Eating crow

Ah, the joys of writing! No matter how hard you try, errors inevitably creep into your work. It's dishearteningly easy to make dumb mistakes, and even if you catch them, your edits don't always make it into the published book. My copy of An Archaeology of Desperation has become a correction copy, with penciled notes scattered here and there throughout my contributions to the book. So you dedicated Donner fanatics can make the following changes to your copies:

p. 8, Figure 1.1: The symbol representing Mary Blue, George Donner's first wife, is defined as "female, divorced"; it should be "female, deceased." This error I deny having made -- evidently it's the result of a miscommunication somewhere along the line -- but it's attributed to me, so I'll correct it.
p. 20, Table 1.1: Sarah Keyes should not be listed.
p. 33: The Donner Party "parted from the other emigrants to Fort Bridger to rendezvous with Hastings"; this gibberish should read "parted from the other emigrants to rendezvous with Hastings at Fort Bridger."
p. 39: "Dorothea Wolfinger, about twenty" should be "about twenty-nine."
p. 56: Jacob Donner's family left Springfield "in April 1847" (tch!) should be, of course, "in April 1846."
p. 57: "in utero" should be italicized.
p. 63: the Fourth Relief left the cabins "on April 17, 1847" should be "on April 21, 1847."
p. 299: "the last three months of 1847" should be "the last months of 1847."

There are no doubt more goofs I haven't noticed yet, and I'd change a lot of other things if I could; I had to leave out many details for lack of space, for instance, and admit I could have worded some passages better. In addition, the editorial staff at the U of OK Press did some tinkering with the citations and bibliography that I don't necessarily agree with. It's possible that the other contributors may have corrections, too, I don't know. But hey, the book is out at last; it is what it is.

So there you have it -- I'm taking my lumps in advance of any reviewer's criticisms. Remember, you read it here first!

Radio interview

On Thursday, October 20, Jeffrey Callison interviewed three of the authors of An Archaeology of Desperation on Capital Public Radio (KXJZ) in Sacramento. Book editors Drs. Kelly J. Dixon, co-director of the dig, and Shannon A. Novak, a bioarchaeologist who examined the bone fragments recovered, and I were on the air for about 20 minutes. You can listen to the show here.

Naturally, there was much discussion of cannibalism. A lot of people seem to think that the goal of the Donner Party Archaeology Project was to prove or disprove cannibalism, but it started in 2003 as a brief dig funded by television program; the goal was actually to continue previous work in the area and look for a hearth. The results were so promising that the archaeologists came back the next year.

True to form, the Sacramento Bee's coverage of the program asserts that "cannibalism continues to be an unsettled question," but "many experts... continue to believe it did occur to some extent." Oh, yeah? Find me an expert that says it didn't happen.

Oh, well, perhaps somebody will read (and understand) the book.

The Book!

Yesterday the University of Oklahoma Press officially released the new Donner Party book, An Archaeology of Desperation: Exploring the Donner Party’s Alder Creek Camp. Call me biased, but I think it's quite a contribution to the literature of the Donner Party, with lots of new and interesting perspectives on the entire episode, and I hope that readers will agree.

Naturally, it's too soon for reviewers to have plowed through it yet, but you can get an idea of what the book is like from the galley of the introduction, which is available here. DiscoveryNews ran an article about it last week, and the University of Nevada has also issued a press release, since several people associated with the university worked on the project.

You can order it directly from the publisher or at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers.

Archaeology book news

Guess what! An Archaeology of Desperation: Exploring the Donner Party's Alder Creek Camp is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble, and, no doubt, other fine emporia. The publisher is the University of Oklahoma Press, the ISBN is 1806142103, and the release date is October 20, 2011. Dr. Kelly Dixon is just checking the last set of galleys, and then that puppy's going to bed!

