New book

Heads up! Gabrielle Burton's new novel about Tamzene Donner, Impatient with Desire, will be coming out on March 9. Read more about it at Gabrielle's website; you can pre-order a copy at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, etc.

History Channel repeats itself

Once again, the History Channel has chosen the Donner Party for its "This day in history" feature for February 19 (see last year's blog entry). Although headed "Donner Party rescued," the column points out that the First Relief, which reached Donner Lake about sundown 163 years ago today, was the first of several and the rescue wasn't complete until April.

Snark attack!

[Note: Some of you might notice I've toned my initial response down. I decided there's enough negativity in the world without my adding quite so much.]

Well, I just received a rude response to my previous blog entry, "Director Responds." Anonymous commented,

Why don't you post the paragraph where he consulted you about the script prior to filming? I find it interesting that you go to such lengths to torpedo a small indie film that is the ONLY feature drama made about your subject of fascination. This film was not a documentary. Get over it already and move on with your life.

If you are going to present yourself and this site as a FORUM, let people speak their mind and stop editing information to suit your own ridiculous ego.

I did leave out the first paragraph of the e-mail TJ Martin sent me on February 4. This is what it said:

Kristen, [note misspelling]

My name is T.J. Martin and I wrote and directed the movie. You may remember me. Years ago, while I was researching the script I called you twice and sent you a copy of the script for notes when it was completed. The original script was called "The Forlorn" and it was a closer depiction to the actual events then the final film portrays. Our talks were spirited and you were supportive of the idea to focus on the "Forlorn Hope" as it would contain the vast story.

To address Anonymous's comments:

Why don't you post the paragraph where he consulted you about the script prior to filming?

I didn't include it because I thought it was addressed to me personally, it didn't add anything to TJ's defense of his film, and the post was long enough without it. (In case anybody's wondering, when TJ says he consulted me years ago about this project, I'm sure it's true, but I have only the faintest recollection of it.) Maybe I should have left it in; if TJ is upset about it, I'll apologize, but I don't think it's a huge deal.

I find it interesting that you go to such lengths to torpedo a small indie film that is the ONLY feature drama made about your subject of fascination.

"Go to such lengths"?! Oh, man. If only you knew. It could have been much, much worse, believe me.

This film was not a documentary.

I never thought it was. I'd have been willing to accept The Donner Party as an effective film if it had been true to the spirit of the Forlorn Hope, if it had presented the members of the Donner Party sympathetically. It did not.

Get over it already and move on with your life.

I am over it, have been for quite some time, and have "moved on"; I was working on a new post on an entirely different topic when your comment came in.

If you are going to present yourself and this site as a FORUM,

This is not a forum nor do I present it as one. This is a blog -- my blog. It's where I present my opinions, musings, and news reports about the Donner Party.

let people speak their mind and stop editing information to suit your own ridiculous ego.

I moderate all comments. Nothing appears in the Comments section unless I OK it, and I OK almost everything. I published TJ's response and your comment -- how is that not letting people speak their mind?

As for "editing information to suit [my] ridiculous ego," I'm perplexed. What did leaving out a non-essential paragraph have to do with suiting my ego?

And as for my ego being "ridiculous," all I can say is, why do you care what I think? If my opinion matters, then my ego is not unmerited and therefore not ridiculous.

It's interesting that you know the entire content of a private e-mail sent me over a week ago. Did you see my response to TJ, in which I wrote, "I'm very sorry I can't like your movie"? I meant it sincerely -- I truly wanted to like The Donner Party.

You sound hurt and angry and I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm passionate about the Donner Party and am very disappointed that the first feature film to be made about it didn't turn out better.

Director responds

TJ Martin, director of The Donner Party, which I slammed in my last post, responded with thoughtful response detailing the history of the project and how it evolved into its final form. It's too bad he didn't get a chance to make the film he wanted to make. With his permission, here's his email:

I write this letter because I thought you and your readers might be interested in knowing why we made some of the changes. I also wanted to address some of your concerns with the movie by explaining our process to you.

The producers and I originally had this project set up at with an Oscar winning production company at a much higher budget. We got to the point where we had 2 well known actors in the lead roles and we were ready to shoot. One of the actors even shed 20 pounds in preparation. Suddenly, the production company pulled the money from us.

So instead of quitting, my producer raised as much funding as he could with limited time. Most people thought were were crazy to try to shoot it at this budget and within a 12 day schedule, but we had already put so much time into it and the alternative would have been to abandon the project and our dreams of making the movie.

