Lots going on on the Donner Party front, mostly writing: two articles in the last issue of Overland Journal, a review of Ethan Rarick's Desperate Passage for the next issue of OJ, co-authoring a chapter for the upcoming Donner Party archaeology book with Will Bagley, an article about the remains of a man found in 1847 and 1849 above Donner Lake for Crossroads, reviewing two manuscripts of Donner Party books, correspondence with Donner buffs, and oh, yeah, trying to finish my own chapter for the archaeology book. None of this would be particularly onerous in itself, but with the concomittant research, and coming all at once, it eats up an astonishing amount of time.
Other people have been busy, too. For instance somebody just posted these photos of the historical marker commemorating Johnson Crossing, near the site of Johnson's Ranch. The ranch was a landmark on the old emigrant trail, being the first American settlement on the western side of the Sierra Nevada; it was the staging area for the Donner relief parties. Johnson's Ranch is also commemorated by another marker in a Wheatland park, but this monument is some distance away from the actual ranch site.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
By the way...
Those who're interested can purchase Overland Journal 26:1 (Spring 2008), which contains three Donner Party articles, from the Oregon-California Trails Association. Phone (888) 811-6282, toll-free, to make a credit card purchase. $5.00 per copy, plus postage. (Disclaimer: I have no financial interest in sales of the issue.)
Donner, Donner everywhere (updated)
So much has been happening on the Donner Party front this spring that it's hard to know where to start.
Yesterday I was surprised and pleased to hear of another book in the works, this one with a very different approach. In 1973 Gabrielle Burton was bitten by the Tamzene Donner bug. Over the years she's pursued Tamzene, traveling to Newburyport, Mass., Elizabeth City, N.C., Springfield, Ill., and of course, the Donner Lake area, in her search, often with her family in tow. Next year the University of Nebraska Press will publish Searching for Tamsen Donner, which chronicles Gabrielle's quest, tells Tamzene's story, and includes the texts of Tamzene's letters. Sounds great!
Over the years, we've heard so much about the Donners and the Reeds (and more recently the Breens) that other Donner Party members have been slighted. I've tried to remedy this in my own research by concentrating more on the other families and single men, and am therefore pleased to report on projects involving the Murphy and Graves families.
Marysville, Calif., was named for Donner Party survivor Mary Murphy Covillaud; her sisters Sarah and Frances also lived there for several years, and their brother William was a prominent citizen of the town. I've been working with three Marysville ladies, all active in local history circles, who have developed a novel approach to presenting the story of the Murphy family: Sarah Murphy Foster (Kathy Sedler), Harriet Murphy Pike Nye (Sue Cejner-Moyers), and Mary Murphy Covillaud (Karen Compton) each take a turn to speak about part of the family's experience. The Three Murphy Sisters have been very well received and have gotten several requests for future presentations.
I was delighted to learn from Daniel James Brown that he's finished the first draft of his Donner Party book, Seeking Sarah (what is it with these missing Donner Party females?), which focuses on Sarah Graves Fosdick and the Graves family. I very much look forward to seeing it, because, although I try not to play favorites, I have a particular affinity for the Graveses -- five of the six surviving children of the family lived in the area of Northern California where I grew up, and descendants live there to this day. I've gotten to know several of them and they're fine folks. The Graves family's story, filtered through most histories' pro-Reed bias, has yet to be told adequately, and I'm confident that Dan will do them justice.
And then there are the movies. Necrosis, which wrapped in February, is a horror film: six friends, trapped by snow in an isolated cabin in the Sierra Nevada, are haunted by the ghosts of the Donner Party. Not a bad premise, really, but the creators perpetuate the tiresome canard that the Donner Party slaughtered one another a hunger-induced frenzy.
The filming of The Forlorn has just ended -- see previous blog entry called "The movie that couldn't be made." From the title and the dramatis personae, it's obviously about the Forlorn Hope -- the snowshoers who set out from Donner Lake in mid-December 1846 to seek help. More details coming soon!
Yesterday I was surprised and pleased to hear of another book in the works, this one with a very different approach. In 1973 Gabrielle Burton was bitten by the Tamzene Donner bug. Over the years she's pursued Tamzene, traveling to Newburyport, Mass., Elizabeth City, N.C., Springfield, Ill., and of course, the Donner Lake area, in her search, often with her family in tow. Next year the University of Nebraska Press will publish Searching for Tamsen Donner, which chronicles Gabrielle's quest, tells Tamzene's story, and includes the texts of Tamzene's letters. Sounds great!
Over the years, we've heard so much about the Donners and the Reeds (and more recently the Breens) that other Donner Party members have been slighted. I've tried to remedy this in my own research by concentrating more on the other families and single men, and am therefore pleased to report on projects involving the Murphy and Graves families.
