0:00

Warning, this episode contains

0:03

scenes of graphic violence and descriptions

0:05

of cannibalism. It is not suitable

0:08

for all audiences. Listener

0:10

discretion is strongly advised.

0:29

On October 28, 1846, James

0:32

Reed and Walter Heron stumbled

0:34

into Sutter's Fort in California's

0:36

Sacramento Valley. Reed

0:39

had been banished from the wagon train for

0:41

killing a driver named John Snyder, and

0:43

Heron had volunteered to travel with him. They

0:46

were emaciated when they met John Sutter

0:49

and reunited with Edwin Bryant,

0:51

William Russell, and Lil' Burm Boggs.

0:54

It must have seemed like another lifetime that

0:57

these men had parted ways before the

0:59

Hastings Cut-Off. Bryant

1:01

was the journalist who was always concerned

1:03

about the slow pace of travel. Russell

1:06

was the first captain of the wagon train,

1:09

and Boggs was the second. As

1:11

men with no families on the trip, they

1:13

had traded their wagons for mules, ditched

1:16

the things they didn't need, and split

1:18

off from the caravan. They

1:21

had made it through the mountains and down

1:23

into the Sacramento Valley while the wagon

1:25

train was still mired in the badlands

1:27

of Nevada.

1:28

That night, after a proper

1:31

meal, Reed and Heron heard all

1:33

the news of California's war with Mexico.

1:36

John C. Fremont was forming his California

1:39

Battalion with Kit Carson. Bryant,

1:42

Russell, Reed, and others saw

1:44

the writing on the wall and got ahead of things.

1:47

They drew up a contract offering their services

1:50

to fight with Fremont and recruit

1:52

other immigrants to the cause.

1:54

But Reed added one important stipulation.

1:57

Before he left to fight, he needed to help

1:59

his family. his family get through the Sierras.

2:02

He had managed to squirrel away some cash

2:05

and transport it all the way to California.

2:08

He offered it as collateral to John Sutter.

2:11

In return, Sutter gave him 30 horses,

2:14

a mule, and food to take on

2:16

a rescue mission into the mountains. Old

2:19

friend William McCutcheon offered to go with

2:21

him. McCutcheon and Charles

2:23

Stanton had ridden ahead of the wagon

2:25

train weeks earlier in an effort to

2:28

find supplies at Sutter's fort. When

2:30

they made it to the fort, McCutcheon was

2:33

sick and couldn't return to the wagon train.

2:36

Charles Stanton made the return trip with

2:38

two members of a local Native American tribe.

2:42

The three men had made it to the caravan, and

2:44

now they were just a couple days away from

2:46

being trapped at Truckee Lake on the other side

2:48

of the Sierras. Sutter

2:51

assigned two local men to lead

2:53

Reed and McCutcheon through the snow. They

2:55

left on November 1st, right before

2:58

eight days of relentless snowfall

3:00

pounded the Donner Party on the other side

3:03

of the mountains. The

3:05

four men rode through four days of

3:07

rain before reaching the head of the Bear

3:10

River. There, they found 18

3:12

inches of snow, but no sign of

3:14

the Reed family or the rest of the Donner

3:16

Party. But they did find Mr.

3:19

and Mrs. Curtis from Missouri. The

3:22

couple had broken away from their wagon train

3:24

over a disagreement. Now

3:27

they were holed up in a gap in the Sierras.

3:30

They had decided to take their chances on wintering

3:32

there instead of going forward in the

3:34

unexpectedly early blizzards. The

3:38

Curtis' threw themselves at the mercy of

3:40

Reed and his group. They were almost

3:42

out of food. Their auction had run

3:44

off, and it was only November 6th. Though

3:48

Reed and McCutcheon had food with them, they

3:50

had not eaten since the day before. Rain

3:53

and sleet had prevented them from making a fire.

3:56

So when the Curtis' offered them a bit of

3:58

what was in their Dutch ovens. they didn't

4:00

say no. Reed and McCutcheon

4:03

had to be thinking about the family somewhere

4:05

over the mountains when they were offered

4:07

well-cooked pieces of the Curtis'

4:09

dog.

4:19

From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of

4:21

the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer.

