History of the Donner Party: A Tragedy of the Sierra Part 11

Leaving Three Men in the Mountains The Emigrants Quite Helpless Bear Tracks in the Snow The Clumps of Tamarack Wounding a Bear Bloodstains upon the Snow A Weary Chase A Momentous Day Stone and Cady Leave the Sufferers A Mother Offering Five Hundred Dollars Mrs. Donner Parting from her Children "G.o.d will Take Care of You"

Buried in the Snow, without Food or Fire Pines Uprooted by the Storm A Grave Cut in the Snow The Cub's Cave Firing at Random A Desperate Undertaking Preparing for a Hand-to-Hand Battle Precipitated into the Cave Seizing the Bear Mrs. Elizabeth Donner's Death Clark and Baptiste Attempt to Escape A Death more Cruel than Starvation.

Before Reed's party started to return, a consultation was held, and it was decided that Clark, Cady, and Stone should remain at the mountain camps. It was intended that these men should attend to procuring wood, and perform such other acts as would a.s.sist the almost helpless sufferers. It was thought that a third relief party could be sent out in a few days to get all the emigrants who remained.

Nicholas Clark, who now resides in Honey Lake Valley, La.s.sen County, California, says that as he and Cady were going to the Donner tents, they saw the fresh tracks of a bear and cub crossing the road. In those days, there were several little clumps of tamarack along Alder Creek, just below the Donner tents, and as the tracks led towards these, Mr. Clark procured a gun and started for an evening's hunt among the tamaracks. He found the bear and her cub within sight of the tents, and succeeded in severely wounding the old bear. She was a black bear, of medium size. For a long distance, over the snow and through the forests, Clark followed the wounded animal and her cub. The approach of darkness at last warned him to desist, and returning to the tents, he pa.s.sed the night. Early next morning, Clark again set out in pursuit of the bear, following her readily by the blood-stains upon the snow. It was another windy, cloudy, threatening day, and there was every indication that a severe storm was approaching. Eagerly intent upon securing his game, Mr.

Clark gave little heed to weather, or time, or distance. The endurance of the wounded animal was too great, however, and late in the afternoon he realized that it was necessary for him to give up the weary chase, and retrace his steps. He arrived at the tents hungry, tired, and footsore, long after dark.

That day, however, had been a momentous one at the Donner tents. Stone had come over early in the morning, and he and Cady concluded that it was sheer madness for them to remain in the mountains. That a terrible storm was fast coming on, could not be doubted. The provisions were almost exhausted, and if they remained, it would only be to perish with the poor emigrants. They therefore concluded to attempt to follow and overtake Reed and his companions.

Mrs. Tamsen Donner was able to have crossed the mountains with her children with either Tucker's or Reed's party. On account of her husband's illness, however, she had firmly refused all entreaties, and had resolutely determined to remain by his bedside. She was extremely anxious, however, that her children should reach California; and Hiram Miller relates that she offered five hundred dollars to any one in the second relief party, who would take them in safety across the mountains.

When Cady and Stone decided to go, Mrs. Donner induced them to attempt the rescue of these children, Frances, Georgia, and Eliza. They took the children as far the cabins at the lake, and left them. Probably they became aware of the impossibility of escaping the storm, and knew that it would be sure death, for both themselves and the children, should they take them any farther. In view of the terrible calamity which befell Reed's party on account of this storm, and the fact that Cady and Stone had a terrible struggle for life, every one must justify these men in leaving the children at the cabins. The parting between the devoted mother and her little ones is thus briefly described by Georgia Donner, now Mrs. Babc.o.c.k: "The men came. I listened to their talking as they made their agreement. Then they took us, three little girls, up the stone steps, and stood us on the bank. Mother came, put on our hoods and cloaks, saying, as if she was talking more to herself than to us: 'I may never see you again, but G.o.d will take care of you.' After traveling a few miles, they left us on the snow, went ahead a short distance, talked one to another, then came back, took us as far as Keseberg's cabin, and left us."