So we forged ahead. Our new budget and schedule meant major script changes. First we would have to do it without the bigger name actors. We had to lose Lemuel and William Murphy, even though the children were a major part of the original script -- there simply wasn't time or money to have children on set. (SAG has very clear rules about how much time they can work) We had to condense the number of characters and lose the extensive costume changes that would have showed the wear of the clothes through the journey. New actors were cast, actors who did not have time to shed weight. (I considered hitting the streets and methadone clinics to get people with the right look, but it was obvious I needed people who could act and I think our cast delivered amazingly well)

We hoped the audience would take the leap with us despite not having the means to accurately depict the severity of the physical look. It was more about getting the tone right for us anyway.

As far as making Foster the leader and this was in the script from the beginning. I wanted to explore the theme of false leadership and the resentment many teamsters felt towards the captains. It was a theme that was echoed across the rest of the journey and just because I was focusing on the "Forlorn Hope" I didn't want to lose it. Other choices were creative, some done in editing to make the movie flow better. The bottom line is that we were more interested in making a movie that worked. We never set out to make a documentary, Ric Burns already made an excellent one.

So what about the title change? "The Donner Party" was strictly a business choice made by the distributor. (This also explains the error filled synopsis on the back cover) I was not consulted and I was angry about the change at first, but I understand it. If you are an average Joe picking up a movie for a weekend are you going to rent "The Forlorn" or "The Donner Party?"

I don't write this letter to make excuses for the movie. I stand behind it and the cast and crew who worked so hard to get this done under severe restrictions. I'm relieved that we got it done and I'm glad people are talking about The Donner Party.

I never saw this as be all and end all of movies about the subject. I think to properly tell the entire story you would need a "Band of Brothers" mini-series style production. I encourage you and your readers to try to write it and then convince Steven Spielberg to put 200 million behind it, because I will be the first in line to see it.

"The Donner Party" a.k.a "The Forlorn" is my first movie and it's simply my take on a small part of the Donner Party experience. I am proud of the all of the hard work people put into it and I hope it continues to spark interest and debate into a fascinating dark corner of American History.

T.J. Martin

Okay, so I watched the movie

Well, all you aspiring screenwriters can take comfort: there's still no Donner Party movie. At least, not one that you need to worry about competing with.

As you probably all know, Anacapa Entertainment's new film, The Donner Party, was released on DVD on January 26. I got my copy yesterday and have watched it twice. I don't quite know what to say, but that won't stop me from saying it.

Donner Party fans will notice a certain similarity between the movie and the story of the "Forlorn Hope" snowshoers who set out from the lake camp in December 1846 to seek help. While reference is made to a wagon train stuck in the Sierra Nevada snow, to someone named Hastings who misled them, and to other emigrants camped elsewhere named Donner and "Kessyberg," the story centers on characters named Foster, Eddy, Graves, Fosdick, Stanton, etc., who set out on snowshoes to California to get help; some people die and are cannibalized. Sound familiar? Good. Because not much else will.

I could go on at length about all the discrepancies, but it would take ages and I don't want to rag on the producers too much. I've talked to enough screenwriters over the years to know how hard the Donner story would be to capture on film: large cast; quantities of animals; wagons; costumes; number of sets; varied terrain (prairie, desert, mountain); varied weather conditions (thunder, searing heat, snow); length and complexity of the story; and so on. Obviously, some liberties have to be taken and events telescoped.

What I don't get, however, is the necessity to butcher the plot. Why? Why not stick closer to the truth? Why, for instance, make Foster the rich fop and Eddy his teamster? Why make up an imaginary cache of provisions left along the trail? The truth just isn't dramatic enough? While he lay dying, Franklin Ward Graves besought his daughters to use his body for food, but apparently that's far too tame. This Mr. Graves (the least gaunt person in the flick) kills himself so his daughters -- his clean, well-kempt, full-fleshed daughters -- will have something to eat.

This leads me to my major beef with the movie: there's no real desperation, no real suffering. There's no cabin full of thin, crying children, no reference to mothers whose milk has dried up from starvation watching helpless as their babies die a slow, agonizing death -- no sense of the real fear that motivated the snowshoers.

Nor of their subsequent trials. There's no Christmas blizzard huddled under blankets, no raving Patrick Dolan, no Sarah Foster comforting her dying little brother in her lap, no powder horn blowing up or axe getting lost. There's some violence but little enough gore for a movie about cannibalism: somebody dies or is killed, then there's a scene of people eating -- which was actually a pretty good way to handle it, IMO. But there's little sense of their growing weakness, the toll the journey has taken on them:

""[Eddy] staggered like a drunken man; and when he came to a fallen tree, though no more than a foot high, he had to stoop down, put his hands upon it, and get over it by a sort of rolling motion. They were under the necessity of sitting down to rest about every quarter of a mile. The slightest thing caused them to stumble and fall. They were almost reduced to the helplessness of little children in their first essays to walk. The women would fall and weep like infants, and then rise and totter along again." -- J. Quinn Thornton, Oregon and California in 1848, II, 151.

