#Lansford Hastings

[richcaminiti]

Welcome to The Pass!

That is the name of the new novel I had the pleasure of Co-Authoring with long time friend and school mate, Allan Krummenacker. Together we managed to create a different type of supernatural novel. Well, rather than me trying to explain it, why don't you read what Kirkus Reviews has to say!

Find it at Amazon and see for yourself!

[alethiometry]

iasip has truly enriched my life bc now every time i read about a historical figure who was a total piece of shit i can't help but think of that scene where mac is giving a presentation and slaps a giant BITCH sticker on photos of like galileo and isaac newton

[tombstone-ghost]

Me and Lansford Hastings are gonna have to fight and I’m gonna beat his ass, dumb bitch I hate him so much like damn bitch how are you gonna make a short cut, not even use it, then lie about it being shorter like wtf you dumb fucker are you that desperate ☠️

[knellennui]

Hey, I'm going on the California Trail, y'all want anything? A Lansford Hastings patented lies handbook by the guy with no experience? A made-up shortcut? Some dehydrated oxen? Some...veal?

May 12th, the day the Donner-Reed parties left Independence Missouri horrifically late in the season.

[letsgethaunted]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Let's Get Haunted (@letsgethaunted)

Episode 122: The Donner Party Conspiracy: Everything You Don't Already Know Photodump

Image 01: The Oregon Trail hosted over 400k emigrants over a journey that took between four and six months. The average pioneer walked 15-20 miles a day. You can still see the wagon ruts of the original Oregon Trail TODAY. Image 02: The Oregon Trail is nicknamed “The World’s Longest Graveyard” as more than 30k people died on the trail. It is estimated that there are bodies every 80 yards! Above: Marked Pioneer Gravesite. Below: Unmarked Pioneer Gravesite. Image 03: George Donner. Image 04: James and Margaret Reed. Image 05: Example of makeshift raft to cross wagons over rivers. Image 06: Lansford Hastings book “The Emigrant’s Guide to Oregon and California” featured info on a “shortcut” that crossed through the Salt Lake Desert and Wasatch Mountain Range instead of following the regular route. Long story short, it sucked basically. Image 07: The Fosters, Eddy, and Pike Family, build a cabin against a large rock (Pictured Above). The families packed 16 people into the structure. Image 08:The Alder Creek camp was a poorly constructed tent of branches against a tree with a canvas sheet wrapped around. Replica pictured here. Image 09: Map of all the campsites the Donner-Reed party made at Truckee Lake. Image 10: Kesseberg. IF YOU GOT THIS FAR LMK IF THE 1849 GOLD RUSH IS REAL BC IDK WHAT TO BELIEVE ANYMORE.

[leggywillow]

It actually pisses me off a lot that the Donner Party is remembered by that name, because it should be called “the group killed by the greed of Lansford Hastings” or “the group killed by the arrogance of James Reed”

[geeneelee]

Shoutout to Lansford Hastings and Jim Bridger for convincing some people on the Oregon trail to try out their “one weird trail the government doesn’t want you to know about!!!!” and baldly lying to them about it being safe in the name of fame and extra cash, causing a little thing called the Donner Party Incident

[yourcrazyboyokris]

”Fun” history fact

The Donner party was a group of families who moved westward to California on April 14, 1846, with the initial party numbering to 31 people, which would change to around 86, with 43 being children. The horrors they experienced and had to endure started when an unreliable guide named Lansford Hastings gave them a shortcut suggestion through the Hastings Cutoff which he claimed would shave more than 300 miles of the journey, despite it being 125 miles longer than the original trail and going through some of the most inhospitable areas in the entire Great Basin. The party set off and endured extreme hardships, with many of their cattle being killed and their personal belongings having to be disposed of, leading to only the bare supplies necessary for survival to be with them. But that was not the worst part. On October 31st, the party started to go through modern day Donner Pass, where their progress was halted by deepening snow. They set up crude cabins near modern day Donner Lake to wait out the winter until they could continue. On November 20, Patrick Breen began to write a diary, which is the only contemporary written record of the Donner party’s ordeal. Through overwhelming hardships from cold, storms, deep snow, and inadequate food, they struggled on. Eight men died due to these conditions, and out of desperation and lack of food, the party started to eat their bison. Once the bison ran out, they unburied and ate the bodies of the men who died. Once those ran out, they started to elect the weakest of the group to eat. This continued until The settlers of California organized a relief party which left Fort Sutter on January 31, 1847, where the Donner party was found and rescued on February 18. They then took 23 of the starving emigrants, including 17 children, back to the settlements; several deaths occurred on the way. Other relief parties followed, but, because of illness and injuries, it was impossible to remove everyone.

The Donner Party became a cautionary tale for any who decided to move west to not take shortcuts.

[theunknowableobject]

lansford hastings era

[xtruss]

Hikers are seen in the distance at the Mesquite Sand Dunes in Death Valley National Park, California. This rugged desert landscape holds the world's record for the hottest air temperature—134°F in 1913. Tourists still flock here to experience the blistering heat. Photograph By Raul Touzon, National Geographic Image Collection

How Did Death Valley 🏜️ Gets Its Name? Not From The Heat

In December 1849, a group of settlers seeking their fortunes stumbled upon this inhospitable valley. The few who made it out alive assigned the haunting moniker.

— By Erin Blakemore | July 25, 2023

As a heat wave continues to blanket the Northern Hemisphere, tourists are making pilgrimages to the hottest place on Earth—Death Valley, California—in hope of experiencing a new world-record high temperature. The valley already holds the record for hottest air temperature ever recorded, a whopping 134°F in 1913.