4:23

This season we're bringing you the disturbing

4:26

stories of the Donner Party and the Bender

4:28

Family, a murderous clan known

4:30

as the Bloody Benders. This

4:32

is episode 4, The Donner

4:35

Party Part 4 of 4, Survival

4:38

of the Fittest. On

4:45

the morning of November 7th, Reed

4:48

promised the Curtis' he would retrieve

4:50

them on the way back to Sutter's Fort after

4:52

they'd rescued the Donner Party. Reed,

4:56

McCutcheon, and the two guides slogged

4:58

through the snow until dark and then

5:00

made camp on the mountain. That

5:03

night, Reed and McCutcheon heard

5:05

horses neighing. They discovered

5:07

that the two guides had sneaked away

5:09

and taken some of their horses with them. It

5:12

was as if they knew what was in store and decided

5:14

to save their own lives. Reed

5:17

and McCutcheon pushed on with their remaining

5:19

horses and provisions, but the falling

5:22

snow obliterated any trace of the

5:24

trail. They struggled to keep

5:26

moving forward and eventually it

5:28

was impossible. At times,

5:31

only the necks of the horses appeared

5:33

above the white powder. Finally,

5:36

Reed and McCutcheon left the horses and

5:38

proceeded on foot, but the snow

5:40

was too soft and deep. Even

5:42

if they had been able to walk the 10 to 12

5:45

miles to the summit and then down

5:47

the other side, they wouldn't have had

5:49

any food since it was tied to horses.

5:52

Reluctantly, they turned back. They

5:55

dug their horses out of the snow, collected

5:58

the courtesies, and returned to the snow. to

6:00

Sutter Sport. Meanwhile

6:06

the various Donner party factions

6:08

huddled in their makeshift structures. They

6:11

were 100 miles from Sutter Sport, but

6:14

they might as well have been on another planet. On

6:17

November 21st, Charles Stanton,

6:20

Luis, and Salvador made another

6:22

attempt to get over the mountains. They

6:24

found a route with crusted snow, which

6:27

made it easier for humans to walk, but

6:29

the mules were too heavy. They

6:31

broke through, became exhausted,

6:34

and slowed down the trek. William

6:37

Eddy and some of the others tried to convince

6:39

Stanton to leave the mules behind. Maybe

6:41

they could make it to safety on foot. But

6:44

those mules belonged to John Sutter. Stanton

6:48

refused to let the animals die, so

6:50

the trio turned around and went back to

6:52

their camp by Truckee Lake. The

6:55

Donner family camp, seven miles away

6:57

at Alder Creek, and the camps at Truckee

7:00

Lake, still had hope that the storms

7:02

would stop long enough for someone to

7:04

get through to them. The men in

7:06

both groups passed some time by

7:08

scratching out promissory notes for anyone

7:10

who did. In the notes, they

7:13

offered cash for food once they

7:15

got to safety. Thanksgiving

7:18

wasn't a celebration so much as a marker

7:20

of time. Both groups passed

7:22

a day by eating bark, twigs,

7:25

and boiled hides. There

7:27

was no food except for the occasional

7:29

lucky hit, like a mangy timber

7:32

wolf. Sometime

7:34

during the first days of December, the

7:36

Donner cluster at Alder Creek walked

7:39

out of their shelters during a quick break in the

7:41

snowfall. They found their remaining

7:43

horses and cattle dead in the snow,

7:46

but at least the animals were there and could

7:48

be harvested for a little food. Men's

7:51

mules, which belonged to John Sutter, were

7:54

gone. They may have wandered off,

7:56

or they may have been stolen by Native American

7:59

raiders. At that point, it didn't

8:01

matter either way. The

8:03

stronger people in both camps looked

8:06

for ways to survive. The

8:08

women carefully parsed the tiny

8:10

amounts of meat to distribute to the children

8:13

and the most feeble adults. George

8:15

Donner's arm was badly infected.

8:18

The accidental cut that he had suffered to his hand

8:21

had become inflamed and infected, and

8:23

the infection was spreading. His

8:26

brother, Jacob, was on his deathbed.

8:29

Three of the group's younger men, including

8:31

Joseph Reinhardt, were close behind. And

8:34

then Charles Stanton and Franklin Graves

8:36

got an idea. They knew a bit

8:38

about snowshoes. If they

8:41

could make enough of them, the strongest

8:43

of the group might be able to walk far

8:45

enough to find help. If

8:47

anyone objected to the idea, they

8:49

were quieted on December 15. The

8:53

Truckee Lake Camp, Bayless Williams,

8:55

who worked for the Reed family, died

8:58

of malnutrition. He was

9:00

the first recorded death in the camps.