Marysville, Calif., was named for Donner Party survivor Mary Murphy Covillaud; her sisters Sarah and Frances also lived there for several years, and their brother William was a prominent citizen of the town. I've been working with three Marysville ladies, all active in local history circles, who have developed a novel approach to presenting the story of the Murphy family: Sarah Murphy Foster (Kathy Sedler), Harriet Murphy Pike Nye (Sue Cejner-Moyers), and Mary Murphy Covillaud (Karen Compton) each take a turn to speak about part of the family's experience. The Three Murphy Sisters have been very well received and have gotten several requests for future presentations.
I was delighted to learn from Daniel James Brown that he's finished the first draft of his Donner Party book, Seeking Sarah (what is it with these missing Donner Party females?), which focuses on Sarah Graves Fosdick and the Graves family. I very much look forward to seeing it, because, although I try not to play favorites, I have a particular affinity for the Graveses -- five of the six surviving children of the family lived in the area of Northern California where I grew up, and descendants live there to this day. I've gotten to know several of them and they're fine folks. The Graves family's story, filtered through most histories' pro-Reed bias, has yet to be told adequately, and I'm confident that Dan will do them justice.
And then there are the movies. Necrosis, which wrapped in February, is a horror film: six friends, trapped by snow in an isolated cabin in the Sierra Nevada, are haunted by the ghosts of the Donner Party. Not a bad premise, really, but the creators perpetuate the tiresome canard that the Donner Party slaughtered one another a hunger-induced frenzy.
The filming of The Forlorn has just ended -- see previous blog entry called "The movie that couldn't be made." From the title and the dramatis personae, it's obviously about the Forlorn Hope -- the snowshoers who set out from Donner Lake in mid-December 1846 to seek help. More details coming soon!
Saturday, March 08, 2008
New Donner Party documents!
The latest issue over Overland Journal, the quarterly of the Oregon-California Trails Association (OCTA), is full of Donner Party material, including some new primary documents.
First are three letters by rescuer Selim E. Woodworth. Two were written while he was on the trail to Oregon in 1846, the third on February 6, 1847, the eve of his departure to the mountains to rescue a party of "unfortunate emigrants" starving in the mountains.
Then there's my article about survivor Sarah Graves Fosdick and the Graves family, followed by another "new" (i.e., previously unknown) letter that Sarah wrote to relatives in Indiana to inform them of the disaster. Sarah wrote on May 23, 1847, a day after her sister Mary wrote to Sarah's father-in-law back in Illinois, and the two letters are very similar (Mary's letter is in Unfortunate Emigrants, p. 129-131).
These new primary documents are pretty minor and certainly don't revolutionize our knowledge of the Donner Party, but they're still very interesting. Woodworth's trail letters help fill a gap in our knowledge of the emigration of 1846; Sarah's is a real gem not so much because of its content but because of the personal angle -- it's her only account of the Donner Party, written soon after the tragedy, and one of the very few documents by her known to exist.
In addition to these articles, this issue of OJ also has a piece by Rush Spedden, "The Donner Trail Across the Salt Lake Valley." In this detailed inquiry, Rush argues that the Donners crossed the Jordan River at 3300 South, over half a mile from the location (2700 South) posited by Dale Morgan and Roderick Korns in West from Fort Bridger. Rush make a pretty good case and it'll be interesting to see how the experts respond.
First are three letters by rescuer Selim E. Woodworth. Two were written while he was on the trail to Oregon in 1846, the third on February 6, 1847, the eve of his departure to the mountains to rescue a party of "unfortunate emigrants" starving in the mountains.
Then there's my article about survivor Sarah Graves Fosdick and the Graves family, followed by another "new" (i.e., previously unknown) letter that Sarah wrote to relatives in Indiana to inform them of the disaster. Sarah wrote on May 23, 1847, a day after her sister Mary wrote to Sarah's father-in-law back in Illinois, and the two letters are very similar (Mary's letter is in Unfortunate Emigrants, p. 129-131).
These new primary documents are pretty minor and certainly don't revolutionize our knowledge of the Donner Party, but they're still very interesting. Woodworth's trail letters help fill a gap in our knowledge of the emigration of 1846; Sarah's is a real gem not so much because of its content but because of the personal angle -- it's her only account of the Donner Party, written soon after the tragedy, and one of the very few documents by her known to exist.
In addition to these articles, this issue of OJ also has a piece by Rush Spedden, "The Donner Trail Across the Salt Lake Valley." In this detailed inquiry, Rush argues that the Donners crossed the Jordan River at 3300 South, over half a mile from the location (2700 South) posited by Dale Morgan and Roderick Korns in West from Fort Bridger. Rush make a pretty good case and it'll be interesting to see how the experts respond.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Another new Donner performance
Ruth Whitman's poem cycle Tamsen Donner: A Woman's Journey has inspired yet another artistic interpretation, described as an "operatorio in one act."
