One of their number, Gib Ryker, is a sociopath who enjoys antagonizing young Barnaby West. Two men who had joined the party at the lake also died. This decision not only greatly enraged the eager troopers but gave the Indians ample time in which to prepare for action. Then, in January 1848, gold was discovered in at John Sutters Mill in Coloma and gold-hungry travelers began to rush out West once again. Katharine Ross whose stardom still awaited gives a stunning performance in the On December 16 a party of 10 men and 5 women set out to cross the mountains on improvised snowshoes. Such accidents could cause the loss of life and most or all of valuable supplies. You had no idea the decision to ferry or ford the river was so gross, did you? During a months harrowing, often overwhelming hardships from cold, storms, deep snow, and inadequate food, they struggled on. Reed would continue west on horseback while the rest of his family remained with the Donner party. On the Trail - The "IKENBERRY" Party - 1849. s Wagon Train. This food was never otherwise than loathsome, insipid, and disgusting. About the same time, a force of over 2,000 Indians made a determined attack upon a detachment of troops under Lieutenant-Colonel Collins at Rush Creek, Nebraska, 85 miles north of Julesburg. Occasionally the eight frisky mules would prove too much for their driver, and there would be a runaway, and a broken coach, to be repaired with whatever tools might be at hand. At last, we were all in the wagons. They were killed by Indians, or escaped and then succumbed to exposure and starvation. In numbers engaged, it attained the magnitude of war but was carried on in guerilla fashion. The hardships of weather, limited diet, and exhaustion made travelers very vulnerable to infectious diseases such as cholera, flu, dysentery, measles, mumps, tuberculosis, and typhoid fever which could spread quickly through an entire wagon camp. Instead, they never gave them the warning, sending them to some of the darkest days imaginable, all in the name of making a buck. A large, well equipped wagon train rolled toward California in 1846. Indian Attack on a Wagon Train by Charles Marion Russell. Tales and Trails of the American Frontier, Byways & Historic Trails Great Drives in America, Soldiers and Officers in American History, Easy Travel Organization Tips You Will Love, Bidwell-Bartleson Party Blazing the California Trail. The Donner party stranded in the Sierra Nevada Range, 1847. Wagon Train is an American Western series that aired 8 seasons: first on the NBC television network (1957-1962), and then on ABC (1962-1965). The boy died as they hacked off the leg with a butcher knife and a handsaw, and it wasn't a happy ending. Never for a moment could they feel secure; every trip promised to be their last, and many a time, the coach dashed up to a station only to find it in ruins and surrounded by dead. You'd totally sign up for that until you hear the list of problems. Bents Fort was occupied by troops, and, in anticipation of coming events, several new posts were established throughout the Indian country and occupied by small garrisons. During their first week in the Cutoff, the Donner party made good progress. It could attack a perfectly healthy person after breakfast and he would be in his grave by noon. Living off the bodies of those that died along the path to Sutters Fort, the snowshoeing survivors were reduced to seven by the time they reached safety on the western side of the mountains on January 19, 1847. By this point, the members of the company had cached, or buried, virtually all their personal possessionsexcept for food, clothing, and the barest essentials necessary for survivalin an effort to minimize the load on their exhausted animals. Donner Party Map, courtesy Donner Party Diary. The rest of the pioneers stayed at what would become known as Starved Camp.. Keseberg had sent his wife and a child on ahead, and said, "For their sakes I must live. Jim Bridger and partner Louis Vasquez certainly could have handed over the note, sending the Donner Party down the safer route and presumably preventing all the cannibalism nonsense. It was the worst disaster of the overland migration to California. Yet, even more, a summer hailstorm was to be dreaded, for nowhere else do such ice-chunks descend from the sky. I don't know if anyone recorded the number of dishonest wagon masters, but in the hundreds of wagon trains heading to Oregon or California there certainly were some incompetent ones. It was here that the new trail met up with Hastings original path. It crossed the plains without difficulty, but as it neared Fort Bridger a dispute arose. Tamsen Donner left her dead husband and joined him only a short time before she died, too. Grattan took several howitzers, which is not how you start a peaceful negotiation when tensions are already high. When he sees an opportunity at the bank, it leads to