Mr. Cady recalls the incident of leaving the children on the snow, but says the party saw a coyote, and were attempting to get a shot at the animal.

When Nicholas Clark awoke on the morning of the third day, the tent was literally buried in freshly fallen snow. He was in what is known as Jacob Donner's tent. Its only occupants besides himself were Mrs.

Elizabeth Donner, her son Lewis, and the Spanish boy, John Baptiste.

George Donner and wife were in their own tent, and with them was Mrs.

Elizabeth Donner's youngest child, Samuel. Mr. Clark says he can not remember how long the storm lasted, but it seems as if it must have been at least a week. The snow was so deep that it was impossible to procure wood, and during all those terrible days and nights there was no fire in either of the tents. The food gave out the first day, and the dreadful cold was rendered more intense by the pangs of hunger. Sometimes the wind would blow like a hurricane, and they could plainly hear the great pines cras.h.i.+ng on the mountain side above them, as the wind uprooted them and hurled them to the ground. Sometimes the weather would seem to moderate, and the snow would melt and trickle in under the sides of the tent, wetting their clothes and bedding, and increasing the misery of their situation.

When the storm cleared away, Clark found himself starving like the rest.

He had really become one of the Donner Party, and was as certain to perish as were the unfortunates about him. It would necessarily be several days before relief could possibly arrive, and utter despair seemed to surround them. Just as the storm was closing, Lewis Donner died, and the poor mother was well-nigh frantic with grief. As soon as she could make her way to the other tent, she carried her dead babe over and laid it in Mrs. George Donner's lap. With Clark's a.s.sistance, they finally laid the child away in a grave cut out of the solid snow.

In going to a tamarack grove to get some wood, Mr. Clark was surprised to find the fresh track of the bear cub, which had recrossed Alder Creek and ascended the mountain behind the tents. It was doubtless the same one whose mother he had wounded. The mother had probably died, and after the storm the cub had returned. Mr. Clark at once followed it, tracking it far up the mountain side to a cliff of rocks, and losing the trail at the mouth of a small, dark cave. He says that all hope deserted him when he found that the cub had gone into the cave. He sat down upon the snow in utter despair. It was useless to return to the tents without food; he might as well perish upon the mountain side. After reflecting for some time upon the gloomy situation, he concluded to fire his gun into the cave, and see if the report might not frighten out the cub. He placed the muzzle of the gun as far down into the cave as he could, and fired.

When the hollow reverberation died away among the cliffs, no sound disturbed the brooding silence. The experiment had failed. He seriously meditated whether he could not watch the cave day and night until the cub should be driven out by starvation. But suddenly a new idea occurred to him. Judging from the track, and from the size of the cub he had seen, Mr. Clark concluded that it was possible he might be able to enter the cave and kill the cub in a hand-to-hand fight. It was a desperate undertaking, but it was preferable to death from starvation. He approached the narrow opening, and tried again to peer into the cave and ascertain its depth. As he was thus engaged the snow suddenly gave way, and he was precipitated bodily into the cave. He partly fell, partly slid to the very bottom of the hole in the rocks. In endeavoring to regain an erect posture, his hand struck against some furry animal.

Instinctively recoiling, he waited for a moment to see what it would do. Coming from the dazzling sunlight into the darkness, he could see nothing whatever. Presently he put out his foot and again touched the animal. Finding that it did not move, he seized hold of it and found that it was the cub-dead! His random shot had pierced its brain, and it had died without a struggle. The cave or opening in the rocks was not very deep, and after a long time he succeeded in dragging his prize to the surface.

There was food in the Donner tents from this time forward. It came too late, however, to save Mrs. Elizabeth Donner or her son Samuel. This mother was quite able to have crossed the mountains with either of the two relief parties; but, as Mrs. E. P. Houghton writes: "Her little boys were too young to walk through the deep snows, she was not able to carry them, and the relief parties were too small to meet such emergencies.