On March 14 and 15 the Seattle EXperimental Opera (SEXO) will present Tom Baker's Hunger: The Journey of Tamsen Donner at 8:00 PM at the Chapel at Good Shepherd Center in Seattle -- see Tom's website or the press release for more information. Anybody who attends, please report back and let us know what you thought of it.
On March 14 and 15 the Seattle EXperimental Opera (SEXO) will present Tom Baker's Hunger: The Journey of Tamsen Donner at 8:00 PM at the Chapel at Good Shepherd Center in Seattle -- see Tom's website or the press release for more information. Anybody who attends, please report back and let us know what you thought of it.
Friday, February 22, 2008
New Light URL change
The URL for New Light on the Donner Party has been changed, for some mysterious reason. It's now http://www.xmission.com/~octa/DonnerParty/. However, the old one still seems to be functioning, too. Very strange.
The movie that couldn't be made (updated)
Over the years there have been several plans to make a feature film about the Donner Party but none has ever been completed. Previous flutters about Donner movie projects have followed a predictable pattern: an initial announcement, sporadic follow-up reports, and then a deafening silence. Why? I can't say for certain, but suspect that these projects' demise can be attributed to the ever-tricky issue of cannibalism, the expense of producing historical epics, and/or the overall decline of the Western genre's popularity. And, as has been pointed out, the difficulty of condensing the story into a 2-3 hour movie.
But hope springs eternal. Just about every year since 1995 I've met, been contacted by, or heard of at least one person who's working on a Donner Party screenplay. Some of these folks have become good friends and long time correspondents, others I never hear from again, one or two have sent me scripts to peruse. But never has any movie resulted.
This might be about to change, according to recent reports on the 'net, but you can't believe everything you read. This is the real deal, according to producer John E. Moore: Anacapa Entertainment has a feature film in active development called The Forlorn. It focuses on "the 1846 tragedy of the Donner Party, a wagon train forced by the worst blizzard in recorded history to survive the winter trapped in Sierra Nevada Mountains." ("Worst blizzard in recorded history"?! Tch! That's Hollywood...) Producers are John E. Moore, Mark Costa, and Ted Meyer, with TJ Martin as the writer/director. Negotiations to cast Crispin Glover are underway but not finalized; shooting is expected to begin in March in the Tahoe area. It will be interesting to see what happens this time around.
But hope springs eternal. Just about every year since 1995 I've met, been contacted by, or heard of at least one person who's working on a Donner Party screenplay. Some of these folks have become good friends and long time correspondents, others I never hear from again, one or two have sent me scripts to peruse. But never has any movie resulted.
This might be about to change, according to recent reports on the 'net, but you can't believe everything you read. This is the real deal, according to producer John E. Moore: Anacapa Entertainment has a feature film in active development called The Forlorn. It focuses on "the 1846 tragedy of the Donner Party, a wagon train forced by the worst blizzard in recorded history to survive the winter trapped in Sierra Nevada Mountains." ("Worst blizzard in recorded history"?! Tch! That's Hollywood...) Producers are John E. Moore, Mark Costa, and Ted Meyer, with TJ Martin as the writer/director. Negotiations to cast Crispin Glover are underway but not finalized; shooting is expected to begin in March in the Tahoe area. It will be interesting to see what happens this time around.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
New book released
Well, Ethan Rarick's new book on the Donner Party is officially out. Desperate Passage: The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West (Oxford University Press) has been available at Amazon.com for about a month now, but today's New York Times, the San Jose Mercury News, and other papers have published reviews, generally favorable. At last we have an up-to-date narrative history of the Donner Party that incorporates the latest research (much of it mine), and overall I give the book a thumbs-up. Experienced followers of the Donner saga are unlikely to find any startling new information and Donner fanatics might find much to quibble with, but for more casual readers, it's a worthwhile addition to the literature.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Mortal Decisions
Well, it looks like geography will prevent me from seeing another Donner Party performance -- Stuart Richel informs me that he will be reprising his role as James F. Reed in "Mortal Decisions, a Diary of the Donner Party."
Richel [pronounced rih-SHELL] wrote this one-man show, which premiered in San Jose, California, in 1994, and has presented it at other venues, including the first-night banquet at the Donner Party Sesquicentennial (August 1996) in Reno, Nevada.
He will be presenting it again at the Metropolitan Playhouse in Greenwich Village for four performances between February 8-16, 2008. I can't imagine being anywhere near New York then, but would very much like to attend , as I have only the vaguest recollection of seeing it in Reno.
