Bad Luck, Starvation and Cannibalism. The Story Of The Donner Party And Their Doomed Journey.
- dthholland
- 5 hours ago
- 10 min read
“Are you men from California, or do you come from Heaven?”
These were the stunned words of an emaciated Mrs Murphy, emerging from a snow-buried cabin at Truckee Lake, as rescuers from California finally broke through to the stranded emigrants. By then, some members of the ill-fated Donner Party had not eaten anything substantial in weeks. Others had turned to an unthinkable last resort—eating the frozen remains of those who had died before them.
What began as an optimistic journey of American pioneers chasing prosperity on the West Coast turned into one of the most harrowing survival sagas in the history of the United States. Trapped by snow, plagued by poor decisions, divided by infighting, and beset by starvation, the Donner–Reed Party would endure months of winter in the unforgiving Sierra Nevada. By the end, nearly half were dead, and tales of cannibalism would overshadow everything else.
Spring 1846: Departing with Hope
The Donner Party originated from Springfield, Illinois. It was composed of several families, including those of George and Jacob Donner, and James F. Reed, a prosperous businessman. With their hired hands, children, and servants, the party made up a sizeable portion of the 500 wagons that departed Independence, Missouri, in the spring of 1846, heading west via the Oregon Trail. Their goal was California—a land then under Mexican rule but increasingly attractive to American settlers.
California promised fertile farmland, a mild climate, and, for some like Patrick Breen, the freedom to live fully within a Catholic society. Others were drawn by economic opportunities or the sweeping ideology of Manifest Destiny. The trail was familiar to many emigrants, and most completed the journey in four to six months, moving west at about 15 miles per day.
Among the early decisions that would shape their fate, the group chose to follow a newly proposed route—the Hastings Cutoff. Advertised as a quicker alternative by Lansford Hastings in his guidebook The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California, it promised to shave hundreds of miles off the trip. However, it was largely untested and unverified—especially by wagon.
In July 1846, the Donner Party stood at a crossroads in Wyoming and chose a fateful gamble: Lansford Hastings’s promised shortcut to California. This new “Hastings Cutoff” was meant to save time by carving through uncharted territory south of the Great Salt Lake, but it would cost them dearly. The pioneers – families like the Donners, Reeds, Breens, Graves, Eddys and others – left the established trail and soon found themselves hacking a path through the dense Wasatch Mountains. Progress slowed to a crawl.
The crossing of the Great Salt Lake Desert became a nightmare. Hastings’s notes had warned of “two days and nights” without water – instead the Donner Party spent six grueling days trekking across 80 miles of salt flats. Blistering days gave way to frigid nights. Wagons sank axle-deep into gummy salt mud under the beating sun. Thirst-crazed oxen bellowed and broke free; nine of Reed’s ten oxen bolted into the void, never to be seen again. Other families lost animals too. The blazing salt flats shimmered like water, leading to cruel mirages. Every mile sapped strength and hope.
Misfortune followed hard on their heels. Along the Humboldt, Paiute warriors harried the caravan, stealing horses and oxen in revenge for encroachments. Food stores dwindled further. Arguments turned violent: on October 5, two wagons became entangled and teamster John Snyder began whipping James Reed’s ox. When Reed intervened, Snyder savagely struck him with a wagon whip. In the scuffle, Reed stabbed Snyder to death. Though some saw it as self-defence (Snyder had also struck Reed’s wife), Reed was banished by vote of the group. He departed for California alone, promising to return with aid.
Snowbound in the Sierra – Truckee Lake and Alder Creek Camps
By late October 1846, the emigrants reached the Sierra Nevada’s eastern approaches, dangerously late in the season. They camped near today's Reno, debating whether to push over the high pass immediately or rest their weary oxen. They had been told snow usually wouldn’t block the Sierra passes until mid-November. But fate gave them no grace. On October 20, a freak misfortune – the accidental shooting death of William Pike (brother-in-law of the Murphys) – spurred them to move out rather than delay.