She stayed with them, hoping some way would be provided for their rescue. Grief, hunger, and disappointed hopes crushed her spirit, and so debilitated her that death came before the required help reached her or her children. For some days before her death she was so weak that Mrs.

George Donner and the others had to feed her as if she had been a child.

At last, one evening, as the sun went down, she closed her eyes and awoke no more. Her life had been sacrificed for her children. Could words be framed to express a more fitting tribute to her memory! Does not the simple story of this mother's love wreathe a chaplet of glory about her brow far holier than could be fas.h.i.+oned by human hands!"

Samuel Donner lingered but a few days longer. Despite the tenderest care and attention, he grew weaker day by day, until he slept by the side of his mother and brother in their snowy grave.

All this time Mrs. Tamsen Donner was tortured with fear and dread, lest her children had perished in the dreadful storm on the summits. At last Clark yielded to her importunities, and decided to visit the cabins at Donner Lake, and see if there was any news from beyond the Sierra. Clark found the children at Keseberg's cabin, and witnessed such scenes of horror and suffering that he determined at once to attempt to reach California. Returning to Alder Creek, he told Mrs. Donner of the situation of her children, and says he informed her that he believed their lives were in danger of a death more violent than starvation.

He informed her of his resolution to leave the mountains, and taking a portion of the little meat that was left, he at once started upon his journey. John Baptiste accompanied him.

The cub would have weighed about seventy pounds when killed; and now that its flesh was nearly gone, there was really very little hope for any one unless relief came speedily. In attempting to make their way across the mountains, Clark and Baptiste did the wisest thing possible, yet they well knew that they would perish by the way unless they met relief.

Mrs. Tamsen Donner did not dare to leave her husband alone during the night, but told Clark and Baptiste that she should endeavor to make the journey to the cabins on the following day. It was a long, weary walk over the pitiless snow, but she had before her yearning eyes not only the picture of her starving children, but the fear that they were in danger of a more cruel death than starvation.

Chapter XV.

A Mountain Storm Provisions Exhausted Battling the Storm-Fiends Black Despair Icy Coldness A Picture of Desolation The Sleep of Death A Piteous Farewell Falling into the Firewell Isaac Donner's Death Living upon Snow-water Excruciating Pain A Vision of Angels "Patty is Dying"

The Thumb of a Mitten A Child's Treasures The "Dolly" of the Donner Party.

On the evening of the second day after leaving Donner Lake, Reed's party and the little band of famished emigrants found themselves in a cold, bleak, uncomfortable hollow, somewhere near the lower end of Summit Valley. Here the storm broke in all its fury upon the doomed company. In addition to the cold, sleet-like snow, a fierce, penetrating wind seemed to freeze the very marrow in their bones. The relief party had urged the tired, hungry, enfeebled emigrants forward at the greatest possible speed all day, in order to get as near the settlements as they could before the storm should burst upon them. Besides, their provisions were exhausted, and they were anxious to reach certain caches of supplies which they had made while going to the cabins. Fearing that the storm would prevent the party from reaching these caches, Mr. Reed sent Joseph Jondro, Matthew Dofar, and Hiram Turner forward to the first cache, with instructions to get the provisions and return to the suffering emigrants. That very night the storm came, and the three men had not been heard from.

The camp was in a most inhospitable spot. Exposed to the fury of the wind and storm, shelterless, supperless, overwhelmed with discouragements, the entire party sank down exhausted upon the snow.

The entire party? No! There was one man who never ceased to work. When a fire had been kindled, and nearly every one had given up, this one man, unaided, continued to strive to erect some sort of shelter to protect the defenseless women and children. Planting large pine boughs in the snow, he banked up the snow on either side of them so as to form a wall.

