History of the Donner Party: A Tragedy of the Sierra Part 5

Until the twenty-ninth of December they remained at the "Camp of Death."

Would you know more of the shuddering details? Does the truth require the narration of the sickening minutiae of the terrible transactions of these days? Human beings were never called upon to undergo more trying ordeals. Dividing into groups, the members of each family were spared the pain of touching their own kindred. Days and perhaps weeks of starvation were awaiting them in the future, and they dare not neglect to provide as best they might. Each of the four bodies was divested of its flesh, and the flesh was dried. Although no person partook of kindred flesh, sights were often witnessed that were blood-curdling.

Mrs. Foster, as we have seen, fairly wors.h.i.+ped her brother Lemuel. Has human pen power to express the shock of horror this sister received when she saw her brother's heart thrust through with a stick, and broiling upon the coals? No man can record or read such an occurrence without a cry of agony! What, then, did she endure who saw this cruel sight?

These are facts. They are given just as they came from the lips of Mrs.

Foster, a n.o.ble woman, who would have died of horror and a broken heart but for her starving babe, her mother, and her little brothers and sisters who were at Donner Lake. Mary Graves corroborates Mrs. Foster, and W. H. Eddy gave a similar version to Judge Thornton.

The Indian guides, Lewis and Salvador, would not eat this revolting food. They built a fire away from the company, and with true Indian stoicism endured the agonies of starvation without so much as beholding the occurrences at the other camp-fire.

Starved bodies possess little flesh, and starving people could carry but light burdens through such snow-drifts. On these accounts, the provision which the Almighty seemed to have provided to save their lives, lasted only until the thirty-first On New Year's morning they ate their moccasins and the strings of their snow-shoes. On the night before, Lewis and Salvador caught the sound of ominous words, or perceived glances that were filled with dreadful import, and during the darkness they fled.

For several days past the party had been lost. The Indians could not recognize the country when it was hidden from thirty to fifty feet in snow. Blindly struggling forward, they gradually separated into three parties. On the fourth, W. H. Eddy and Mary Graves were in advance with the gun. A starved deer crossed their path and providentially was slain.

Drinking its warm blood and feasting upon its flesh, this couple waited for the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Foster, Mrs. McCutchen, and Mrs. Pike, who were some distance behind. Night came and pa.s.sed and they did not arrive. Indeed, Foster was dying for lack of nourishment. Behind this party were Mr. and Mrs. Jay Fosd.i.c.k. During the night, Mr. Fosd.i.c.k perished, and the faithful wife, after remaining with him until morning, struggled forward and met Mrs. Foster and a companion. Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k related the death of her husband, and upon being informed of Foster's condition, consented that her husband's body be converted into food. It was done. This was the first time that women's hands had used the knife, but by the act a life was saved. Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k, although dying, would not touch the food, and but for the venison would not have lived to see the setting of the sun. But what was one small deer among so many famished people? Hide, head, feet, entrails, all were eaten. On the sixth, the last morsel was consumed. They were now without hope. Their journey was apparently interminable. Wearied, foot-sore, freezing at night and tortured by hunger during the day, life could not last many hours. Some one must die; else none could live and reach the long-talked-of relief.

Would it be Eddy, whose wife and two children were behind? Would it be Mrs. Pike, who left two babes? Mrs. McCutchen, who left one? Mr. or Mrs.

Foster, whose baby boy was at the cabin? Or would it be Mary Graves or Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k, who had left mother and family? On the night of the seventh, they lay down upon the snow without having tasted a mouthful of food during the day. Continued famine and exhaustion had so weakened their frames that they could not survive another day. Yet, on the morning of the seventh, they arose and staggered onward. Soon they halted and gathered about some freshly made tracks. Tracks marked by blood! Tracks that they knew had been made by Lewis and Salvador, whose bare feet were sore and bleeding from cuts and bruises inflicted by the cruel, jagged rocks, the frozen snow, and flinty ice. These Indians had eaten nothing for nine days, and had been without fire or blankets for four days. They could not be far ahead.

Chapter VIII.

Starvation at Donner Lake Preparing Rawhide for Food Eating the Firerug Shoveling Snow off the Beds Playing they were Tea-cups of Custard A Starving Baby Pleading with Silent Eloquence Patrick Breen's Diary Jacob Donner's Death A Child's Vow A Christmas Dinner Lost on the Summits A Stump Twenty-two Feet High Seven Nursing Babes at Donner Lake A Devout Father A Dying Boy Sorrow and Suffering at the Cabins.

How fared it with those left at Donner Lake? About the time the fifteen began their terrible journey, Baylis Williams starved to death. Such food as the rest had was freely given to him, but it did not is satisfy the demands of his nature. Quietly, uncomplainingly, he had borne the pangs of famine, and when the company first realized his dreadful condition, he was in the delirium which preceded death. What words can portray the emotions of the starving emigrants, when they saw one of their number actually perish of hunger before their eyes! Williams died in the Graves cabin, and was buried near the house by W. C. Graves and John Denton.

