I didn't know you were Mormon, Avatar.
And, I do believe the Donner party was going to California.
I hear the Donners have the original patent on Soylent Green.
Wagon's East was John Candy's last Movie, He died while making it. It is worth seeing and a good laugh.
[edit] Party formation
The nucleus of the party consisted of the families of George Donner, his brother Jacob, and James F. Reed of Springfield, Illinois, plus their hired hands, about 33 people in all, with nine covered wagons. They set out for California in mid-April 1846, arrived at Independence, Missouri, on May 10, 1846, and left two days later.[1]
On May 19, 1846, the Donners and Reeds joined a large wagon train captained by William H. Russell. Most of those who became members of the Donner Party were also in this group. For the next two months the travelers followed the California Trail until they reached the Little Sandy River, in what is now Wyoming, where they camped alongside several other overland parties. There, those emigrants who had decided to take a new route ("Hastings Cutoff," named after its promoter, Lansford Hastings), formed a new wagon train. They elected George Donner their captain, creating the Donner Party, on July 19.[1] At its height, it numbered 87 emigrants with 23 wagons.[2]
The Donner Party continued westward to Fort Bridger, where Hastings Cutoff began, and set out on the new route on August 31. They endured great hardships while crossing the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake Desert, finally rejoining the California Trail near modern Elko, Nevada, on September 26. The "shortcut" had taken them over three weeks longer than had they used the customary route. They met further setbacks and delays while traveling along Nevada's Humboldt River.[1]
[edit] Snow at Donner Pass
When they reached the Sierra Nevada at the end of October, a snowstorm blocked their way over what is now known as Donner Pass. Demoralized and low on supplies, about three quarters of the emigrants camped at a lake (now called Donner Lake), while the Donner families and a few others camped about six miles (ten kilometers) away, in the Alder Creek Valley.[1]
The emigrants slaughtered their remaining oxen, but there was not enough meat to feed so many for long. In mid-December, fifteen of the trapped emigrants, later known as the Forlorn Hope, made snowshoes and set out for Sutter's Fort, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) away. This group consisted of 10 men and five women. When one man gave out and had to be left behind, the others continued, but soon became lost and ran out of food. Caught without shelter in a raging blizzard, four of the party died. The survivors resorted to cannibalism, then continued on their journey; three more died and were also cannibalized. Close to death, the seven surviving snowshoers—two men, and all five of the women—finally reached safety on the western side of the mountains on January 18, 1847.[1]
[edit] Legacy
Donner Memorial State Park, near the town of Truckee, California, at the eastern end of Donner Lake, commemorates the disaster; the area where the Donner families camped at Alder Creek has been designated a National Historic Landmark.
Several places in western states take their names from the Donner Party: Donner Hill, Donner-Reed Pass, and Donner Spring in Utah; Donner Springs in Nevada; and Donner Lake, Pass, Peak, and Summit in California.
The route the Donner Party blazed into the Salt Lake Valley via Emigration Canyon was used the following year by the vanguard company of Mormon pioneers. The section from Fort Bridger to the valley became part of the Mormon Trail and remained the main route to Salt Lake City into the 1860s.
The memory of the Donner disaster prompted Californians to fund relief teams during the gold rush. They sent men eastward along the trails to take food and water to overland emigrants, saving many lives.[3]
Donner Party - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
