The picture of distress was shocking indeed. William Eddy and William Foster spent little time at Starved Camp; they were focused on getting back over Donner Pass and saving their own children who were still trapped at the lake encampments by Donner Lake. Stone and Oakley proposed that they take only the injured Mary Donner and the three Graves children.
John Stark, however, was determined to leave no one behind. He declared, "I will not abandon these people. The Breen younster later recalled: "To his great bodily strength, and unexcelled courage, myself and others owe our lives. There was probably no other man in California at that time, who had the intelligence, determination, and what was absolutely necessary to have in that emergency.
For Eddy and Foster, their hopes to save their sons were crushed when they learned that both sons had died and that their bodies had been eaten. At the Alder Creek camp site, only Tamsen Donner had a chance to live as her husband, George, and Betsy Donner's son, Samuel, were both close to death. William Eddy told Tamsen Donner to leave with them, but she would not abandon her husband.
Five Left Behind The four men of the third relief each carried a child, namely the three Donner girls and Simon Murphy. Editor's Note: This installment is 38 in an exclusive series tracing the actual experiences of the Donner Party as it worked its way into American history.
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Lake Tahoe Webcams. Steps had been cut into the walls of the pit. There were dead bodies in the pit as well as the eleven people barely alive. The dead had been partially eaten. The survivors had been there for days and it was amazing any were alive.
When they arrived they discovered their children were dead and had been partly eaten. John Stark In Summit Valley the remaining rescuers discussed what to do and took a vote to save only two of the children in Starved Camp. That might have been all they could manage. The others would have to stay behind. John Stark, above, could not abide that. That meant that nine people, mostly children, would die on the mountain, exposed to the elements down in a very deep hole in the snow.
Then he repeated the whole process again and again and again. To galvanize morale, he laughed and told the youngsters they were so light from months of mouse-sized rations that he could carry them all simultaneously, if only his back were broad enough.
He saved all nine. That is extraordinary and that is heroism. It was also heroism he never got contemporary credit for. There was probably no other man in California at that time, who had the intelligence, determination, and what was absolutely necessary to have in that emergency. November 13, 15 people try for Donner Summit They fail.
November 22, 22 people and seven mules try for Donner Summit. December 21, Charles Stanton dies near Cascade Lake. When a third man died, the remaining survivors finally took that step, stripped his bones for flesh, and began to eat it. But unfortunately, that's not accurate. When the snowshoe party started to eat their dead, Luis and Salvador were the only ones to refuse, even though they themselves were dying of hunger.
The fact that Luis and Salvador had brought the Donner Party lifesaving supplies from John Sutter many weeks earlier — effectively saving their lives — made no difference.
In , historian Joseph King used records at Mission San Jose, where he believed Luis and Salvador had been converted, to try to divine more information about the two murdered men. King believed Luis might have been an Ochehamne Miwok, with the birth name Eema, who was just 19 when he was killed for food. After 33 days crossing the mountains, sustained by murdering and eating two men, the survivors of the Forlorn Hope party had the strength to stagger into the valley below.
And the first people they saw — the ones who helped these half-dead survivors, giving them food and shelter — were people from the Miwok village they stumbled into. These villagers had no idea the party they were helping had murdered and eaten two of their own people just days before.
A rescue had to be mounted, but ensuring the safe return of that many people would cost money. Pre-gold, San Francisco was not a large town — and some of those people listening to that letter had actually been on the emigrant trail with the Donner Party before they took that fateful cutoff. He made his way safely to California, and he too was now fundraising for a rescue party, knowing that his wife and children were running out of food fast.
Meanwhile, a rag-tag rescue party of seven men was dispatched from Sutter's Fort into the mountains. This first rescue party is known as the First Relief. By the time the First Relief reached the Donner Party camps, 13 people there had already died. And the people they found still living were essentially living under the snow, their cabins blanketed by drifts as high as 15 feet.
This was no modern Medevac to safety, but instead the start of a days-long march over the mountains, through snow drifts as high as buildings. In these desperate conditions, and still lacking enough food, several of them died on the rescue route. Eliza Donner was one of them. She recalled the desperation for food — any food. Friday Feb 26th Mrs Murphy said here yesterday that she thought she would commence on Milt and eat him. Murphy and also Mrs.
Graves where to get sustenance for their dependent little ones… Was it culpable, or cannibalistic to seek and use the only life-saving means left them? This time, 17 people were evacuated — leaving only a few members of the Donner Party behind. This included most of the Donner family themselves at their creek camp, which had become a horrific site of death and bodies.
Only a handful of the Donner Party were now left behind at the camps, walking skeletons kept barely alive by human flesh. They were either too weak to travel or refused to leave. And after so many months of survival, the landscape that greeted these people was one of total horror. Body parts — including heads — were reportedly strewn around the snow.
They found one last survivor: an injured man called Lewis Keseberg, whose family had been rescued by the first party. The disgusted rescuers dragged Keseberg out of the camp along the same frozen path to freedom his own family had taken weeks before.
Having been left for weeks back at the lake camp, watching others die around him until he entered complete isolation, Keseberg was utterly unaware that his young daughter had died on this path, and had been buried under the snow where she fell.
Stopping to rest, the exhausted Keseburg saw a piece of cloth sticking up from the snow and pulled it to find out what it was. This was Part One of a two-part Bay Curious series. Search-Icon Created with Sketch. KQED is a proud member of. Always free. Sign In. KQED Inform. Save Article Save Article. Bay Curious. Carly Severn. Oct 29, Failed to save article Please try again.
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