note sections throughout the text.

We start with the storm of the century that trapped the Donner Party. It has been recently found, from tree ring technology and older marine records that the weather was not such an unusual event, as far as Pacific storms go. In fact, weather phenomenon for the Sierras in 1846 and 1847 were slightly dry years with a normal pattern of observable tree ring growth². There were thirteen storms in ten systems that befell the Sierras for that season which were normal when compared to cumulative records since then. What traditionally has been considered blizzard like weather that befell them, one has to also remember that the Donner Party was inundated at the world’s most renowned spot for snowfall accumulation, the Summit Pass, or what is today called the Donner Pass of the Sierra Nevada’s. Accumulation of snowfall data for this area over the past one hundred fifty years shows a record of 640 inches, or 56 feet, which occurred in January 1953, and was so intense that it stalled a passenger train and closed down the railroad. When the Donner Party was stranded, accumulation was only 40 feet at the Pass with 12 feet at the cabins, and not so unusual as far as record setting standards go³.

The first storm did not impede the Donner Party travel, nor did it actually bring on snow until they were well into the mountains. There was ample warning of things to come. It started to rain when they left Truckee Meadows (Reno) until the lead wagon passed today’s Verdi. Then it stopped. They could have easily returned to a safe haven at Truckee Meadows, but from testimony of survivors, it was the oncoming rain that prompted them to leave in the first place. They had hopes of making the climb over the Summit Pass before the weather got any worse. Truckee Meadows (Reno) was rich with game, plenty of grazing capacity, and plenty of water. It had been said by other wagon train emigrants that it was one of the better rest stopovers on the entire Overland Trail, and since the Donner Party had been recently replenished by Stanton’s relief caravan from Sutter’s Fort, it would have provided a few weeks time span to settle in.

Ostensibly, they left their safe haven. When the first wagon reached the Butte’s at Dog Valley the rain picked up again. It was the second warning. Even here in the Dog Valley would have been a good place to winter over, which is the location of today’s Stampede Reservoir. They again turned down this choice in the hopes to make it over the Summit Pass, an altitude of seven thousand feet, nearly two thousand feet higher than their present location. The climb was steadily upward, and as the first wagon crossed Prosser Creek, the time ran out for the chance to go back.

A second storm of the system followed the first, as they usually do with Pacific storms, and put about a foot of snow on the ground. Upon arriving at the Lake (today’s Donner Lake), they came across some old cabins but pushed on to the foot of the Summit Pass. The third storm of the system hit. Two wagons made it to the top, but even though only several feet of snow was deposited at Lake level, there was five to six feet at the Pass. All three storms were from the same system that happened within a week’s time between October 28th and November 4th of 1846.

Realizing their mistake, the entire wagon train slugged through two to three feet of snow back to the Lake where they made preparations for a lengthy stay by constructing additional shelters. Others, like the Donner family, had fallen behind at Prosser Creek due to mechanical problems, and not knowing how bad it was at Summit Pass, did not make any preparations. They believed that the weather would clear up enough to eventually make it across. Fortunately, the weather did clear and stayed clear until November 25th allowing time for construction of shelters. Some, like the Donner family, did nothing, anticipating that the snow would melt away. Interviews with the survivors tell the story that they chanced for good weather into October and November of 1846 because that’s the way it was in previous years. Records show that during the years of 1844 and ’45 good weather did prevail until December which unfortunately gave a false impression of the real weather environment, because by the end of October, winter storms were seasonably upon them.

What is so extraordinarily remarkable about this story was the conscious and deliberate violation of standard wagon train discipline, a protocol that was well established by that time for travel to California and Oregon. It was a well known fact that wagon train travel to Oregon and California was absolutely restricted after the month of October precisely because of these known weather irregularities. Mismanagement, however, was no stranger to this wagon train party. It had already gone through a leadership crisis back on the Nevada desert.

Foolhardiness Calls for Relief

Before the crisis at Summit Pass, another crisis had occurred on the Nevada desert. C.T. Stanton was a member of the Donner Party who was originally dispatched by George Donner from Pilot Peak Utah, to ride ahead six hundred miles to Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento to seek help. The wagon train with eighty-one people in nineteen wagons were three hundred miles east of the Sierra Nevada’s when they had used up their supplies with several wagons lost trying to cross the Salt Lake. When Stanton reached Sacramento, he went directly to John Sutter, who hastily provided supplies and two Indian guides for the return trip. This was standard policy with John Sutter for wagon trains coming into Sutter’s Fort, but this time it was different. The Donner Party was still far out on the Nevada desert, and the time was already late into the month of October when Stanton arrived. Looking at the situation in Sutter’s Fort, most expected the train to winter over at Truckee Meadows until March. The Mexican War was absorbing supplies and Sutter could only make a limited offer. Nonetheless, he and Alcalde Sinclair provided enough supplies and seven mules with two Indian guides to assist Stanton who then headed back out onto the Truckee Trail and into the mountains. Stanton reached the Donner Party in the Nevada desert, some twenty miles east of Reno.