Hour after hour, in the darkness and raging storm, he toiled on alone, building the sheltering breastwork which was to ward off death from the party who by this time had crept s.h.i.+veringly under its protection. But for this shelter, all would have perished before morning. At midnight the man was still at work. The darting snow particles seemed to cut his eye-b.a.l.l.s, and the glare of the fire and the great physical exhaustion under which he was laboring, gradually rendered him blind. Like his companions, he had borne a child in his arms all day over the soft, yielding snow. Like them, he was drenched to the skin, and his clothing was frozen stiff and hard with ice. Yet he kept up the fire, built a great sheltering wall about the sufferers, and went here and there amongst the wailing and dying. With unabated violence the storm continued its relentless fury. The survivors say it was the coldest night they ever experienced. There is a limit to human endurance. The man was getting stone-blind. Had he attempted to speak, his tongue would have cloven to the roof of his mouth. His senses were chilled, blunted, dead. Sleep had stilled the plaintive cries of those about him. All was silent save the storm. Without knowing it, this heroic man was yielding to a sleep more powerful than that which had overcome his companions.

While trying to save those who were weaker than himself, he had been literally freezing. Sightless, benumbed, moving half unconsciously about his work, he staggered, staggered, staggered, and finally sank in the snow. All slept! As he put no more fuel upon the fire, the flames died down. The logs upon which the fire had rested gave way, and most of the coals fell upon the snow. They were in almost total darkness.

Presently some one awoke. It was Mrs. Breen, whose motherly watchfulness prevented more than a few consecutive moments' sleep. The camp was quickly aroused. All were nearly frozen. Hiram Miller's hands were so cold and frosted that the skin on the fingers cracked open when he tried to split some kindlings. At last the fire was somehow renewed. Meantime they had discovered their leader--he who had been working throughout the night-lying cold, speechless, and apparently dead upon the snow. Hiram Miller and Wm. McCutchen carried the man to the fire, chafed his hands and limbs, rubbed his body vigorously, and worked with him as hard as they could for two hours before he showed signs of returning consciousness. Redoubling their exertions, they kept at work until the cold, gray morning dawned, ere the man was fully restored. Would you know the name of this man, this hero? It was James Frazier Reed.

From this time forward, all the toil, all the responsibility devolved upon Wm. McCutchen and Hiram Miller. Jondro, Dofar, and Turner were caught in the drifts ahead. The fishers or other wild animals had almost completely devoured the first cache of provisions, and while these men were trying to reach the second cache, the storm imprisoned them. They could neither go forward nor return. Cady and Stone were between Donner Lake and Starved Camp, and were in a like helpless condition. McCutchen and Miller were the only ones able to do anything toward saving the poor creatures who were huddled together at the miserable camp. All the other men were completely disheartened by the fearful calamity which had overtaken them. But for the untiring exertions of these two men, death to all would have been certain. McCutchen had on four s.h.i.+rts, and yet he became so chilled while trying to kindle the fire, that in getting warm he burned the back out of his s.h.i.+rts. He only discovered the mishap by the scorching and burning of his flesh.

What a picture of desolation was presented to the inmates of Starved Camp during the next three days! It stormed incessantly. One who has not witnessed a storm on the Sierra can not imagine the situation. A quotation from Bret Harte's "Gabriel Conroy" will afford the best idea of the situation:

"Snow. Everywhere. As far as the eye could reach fifty miles, looking southward from the highest white peak. Filling ravines and gulches, and dropping from the walls of canyons in white shroud-like drifts, fas.h.i.+oning the dividing ridge into the likeness of a monstrous grave, hiding the bases of giant pines, and completely covering young trees and larches, r.i.m.m.i.n.g with porcelain the bowl-like edges of still, cold lakes, and undulating in motionless white billows to the edge of the distant horizon. Snow lying everywhere on the California Sierra, and still falling. It had been snowing in finely granulated powder, in damp, spongy flakes, in thin, feathery plumes; snowing from a leaden sky steadily, snowing fiercely, shaken out of purple-black clouds in white flocculent ma.s.ses, or dropping in long level lines like white lances from the tumbled and broken heavens. But always silently! The woods were so choked with it, it had so cus.h.i.+oned and m.u.f.fled the ringing rocks and echoing hills, that all sound was deadened. The strongest gust, the fiercest blast, awoke no sigh or complaint from the snow-packed, rigid files of forest. There was no cracking of bough nor crackle of underbrush; the overladen branches of pine and fir yielded and gave away without a sound. The silence was vast, measureless, complete!"

