History of the Donner Party : The Ordeal of the Wagon Train of Pioneers in the Sierra Nevada Winter of 1846-7

A tragic legend of the way West

The story of the Donner Party is a tragic and infamous episode in the history of the 19th century pioneer migrations that crossed continental America. In May 1846 eighty-seven pioneers set out westward from Missouri headed for new lives in California. Persuaded to take an allegedly quicker route through Utah and Nevada, by someone who had never travelled that route by wagon train, they attempted the so-called ''Hastings Cutoff.'' The extra weight of the wagons slowed the party''s progress and instead of reaching their destination by September they found themselves grinding to a halt in the Sierra Nevada mountains in November, with winter already upon them. As the temperature dropped and snow began to fall, the group took shelter around a small lake, but their supplies were running low. In December a party of fifteen men and women struck out on snowshoes in an attempt to reach California on foot; more than half of them died of exposure and starvation, the survivors resorting to cannibalism. The first rescue party found the remnants of the lake-side group huddled in its encampment in February 1847. Of the original party only forty seven survived to reach California, all in an advanced state of emaciation and most, it is judged, had by that time resorted to eating human flesh. The reports of cannibalism spread to the public at large and elevated this episode into a compelling horror story. The fascination with the story of the Donner Party, with all its macabre connotations, has endured to the present day.
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