This isn't a trade book, so Amazon and B&N aren't offering any discounts off the list price of $34.95. But it's worth it (IMO) for a hefty tome (~350 pages), with a lot of variety (10 chapters, 18 contributors), and a lot of new and exciting information. Here's the table of contents:

• Sufferers in the mountains: the Donner Party disaster / Kristin Johnson
• The aftermath of tragedy : the Donner camps in later years / Kristin Johnson
• Historical perspectives on the archaeology of the Donner Party / Donald L. Hardesty
• An archaeology of despair / Kelly J. Dixon
• A family in crisis : archaeology of a survival camp / Julie M. Schablitsky
• What remains : species identification and bone histology / Gwen Robbins and Kelsey Gray, with contributions by Guy L. Tasa, Ryne Danielson, and Matt Irish
• Man and beast : skeletal signatures of a starvation diet / Shannon A. Novak
• The delicate question : cannibalism in prehistoric and historic times / G. Richard Scott and Sean McMurry
• Under watchful eyes : Washoe narratives of the Donner Party / Jo Ann Nevers and Penny Rucks, with contributions by Lana Hicks, Steven James, and Melba Rakow
• "All remember the fate of the Donner Party" : history and the disaster at Cannibal Camp / Will Bagley and Kristin Johnson
• Concluding thoughts / Kelly J. Dixon and Julie M. Schablitsky
  

Plus there are illustrations, maps, tables, etc.

A note on the cover: the illustration first appeared on the New Yorker of April 24, 2006, which contained Dana Goodyear's article, "What Happened at Alder Creek? Investigating the Donners."

Standard disclaimer: I have no financial interest in the book, alas. Although it will probably sell well (for a scholarly book), there are so many contributors that a division of the royalties would net each author a mere pittance, so the proceeds are being donated to an archaeological organization instead.

Long time, no blog

It's been quite a while since I last blogged -- I came down with an acute attack of RLS (Real Life Syndrome) and got out of the habit. I haven't given up on the Donner Party, though -- all sorts of things have been going on.

Back in October I visited Alder Creek for the first time in ages. It was great to be back! John Grebenkemper and I -- mostly John, actually -- have been checking out some new leads that might help locate the missing Donner camp.

As y'all are aware, the 2003-04 digs at Alder Creek established the presence of a hearth in the meadow, some distance from the "George Donner Tree." The artifacts recovered date it to the mid-nineteenth century, indicate that it was not an Indian or transient camp but a Euro-American domestic camp, occupied for some time, and that the residents were starving. In other words, it can only be a Donner Party camp. Although we don't know if it was George's or Jacob's, one of the brothers' camps remains undiscovered. (There's no good evidence that a third camp, the so-called "teamsters' wigwam," ever existed.)

At any rate, armed with new evidence, John thinks he knows the general area where the missing camp was located. We'll be publishing our findings eventually, and with any luck we might interest another set of archaeologists in excavating at Alder Creek some day.

Tour at Donner Memorial State Park

On Sunday, October 31, Donner Memorial State Park interpreter Gayle Green will guide visitors on a tour of the state park and the Alder Creek campsite. The event will begin at 10:30 and last about two hours. No fee is mentioned in the Sierra Sun article. You can also visit the state park website or call (530) -582-7892 for more information. The date was chosen because it was when the Donner Party (or some of them) arrived at the lake, not because of Halloween, but ask Gayle if she knows any Donner Party ghost stories anyway.

It's been a while...

Things have been a mite slow on the Donner Party front lately. I continue to research -- Ancestry.com has just added the 1852 California State Census to their online databases, so I've been tracking down Donner Party survivors and rescuers, or trying to -- some of them are pretty darn elusive. Some are right where you expect them, while others show up in surprising places. Baptiste, for instance, was living in Sonoma in 1852, or maybe he just happened to be there the day the census-taker came by. George Donner was over in Solano County -- he was there in the 1860 census, too. I found Philippine Keseberg and her two girls in Sacramento, but Louis isn't listed with them. Same with Flavilla Eddy -- she and the kids were in Santa Clara County, but where was Will? And Patrick Dunn, an obscure member of the Second Relief, was down in Santa Barbara County making a living as a monte dealer.

You may also have seen the Donner Party around the web lately -- the political metaphor has been making the rounds again, this time equating the Tea Party and/or Republicans with the Donner Party. This is a vile slander. I don't care about the political parties, they can fend for themselves, but I detest the image of the Donner Party as bunch of maniacs ripping at each other in a frenzied struggle to survive. Didn't happen, folks!

50 years ago

Fifty years ago today, construction crews working on Interstate 80 along the north side of Donner Lake inadvertently started a huge wildfire on Donner Ridge. Whipped by winds, it roared eastward. Firefighters stopped the blaze from destroying the historic Donner family camp at Alder Creek, however, by bulldozing a line in time to protect the area. Consequently, when three years later Highway 89 was completed and the site had become the Donner Camp Picnic Area, the (alleged) George Donner Tree still stood, and continued to stand until its top fell off about 1996, leaving the snag that remains today. (See the article in today's Sierra Sun for more about the fire.)