For more about Mr. Richel and his performance, see the website.
Richel [pronounced rih-SHELL] wrote this one-man show, which premiered in San Jose, California, in 1994, and has presented it at other venues, including the first-night banquet at the Donner Party Sesquicentennial (August 1996) in Reno, Nevada.
He will be presenting it again at the Metropolitan Playhouse in Greenwich Village for four performances between February 8-16, 2008. I can't imagine being anywhere near New York then, but would very much like to attend , as I have only the vaguest recollection of seeing it in Reno.
For more about Mr. Richel and his performance, see the website.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Grrr!
When I first heard about Ron Cunningham's Donner Party ballet performed recently in Sacramento, I was sorry to have missed it. Not anymore! A correspondent wrote to the paper and learned of a "plot twist" -- George Donner didn't die of gangrene, no, no! Instead, the ballet suggests he was beaten to death by disgruntled party members. Tch! As if the memories of Donner Party members haven't been sullied enough, their ordeal misrepresented, their sufferings turned into stupid jokes, and now this. I'm glad I didn't see this "artistic" interpretation of the Donner Party and hope it was a flop.
Here endeth the rant.
Here endeth the rant.
Friday, October 26, 2007
But is it art?
The Donner Party has inspired a lot of artistic interpretations over the years -- novels, short stories, children's books, poems, paintings, plays, even an opera. Two works in the news of late are Jim Shaw's The Donner Party and Ron Cunningham's A Woman's Journey: The Tamsen Donner Story.
Shaw's work was in the news a while back when it came up for auction at Christie's. It's an installation described by one reviewer as "where Mormons meet feminists over a scary, scary meal." It consists of dining tables in the form of flat-topped covered wagons, arranged in a circle in front of a backdrop, with place settings of assorted, well, "junk" is the word that comes to mind. The Donner Party connection is fairly remote; Shaw doesn't use historical images or sources, for instance. As it turns out, the work is a takeoff on Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party and no doubt it's very clever, but I'm not impressed. (I'm actually quite annoyed that Shaw fell for Ric Burns' goofy story about the Donner Party labeling packages of human flesh.) You can find out more reading the New York Art article, or, for an up close, detailed look, check out the Yahoo!video. Don't say I didn't warn you.
In 1977 Ruth Whitman's poem cycle Tamsen Donner: A Woman's Journey was published. Now, 30 years later, Ron Cunningham's ballet A Woman's Journey: The Tamsen Donner Story is being performed at the Sacramento Community Theatre; see the Sacramento News & Reviews article for the performance schedule and price information. Cunningham's isn't the first dance interpretation of Whitman, however; Julia Ince performed her own version in Tamzene's hometown of Newburyport, Mass. , in 1992 and again at the Donner Party Sesquicentennial in 1996.
Shaw's work was in the news a while back when it came up for auction at Christie's. It's an installation described by one reviewer as "where Mormons meet feminists over a scary, scary meal." It consists of dining tables in the form of flat-topped covered wagons, arranged in a circle in front of a backdrop, with place settings of assorted, well, "junk" is the word that comes to mind. The Donner Party connection is fairly remote; Shaw doesn't use historical images or sources, for instance. As it turns out, the work is a takeoff on Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party and no doubt it's very clever, but I'm not impressed. (I'm actually quite annoyed that Shaw fell for Ric Burns' goofy story about the Donner Party labeling packages of human flesh.) You can find out more reading the New York Art article, or, for an up close, detailed look, check out the Yahoo!video. Don't say I didn't warn you.
In 1977 Ruth Whitman's poem cycle Tamsen Donner: A Woman's Journey was published. Now, 30 years later, Ron Cunningham's ballet A Woman's Journey: The Tamsen Donner Story is being performed at the Sacramento Community Theatre; see the Sacramento News & Reviews article for the performance schedule and price information. Cunningham's isn't the first dance interpretation of Whitman, however; Julia Ince performed her own version in Tamzene's hometown of Newburyport, Mass. , in 1992 and again at the Donner Party Sesquicentennial in 1996.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
"Suspicious" fire burns historic Donner Houghton house to the ground
An alert Donner buff sent me the following link to an article in the San Jose Mercury News of today, July 19, 2007: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_6411936
Oh, I am sick about this! A San Jose preservationist contacted me for information about Eliza Donner Houghton back about 2002. I was pleased to learn that Eliza's home was still standing and had been deemed a local landmark. Last I heard, there were plans to relocate the house to a San Jose park where other historic buildings had been moved.