9:07

Bayless Williams was buried, and

9:10

then later that day, Jacob

9:12

Donner died at the Alder Creek Camp.

9:15

Close behind him were unmarried men, Sam

9:18

Shoemaker, James Smith, and

9:20

Joseph Reinhardt. Before

9:22

Reinhardt passed, he told a weeping

9:25

Mrs. Wolfinger that he and Augustus

9:27

Spitzer had killed her husband in

9:30

the Badlands of Nevada. Two

9:32

months earlier, Reinhardt and Spitzer

9:35

had volunteered to help Jacob Wolfinger

9:37

bury his wagon loaded with goods when

9:39

it became too difficult to haul the wagon through

9:42

the desert. Instead, they

9:44

killed him, probably robbed him, and

9:46

blamed his death on the Paiutes. George

9:50

Donner told the widow that once they were rescued,

9:53

he would make sure Spitzer was held accountable.

9:57

If the promise gave Mrs. Wolfinger comfort,

9:59

it was probably minimal. There

10:01

was very little energy for thoughts of justice

10:04

or retribution. At

10:09

the Truckee Lake Camp there was a break

10:11

in the snow and a tiny bit of sun and

10:13

the snowshoers decided it was now or

10:16

never. The party that left

10:18

on the morning of December 16th was

10:20

composed of 17 men, women,

10:22

and children. Franklin Graves

10:25

and William Eddy were the de facto

10:27

leaders. In addition to members

10:29

of the Donner party there were Luis and

10:31

Salvador, the men who had helped

10:34

Charles Stanton return to the wagon

10:36

train from John Sutter's camp. The

10:39

group dressed as warmly as possible with

10:42

layers of blankets packed on their backs.

10:45

They took a tiny bit of coffee, a bit of sugar,

10:47

and about eight pounds of dry stringy

10:50

beef. They estimated they

10:52

had enough food for six days and

10:55

the first day was problematic in an already

10:57

bad situation. The

10:59

group quickly realized that for every step

11:02

an adult took with the snowshoes the

11:04

children had to take two. William

11:06

Foster had to take an exhausted boy

11:09

and man back to camp and then trek

11:11

all the way back to the snowshoe party. They

11:14

made very little progress the first day. The

11:17

next morning the remaining 15 members

11:20

had a high hope that they can improve on the four

11:22

miles they'd accrued the first day and

11:25

they did making six miles over

11:27

a deep snowpack. The

11:29

next morning brought some sunshine giving

11:32

them hope that they could make it even

11:34

as some of them suffered frostbitten hands

11:36

and feet. But as the third

11:38

day passed the sun's rays

11:41

burned their eyes as it reflected off

11:43

sheets of snow. Charles

11:45

Stanton and Franklin Graves developed severe

11:48

snow blindness. Graves'

11:50

daughters and son-in-law helped him keep

11:53

on track somehow and he eventually

11:55

recovered. Stanton on

11:57

the other hand was in bad shape. His

12:00

eyes grew red and watery. They

12:02

twitched painfully and uncontrollably

12:05

and then swelled shut. In addition,

12:07

he was exhausted. Luis

12:10

and Salvador took the lead while Stanton

12:13

dropped behind. On

12:15

December 21st, just before the

12:17

party got moving, Mary Graves,

12:20

one of Franklin's daughters, noticed

12:22

Stanton sitting by their smoldering fire,

12:24

smoking his pipe. She asked

12:27

him if he was coming with them. Stanton

12:29

was blind, so he turned toward the sound

12:31

of her voice. He assured her that

12:33

he was, but those were the last

12:36

words anyone heard him say. They

12:38

moved on, hoping he would catch up. He

12:41

never did, and now they were down to 14.

12:46

Mary later recalled that on December 24th, 1846, they

12:50

were delirious. They had been

12:52

gone from their camps for eight days and

12:55

without food for three. Some

12:57

people wanted to go back. Luis

12:59

and Salvador wanted to keep moving forward.

13:02

Mary said she wanted to keep going too because

13:05

she couldn't bear to go back and hear

13:07

the cries of her starving brothers and sisters.

