AMERICAN WILD WEST CANNIBALS

James Frazier Reed and Margaret Reed

It’s the tale of how the pursuit of the American dream turned into one of the great American nightmares, and a reminder of the dark side of the frontier spirit. 170 years after the Donner Party set out from Springfield, Illinois, their tale still haunts and fascinates us. But how did 89 men, women and children meet such a gruesome fate? It began with a hope for a better life in the West. California was their destination, painted as a land of opportunity and plenty by Lansford W Hastings – a pioneer and aspiring land developer. Hastings had great dreams for what he could accomplish in California but he needed able bodies to make them a reality. In 1845, he published "The Emigrants’ Guide To Oregon And California", containing a shorter route to their destination via what would become known as ‘The Hastings Cutoff’.

The year of 1846 saw a huge number of settlers heading westward. James Frazier Reed was driven by the prospect of new business ventures and a better climate for his wife Margaret, who was prone to terrible headaches, while George Donner and his family were veteran emigrants. They left Springfield on 14 April, late in the season for a westward passage, but making for an impressive sight, thanks in large part to the Reed’s opulent two-storey wagon known as the ‘pioneer palace car’. By 19 May, they had joined Colonel William Russell’s wagon train, then 50 wagons strong, and more would join them over the coming days. In June, Russell left the group and Lilburn Boggs took command. The group would soon splinter but it wasn’t over a question of leadership. It was about Lansford Hastings and his cutoff.

When the Boggs train reached Fort Laramie on 27 June, they met James Clyman – an experienced traveller who had just journeyed east with Hastings – and he had a dire warning for Reed and his companions. It was hard enough on foot, he told them, and to attempt to travel that route by wagon would be incredibly dangerous. Reed ignored him, putting his trust in Hastings and a faster way to their final destination.

A letter from their guide was found at Independence Rock, telling the group to meet him at Fort Bridger, and the Reed-Donner party split from the Boggs train on 20 July. The group now needed to appoint a leader, and chose Donner over the proud and domineering Reed, who had alienated many of his fellow travellers. They reached Fort Bridger to find that Hastings had already gone ahead, but he had left instructions behind. After four days of rest and repairs, they set out to follow him.

At first, it seemed like Clyman’s warning about the trail had been an exaggeration. They embarked on a few days of easy passage and made good time. However, on 6 August, they found a note at Echo Canyon in Utah. In it, Hastings told them that the planned route was “impassable” and wrote that he had gone on ahead to find another way. Reed and two men went looking for their absent guide, and when they finally found him, Hastings pointed out a new path but refused to return with them.

Hastings’ new route through the Wasatch Mountains was incredibly tough going. The emigrants had to clear a path for the wagons past bush and boulders, and the supplies were just days away from running out when the desert came into view. There, at the end of August, the party found another note from Hastings, a ragged, tattered order to follow him across the Great Salt Lake Desert, which he described as two days’ and two nights’ hard driving. As the emigrants stockpiled water and grass for this next ordeal, they knew they had come too far to turn back now.

Travelling across the salt was beyond difficult. By day, the heat of the Sun turned the salt into sludge, and the wheels of the wagons sunk up to their hubs. Their water ran out on the third day, and that night the Reeds lost their oxen; the beasts had been driven mad by the lack of water and fled.

It took five days for the Donner party to reach the other side of the salt flat, at which point they had lost 36 cattle and four wagons. After a week’s recovery, they set out again on 8 September, and sent Charles Stanton and William McCutchen to Sutter’s Fort when they realised that they didn’t
have enough food to make it to California.

They found the Humboldt trail on 26 September – the original, advised safe track. Hastings Cutoff had added 200 kilometres to their journey, and cost them equipment, livestock and, perhaps most crucially of all, time. The snows were coming and the group was falling apart. Tempers snapped on 5 October when Reed attempted to stop a fight between one of his men and the Graves’ driver John Snyder. The furious Snyder beat Reed with his whip, and before he could land another blow, Reed planted a knife in his chest.

The emigrants watched Snyder stagger away for a few paces and die, and promptly accused Reed of murder. After Margaret begged for his life, the group banished him, forcing him to ride away from his wife and children. A day later, an elderly gentleman, Mr Hardkoop, was ejected from Lewis Keseberg’s wagon and, unable to keep up on foot, was last seen at the side of the road. By the middle of October, the Paiute Indians had become aware of the struggling emigrants and destroyed their oxen.

Finally, the group had some good fortune when Charles Stanton rode into view around 25 October with supplies and two Miwok guides, Luis and Salvador. Inevitably, the new supplies prompted discussion among the group about taking a rest, but when George Donner cut a gash in his hand while making a new axle for his wagon, they were reminded just how isolated they were. They pressed on and stopped for the night by Truckee Lake in the shadow of the lake, and it started to snow. They were a day late.