Eliza's 1911 book, The Expedition of the Donner Party and Its Tragic Fate, contains photos of her house and yard in San Jose. (I always thought it was a bit strange of her to include them.) This was an earlier house, which Eliza and her husband either remodeled extensively or tore down and built over in 1881. They only lived in the new house for three years, as they moved to Long Beach in 1884. This second house, the one that just burned, was surrounded by a fairly large yard, which allowed one to view and admire its classic lines. In 1909, however, it was moved, placed cheek-by-jowl with other buildings on a busy city street, and turned into apartments. To see what the pre-1881 house and grounds looked like, click here and scroll down to pp. 356-357, where there are links to printable versions of the photos from Eliza's book.
Oh, I am sick about this! A San Jose preservationist contacted me for information about Eliza Donner Houghton back about 2002. I was pleased to learn that Eliza's home was still standing and had been deemed a local landmark. Last I heard, there were plans to relocate the house to a San Jose park where other historic buildings had been moved.
Eliza's 1911 book, The Expedition of the Donner Party and Its Tragic Fate, contains photos of her house and yard in San Jose. (I always thought it was a bit strange of her to include them.) This was an earlier house, which Eliza and her husband either remodeled extensively or tore down and built over in 1881. They only lived in the new house for three years, as they moved to Long Beach in 1884. This second house, the one that just burned, was surrounded by a fairly large yard, which allowed one to view and admire its classic lines. In 1909, however, it was moved, placed cheek-by-jowl with other buildings on a busy city street, and turned into apartments. To see what the pre-1881 house and grounds looked like, click here and scroll down to pp. 356-357, where there are links to printable versions of the photos from Eliza's book.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Books, books, books
Lots of newish Donner Party books out there or on the way.
First, I recently acquired Green Light (2000), by Patrick Breen. (No, not that Patrick Breen!) It's a horror story about a teenager named Patrick Breen who goes to a creepy summer camp in the Sierra Nevada and... well, let's just say there's a reason why it was published by a vanity press. Although it's not as awful as one might expect, I wouldn't recommend it to anybody but a diehard Donner Party fanatic.
There's another vanity press novel with a young Donner Party descendant for a protagonist, Itchy Donner (2007) by Doug Lambeth. Eleven-year-old Itchy has a rash, hence his nickname, and is obsessed with his pioneer ancestry. It's not Pulitzer Prize material, but not too bad, either. I should mention that even though the book is about a child, it's not a children's book. Available at Lulu.com for download in PDF or as a print-on-demand paperback.
Next year Oxford University Press will be publishing Ethan Rarick's Desperate Journey, the first credible attempt at a Donner Party narrative history since George R. Stewart's Ordeal by Hunger. (No, I'm not badmouthing my own book. Unfortunate Emigrants isn't a narrative history but an anthology of primary sources.) Unfortunately, Ethan doesn't seem to have much sympathy for the Donner Party and has also ta'en a scunner at James F. Reed. Granted, Reed was hard for some people to deal with and he certainly had his faults, but he had a lot of good qualities as well. Sigh. And I'd so hoped that we could get away from the namecalling that's poisoned so much Donner Party writing since Winter of Entrapment came out in 1992... We'll see what the finished result is like.
One book I'm really looking forward to is Daniel James Brown's work focusing on the Graves family and Sarah Graves Fosdick. Dan has a contract with HarperCollins; no anticipated publication date that I know of, but he's done a lot of great research and it will be very interesting to see what he does with it.
Catching up
Well, it's been a long time since I blogged, but I haven't been utterly idle. Lots going on!
Mostly I've been working on my Donner Party bibliography, which now numbers over 4700 citations. (There are hundreds more piled up that I haven't entered into my bibiliographic management program yet -- I use EndNote X.) The bibliography includes just about anything Donner Party: primary documents, secondary histories, newspaper and magazine articles, obituaries, novels about the Donner Party, novels inspired by the Donner Party, graphic novels, children's books, movies, TV shows, radio programs, t-shirts, ephemera, and lots more.
What I haven't done is edit the New Light on the Donner Party website. Frustrating, because I have all sorts of things to add to or edit. Unfortunately my ISP no longer supports the extensions Microsoft requires to run FrontPage, so I have to find new software and figure out how to use it. It could take a while, but hopefully by the end of the summer...
Mostly I've been working on my Donner Party bibliography, which now numbers over 4700 citations. (There are hundreds more piled up that I haven't entered into my bibiliographic management program yet -- I use EndNote X.) The bibliography includes just about anything Donner Party: primary documents, secondary histories, newspaper and magazine articles, obituaries, novels about the Donner Party, novels inspired by the Donner Party, graphic novels, children's books, movies, TV shows, radio programs, t-shirts, ephemera, and lots more.