Suddenly, heavy snow began falling – the first blizzard of the season, earlier than anyone expected. The Breens managed to struggle up to Truckee Lake (now Donner Lake), just east of the pass summit, camping by an abandoned cabin. The Eddys and Kesebergs pressed on to the pass itself but met impassable drifts 5–10 feet deep. Turned back by walls of snow, they returned to the lake. Within a day, all remaining families had gathered at Truckee Lake except the Donners, whose broken wagons and George Donner’s injured hand forced them to halt at Alder Creek, six miles behind.
They hunkered down to wait out the winter in hastily erected makeshift camps. About 60 people – the Breen, Graves, Reed, Murphy, Keseberg and Eddy families and their hired hands – crowded around Truckee Lake. They managed to strengthen three crude cabins left by earlier travellers, patching leaky roofs with canvas and oxhide. The cabins had no proper doors or windows, just holes cut for entry. Nineteen men, twelve women, and twenty-nine children (including six toddlers) crowded inside.
With the snow came a deadly scarcity. The last of the supplies that Charles Stanton had heroically hauled from Sutter’s Fort were soon exhausted. The emigrants slaughtered the remaining oxen and stock, caching the meat in the frozen snow. Truckee Lake had not yet frozen, but, desperate as they were, the pioneers didn’t know how to catch the lake’s plentiful trout. William Eddy, the best hunter, managed to shoot a bear early on – a brief reprieve of fresh meat – but after that, game vanished.
Starvation and Suffering in Camp
As winter tightened its grip, life at the snowbound camps became a waking nightmare. The cabins at Truckee Lake were cramped, filthy, and freezing, with snow so deep people could not go outside for days. Hunger became the settlers’ constant companion. They resorted to boiling strips of oxhide – wagon tarps and even the hide rugs – into a “disagreeable glue-like jelly” to eat. They repeatedly boiled ox and horse bones for soup until the bones turned to powder in the pot.
Inside the cabins, the emigrants lay listless and gaunt. Many were too weak to stand, spending their days in bed to conserve energy. Two-thirds of those remaining were children, many without their parents. After mid-December, when a group of stronger members left camp (in a last-ditch bid to find help), those left behind were mostly women and young ones. In one cabin, Elizabeth Graves, herself near starvation, found herself caring for eight children (a mix of her own and others).
Death came slowly, inexorably. By the end of December, Jacob Donner (George’s younger brother) had died at Alder Creek, as did three of the Donners’ hired men. Over the next weeks, more would succumb to hunger and sickness. The first death at Truckee Lake was Baylis Williams, teamster for the Reeds, likely from malnutrition in mid-December. Others followed. Each death was a double-edged event: a tragedy, certainly, but also – unthinkably – a potential source of sustenance for the survivors.
“The Forlorn Hope” – A Desperate Escape on Snowshoes
With no sign of relief in sight, a brave subgroup decided on a near-impossible plan: they would try to hike over the mountains to get help. On December 16, 1846, a band of 17 starving emigrants – later dubbed “The Forlorn Hope” – strapped on makeshift snowshoes and left Truckee Lake, heading west up towards the pass. The party included 10 men and 5 women (two members turned back on the first day). Fathers risked leaving their families, and the only hope for rescue rode on their shoulders.
After struggling up steep slopes with 12-foot drifts, the snowshoers became disoriented in the endless white. By the third day, they were snow-blind and their food was gone. On the sixth day, one member (William Eddy) discovered his wife had secretly tucked a half-pound of bear meat in his pack – a small Christmas miracle. But soon that too was consumed. Exhaustion and hypothermia stalked the group. Charles Stanton, who had heroically refused to stay behind in camp, sat down one night in the snow and never rose again.
Cannibalism in Camp – “To Commence on Milt & Eat Him”
While the Forlorn Hope was battling white-out conditions and starvation in the mountains, those left at the camps faced their own slow descent into horror. January and February 1847 brought more storms and deeper snow. Hunger gnawed constantly. The once-unthinkable had begun to occur. When the oxhides and boiled bones were gone, when mice and dogs were no longer to be found, there remained only one thing.
Patrick Breen’s diary, one of the only contemporary accounts, grew increasingly grim. He noted the weather—“Snowed all night and still snowing. Looks as likely as ever for a storm”—but also began recording deaths, and worse. At one point, he wrote:
“Mrs Murphy said here yesterday that she thought she would commence on Milt and eat him. I don’t that she has done so yet; it is distressing.”