They tried for the summit on the next day but they were turned back by snow 1.5 metres deep, and a night on the mountain convinced them to turn back for the relative shelter of the lake. A winter camp was their only option, and the weather got worse and worse. The shacks were barely enough to keep the elements at bay, with roofs made of animal hide that would later become their food. The group anxiously watched the weather for signs of improvement, desperate to make a break for it across the mountain, but when days passed, they realised that the wagons would simply not make it. The first aborted attempt to cross on foot was made on 12 November, and with each successive failure, spirits worsened and supplies continued to dwindle.

Eventually, on 16 December, a team of 17 took advantage of the fair weather and set out on makeshift snowshoes for the mountain pass. They were in trouble after just a few days. Charles Stanton, the man who had been the group’s salvation once before, realised that he was struggling to keep up and told his companions to go on without him. He was last seen smoking his pipe in the snow.

On 24 December, they realised just how bad the situation was. They were lost, their supplies were gone, and the storm had returned. Desperate, they drew lots, but no one could bring themselves to kill the unlucky Patrick Dolan. Two days later, four were dead and the group resorted to cannibalism, taking care not to eat their family members. Cruelly, and inevitably, this food quickly ran out, and William Foster suggested that they murder Luis and Salvador. The appalled William Eddy told the two Native Americans of Foster’s intentions and they vanished, only to be found at death’s door roughly ten days later, at which point Foster carried out his initial plan.

On 12 January, the group found a Miwok camp, and the inhabitants nearly ran from the starved figures that appeared from the trees. The Miwoks gave them what food they could spare, and with their help Eddy soldiered on, finally finding Johnson’s Ranch, a farming outpost in Sacramento. A rescue team was scrambled and located the surviving members of the Camp of Death on 17 January. Their ordeal was finally over.

Meanwhile, at Truckee Lake, the Donner party was becoming desperate. Patrick Breen wrote that he prayed to God on Christmas Day but the weather refused to let up, they struggled to forage or hunt, and animal hides became the basis of their meals. While the Forlorn Hope party was being saved, numbers at the lake were dwindling. Death was everywhere, and the storms continued. But a rescue party was coming. With the Mexican-American War over, Reed and McCutchen were able to rally men, and they left San Francisco on 7 February. Just two days later, Breen wrote, “Pike’s child all but dead. Milt at Murphy’s; not able to get out of bed. Keyburg never gets up; says he is not able. John (Breen, Patrick’s son) went down today to bury Mrs Eddy and child.”

The rescue party did not arrive until 19 February. Daniel Rhoads wrote about shouting a greeting and being met by a woman emerging from the snow, followed by others pushing their way towards them. “They were gaunt with famine,” he wrote, “and I never can forget the horrible, ghastly sight they presented. The first woman spoke in a hollow voice, very much agitated, and said, ‘Are you men from California or do you come from heaven?’” Carefully giving out small quantities of food, they decided to take 23 of the emigrants, leaving 21 behind for successive rescues. In their absence, the hunger at the camp was worsening. Breen wrote in his diary at the end of February that, “Mrs. Murphy said here yesterday that she thought she would commence on Milton and eat him. I do not think she has done so yet; it is distressing.”

James Reed was in the second rescue party, which arrived at the lake on 1 March. The Murphy cabin was a nightmarish pit of sickness, madness and cannibalism. The same scenes were found at the Donner camp, where the remains of Jacob Donner showed that his party had been surviving on him.

17 emigrants were taken from this hell, leaving just five behind, but a savage snowstorm left the party exhausted and stranded. Young Isaac Donner perished, and Mary’s feet were so badly frostbitten that she fell asleep with them in the fire. The Breen and the Graves family refused to go on, but James Reed drove ahead, meeting William Foster and William Eddy, who were heading back to the lake with a rescuer named John Stark to save their families. They took four of Reed’s men and came across the Breens and Graves, with 11 survivors sat around a fire pit a short distance away from gruesome evidence of cannibalism. Foster and Eddy took two men and carried on, while the other two took a child each and headed back. In an incredible act of heroism, John Stark picked up two children and all the provisions he could carry, and guided the 11 to safety.

When Foster and Eddy arrived on 14 March, they discovered that they were too late to save their children. They left for Bear Valley with four youths and two adults, but Thomasen Donner chose to stay behind with her husband, George, whose grotesquely advanced gangrene made travelling impossible. Lewis Keseberg also stayed behind. It would be another month before a fourth relief party could make it through.

George Donner had finally died towards the end of March, at which point Thomasen had set out for Lewis Keseberg’s cabin. Accounts differ as to how she met her fate, but when Keseberg was finally discovered, his shack was littered with the half-eaten bodies of his dead companions, including Mrs Donner. They left with Keseberg on 21 April, and he arrived at Sutter’s Fort over a week later. The horror stories from the ‘cannibal camp’ would shock the nation, and dog the survivors for the rest of their lives. For settlers, they became the definitive cautionary tale. As Virginia Reed wrote, “Never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can.”

Written by Jonathan Hatfull in "All About History Magazine" UK,  issue 45, 2016, excerpts pp. 78-83. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.