13:11

While the Snowshoe Party debated their options,

13:14

their companions and families back at the

13:16

camps continued to suffer. Patrick

13:19

Breen started to keep a diary that

13:21

month in which he recorded the day-to-day

13:23

misery of the Lake Camp. The

13:26

miseries mirrored those at the Alder Creek

13:28

Camp. In essence, every

13:31

minute was spent thinking about or searching

13:33

for food. Eliza

13:36

Donner, the three-year-old child of George

13:38

and Tamsen Donner, later said that

13:40

they captured an eight little field

13:42

mice that crept into the camp. They

13:45

cut pieces of beef hides, scraped

13:47

them, and boiled them until they were

13:50

the consistency of glue and swallowed

13:52

it as best they could. Bones

13:55

that had already had their marrow sucked out

13:57

were burned and eaten.

14:00

chewed on twigs of pine just to have

14:02

something to chew. And they prayed

14:04

that the snowshoe party had been successful

14:07

and was bringing help back from California.

14:15

The prayers for the success of the snowshoe

14:17

party were not answered. The

14:19

snowshoers wandered through the Sierras like

14:21

zombies. They had no food,

14:24

but they did have water by way of snow.

14:27

The problem was they were often too delirious

14:30

to realize they were thirsty. Also,

14:33

eating the snow instead of drinking it lowers

14:35

the core body temperature, something they didn't

14:38

know. Every time they ate a handful

14:40

of snow, their body temperatures dropped

14:42

a little bit and their bodies shut down

14:45

a little more. All

14:47

of them knew the end was near, and

14:49

it was a man named Patrick Dolan who

14:51

first spoke the unthinkable. He

14:54

suggested they draw lots to see

14:56

who should offer themselves up as a sacrifice

14:58

for the others. William

15:00

Eddie quickly agreed, but some of

15:02

the others demurred. William

15:05

Foster was totally opposed, at

15:07

least to the part about how they should pick the person.

15:10

Eddie then had an idea. What if

15:12

two of the men in the group drew lots,

15:15

faced off in a duel and shot it

15:17

out? No one liked

15:19

the idea. Instead, they

15:21

decided to let nature take its course. Weary

15:25

and confused, they pushed on one

15:27

painful step at a time. When

15:30

they camped that night, December 24th,

15:32

Christmas Eve, they moved as close

15:35

as they could to the sad little fire

15:37

they made with green twig. While

15:39

sleeping, a man named Antonio flung

15:42

his arm into the flame. He was so

15:44

far gone that his nerve endings failed

15:46

to register any pain. William

15:49

Eddie quickly shoved him away, but

15:52

the man's breathing was already in the form

15:54

of a death rattle.

16:00

And after Antonio died, as if

16:02

to add insult to injury, a

16:04

storm blew out their tiny fire. Within

16:07

minutes, Franklin Graves died.

16:10

Before slipping away, Graves told his

16:12

two daughters in the group to eat him

16:14

if they had to. They laid

16:17

his corpse next to Antonio's and

16:19

tried to get a few hours of sleep in

16:21

a makeshift tent of blankets. This

16:24

required one of them to stay awake and

16:26

hold the blanket up over them as they

16:28

huddled in a circle so the snow wouldn't

16:30

press the blanket down and smother

16:33

them. A shrieking Patrick

16:35

Dolan woke them up on Christmas morning.

16:39

One symptom of hypothermia is that

16:41

its victims think they're on fire, and

16:43

that was what happened to Dolan. He

16:45

tore off all his clothes and kept trying

16:47

to run away. William

16:50

Eddie finally calmed him down and

16:52

Dolan fell into a deep sleep.

16:54

He mother woke up,

16:56

and his body was placed next to Antonio

16:58

and Franklin Graves. Then

17:01

William Eddie tried to start a fire using

17:03

gunpowder for Tinder, only

17:05

to have it blow up his powder horn and

17:07

burn himself and two other women. Finally,

17:11

after the most recent storm moved on, the

17:14

snowshoe party took a patch of dry cotton

17:16

from the lining of a woman's coat and

17:18

ignited it with a spark from a flintlock

17:21

rifle. They set fire to

17:23

a large dead pine tree and got

17:25

a roaring blaze going.