What I haven't done is edit the New Light on the Donner Party website. Frustrating, because I have all sorts of things to add to or edit. Unfortunately my ISP no longer supports the extensions Microsoft requires to run FrontPage, so I have to find new software and figure out how to use it. It could take a while, but hopefully by the end of the summer...
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Hastings debate
I'm sometimes asked to review other people's work, usually written, but this month I was asked to review something different: a debate. Eighth grade history teacher Eric Langhorst of Liberty, Missouri, divided his third-period class into two sections and showed them Ric Burns' documentary, after which the two teams debated whether or not Lansford W. Hastings was responsible for the Donner Party disaster. I listened to an MP3 of the debate received via e-mail (a podcast of the debate will soon be available at www.speakingofhistory.blogspot.com) and e-mailed Mr. Langhorst my comments. As usually happens, the pro-Hastings and anti-Hastings sides both made some excellent points and some errors, but in spite of their limited exposure to the subject I think the students did a pretty good job.
Catching up
I may have been inactive on the blog for the past two months, but I haven't forsaken the Donner Party -- I've been busy researching, reading, and e-mailing. Especially e-mailing! A bumper crop of students are working on Donner Party projects for National History Day this year -- I must have had ten different groups contact me for information. I received e-mail from one person working on a Donner Party screenplay and from someone else planning a documentary. (I get similar requests every year, but 2007 is getting off to a fast start.) I've reviewed some manuscripts and critiqued a debate. There's lots of interest in the Donner Party out there and it will be interesting to see what, if anything, finally results.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
80 years ago
Eighty years ago this month, newspapers across the country reported another drama in the snow:
The following week an article debunking the story appeared, but got little or no attention:
A news story emanating from Tonopah last week to the effect that occupants of 31 automobiles stranded on the Montgomery pass during a snow storm were saved "from a fate similar to the Donner party" and were rescued "suffering from frostbite and hunger" has been branded as "fantastic" and "ridiculous by some of the "survivors."
Mrs. May Shepherd, proprietress of Shepherd's store at Mt. Montgomery at the top of the Nevada-California pass, sent word to Secretary W. M. David of the Nevada State Automobile Association yesterday that the "two-day fast" of the "entrapped motorists," at least, was not founded on fact.
She declared there is plenty of "eats" and accommodations at Mt. Montgomery and there was at the time the modern Donner party arrived.
Mrs. Shepherd's contention also is borne out by Mis Helen Lusich of Reno, a member of the party in one of the machines. She declares that when the string of California-bound cars and the Nevada-bound contingent met at the top of the pass there was a general celebration and neither hunger not intensive cold was encountered. Those headed for Nevada were invited to remain for supper and partake of five of the Shepherds' turkeys, but time was precious and the did not tarry. It is presumed by the Nevadans , however, that the following Californians consumed the birds.
A trainman employed on the Southern Pacific line from Mina to Bishop, which the highway parallels and once crosses through the pass, also scouted the "harrowing experience."
-- Nevada State Journal (Reno), December 12, 1926, p. 8.
Pioneer Methods Used in Rescuing Tourists
Tonopah, Nev., Dec. 1. (AP) -- Rescued from the fate which befell the Donner party in the winter of 1846-47, passengers of thirty-one automobiles trapped in snow drifts in Montgomery Pass in the Sierra Mountains between here and Southern California, were recovering today from frost bite and hunger.
Heroic measures of the old West were resorted [to] in effecting the rescue, but the telephone, unknown when the Donner party was trapped, was used to summon rescuers. Of the 88 in the Donner party, 42 perished in the deserts of Utah and Nevada and the mountains of California.
Montgomery Pass was sought by the tourists, men, women and children, because the Sierra [Donner] Pass, above Truckee, 200 miles to the north, was blocked for the winter. Huge drifts of snow trapped their automobiles and the tourists set about fighting off cold and starvation as best they could until help should come...
Their plight was made known throughout the mountain region by telephone. Soon Dan Haskin, veteran stage driver, was on the way from Tonopah with four horses and an automobile stage. He was accompanied by Bill Farrington, old time musher. They virtually dug their way to the summit of the pass, the snow blotting out their tracks as they fought through the drifts.
They found the refugees blue from cold and suffering from a two day fast. The cars were pulled out one by one and sent along a fairly clear road to the little resort of Benton, where the tourists were given aid.
Heroic measures of the old West were resorted [to] in effecting the rescue, but the telephone, unknown when the Donner party was trapped, was used to summon rescuers. Of the 88 in the Donner party, 42 perished in the deserts of Utah and Nevada and the mountains of California.
Montgomery Pass was sought by the tourists, men, women and children, because the Sierra [Donner] Pass, above Truckee, 200 miles to the north, was blocked for the winter. Huge drifts of snow trapped their automobiles and the tourists set about fighting off cold and starvation as best they could until help should come...