The reference was to Milton Elliott, a teamster who had recently died. Whether Mrs Murphy did indeed act on that impulse is unclear, but by then, survival had eclipsed all social norms. The line between necessity and taboo had vanished under 25 feet of snow.
Alder Creek: The Enigma of Jean Baptiste Trudeau
At Alder Creek, the Donners faced their own equally desperate conditions. Jacob Donner was already dead. Several of the Donners’ hired men followed. Tamsen Donner, George’s wife, struggled to keep her children alive as her husband grew too ill to move. Food had entirely run out.
One of the most controversial figures of the ordeal was sixteen-year-old Jean Baptiste Trudeau, a French-Canadian hired hand. When rescuers reached Alder Creek in February, they found him emerging from a snow shelter with a human leg over his shoulder. Startled, he quickly threw it into the snow and tried to hide it.
Some accused him of actively butchering the dead, and possibly consuming George Donner’s son. Trudeau later admitted to cannibalism in one interview, then denied it in another. In later life, he tried to rehabilitate his image, even assuring Eliza Donner that he had never eaten her parents. But the allegations never fully disappeared. He would go on to lead a relatively quiet life in California—always with a shadow trailing behind him.
The Final Survivor: Lewis Keseberg
No figure in the Donner Party story received more infamy than Lewis Keseberg. The German-born immigrant was already regarded with suspicion in camp, reputed to be surly and difficult. When the fourth and final relief party reached Truckee Lake in mid-April, they found only Keseberg alive.
The others—Lavinah Murphy, Tamsen Donner, and several children—were dead. In one of the cabins, rescuers reportedly found a pot containing human flesh, and Keseberg admitted he had eaten parts of the deceased. He claimed Tamsen Donner had died naturally and that she had come to Truckee Lake voluntarily, unwilling to abandon her husband. But speculation swirled: had she truly died of exposure, or had she been killed?
Keseberg always denied murder, but his reputation was ruined. Newspapers labelled him a ghoul. One account even accused him of hoarding gold he had taken from the dead. Though never charged with any crime, he lived under a cloud for the rest of his life.
The Relief Expeditions and Tragic Decisions
Over the winter and early spring of 1847, four relief parties ventured into the mountains from California, each encountering scenes of increasing horror. The first reached Truckee Lake in February, bringing out 23 survivors. Among them were the Reed children and a few of the Donner girls.
In the second relief, James Reed—who had made it safely to California months earlier—returned for his family. When rescuers told Margaret Reed that her youngest children were too weak to travel, she faced an agonising decision. She had to leave them behind. Her daughter Patty reportedly said: “Well, Ma, if you never see me again, just do the best you can.” She would be rescued later.
The third relief, led by William Eddy and John Stark, found what became known as “Starved Camp.” Eleven survivors remained, half-buried in snow and barely alive. John Stark distinguished himself by carrying multiple children on his back, one after another, refusing to leave anyone behind. His efforts saved several lives.
The Toll and Legacy
When the final count was made, 48 of the original 87 members of the Donner Party had survived. The youngest children fared best. Those aged six to fourteen had the highest survival rate, likely due to being fed and protected by others. The elderly had no such luck: no adult over fifty survived. Women fared better than men, perhaps owing to their lower caloric needs and lesser physical exertion.
In time, some survivors rebuilt their lives. James Reed became a successful businessman during the Gold Rush. Many survivors refused to speak of the ordeal. Others tried to set the record straight. Virginia Reed, 13 at the time, would later write:
"We have got through with our lives but don't let this letter dishearten anybody. Never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can."
In time, the area became a place of pilgrimage. A monument now stands at Donner Lake, its base 22 feet tall to mark the depth of that historic snowfall. Today, thousands visit the site each year at Donner Memorial State Park, drawn not just by morbid curiosity, but by a story of survival against impossible odds. Though the cannibalism is what history remembers most, many historians today emphasise the broader tragedy. As historian Michael Wallis put it: "People say, 'How could they do that?' I turn it around and say, 'What would you do if you were a mother watching your children starve and freeze to death?'"