17:28

Then they set down one important

17:30

rule. No one would eat

17:32

a family member, and since no

17:34

one was related to Patrick Dolan and

17:36

he had no ties to anyone back at the camps

17:39

or anywhere else, he was

17:41

the first one they ate. The

17:45

day after Christmas, the snowshoers

17:47

couldn't look at each other. They didn't think

17:49

of themselves as monsters. They

17:51

were merely trying to survive, and

17:53

they were losing the battle. Lemuel

17:56

Murphy's condition worsened. He

17:59

had been declined. learning and acting irrationally,

18:02

much like Dolan in Dolan's final hours.

18:05

Lemuel had been so hungry the day before that

18:08

he had eaten a mouse, alive.

18:11

But now, he was delirious and he couldn't

18:13

eat anything at all. That

18:15

night, Lemuel Murphy passed away

18:18

with his head lying in his sister's lap. He

18:21

was 13 years old. On

18:24

December 30, the Snowshoers

18:26

left what was later called the Camp of

18:28

Death. There were now 10 of them,

18:31

five men and five women. They

18:34

tried not to think of the four people who had saved

18:36

their lives through their deaths. On

18:39

the last day of 1846, the survivors

18:42

managed to walk six miles, inching

18:44

over a steep ridge and carefully

18:47

crossing snow-covered ravines. For

18:49

a while, blood marked their path

18:52

because all of their feet were swollen and

18:55

cracked from frostbite. In

18:57

New Year's Eve, they ate the last

18:59

pieces of their friends.

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19:37

In the New Year of 1847, Louise lost a toe to frostbite.

19:39

William

19:43

Foster was beginning to show signs of delirium.

19:46

The delirium, coupled with the generally

19:49

racist attitudes, spurred Foster

19:51

to propose killing Louise and Salvador

19:54

for food. William Eddie

19:56

disagreed, but others agreed with Foster.

20:00

the danger to his friends, Eddie

20:02

warned Louise. Not surprisingly,

20:05

Louise and Salvador sneaked away

20:07

in the night. The next morning,

20:09

William Eddie managed to track and shoot

20:12

a deer. He and Mary Graves

20:14

chased the wounded animal until it died, and

20:17

then drank its blood after cutting its throat.

20:20

A man named Fausdick passed away. He

20:23

and his wife had fallen behind as his condition

20:26

worsened, and now his wife hurried

20:28

forward to find William Eddie and Mary

20:30

Graves and the others. Along

20:33

the way, she encountered William Foster

20:35

and his daughter Sarah. They were

20:37

backtracking in order to butcher Mr.

20:40

and Mrs. Fausdick for food. Despite

20:42

Mrs. Fausdick's protests, they harvested

20:45

her husband. There

20:51

were now seven snowshoers left. The

20:54

women were in the best shape, which might

20:56

have been the reason why William Foster proposed

20:59

killing one of them. William

21:01

Eddie shut down the idea, though

21:03

he understood how hunger was driving

21:05

his companion mad. They

21:07

were soon distracted by a set of bloody footprints.

21:11

The two men and five women pushed

21:13

their starving bodies to take them to

21:15

the source of the prints. Two

21:17

miles later, they found Luis and

21:20

Salvador. They were nearly dead,

21:23

having no more energy to move than lying

21:25

prone on the ground at the base of a tree.

21:28

The women could see in Foster's crazed

21:30

eyes what he planned to do, and they moved

21:33

out of the way. Foster

21:35

grabbed a rifle, ignored William Eddie's

21:37

pleas, and shot both men in the head.

21:41

The nutrition robbed from Luis and Salvador

21:44

allowed the remaining band of snowshoers

21:46

to find an Indian trail two days later.

21:49

In the most horrible of ironies, they

21:52

stumbled into a village of the tribe

21:54

that Luis and Salvador were from. The

21:57

villages nurtured the starving, delirious

21:59

traveling back to baseline health.

22:03

Eventually, the villagers took William

22:05

Eddie to the cabin of a white couple at

22:07

a lower altitude, while the others stayed

22:09

behind. The white couple and

22:11

others in the area helped the other six

22:14

snowshoers move down to the cabin. Thirty-three

22:18

days earlier, 17 men,

22:20

women and children began a nearly

22:22

hopeless journey on snowshoes. Now

22:25

there were just two men and five women

22:27

left. But those seven were safe.