Their plight was made known throughout the mountain region by telephone. Soon Dan Haskin, veteran stage driver, was on the way from Tonopah with four horses and an automobile stage. He was accompanied by Bill Farrington, old time musher. They virtually dug their way to the summit of the pass, the snow blotting out their tracks as they fought through the drifts.
They found the refugees blue from cold and suffering from a two day fast. The cars were pulled out one by one and sent along a fairly clear road to the little resort of Benton, where the tourists were given aid.
--Salamanca (N.Y.) Republican-Press, December 2, 1926, p. 1
The following week an article debunking the story appeared, but got little or no attention:
Snow Yarn is Called Silly
"Stranded" Motorists Assert Story was Fantastic
"Stranded" Motorists Assert Story was Fantastic
A news story emanating from Tonopah last week to the effect that occupants of 31 automobiles stranded on the Montgomery pass during a snow storm were saved "from a fate similar to the Donner party" and were rescued "suffering from frostbite and hunger" has been branded as "fantastic" and "ridiculous by some of the "survivors."
Mrs. May Shepherd, proprietress of Shepherd's store at Mt. Montgomery at the top of the Nevada-California pass, sent word to Secretary W. M. David of the Nevada State Automobile Association yesterday that the "two-day fast" of the "entrapped motorists," at least, was not founded on fact.
She declared there is plenty of "eats" and accommodations at Mt. Montgomery and there was at the time the modern Donner party arrived.
Mrs. Shepherd's contention also is borne out by Mis Helen Lusich of Reno, a member of the party in one of the machines. She declares that when the string of California-bound cars and the Nevada-bound contingent met at the top of the pass there was a general celebration and neither hunger not intensive cold was encountered. Those headed for Nevada were invited to remain for supper and partake of five of the Shepherds' turkeys, but time was precious and the did not tarry. It is presumed by the Nevadans , however, that the following Californians consumed the birds.
A trainman employed on the Southern Pacific line from Mina to Bishop, which the highway parallels and once crosses through the pass, also scouted the "harrowing experience."
He declares there was much hilarity and, although there were plenty of shovels and tools and plenty of man power in the machines to cut a way through the snow, many of the potential now shovelers preferred to sit on the station platform, swing their legs and "let George do the work."
-- Nevada State Journal (Reno), December 12, 1926, p. 8.
Friday, December 08, 2006
The Kim family
The analogy to the Donner Party is unavoidable -- a family stranded in the snow with little food, coping with their situation for as long as they could until finally one of them left the others to go for help. Like many others, I watched the story of the stranded Kim family unfold with great concern, rejoicing when Kati Kim and her daughters were found alive, praying for her still missing husband, and grieving when he was finally found dead.
I remember thinking, "I just hope they don't start badmouthing the family, they way they did the Everest expeditions of 1996." (The Donner Party has come in for a lot of abuse and ridicule, too.) It's bad enough that people suffered and died; do we need to make matters worse for the survivors? I was consequently heartened to hear a member of the Oregon State police state emphatically on television this morning, "James Kim did nothing wrong."
Interestingly, the officer's name was Hastings.
I remember thinking, "I just hope they don't start badmouthing the family, they way they did the Everest expeditions of 1996." (The Donner Party has come in for a lot of abuse and ridicule, too.) It's bad enough that people suffered and died; do we need to make matters worse for the survivors? I was consequently heartened to hear a member of the Oregon State police state emphatically on television this morning, "James Kim did nothing wrong."
Interestingly, the officer's name was Hastings.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Comment on this blog
OK, I've turned on the "Comments" option, just to see what response I get. I enjoy hearing from my readers but had to remove the guest book from New Light on the Donner Party because of all the spam it was getting, so I'm hoping this will be a good substitute. We'll see how it goes. Note: I reserve the right to moderate comments -- gross or obscene posts will get yanked.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Donner lore
Old newspapers are a gas. It's fascinating to see how people wrote back in the 1800s and early 1900s, how they thought and what they bought. And it may sound ghoulish, but obituaries can be particularly useful, not only for genealogical information but also because they preserve personal tidbits that might otherwise go unrecorded. Unfortunately, however, newspapers also generate and repeat falsehoods and folklore, of which the following are examples.
Take phantom Donner Party members. It's astonishing how many people, or their descendants, claimed membership in the DP. Many, like Lillace Daniels, John Hargrave, Mary Hargrave Swift, Jeremiah Fallon, Michael Murray, Frances Grayson Crane, and A. W. Finley, were actually 1846ers and their obits generally state that the deceased was in the Donner Party but separated from them and took another route. Other individuals, however, clearly could never have even met the Donners en route: Wellington Gregg, emigrant of 1847; George Hinton and Joseph Dennett, emigrants of 1849; and Rhoda Ann Hillebrand, born in Salt Lake City.