All the Donner Party were starving. When the cattle were killed the hides had been spread over the cabins in lieu of s.h.i.+ngles. These were now taken down and eaten. All the survivors describe the method of preparing this miserable subst.i.tute for food. The narration by Mrs. J.

M. Murphy (Virginia E. Reed), of San Jose, is among the most vivid. She says the green rawhides were cut into strips and laid upon the coals, or held in the flames until the hair was completely singed off. Either side of the piece of hide was then sc.r.a.ped with a knife until comparatively clean, and was placed in a kettle and boiled until soft and pulpy. There was no salt, and only a little pepper, and yet this substance was all that was between them and starvation. When cold, the boiled hides and the water in which they were cooked, became jellied and exactly resembled glue. The tender stomachs of many of the little children revolted at this disagreeable diet, and the loathing they acquired for the sight of this substance still exists in the minds of some of the survivors. To this day, Thomas K. Reed, of San Jose, who was then a tiny three-year-old, can not endure the sight of calf's-foot jelly, or of similar dishes, because of its resemblance to the loathed food which was all his mother could give him in the cabins at Donner Lake.

William G. Murphy describes how they gathered up the old, castaway bones of the cattle-bones from which all the flesh had been previously picked-and boiled, and boiled, and boiled them until they actually would crumble between the teeth, and were eaten. The little children, playing upon the fire-rug in his mother's cabin, used to cut off little pieces of the rug, toast them crisp upon the coals, and then eat them. In this manner, before any one was fairly aware of the fact, the fire-rug was entirely consumed.

The Donner families, at Prosser Creek, were, if possible, in even a sadder condition. In order to give a glimpse of the suffering endured in these two tents, the following is quoted from a letter written by Mrs.

W. A. Babc.o.c.k (Georgia A. Donner, now residing at Mountain View, Santa Clara County): "The families shared with one another as long as they had anything to share. Each one's portion was very small. The hides were boiled, and the bones were burned brown and eaten. We tried to eat a decayed buffalo robe, but it was too tough, and there was no nourishment in it. Some of the few mice that came into camp were caught and eaten.

Some days we could not keep a fire, and many times, during both days and nights, snow was shoveled from off our tent, and from around it, that we might not be buried alive. Mother remarked one day that it had been two weeks that our beds and the clothing upon our bodies had been wet. Two of my sisters and myself spent some days at Keseberg's cabin. The first morning we were there they shoveled the snow from our bed before we could get up. Very few can believe it possible for human beings to live and suffer the exposure and hards.h.i.+ps endured there."

Oh! how long and dreary the days were to the hungry children! Even their very plays and pastimes were pathetic, because of their piteous silent allusion to the pangs of starvation. Mrs. Frank Lewis (Patty Reed), of San Jose, relates that the poor, little, famis.h.i.+ng girls used to fill the pretty porcelain tea-cups with freshly fallen snow, daintily dip it out with teaspoons and eat it, playing it was custard.

Dear Mrs. Murphy had the most sacred and pitiful charge. It was the wee nursing babe, Catherine Pike, whose mother had gone with the "Forlorn Hope," to try, if possible, to procure relief. All there was to give the tiny sufferer, was a little gruel made from snow water, containing a slight sprinkling of coa.r.s.e flour. This flour was simply ground wheat, unbolted. Day after day the sweet little darling would lie helplessly upon its grandmother's lap, and seem with its large, sad eyes to be pleading for nourishment. Mrs. Murphy carefully kept the little handful of flour concealed--there was only a handful at the very beginning--lest some of the starving children might get possession of the treasure.

Each day she gave Catherine a few teaspoonfuls of the gruel. Strangely enough, this poor little martyr did not often cry with hunger, but with tremulous, quivering mouth, and a low, subdued sob or moan, would appear to be begging for something to eat. The poor, dumb lips, if gifted with speech, could not have uttered a prayer half so eloquent, so touching.

Could the mother, Mrs. Pike, have been present, it would have broken her heart to see her patient babe dying slowly, little by little. Starvation had dried the maternal b.r.e.a.s.t.s long before Mrs. Pike went away, so that no one can censure her for leaving her baby. She could only have done as Mrs. Murphy did, give it the plain, coa.r.s.e gruel, and watch it die, day by day, upon her lap.

Up to this time, but little has been said of Patrick Breen. He was an invalid during the winter of 1846 and '47. A man of more than ordinary intelligence, a devout Catholic, a faithful and devoted father, his life furnishes a rare type of the pioneer Californian. To Mr. Breen we are indebted for the most faithful and authentic record of the days spent at the cabins. This record is in the form of a diary, in which the events of the day were briefly noted in the order of their occurrence. Lewis Keseberg kept a similar diary, but it was subsequently accidentally destroyed. Mrs. Tamsen Donner kept a journal, but this, with her paintings and botanical collections, disappeared at the fatal tent on Alder Creek. Mr. Breen's diary alone was preserved. He gave it into Col. McKinstry's possession in the spring of 1847, and on the fourth of September of that year it was published in the Nashville (Tenn.) Whig.