22:31

Back at the Truckee Lake and Alder Creek

22:33

camps, the situation was almost

22:35

as bad. On December

22:37

28th, a man named Charlie

22:39

Berger died in Lewis Keesburg's

22:41

shelter. On New Year's Day,

22:44

Margaret Reid told her starving kids

22:46

that she was taking the last of their five

22:49

family dogs for a walk. They

22:51

cried for hours when they found out

22:53

she'd killed it for food. But they

22:55

knew she had to do it so they could survive

22:58

just a little longer. With

23:00

no communication from the outside world, they

23:03

had no idea how long it would take to get

23:05

rescued, if help was coming

23:07

at all. Margaret

23:09

Reid couldn't know it, but her husband

23:11

had already tried to reach her and had been

23:13

stopped by the weather. Then,

23:16

on January 31st, 1847, thirty

23:20

days after she had been forced to kill the dog,

23:22

the first relief party was finally

23:24

able to leave Sutter Sport. It

23:27

took nearly three weeks, but the rescue

23:29

party reached the Truckee Lake Camp on

23:31

February 19th. The

23:34

rescuers stared at the camp in wonder.

23:37

They couldn't see or hear any living thing.

23:42

Then, a skeletal woman emerged from a hole in the

23:44

snow. It was Mrs. Murphy. She

23:46

asked, are you men from California

23:49

or do you come from heaven? Nine

23:52

members of the Lake Camp were already dead, and

23:55

a baby succumbed the night the rescuers arrived.

24:00

pieces of food very carefully, knowing

24:02

that a starving person who eats too much

24:05

too quickly can die of stomach

24:07

issues. No one

24:09

from the Aldor Creek camp had died since

24:11

Jacob Donner, but George Donner

24:13

was close. Besides starving,

24:16

the cut on his hand had turned dangvernous.

24:19

The rescuers assured everyone that the

24:22

snowshoers had all arrived safely

24:24

at Sutter's Fort. It was a lie,

24:27

but it was necessary to get them motivated

24:29

to go over the mountain. The

24:36

rescuers visited both camps and

24:38

picked a total of seven adults and 16 children

24:41

to make the trip. They began

24:43

immediately, but a few of the children

24:45

had to go back because the trek was too

24:47

hard. Louis Kiesberg's

24:50

wife tried to make the trip with their small daughter

24:52

Ada. Unfortunately, Ada

24:55

didn't survive, and her mother had

24:57

to bury her in the snow. Two

25:00

days later, the group saw 10 men

25:02

approaching on snowshoes. They

25:04

carried huge packs on their backs. One

25:07

was James Reed, who was relieved

25:09

but somber when he heard that his family was

25:11

alive. A few miles later,

25:14

he made it to the Aldor Creek site. In

25:17

the space of just one week, between

25:19

the departure of the first rescue party and

25:21

the arrival of the second with James Reed,

25:24

the situation in the camps had gone

25:27

from desperate to the worst case scenario.

25:30

The accounts from survivors and documents

25:32

left behind by the dead indicate

25:35

that people in both camps were thinking

25:37

about it and talking about it before

25:39

the first rescue party arrived, but

25:42

they may not have done it yet. By

25:44

the time James Reed and the second rescue

25:46

party arrived, the camps were

25:49

a horror show. Dismembered

25:54

corpses and human body parts

25:57

were strewn everywhere. The

25:59

children of Jacob Donner sat on

26:01

a log near a campfire eating

26:03

their father's heart and liver. There

26:05

were bloodstains on their chins and

26:08

they completely ignored the rescuers. On

26:11

the ground around the fire were bits of

26:13

hair and bone and skin. Their

26:16

mother vowed she would die before

26:18

she resorted to eating part of her husband. Reed

26:22

and the relief party made her as comfortable

26:24

as possible and continued on. Reed

26:27

found his two children in the care of the Breen

26:29

family and Patrick Breen swore

26:32

that the kids had done nothing abominable. At

26:35

the cabin of the Murphy family, the situation

26:37

was far worse. Mrs. Murphy

26:40

had essentially gone crazy. She

26:42

was caring for a collection of kids who

26:44

were horribly dirty and infested with lice,

26:47

but they seemed to be more with it mentally,

26:50

though they had probably done things similar to

26:52

Jacob Donner's children. Reed

26:55

discovered the remains of Milton Elliott,

26:57

his faithful wagon driver. Milton's

27:00

head and face had not been touched, but

27:03

the rest of him had. Like

27:05

the first rescue party, Reed's group

27:07

distributed food, provided some

27:09

care for the people who would have to remain in the camps,

27:12

and collected those who could make it over the

27:15

mountains. In

27:17

March, a third rescue party saved 11

27:20

people, including nine children.