tragedy. On August 30, after gathering as much water and grass as they could carry, they entered the Great Salt Lake Desert. Sure, there are a lot of ways to go on the trail, but no one wants to be remembered like that (and he definitely wasn't the only one). They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. This custom of guarding coaches by soldiers along the Overland Trail was inaugurated during the Sioux uprising of 1863. Between 1856 and 1860, 10 handcart companies traveled the trail and two the Martin and Willie companies suffered heartbreaking tragedies. He was tracked to Denver, Colorado, and hanged with very little ceremony. Diseases and serious illnesses caused the deaths of nine out of ten pioneers. He was as cruel and heartless an Indian as ever ambushed a stagecoach or murdered helpless women. His name was John Lawrence Grattan, and he was a second lieutenant in the Army stationed at Fort Laramie. Extra foodstuffs, and one account even talked about the 20,000-odd pounds of bacon left behind. Two rescuers, Jean-Baptiste Trudeau and Nicholas Clark were left behind to care for the Donners, but soon abandon them to catch up with the relief party. Seriously, you don't have it that bad, and if there's one consolation it's the surviving girls' memoirs that talk about the kindness they experienced along the way. A shot was fired from beside the trail, and the men inside the coach instantly discharged their guns toward the supposed ambush. In the twenty-one days since reaching the Weber River they had moved just 36 miles. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Donner-party, Legends of America - The Tragic Story of the Donner Party, EyeWitness to History.com - The Tragic Fate of the Donner Party, 1847, Online Nevada Encyclopedia - Donner Party, Donner party - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). In 1862 the Indian raids on the coaches and stations between Fort Laramie and South Pass, Wyoming were almost continuous. The 1840s wagon train journey to California usually began at Independence, Missouri, around the first of May. The dragoons turned short about and again charged through and over their enemies, the fire being continuous. Ironically, on the very day that theIllinoisparty headed west from Springfield, Lansford Hastings prepared to head east from California, to see what the shortcut he had written about was really like. Indeed, even the survivors of the party encouraged others to undertake the journey. The caravan camped for five days 50 miles from the summit, resting their oxen for the final push. Infuriated by the teamsters treatment of the oxen, James Reed ordered the man to stop and when he wouldnt, Reed grabbed his knife and stabbed the teamster in the stomach, killing him. Donner Lake,named for the party, is today a popular mountain resort near Truckee,Californiaand the Donner Camp has been designated as a National Historic Landmark. On March 3rd, Reed left the camp with 17 of the starving emigrants but just two days later they are caught in another blizzard. In wet weather, for mile after mile, the passengers might be compelled to plod beside the wheels, laboriously prying them out of the clinging mud and burdening the air with profanity. Jim Bridger and his partner Louis Vasquez assured the Donner Party that the Hastings Cutoff was a good route. The old man, who could not keep up with the rest of the party with his severely swollen feet, began to knock on other wagon doors, but no one would let him in. The two-day encounter resulted in the deaths of eleven emigrants by an estimated twenty-five to thirty Indians. With the addition of roughly a dozen teamsters and employees, this initial party numbered some 31 people, and within a month the Donners and Reeds had reached Independence, Missouri. In those early days of stage-coaching along the Santa Fe Trail, the two most noted leaders of Indian raids were Satanta(White Bear), a chief of the Kiowa Nation, and George Bent, a half-breed desperado. By 1850, the area was swimming with cholera. The Donner Camp has been the site of recent archeological excavations. A note left by Hastings had assured the party that they would be able to cross the desert in just two days, but the journey took five. The heavy snow made trailing almost impossible, yet the scouts discovered signs and, amid much suffering, followed the Indian trail for nearly four hundred miles and finally located the village. The train left Tirur station at 7.15pm. In July 1865, a stage carrying seven passengers and containing a considerable amount of gold bullion was the object of such an attack. Nine days later, the boy "called to his mother that he could feel worms crawling in his leg," and yes, those were maggots. On August 25th, the caravan lost another member, one Luke Halloran, who died of consumption, near present-day Grantsville,Utah. Cholera was the main scourge of the trail. On their eighty mile journey through the Salt Lake Desert, they had lost a total of thirty-two oxen; Reed was forced to abandon two of his wagons, and the Donners, as well as man named Louis Keseberg, lost one wagon each. Fort Laramie Parade Grounds, photo by Kathy Alexander. The Donner Party is One of the Most Disturbing Stories from the Oregon Trail. I remember the days traveling in a Connastoga Wagon and nites sleeping under the . Cholera was the main scourge of the trail. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. On the Trail - Asa McCully's 1853 Wagon Train. The ill-fated Utter-Van Ornum wagon train would go down in history with the dubious honor of being the deadliest wagon train (via the Idaho Chapter Oregon-California Trails Association). Never take no cutofs and hury along as fast as you can. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 would turn the flow of migrants into a virtual flood, and the legacy of the Donner party would become less a cautionary tale and more a grim historical footnote in the story of the great westward movement. Historian Aaron Smith (via Deseret News) notes that the later settlers left, the more susceptible to cholera they would be, mostly because you were following in the footsteps of people who were essentially pooping out cholera as they went. Though they occasionally attacked small bodies of troops, the Indians directed their main efforts against the trains of freight wagons and the comparatively defenseless stage stations. Beside the driver, named Frank Williams, sat one of the robbers, thoroughly disguised. Tensions were running high among the exhausted migrants, and on October 5 an altercation between Reed and a teamster employed by another family ended with Reed fatally stabbing the man. Charlie Wooster: Now, I don't have enough morals of my own, huh? Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Don Brooke is desperate for money for his pregnant wife Bonnie, whose condition is too delicate for the long trip without more medical care so he seeks a bank loan. For 15 years, he was the terror of the Trail, and his acts of atrocity were incessant. Five days later, on August 30th, the group began to cross the Great Salt Lake Desert, believing the trek would take only two days, according to Hastings. The stumps represent the depth of the snow at the time. Invariably such a storm meant a stampede of the mules, nor would a man dare to desert his shelter to seek them. Twenty men stayed at Devil's Gate to guard the wagon-train goods for the rest of the winter. However, the Mexican War had drawn away the able-bodied men, forcing any further rescue attempts to wait. The relief party soon departed with four more members of the party, leaving those who are too weak to travel. There was one major problem, thoug. All the other migrants of 1846 had completed their journey to California, and the Donner party was racing the weather to clear the passes in the Sierra Nevada. After dogs and cowhides had been devoured, many deaths occurred, and the survivors were forced to resort to cannibalism of the dead bodies. Sutters Fort in Sacramento, California, 1847. Hastings, who had promised to lead migrants along the trail, left Fort Bridger with a different company of wagons, and it fell to Reed to act as the companys guide. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. On April 17th, the relief party reached the camps to find only Louis Keseberg alive among the mutilated remains of his former companions. They took full advantage of the opportunity and poured in the first volley, Greer being struck in the breast, his life saved by a suspender buckle. When she came down with cholera, he just gave her a cup of camphor, because that's what you do, right? tragedy while the Wagon Train stops for supplies. Food was a huge concern, and that makes Fort Laramie nicknamed "Camp Sacrifice" that much more tragic. A family of seven, killed by Indians, was buried here together in the wagon box from their covered wagon. 1866 photo of Alder Creek stumps cut by Donner party. Devil's Gate: Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy. Some things like using peppermint essence to calm an upset stomach actually worked (via Fort Morgan Times), but the problem was that it was only the women who knew these remedies. January 17, 2016 Late one afternoon in July 1864, a party of American Indians rode up to a small wagon train on the Oregon Trail and, using signs, asked in a friendly way for something to eat. S8, Ep2. This setting oneself as a sort of target was a disagreeable and dangerous duty, but the soldiers performed it without murmuring. Animals could panic when wading through deep, swift water, causing wagons to overturn. While becoming so desperate as to eat tree bark seems like the worst part of the trail, there was one instance where it became worse for one wagon train party in the 1840s.
wagon train tragedies
wagon train tragedies
wagon train tragedies