THE EXPEDITION OF THE DONNER PARTY
AND ITS TRAGIC FATE
BY ELIZA P. DONNER HOUGHTON
S. O. Houghton
Eliza P. Donner Houghton
PREFACE
Out of the sunshine and shadows of sixty-eight years come thesepersonal recollections of California—of the period when Americancivilization first crossed its mountain heights and entered itsoverland gateways.
I seem to hear the tread of many feet, the lowing of many herds, andknow they are the re-echoing sounds of the sturdy pioneer home-seekers.Travel-stained and weary, yet triumphant and happy, most of them reachtheir various destinations, and their trying experiences and valorousdeeds are quietly interwoven with the general history of the State.
Not so, however, the "Donner Party,"of which my father was captain.Like fated trains of other epochs whose privations, sufferings, andself-sacrifices have added renown to colonization movements and servedas danger signals to later wayfarers, that party began its journey withsong of hope, and within the first milestone of the promised land endedit with a prayer for help. "Help for the helpless in the storms of theSierra Nevada Mountains!"
And I, a child then, scarcely four years of age, was too young to domore than watch and suffer with other children the lesser privationsof our snow-beleaguered camp; and with them survive, because thefathers and mothers hungered in order that the children might live.
Scenes of loving care and tenderness were emblazoned on my mind. Scenesof anguish, pain, and dire distress were branded on my brain duringdays, weeks, and months of famine,—famine which reduced the party fromeighty-one souls to forty-five survivors, before the heroic relief menfrom the settlements could accomplish their mission of humanity.
Who better than survivors knew the heart-rending circumstances of lifeand death in those mountain camps? Yet who can wonder that tenderestrecollections and keenest heartaches silenced their quivering lips formany years; and left opportunities for false and sensational details tobe spread by morbid collectors of food for excitable brains, and forprolific historians who too readily accepted exaggerated andunauthentic versions as true statements?
Who can wonder at my indignation and grief in little girlhood, when Iwas told of acts of brutality, inhumanity, and cannibalism, attributedto those starved parents, who in life had shared their last morsels offood with helpless companions?
Who can wonder that I then resolved that, "When I grow to be a woman Ishall tell the story of my party so clearly that no one can doubt itstruth"? Who can doubt that my resolve has been ever kept fresh in mind,by eager research for verification and by diligent communication witholder survivors, and rescuers sent to our relief, who answered my manyquestions and cleared my obscure points?
And now, when blessed with the sunshine of peace and happiness, I amfinishing my work of filial love and duty to my party and the State ofmy adoption, who can wonder that I find on my chain of remembrancecountless names marked, "forget me not"? Among the many to whom Ibecame greatly indebted in my young womanhood for v