27:22

A hero named John Stark carried

27:25

the children two at a time down the mountain.

27:27

He saved all nine of them. A

27:30

fourth and final rescue mission was delayed

27:32

by a month because of yet another round

27:34

of blizzards in the Sierras. When

27:38

that mission finally got up to the camps, it

27:40

was April 17, 1847. It

27:43

had been one year and three days

27:46

since the Donner caravan left Springfield,

27:48

Illinois. Seven

27:50

men entered the camps that somehow

27:53

looked worse than they had before. Outside

27:56

a tent, they found an iron kettle.

27:59

It's not clear who looked into the kettle first,

28:01

but

28:01

whoever it was surely wished he

28:03

hadn't.

28:04

Inside was human skin. The

28:08

rescuers found just one more survivor,

28:11

ragged and emaciated Louis Kiesberg.

28:14

In his decrepit cabin, there was a pan

28:17

of water that contained what appeared

28:19

to be a fresh human liver and lungs.

28:22

Kiesberg had eaten Tamsin Donner,

28:25

George Donner's wife, but he swore

28:27

he didn't kill her. The rescue

28:29

party collected him and started the long

28:32

journey back to the Sacramento Valley. Along

28:35

the way, they stopped at a site along

28:37

the Yuba River. Kiesberg

28:39

noticed a piece of cloth sticking out of

28:41

the snow. He tugged at it

28:44

and the body of his daughter tumbled into his

28:46

arms. She had died two months

28:48

earlier, and he didn't know until that

28:51

moment. Louis

28:53

Kiesberg was the final member of the Donner

28:55

party to make it to safety. 81 people

28:58

became trapped in the mountains. 45 survived.

29:01

Most were physically scarred

29:03

from frostbite and

29:06

malnutrition. All were

29:08

mentally and emotionally scarred by the horrors of their experiences

29:12

and what they had to do to survive. And

29:15

yet, they moved on. Some had more

29:17

success and happiness than others.

29:20

Louis Kiesberg was reunited with his wife

29:23

and they had more daughters. But

29:25

rumors of his alleged murder of Tamsin

29:27

Donner and his supposed rabid

29:30

taste for human food dogged

29:32

him for the rest of his life. All

29:34

the members of the Breen family and the Reed

29:36

family survived. All

29:38

of the Donner adults died, but

29:41

most of their children survived. For

29:44

about eight months, stories of the

29:46

Donner party shocked people enough

29:48

to make them think twice about attempting the long

29:51

and dangerous trip to California. But

29:54

that changed on January 28, 1848. his

30:00

new business partner, James Marshall, were

30:02

building a saw mill and a grist mill

30:05

on a branch of the American River about

30:07

seven miles northwest of the spot that

30:09

would eventually be the city of Placerville.

30:13

Marshall noticed shiny flecks in

30:15

the workings that turned out to be gold.

30:18

It was the start of America's first major

30:20

gold rush. In the frenzy

30:22

to find gold at the place that would be known

30:24

to history as Sutter's Mill, people

30:27

quickly overcame their fear of the experiences

30:29

of the Donner Party, but they never

30:32

forgot the story. Congratulations

30:45

if you survived the tale of the Donner Party. Next

30:48

time on Legends of the Old West, it's

30:50

part one of a two-part story about

30:52

a murderous family on the Kansas prairie

30:55

who are thought to be some of America's earliest

30:57

serial killers. Mercifully,

31:00

there's no cannibalism in that story. The

31:02

tale of the Bloody Benzers begins next

31:05

week on Legends of the Old West. Members

31:12

of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to

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they also receive exclusive bonus episodes.

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Sign up now through the link in the show notes or

31:27

on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com.

31:30

This series was researched and written by Julia

31:33

Bricklin. Original music by

31:35

Rob Valliere. I'm your host and producer,

31:37

Chris Wimmel. If you enjoyed the show,

31:40

please leave us a rating and a review on Apple

31:42

Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Check

31:45

out our website, blackbarrelmedia.com

31:47

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32:01

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