A copy of the Whig of that date is furnished by Wm. G. Murphy, of Marysville. Other papers have published garbled extracts from this diary, but none have been reliable. The future history of the events which transpired at the cabins will be narrated in connection with this diary.

It must be remembered that the lake had always been known as "Truckee Lake," it having been named after an old Indian guide who had rendered much a.s.sistance to the Schallenberger party in 1844. The record appears without the slightest alteration. Even the orthography of the name of the lake is printed as it was written, "Truckey."

The diary commences as follows:

"Truckey's Lake, November 20, 1846."

"Came to this place on the thirty-first of last month; went into the pa.s.s; the snow so deep we were unable to find the road, and when within three miles from the summit, turned back to this shanty on Truckey's Lake; Stanton came up one day after we arrived here; we again took our teams and wagons, and made another unsuccessful attempt to cross in company with Stanton; we returned to this shanty; it continued to snow all the time. We now have killed most part of our cattle, having to remain here until next spring, and live on lean beef, without bread or salt. It snowed during the s.p.a.ce of eight days, with little intermission, after our arrival, though now clear and pleasant, freezing at night; the snow nearly gone from the valleys."

"November 21. Fine morning; wind northwest; twenty-two of our company about starting to cross the mountains this day, including Stanton and his Indians."

"Nov. 22. Froze last night; fine and clear to-day; no account from those on the mountains."

"Nov. 23. Same weather; wind west; the expedition cross the mountains returned after an unsuccessful attempt."

"Nov. 25. Cloudy; looks like the eve of a snow-storm; our mountaineers are to make another trial to-morrow, if fair; froze hard last night."

"Nov. 26. Began to snow last evening; now rains or sleets; the party do not start to-day."

"Nov. 27. Still snowing; now about three feet deep; wind west; killed my last oxen to-day; gave another yoke to Foster; wood hard to be got."

"Nov. 30. Snowing fast; looks as likely to continue as when it commenced; no living thing without wings can get about."

"Dec. 1. Still snowing; wind west; snow about six or seven and a half feet deep; very difficult to get wood, and we are completely housed up; our cattle all killed but two or three, and these, with the horses and Stanton's mules, all supposed to be lost in the snow; no hopes of finding them alive."

"Dec. 3. Ceases snowing; cloudy all day; warm enough to thaw."

"Dec. 5. Beautiful suns.h.i.+ne; thawing a little; looks delightful after the long storm; snow seven or eight feet deep."

"Dec. 6. The morning fine and clear; Stanton and Graves manufacturing snow-shoes for another mountain scrabble; no account of mules."

"Dec. 8. Fine weather; froze hard last night; wind south-west; hard work to find wood sufficient to keep us warm or cook our beef."

"Dec. 9. Commenced snowing about eleven o'clock; wind northwest; took in Spitzer yesterday, so weak that he can not rise without help; caused by starvation. Some have scanty supply of beef; Stanton trying to get some for him self and Indians; not likely to get much."

"Dec. 10. Snowed fast all night, with heavy squalls of wind; continues to snow; now about seven feet in depth."

"Dec. 14. Snows faster than any previous day; Stanton and Graves, with several others, making preparations to cross the mountains on snow-shoes; snow eight feet on a level."

"Dec. 16. Fair and pleasant; froze hard last night; the company started on snow-shoes to cross the mountains; wind southeast."

"Dec. 17. Pleasant; William Murphy returned from the mountain party last evening; Baylis Williams died night before last; Milton and Noah started for Donner's eight days ago; not returned yet; think they are lost in the snow."

"Dec. 19. Snowed last night; thawing to-day; wind northwest; a little singular for a thaw."

"Dec. 20. Clear and pleasant; Mrs. Reed here; no account from Milton yet. Charles Burger started for Donner's; turned back; unable to proceed; tough times, but not discouraged. Our hope is in G.o.d. Amen."

"Dec. 21. Milton got back last night from Donner's camp. Sad news; Jacob Donner, Samuel Shoemaker, Rhinehart, and Smith are dead; the rest of them in a low situation; snowed all night, with a strong southwest wind."

Jacob Donner was the first to die at Prosser Creek. He expired while sitting at the table in his tent, with his head bowed upon his hands, as if in deep meditation. The following terse account is from the gifted pen of Mrs. S. O. Houghton (Eliza P. Donner), of San Jose: "Jacob Donner was a slight man, of delicate const.i.tution, and was in poor health when we left Springfield, Illinois. The trials of the journey reduced his strength and exhausted his energy. When we reached the place of encampment in the mountains he was discouraged and gave up in despair.

Not even the needs of his family could rouse him to action. He was utterly dejected and made no effort, but tranquilly awaited death."

"Dec. 23. Clear to-day; Milton took some of his meat away; all well at their camp. Began this day to read the 'Thirty Days' Prayers;' Almighty G.o.d, grant the requests of unworthy sinners!