In alluding to these terrible days, in his diary, Mr. Reed says, under date of March 6:

"With the snow there is a perfect hurricane. In the night there is a great crying among the children, and even with the parents there is praying, crying, and lamentation on account of the cold and the dread of death from hunger and the howling storm. The men up nearly all night making fires. Some of the men began praying. Several of them became blind. I could not see the light of the fire blazing before me, nor tell when it was burning. The light of heaven is, as it were, shut out from us. The snow blows so thick and fast that we can not see twenty feet looking against the wind. I dread the coming night. Three of my men only, able to get wood. The rest have given out for the present. It is still snowing, and very cold. So cold that the few men employed in cutting the dry trees down, have to come and, warm about every ten minutes. 'Hungry!' 'Hungry!' is the cry with the children, and nothing to give them. 'Freezing!' is the cry of the mothers who have nothing for their little, starving, freezing children. Night closing fast, and with it the hurricane increases.

"Mar. 7. Thank G.o.d day has once more appeared, although darkened by the storm. Snowing as fast as ever, and the hurricane has never ceased for ten minutes at a time during one of the most dismal nights I have ever witnessed. I hope I shall never witness another such in a similar situation. Of all the praying and crying I ever heard, nothing ever equaled it. Several times I expected to see the people perish of the extreme cold. At one time our fire was nearly gone, and had it not been for McCutchen's exertions it would have entirely disappeared. If the fire had been lost, two thirds of the camp would have been out of their misery before morning; but, as G.o.d would have it, we soon had it blazing comfortably, and the sufferings of the people became less for a time.

Hope began to animate the bosoms of many, young and old, when the cheering blaze rose through the dry pine logs we had piled together.

One would say, 'Thank G.o.d for the fire!' Another, 'How good it is!' The poor, little, half-starved, half-frozen children would say, 'I'm glad, I'm glad we have got some fire! Oh, how good it feels! It is good our fire didn't go out!' At times the storm would burst forth with such fury that I felt alarmed for the safety of the people on account of the tall timber that surrounded us."

Death entered the camp on the first night. He came to claim one who was a true, faithful mother. One who merits greater praise than language can convey. Though comparatively little has been told concerning her life by the survivors, doubt not that Mrs. Elizabeth Graves was one of the n.o.blest of the mothers of the Donner Party. Her charity is kindly remembered by all who have spoken her name. To her companions in misfortune she always gave such food as she possessed; for her children she now gave her life. The last morsels of food, the last grain of flour, she had placed in the mouths of her babes, though she was dying of starvation.

Mrs. Farnham, who talked personally with Mrs. Breen, gives the following description of that terrible night:

"Mrs. Breen told me that she had her husband and five children together, lying with their feet to the fire, and their heads under shelter of the snow breast-work. She sat by them, with only moccasins on her feet, and a blanket drawn over her shoulders and head, within which, and a shawl she constantly wore, she nursed her poor baby on her knees. Her milk had been gone several days, and the child was so emaciated and lifeless that she scarcely expected at any time on opening the covering to find it alive. Mrs. Graves lay with her babe and three or four older children at the other side of the fire. The storm was very violent all night, and she watched through it, dozing occasionally for a few minutes, and then rousing herself to brush the snow and flying sparks from the covering of the sleepers. Toward morning she heard one of the young girls opposite call to her mother to cover her. The call was repeated several times impatiently, when she spoke to the child, reminding her of the exhaustion and fatigue her mother suffered in nursing and carrying the baby, and bidding her cover herself, and let her mother rest. Presently she heard the mother speak, in a quiet, unnatural tone, and she called to one of the men near her to go and speak to her. He arose after a few minutes and found the poor sufferer almost past speaking. He took her infant, and after shaking the snow from her blanket, covered her as well as might be. Shortly after, Mrs. Breen observed her to turn herself slightly, and throw one arm feebly up, as if to go to sleep. She waited a little while, and seeing her remain quite still, she walked around to her. She was already cold in death. Her poor starving child wailed and moaned piteously in the arms of its young sister, but the mother's heart could no more warm or nourish it."