This just doesn't come across in the movie.

When the real Forlorn Hope finally reached the settlement, they were skeletal and nearly naked because their clothes had fallen apart; their trail was marked by blood from their frostbitten feet. In Anacapa's parody, the Forlorn Hope was a bunch of well-fed, spiffily dressed day trippers who offed one another the first time their tummies rumbled. With no depiction of their physical and mental deterioration, they come across as depraved, not desperate.

The film does get a few things right. For instance, the pioneers' use of "Mr." and "Mrs." instead of first names, and the emigrants eying each other around the campfire. I also liked the version of "Barbara Allen" sung during the closing credits. On the whole, however, it's a shame for the producers, the viewers, and the memory of the Donner Party that the film didn't turn out better.

More gore

Well, matters move apace! Anybody willing to risk driving up into the Sierra in the dead of winter can attend a special screening of Anacapa Entertainment's new flick, The Donner Party, at the Sugar Bowl's Judah Lodge this weekend. It's showing at 7:00 P.M. on Sunday, January 17, $10 at the door. Director T.J. Martin and several cast members will be there, and there'll be a Q-and-A session after the showing. If anybody reading this goes, let the rest of us know what you think.

Here's website with a photo gallery of stills and a different trailer showing a bizarre plot twist:

http://www.movieline.com/2010/01/donner-party-trailer-tastefully-finds-slasher-pic-in-historic-tragedy.php

The more I see of this movie, the less I like it. Anybody else have a problem with it, or is it just me?

Tribute

I've been slaving away at Donnerpedia and it's getting closer to being ready for prime time -- no launch date in sight, though -- and in reviewing New Light and all the information I've collected over the years, I have to say it's my readers who have helped me the most.

Oh, sure, I've pestered my share of historians, researchers, librarians, archivists, and sundry other victims over the years, and they've all been helpful, some of them exceptionally so -- Will Bagley, for instance, has been putting up with me since about 1993.

But really, as a group, it's been readers who have helped the most, often in unexpected ways. Readers have supplied me with information and photos, blown my mind with new ideas and insights, asked terrific questions, pointed out errors, inconsistencies, and typos, given me praise and encouragement, and generally kept me going. Oh, sure, there's an occasional crank, jerk, or weirdo, but on the whole it's been good.

I just wish I could remember everyone. I've moved into new computers twice and had a couple of hard drive crashes, so I've lost a lot of the e-mail I'd hoarded over the years. However, a few people stand out. Jo Ann Schmidt, for instance, is the Donner Genealogy Queen, as far as I'm concerned, and then there's Gabrielle Burton, and Marilyn Acuff, and Anne Trussell, and then there are all the descendants, Donner Party buffs, historians, students, novelists, dog handlers, genealogists, reporters, documentarians...

I could go on. However, the one person I really want to thank is Ken Dunn. He's corresponded with me for years, listened to me whine and wonder and rhapsodize, answered questions, asked questions, helped with research, alerted me to news, and much, much more. Most of all, he's a bouncer -- not a chucker-out, an idea bouncer. Ken knows his stuff when it comes to the Donner Party, and when I need to really thrash something out, I write to Ken. Answering questions all the time gets a bit wearing, so it's a relief to have somebody knowledgeable to talk to. Thanks, guy.

And we have a winner!

Last night as I went to bed after posting my quiz, I thought, "Dumb idea-- nobody's going to answer." This morning I get up and not only is there an answer but a winner. Eric Baumgartner identified the three errors in the blurb describing the new Donner Party movie :

Based on the harrowing true story, The Donner Party picks up after William Hastings steers a group, nicknamed "Forlorn Hope," off course by promising a shorter route to California through the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Eric posted to the comments section:

(1) Hastings' first name was Lansford, not William.
(2) The group that he led astray was not the "Forlorn Hope," but the Donner Party, of course.
(3) Hastings steered them to a shortcut through the Wasatch and across the Utah salt desert.

Absolutely correct! So, Eric, if you'll e-mail me (there's a link at New Light on the Donner Party) and send me your address, I'll mail you your postcard.

New Donner Party film clip

Check out this newly available clip from the film The Donner Party. Franklin Ward Graves goes bugeye crazy and takes his son-in-law down. And pipe the snowshoes -- guess the Forlorn Hope did their outfitting at Cabela's. "We don't need no stinkin' oxbows..."



QUIZ

Identify three errors in the following blurb:

Based on the harrowing true story, The Donner Party picks up after William Hastings steers a group, nicknamed "Forlorn Hope," off course by promising a shorter route to California through the Sierra Nevada Mountains."

First one to answer correctly gets a vintage postcard with a Donner Party theme.

Happy 2010!

