New Book Available

I checked the Jesse Stuart Foundation website yesterday and Allen Eckert's new Donner Party book, Dark Journey, is available for purchase here. 334 p., $25.00. Haven't read it yet, but hope to soon.

It's My Bloggy and I'll Crow If I Want To...

It suddenly occurred to me that I coulda mentioned this a coupla months ago: in August I was awarded the Oregon-California Trails Association's Merrill J. Mattes Award for Excellence in Writing for my article "Survivor: Sarah Graves Fosdick," which was published in Overland Journal 26, no. 1 (Spring 2008). The award itself is a handsome engraved plaque on a walnut base and I have no idea what to do with it. Anyway, it's a thumping great honor and I was dumbfounded (and a bit teary) when they notified me. Thanks, OCTA, and everybody whose help and encouragement made it possible.

Demanding to be haunted

Since it's Halloween and all...

"Some places speak distinctly. Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder; certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for shipwrecks." --Robert Louis Stevenson

One would think that, of all places, the scenes of the Donner Party tragedy would be haunted, but there just aren't many Donner ghost stories, and with few exceptions the ones I've encountered are distinctly unsatisfactory. The paucity of stories is no doubt due to the fact that nobody actually lives at Donner sites to witness anything (if there's anything to witness at all, of course). Oh, sure, people "live" temporarily at the campground at the state park, but not at the actual cabin locations, and while the (shudder) development around Prosser Reservoir blights the environs of the Donner family camp, no one lives at Alder Creek. Whatever walks the meadow walks alone.

I've read a variety of "true" Donner ghost stories which are obviously based on peoples' faulty notions of what happened back in 1846-7, like the appearance of a woman in bloody, old-fashioned clothing (taken as "proof" that Louis Keseberg murdered Tamzene Donner). Pfft. I much prefer stories of vague, creeping dread that might -- or might not -- be due solely to the imagination of the percipient.

For example, back about 1997 I asked a Donner Memorial State Park ranger if she knew of any odd happenings. To my delight, she said yes. Occasionally when staff worked alone in the museum at night they would experience disquieting sensations of not being alone, of being watched, and would hear unexplained noises.

Then there was the woman who bought a Murphy cabin vial with tags signed by Frances Donner Wilder. The purchaser had never had any problems before, but after she displayed the vial in her home next to some old family memorabilia, odd things began to happen. She and her husband heard the sounds of a child's voice, her dogs whined and growled savagely when in proximity to the vial, a small rocking chair moved and rocked by itself, and so on. When they got the vial out of the house, the phenomena ceased.

Probably my favorite Donner "ghost" story comes from Alder Creek, where, in 1998, a young woman named Elizabeth toured the site. It was late afternoon and she was by herself -- no other cars in the lot, no other people anywhere around -- yet she was overcome with the sensation of not being alone, of panic, and depression as she walked the site. While using the women's restroom, she heard a sound like scuffling feet and a tinkering noise, as of someone sorting through a toolbox, coming from the men's room next door. She was relieved to get away.

When I related this story to a friend with whom I'd visited Alder Creek, she was taken aback. "Oh, wow," she said. "I heard weird noises from next door and got a really creepy feeling when I was in that restroom myself."

Another new book

Well, this one sneaked up on me -- I had no idea there was a new Donner Party book in the works when I stumbled on some buzz about Dark Journey by Allen Eckert, published by the Jesse Stuart Foundation. You can read more about the book here. Sounds interesting, but it looks like we'll have to wait to order it -- I just visited the foundation's website and the book isn't listed yet. Keep checking!

Had to laugh...

Today my genealogy program told me that Noah James was the half-brother of the father-in-law of the brother-in-law of a second cousin of the husband of a great-granddaughter of George Donner.

I did not ask for this information.

John Sinclair

Exactly 160 years ago today, San Francisco's Alta California published news of the death of John Sinclair, an early California pioneer who had participated in the efforts to rescue the Donner Party.

Sinclair arrived in California in 1834, obtained a land grant, and plowed the first furrow in the Sacramento Valley, according to the Alta. He settled at Rancho del Paso, 2-3 miles north of Sutter's Fort across the American River, and was serving as the alcalde of the Northern District in the winter of 1847 when the news of the Forlorn Hope's arrival at Johnson's Ranch reached him. He promptly sent a message to Washington A. Bartlett, the alcalde at San Francisco, soliciting aid, then hurried up to Johnson's to interview the survivors. Sinclair helped coordinate the rescue of the Donner Party, sheltered some of the refugees in his home, and later, in May and June of 1847, officiated at the marriages of five of the survivors.

Sinclair did well during the early days of the gold rush and amassed a considerable fortune. In the spring of 1849 he and his family set out for New York by the isthmus route. During the voyage he became ill (cholera, according to some, yellow fever according to others) and died aboard the steamer shortly before it arrived in New Orleans.

Wildfire on Hastings Cutoff

Skull Valley was full of smoke on the afternoon of on August 2, 1846, when the nine members of the Bryant-Russell Party arrived at Redlum Spring. They camped early and rose in the middle of the night to begin preparations to cross the Great Salt Lake Desert. At 1:30 A.M. on August 3, Edwin Bryant wrote, the nearly full moon* looked "like a ball of fire, and shining with a dim and baleful light, seemed struggling downwards through the thick bank of smoky vapor that overhung and curtained the high ridge of mountains to the west of us." The Donner Party, passing through the area a little over three weeks after Bryant, made no mention smoke or fire, one of the few misfortunes they missed on their disastrous trek west.

163 years later, the moon is full and Skull Valley is again filled with the smoke of a wildfire. A lightning strike near Iosepa on August 6, 2009, sparked the Big Pole Fire, which, fanned by the wind, has consumed more than 44,000 acres as it's raced north along the Stansbury Mountains on eastern side of the valley. BLM firecrews battled the flames all day Thursday and today; this morning the smell of smoke hung in the air in Salt Lake City, over40 miles away.


*The U.S. Naval Observatory website provides details of moon phases -- type in any year you like between 1700 and 2035 in the search box and click "Get data."