The members of the second relief party realized that they were themselves in imminent danger of death. They were powerless to carry the starving children over the deep, soft, treacherous snow, and it was doubtful if they would be able to reach the settlements unenc.u.mbered.

Isaac Donner, one of the sons of Jacob and Elizabeth Donner, perished during one of the stormy nights. He was lying on the bed of pine boughs between his sister Mary and Patty Reed, and died so quietly that neither of the sleeping girls awoke.

The relief party determined to set out over the snow, hasten to the settlements, and send back relief. Solomon Hook, Jacob Donner's oldest boy, insisted that he was able to walk, and therefore joined the party.

Hiram Miller, an old friend of the Reed family, took little Thomas Reed in his arms, and set out with the others. Patty Reed, full of hope and courage, refused to be carried by her father, and started on foot.

With what emotions did the poor sufferers in Starved Camp watch the party as it disappeared among the pines! There was no food in camp, and death had already selected two of their number. What a pitiable group it was! Could a situation more desolate or deplorable be imagined? Mr.

Breen, as has been heretofore mentioned, was feeble, sickly, and almost as helpless as the children. Upon Mrs. Breen devolved the care, not only of her husband, but of all who remained in the fatal camp, for all others were children. John Breen, their eldest son, was the strongest and most vigorous in the family, yet the following incident shows how near he was to death's door. It must have occurred the morning the relief party left. The heat of the fire had melted a deep, round hole in the snow. At the bottom of the pit was the fire. The men were able to descend the sides of this cavity, and frequently did so to attend to the fire. At one time, while William McCutchen was down by the fire, John Breen was sitting on the end of one of the logs on which the fire had originally been kindled. Several logs had been laid side by side, and the fire had been built in the middle of the floor thus constructed.

While the central logs had burned out and let the fire descend, the outer logs remained with their ends on the firm snow. On one of these logs John Breen was sitting. Suddenly overcome by fatigue and hunger, he fainted and dropped headlong into the fire-pit. Fortunately, Mr.

McCutchen caught the falling boy, and thus saved him from a horrible death. It was some time before the boy was fully restored to consciousness. Mrs. Breen had a small quant.i.ty of sugar, and a little was placed between his clenched teeth. This seemed to revive him, and he not only survived, but is living to-day, the head of a large family, in San Benito County.

Mrs. Breen's younger children, Patrick, James, Peter, and the nursing babe, Isabella, were completely helpless and dependent. Not less helpless were the orphan children of Mr. and Mrs. Graves. Nancy was only about nine years old, and upon her devolved the task of caring for the babe, Elizabeth. Nancy Graves is now the wife of the earnest and eloquent divine, Rev. R. W. Williamson, of Los Gatos, Santa Clara County. To her lasting honor be it said, that although she was dying of hunger in Starved Camp, yet she faithfully tended, cared for, and saved her baby sister. Aside from occasional bits of sugar, this baby and Mrs.

Breen's had nothing for an entire week, save snow-water. Besides Nancy and Elizabeth, there were of the Graves children, Jonathan, aged seven, and Franklin, aged five years. Franklin soon perished. Starvation and exposure had so reduced his tiny frame, that he could not endure these days of continual fasting.

Mary M. Donner, whom all mention as one of the most lovely girls in the Donner Party, met with a cruel accident the night before the relief party left Starved Camp. Her feet had become frozen and insensible to pain. Happening to lie too near the fire, one of her feet became dreadfully burned. She suffered excruciating agony, yet evinced remarkable fort.i.tude. She ultimately lost four toes from her left foot, on account of this sad occurrence.

Seven of the Breens, Mary Donner, and the three children of Mr. and Mrs.