Stanton’s plea for help was followed by another shortly afterward. James Frazer Reed was dishonorably discharged from the Donner wagon train while it was traversing along the Humboldt after Stanton had left. He rode across the Sierra’s to Sutter’s Fort, arriving half starved, and muttering about the collapse of leadership in the Donner wagon train. He repeated the same story as Stanton. Reed had chanced upon Stanton and the Indian guides coming from the other direction while crossing the Sierra’s, and informed him that the Donner Party was still far out on the desert, and that’s where he would find them. They were in much more trouble than when Stanton left. With a parting of the ways, Reed proceeded on to Sutter’s Fort and went directly to John Sutter with his tale of woe.

It was at this time, that concern was registered about the Donner wagon train and an alert was sounded. Reed had to be careful, since his family was still with the party, and his plea to John Sutter had to be disparagingly genuine. Sutter informed him that no more help was available. The emigrant travel months across the Sierra’s had slowed to a stop, and there were no more supplies to be had. Everything was being redirected to the U.S. Army Volunteers at Sutter’s Fort for the Mexican war raging in the south.

The news of the Donner Party, however, had spread far and wide amongst the local population, and John Sutter was not as passionate about the war as was his benefactor at the Fort, Captain Kern, who commanded some 60 U.S. Army volunteers. John Sutter, as a Land Grant holder under Mexican authority, had immense power and control of local rancheros that furnished supplies and animals to the war effort and arriving emigrants, but Sutter could not act without the sanction of this new American authority. It took the unwinding of the Mexican War and the passion of the news of the poor emigrants trapped in the Sierras to break the ice. By coincidence, the twist of fateful timing afforded Reed a break. His arrival and plea for help brought together both Mexican and American sympathizers, including even the Mexican ex-Governor Mariano Vallejo, and the new American Governor Stockton. Nor did the Donner Party entombment in the mountains go unnoticed with the general public. Within a week after Reed’s disclosure at Sutter’s Fort, the California Star in San Francisco ran columns about the distressed Donner Party from November through December of 1846. The poster billboard at Sutter’s Fort was continually gaining a daily crowd of onlookers as they looked to the east to see a solid blanket of white snow covering the Sierras.

While all of this was going on, a ragged emaciated survivor stumbled out of the mountains in late December and into the foothills ranch house of Col. Mathew Ritchey and his daughter. He claimed to be William Eddy from the Donner Party. The entire Donner Party was holed up at Summit Lake and desperate. In a final effort to reach Johnson’s Ranch for help, the Donner Party had dispatched a party of seventeen stronger men and women from the Lake who tried to break out and escape over the mountains, shoveling through five feet of snow for sixty miles. Edwin Bryant in 1848 labeled them the Snowshoers while preparing his book What I Saw in California but a more touching name was what they called themselves, the Forlorn Hope⁴. After a succession of failures, the Forlorn Hope made it over the Donner Pass to trudge through a death dealing blizzard, finally reaching an Indian village still fifteen miles from civilization. Bleeding from frost-bite and hunger, William Eddy was aided by several Indians to reach Col. Ritchey’s ranch house to record one of the most spectacular survival stories in history.

Organizing the Relief Parties

As the Mexican War was winding down, the Eddy event galvanized Northern California. The occasion perpetrated the largest relief effort known for that time, most of which was focused around Sutter’s Fort and local ranches. There was a frenzy of volunteers from San Francisco to join the relief parties and donations were collected. With California still politically unsettled, such a relief effort required massive organization, which ironically fell into the hands of two prior enemies; the new American authority for California under Commodore Hull in San Francisco, and the current Mexican alcaldes still in power. Without hesitation, Mexican alcaldes Sinclair, Sutter, and Governor Vallejo exercised their Mexican Land Grant authority for supplies and distribution while Commodore Hull organized funding from American support in San Francisco. A strange looseness of transition from the Mexican War prevailed here where both seemed to function together in harmony by putting together the rescue parties under such strained conditions, but they did it in a magnificent fashion.

Under such strange circumstances, volunteers fell into three recognizable categories. The first included those seeking notoriety, glory and fame, perhaps in context with the Mexican War that was missed. Joining a rescue party for such an event opened opportunities for fame and glory. A more prodigious second group fell under the auspices of business ventures, mainly for the specific purpose of making money from salvage and rewards. This group represented mostly notable mountain men, adventurers, cast-a-ways, and opportunists seeking to make a buck. Finally, the third and most illustrious group came from family members and friends of family members who truly sacrificed themselves, their property, and their lives in a genuine humanitarian offering.

Of those in the first group who sought glory and fame, perhaps there was no better example than Selim E. Woodworth, who by his own volition became an important ingredient in the rescue effort, but whose motives were for self aggrandizement. For the purpose of the Donner Party Rescue expedition, he deceivingly gave himself the title, Midshipman Past Woodworth, and championed himself to be a veteran amongst the best wartime fighters in the Mexican War. The past in his title meant that he had served his time as a bonnified naval officer. He was perhaps the most controversial character that joined the rescuers because of his own self gratifications. His attitude was much disliked by his comrades but he possessed that quality of leadership that was so needed at the time. He was indeed typical of many glory seekers striving