Donner Party cannibalism is still true

Two articles rebutting the latest "no-Donner-Party-cannibalism" flap were published today, Ethan Rarick's in the Los Angeles Times (Donner Party cannibalism -- it's still true) and Frank Mullen's in the Reno Gazette-Journal (Researcher: Donner Party did cannibalize the dead after all). Maybe they'll do some good; the LA Times is a major paper and Frank is an AP reporter, so hopefully other outlets will pick the story up.

Also, Publico.es, a Spanish news site, picked up the latest brou-ha-ha last week in La prensa se come a la ciencia, but instead of repeating the "news," reported on the US media's misinterpretation of the story. Ouch.

Spoke too soon...

In my last post, I wrote that the latest flap had died down. Well, it hadn't, it just went into remission to gear up for another spurt (not unlike what Eyjafjallajökull may be up to) and there was another flurry of the no-Donner-Party-cannibalism "news" for a few days. Now Appalachian State University has published a revised press release about Dr. Gwen Robbins' work on the bones from Alder Creek, with some corrections and without the sensational claims and misinformation. A rather peculiar statement came out in yesterday's New York Post, too. I'm afraid they're too late to do much good, but we can hope...

Caveat lector

Sigh. It's astonishing, and disheartening, how academics -- people who ought to know better -- can distort and thoroughly misrepresent simple facts.

I just read an article from Appalachian State University News about the Alder Creek dig, reporting on Dr. Gwen Robbin's work on the bone remains found at Alder Creek during the 2003-04 digs. Now, you'd think that a statement issued by a university about a professor's work would be reliable, right? In this case, wrong.

The article describes Dr. Robbins' work and reports that no evidence of cannibalism could be detected in the bone fragments recovered from the digs. No quarrel from me on this point.

Unfortunately, however, the article falls apart at the end. Somebody came up with this gem:

The historical record does indicate that relief parties in February brought horses to the camps and that a few were left behind. There was no record of the horses being consumed and no mention of eating dog.

Nope. The relief parties did not bring horses, mules, burros, or any other animals with them, hence had none to leave behind. And while there are no direct references to eating horses, Baptiste described killing and gutting horses and burying their remains in the snow for future consumption. Eliza Donner Houghton also mentions that the family dog "disappeared," and while the poor animal's fate isn't specified, I was not entirely stunned to learn that dog was one of the species identified in the bone assemblage.

But it gets better: The legend of the Donner party was primarily created by print journalists, who embellished the tales based on their own Victorian macabre sensibilities and their desire to sell more newspapers.

Nope. There were only two newspapers in California in 1847 and a tiny, thinly spread population to read them; making up sensational news to sell papers was simply not an issue. Second, "print journalists" did not write up the Donner disaster; instead, the California Star and the Californian primarily reprinted letters from people directly connected with the relief efforts reporting on the latest developments. Yes, the California Star published a few articles commenting on the disaster, including a sensational one printed on April 10, 1847. Edwin Bryant reprinted it in his What I Saw in California, but he can hardly be accused of publishing it solely to sell his book.

The survivors fiercely denied allegations of cannibalism and one man even filed a defamation suit immediately upon reaching Sutter’s Fort near Sacramento.

Survivors did not "fiercely deny" cannibalism in 1847; in February of that year Patrick Breen recorded in his diary that Mrs. Murphy and the Donners had spoken of their intention to eat human flesh; Mary Graves Pyle, Sarah Graves Fosdick, and Virginia Reed all wrote about it in May; Baptiste, William Eddy, and James Reed wrote and/or spoke of it in 1847 as well. Over the years several other survivors wrote and spoke of cannibalism. Keseberg's defamation suit was not about the charge of cannibalism, but the charge of having killed Tamzene Donner.

The voices of the survivors of the Donner Party ordeal have long been overwhelmed by the spectacular imagery of a legend that swiftly took on a life of its own.

No, the voices of the survivors of the Donner Party have been not been heard because some people -- like the author of this article -- refuse to read any of their writings.

Their descendants are still today affected by the stigma of this tale.