It looks like 2010 will start off with a bang for Donner Party buffs -- the long-awaited movie is scheduled to be released on DVD on January 26. You can pre-order a copy at Amazon.com.

A lot of people have written me asking about this film, but I've had a very busy fall so haven't tried to keep up with it. Here's what I know, with some opinions thrown in:

This film, the first production of Anacapa Entertainment, started out with the title The Forlorn. It's about the "Forlorn Hope," a party of 15 emigrants who set out from the Donner Party camps in December 1846 on snowshoes to seek help for the stranded wagon train.

The film premiered at the Austin Film Festival in October, with two results: the producers decided against a theatrical release but to send it straight to DVD, and they changed the title to The Donner Party.

I can't say much about the straight-to-DVD decision; it strikes me as unfortunate and must have been a disappointment to the producers, but that's not my call. I do wish, however, they hadn't changed the title. The Forlorn is much more evocative, to say nothing of accurate, while The Donner Party is trite, inaccurate (it's not about the Donner Party, only a fraction of it), and already taken (by Ric Burns' documentary, to say nothing of myriad books and articles).

However, the website bills the movie as "a true story of survival," which I take exception to. It changes the facts, the cast of characters, their names, their relationships with one another (it has Eddy as Foster's teamster, for instance), their motivations, leaves out a lot of details, and presents the "desperate" emigrants as well-fed, well-dressed urbanites who step out of a bandbox to tramp through the mountains.

Of course, the foregoing criticism is unfair because I haven't seen the movie yet and I don't give a rat's about much besides historical accuracy. The film may have all sorts of redeeming features that capture the drama of the Forlorn Hope despite the historical deficits. I hope so, and I'm looking forward to finding out.

Some links:

Preview -- (There's also a clip on the official website but I can't get it to load no matter what browser I use, so I'm including this one; it may or may not be the same.)

Reviews from the Austin Film Festival -- Click on the "Reviews" tab to read all of them.

Slackerwood review

In other news...

Oh, yes, I've been meaning to mention: As regular readers might recall, I've been unable to edit New Light On the Donner Party for ages and have been investigating various alternatives: new software, new host, new format. Since late October I've been working on a new site, which I'm calling Donnerpedia, unless somebody can suggest a better title. Anyway, it's a reworked version of New Light, using Wikipedia-type software and navigation. I've been learning the software, experimenting, and editing like mad -- there's a slew of information to add and every page has to be edited. It will also have some graphics, unlike New Light.

There's no projected launch date yet. I hoped to have it up the first of the year, but it's taking forever to translate everything into Wikinese. Keep watching the blog and I'll let you let you know when it's up and running.

New offering from Gabrielle Burton

Last year the University of Nebraska published Gabrielle Burton's memoir Searching for Tamsen Donner, in which she chronicles her quest to find the elusive heroine of the Donner Party. Next year Hyperion will publish Gabrielle's novel, Impatient with Desire, which tells Tamzene's story through an imaginative recreation of her lost diary. The book isn't due out until March 1, 2010, but can be pre-ordered through Amazon at a significant reduction of price. (Standard disclaimer: I have no financial interest in the book.) For more about Gabrielle and her work, visit her website: www.gabrielleburton.com

Save your money

I got my copy of Allan W. Eckert's Dark Journey: The Tragedy of the Donner Party in the mail today, and it's... bad. Really bad. I haven't even read the book yet, just the notes, and perused the text here and there, and I'm telling you, folks, it's a train wreck.

First, despite the publisher's flowery obfuscations, it's a novel: Eckert makes things up. Now, history can be dull, and of course one wants to liven it up, recreate what people did and said. But a what point does reasonable inference turn into sheer fabrication? Wherever you draw the line, Eckert is on the wrong side of it.

Second, the book is poorly edited. I did a double take at "Russsell," for instance, and don't get me started on the internal inconsistencies, the maps, or the index.

Third, it's full of errors. Small, annoying errors, whoppers, howlers, and outright falsehoods. One particularly choice example: According to Eckert, although John Snyder was buried at Gravelly Ford, he was killed at Iron Point, "40 miles east." First of all, why would anybody haul a corpse for three days just to bury it? Second, there's the minor matter of geography: Iron Point is 80 miles west of Gravelly Ford. And third, the primary sources state that Snyder was buried the day after he was killed. This is in a "rigorously accurate" history? Clio help us. And this is only the tiniest tip of the iceberg.

I expected to like this book, having heard only good things about Eckert's work, and am sorry to have to write this.

P.S. It's very nicely bound, though.

Online archaeology video

Some time ago a reader kindly sent me a link to On the Trail of Tragedy: Excavation of the Donner Party Site, a video about the 1994 excavation at Alder Creek, which you can watch for free online. Check it out!

New Book Available

I checked the Jesse Stuart Foundation website yesterday and Allan 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 Allan 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.