And the garbled stories that crop up! An obituary of '46er Minerva Jane Harlan says that her father-in-law, George Harlan, "met the Donner party at Truckee, but separated from them, Harlan refusing to adopt their route which he thought to be dangerous. Later events showed how true were his fears." (The Donners were at least two weeks behind the Harlans.)
This "I told you so" theme shows up elsewhere -- other travelers claimed, after the fact, that they'd told the Donners not to go that way or to hurry. James Clyman's famous warning to James F. Reed was recorded many years after the event and was likely colored by hindsight. The Cyrus family passed down the story that they sent their eldest son back to warn the Donners about the snow.
Another alleged warning came from "Major Stephen Cooper, whose train of prairie schooners was a part of the famed Donner Party. After crossing the continent in 1846 Major Cooper and Donner disagreed regarding the route, and the members of the Donner Party decided to go to Oregon. [!] Despite the warning of Major Cooper that a storm was impending, the Donner party went to the northward, toward a body of water now known as Donner Lake. The next day the Donner party became snowbound and entered upon the innumerable sufferings that are now a part of history." (The Donners were at least two weeks behind the Coopers, too.)
Oh, and let's not forget the Booths, who claimed that the Donner Party refused to help build a road over the pass, then tried to take cuts ahead of them. (See Donner Party Bulletin No. 1 for more details.)
Usually there's a grain of truth to these stories, but some are gruesome falsehoods. Among his other tall tales, "Old Joe Gray" claimed to have been one of the rescuers of the Donner Party. According to him, the survivors included "Mrs. Smith," "Mr. Logan," and a Norwegian. The latter, it was discovered, "had concealed under his coat the remains of a babe that he had killed and partly eaten." In the 1860s or '70s Truckee was home to a bogus Keseberg. This "wretched Dutchman" claiming to be the Donner Party survivor horrified listeners with "recitals of his fiendish, ghoul-like exploits" and "tales of ghastly feasts on quivering human flesh."
I'll post more Donner myths and fables as they surface.
Take phantom Donner Party members. It's astonishing how many people, or their descendants, claimed membership in the DP. Many, like Lillace Daniels, John Hargrave, Mary Hargrave Swift, Jeremiah Fallon, Michael Murray, Frances Grayson Crane, and A. W. Finley, were actually 1846ers and their obits generally state that the deceased was in the Donner Party but separated from them and took another route. Other individuals, however, clearly could never have even met the Donners en route: Wellington Gregg, emigrant of 1847; George Hinton and Joseph Dennett, emigrants of 1849; and Rhoda Ann Hillebrand, born in Salt Lake City.
And the garbled stories that crop up! An obituary of '46er Minerva Jane Harlan says that her father-in-law, George Harlan, "met the Donner party at Truckee, but separated from them, Harlan refusing to adopt their route which he thought to be dangerous. Later events showed how true were his fears." (The Donners were at least two weeks behind the Harlans.)
This "I told you so" theme shows up elsewhere -- other travelers claimed, after the fact, that they'd told the Donners not to go that way or to hurry. James Clyman's famous warning to James F. Reed was recorded many years after the event and was likely colored by hindsight. The Cyrus family passed down the story that they sent their eldest son back to warn the Donners about the snow.
Another alleged warning came from "Major Stephen Cooper, whose train of prairie schooners was a part of the famed Donner Party. After crossing the continent in 1846 Major Cooper and Donner disagreed regarding the route, and the members of the Donner Party decided to go to Oregon. [!] Despite the warning of Major Cooper that a storm was impending, the Donner party went to the northward, toward a body of water now known as Donner Lake. The next day the Donner party became snowbound and entered upon the innumerable sufferings that are now a part of history." (The Donners were at least two weeks behind the Coopers, too.)
Oh, and let's not forget the Booths, who claimed that the Donner Party refused to help build a road over the pass, then tried to take cuts ahead of them. (See Donner Party Bulletin No. 1 for more details.)
Usually there's a grain of truth to these stories, but some are gruesome falsehoods. Among his other tall tales, "Old Joe Gray" claimed to have been one of the rescuers of the Donner Party. According to him, the survivors included "Mrs. Smith," "Mr. Logan," and a Norwegian. The latter, it was discovered, "had concealed under his coat the remains of a babe that he had killed and partly eaten." In the 1860s or '70s Truckee was home to a bogus Keseberg. This "wretched Dutchman" claiming to be the Donner Party survivor horrified listeners with "recitals of his fiendish, ghoul-like exploits" and "tales of ghastly feasts on quivering human flesh."
I'll post more Donner myths and fables as they surface.
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