I wonder how many descendants of the Donner Party the author actually knows. I'd say that yes, they're affected by the fact of cannibalism, but most of them are at peace with it. Several have told me, "Hey, if they hadn'ta done it, I wouldn't be here today."

Addendum: In January 2006 there was a similar media flap alleging "No Donner Party cannibalism!" Here's a link to my report on it: Donner Party Bulletin No. 15.

Book news

Just a few odds and ends.

First, Gabrielle Burton's Impatient With Desire, a novel about Tamzene Donner, has been out for a couple of weeks now. It's a quick, enjoyable read and I'm glad to say that the reviews I've seen are positive.

Second, I've been reading Will Bagley's So Rugged and Mountainous, a history of the overland trails from 1812-1848, and it's great. For Donner Party fans, the general information about the overland experience -- background, wagons, draft animals, routes, and so on -- places the DP squarely in its historical context, and Will uses recently discovered and lesser known sources to impart freshness to his Donner coverage.

Third, the Alder Creek archaeology book (working title: The Archaeology of Desperation) is moving along. It's nearing (note I said nearing) the final stages of editing -- with over a dozen contributors and such a technical subject, these things take time -- and hopefully will go to press late this year.

2009 looks promising for Donner Party buffs

With two, hopefully three major books about the Donner Party coming out, 2009 will be a banner year for followers of the saga.

First there's Gabrielle Burton's Searching for Tamsen Donner, published by the University of Nebraska Press and due out on March 1. Gabrielle describes her personal quest for the elusive heroine and ends with the first publication of all of Tamzene's known letters.

And you won't have long to wait for the next one: Daniel James Brown's book focusing on Sarah Graves Fosdick, The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride, is coming out on May 19. It's published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins. Dan has done a great job on his research and contributes a lot of interesting new perspectives.

As for the Alder Creek archaeology book, it's still in the works with no word yet on a publication date, but may well be out before the end of the year.

Other news: Using new software, I've been working on the New Light on the Donner Party website and am hoping to get the revised version up in the not too far distant future. (There are a lot of technical details to master and fuss with, so don't hold your breath!) I'm editing typos, correcting other errors, adding details. I've turned up a lot of biographical info: added two new individuals to the "Rescuers" page, info about Charles L. Cady, the Donners, the Reeds, Noah James, Walter Herron, and others. I've also turned up a lot of info about peripheral issues, like Walter Herron's and Tamzene Donner's families, which is interesting but not exactly relevant to the Donner story so probably won't make it to the website.

Also, Ric Burns' 1992 documentary The Donner Party, is available for download at various websites, including Blockbuster, LimeWire, The Movie Downloads, and others.

That's all for now -- Happy New Year, folks!

The slate from Alder Creek

When I got to Alder Creek in July 2004 I was eager to learn if anything had turned up at the dig yet, so I stopped a likely looking woman in the parking lot. Yes, she said, she was with the dig, they had indeed been finding things, and mentioned pieces of broken writing slate. When I heard that, I got chills -- Tamzene Donner had been a school teacher and took school supplies to California! That was leaping to a conclusion, of course, and I knew that it didn't necessarily have anything to do with Tamzene, so I talked myself down.

After the dig, however, some of the team rhapsodized about the slate, envisioning how Tamzene tried to "normalize" the situation by teaching the children. This is a heckuva lot of assumptions. For one thing, it isn't at all certain which camp was excavated. The evidence, to me, suggests that it was more likely Jacob Donner's than George's; if so, Tamzene Donner is much less likely to have been involved with any artifacts found there. In addition, there was no proof that the slate had been used at all, let alone by whom, and there are many other ways the slate could have been used besides as a writing surface. As a flat, smooth, heatproof, waterproof object, a "writing" slate would make a dandy tray, trivet, spoon rest, cutting board, platter, plate, etc.; the fact that the fragments of slate were found near the hearth might suggest some of these uses. (Then again, if it had been used for writing, the fire would have been a source of light.)

At any rate, Molly Swords, one of Dr. Kelly Dixon's students, has completed the results of her study of the Alder Creek slate in the form of her master's thesis, A Clean Slate: The Archaeology of the Donner Party's Writing Slate Fragments. She was unable to bring up any traces of writing on the fragments, but has written an extensive history on the uses and types of school slates which is interesting in its own right. The thesis is available at the University of Montana's website as a PDF file.