But if they think the valley was named after its scorching summer temps, they’re wrong—it actually got its name from a winter disaster. Here’s how Death Valley got its name, and why it continues to lure visitors with its extreme weather and barren landscape.

Photographing Death Valley’s starry skies shines a light on pollution. A national park artist-in-residence captures the fragility and beauty of the desert at night. August 20, 2020! As an artist-in-residence at Death Valley National Park, photographer Harun Mehmedinović captured images of its night skies and increasing light pollution. In this snowy shot, he caught both stars and, on the right, the glow of the city of Las Vegas. Photograph By Harun Mehmedinović

Inside A Desolate Desert

Located in southeastern California near the Nevada border, Death Valley is nestled in the northern Mojave Desert between four mountain ranges: the Panamint Range to the west, the Amargosa Range to the east, the Grapevine Mountains to the north, and the Owlshead Mountains to the south.

The area’s original inhabitants, the Timbisha Shoshone, lived in harmony with the valley for millennia. But when European settlers encountered it during their westward migration, they were flummoxed by the landscape. Though surrounded by mountain ranges, the valley is situated at the lowest elevation in the United States. The alkaline desert floor is bone dry and lacks vegetation, while the surrounding mountains trap the heat reflected by the sparse desert floor—making it blindingly hot in the summer and inhospitable even in winter.

Even before gold was discovered there in 1849, California attracted white settlers searching for a new life filled with natural riches. Many of these emigrants were completely unprepared for the arduous trip across both mountain and desert—and some fell victim to people who falsely claimed they knew the safest, fastest routes.

In one particularly famous case in 1846, a group of pioneers known as the Donner Party became snowbound after following the shortcut that a booster named Lansford Hastings had advertised. Stuck in the Sierra Nevadas, some of these pioneers eventually resorted to cannibalism and lost nearly half of their group to starvation and exposure.

Photographing Death Valley’s starry skies shines a light on pollution. A national park artist-in-residence captures the fragility and beauty of the desert at night. August 20, 2020! The Milky Way looks brighter above Death Valley’s Panamint Springs thanks to the dim lighting at this gas station. Mehmedinović says the image shows the benefit of cutting out excessive light around national parks. Photograph By Harun Mehmedinović

On The Trail To Death Valley

Despite the Donner Party disaster—and the fact that they lacked familiarity with the terrain—boosters and wagon train leaders still attempted to find shortcuts on their journeys to California, especially after gold was discovered there.

In October 1849, members of trail leader Jefferson Hunt’s Mojave San Joaquin Company wagon train grew impatient with Hunt’s pace and his preferred route, known as the Old Spanish Trail. Some worried they’d be stuck in the mountains during the winter like the Donner Party if they didn’t move more quickly. They briefly convinced Hunt to try an alternative route, but Hunt returned from a reconnaissance mission nearly dead of thirst and told them he’d keep to the Old Spanish Trail.

A subset of the party still thought they could find a path west across the Mojave Desert, however—and when they met up with another, smaller party on the trail, they were shown a hand-drawn map of a cutoff that was endorsed, they were told, by some of the region’s most experienced trappers and mountaineers. After Hunt refused to take the shortcut, which would shave 500 miles and potentially months off the journey, much of the party broke off to try out the supposedly superior route.

At first, it seemed like they’d made the right choice: travel was easy, and they made good time. But soon they encountered more and more inhospitable terrain, and increasing disputes about how to proceed. One group headed toward a nearby mountain in hopes of finding water. The other, a group of younger, unmarried men who called themselves “Jayhawkers,” broke off into their own party and attempted to press due west to find the mountaineers’ advertised trail—a route that, it turns out, didn’t really exist.

As both groups journeyed, water became harder to find, and many turned back in search of Hunt rather than face the coming winter in the deadly Sierras. “Grass there is scarce, wood there is none,” wrote Jayhawker Sheldon Young of the landscape. “It is a dubious looking country.”

Photographing Death Valley’s starry skies shines a light on pollution. A national park artist-in-residence captures the fragility and beauty of the desert at night. August 20, 2020! Light pollution from cities can encroach on rural areas. Here, in Mehmedinović’s photograph of Death Valley’s Racetrack Playa, the glow on the right comes from Las Vegas, more than 200 miles away. Photograph By Harun Mehmedinović

Disaster Strikes

Weak and exhausted, in December 1849 both groups eventually entered a massive valley filled with salt flats and surrounded by mountains on all sides. Water was scarce in the desert valley; they were only able to locate highly alkaline water sources.

The Jayhawkers slaughtered many of their own oxen to eat and walked across the valley, eventually finding a Native American who guided them to safety. The other party tried going the other direction. As they pressed onward, this time another group of men decided to strike out on their own, and would ultimately die of exposure along their preferred trail.

On the verge of dehydration, the remaining members of the original party were briefly saved by a snowstorm. But over time, oxen dropped dead from thirst and exhaustion, and several men died. Finally, all but a few of the men broke off find their way over the mountains. The others waited patiently at the bottom of the valley.

Finally, after more than a month, the remaining party members—mostly women and young children—were rescued by two young men they’d sent off to get supplies. As they made their final crossing of the Panamint Mountains, one of the party members is said to have turned toward the valley and said “Goodbye, Death Valley.” Overall, it took the shortcut seekers more than four months to find their way to the part of California they sought.

Photographing Death Valley’s starry skies shines a light on pollution. A national park artist-in-residence captures the fragility and beauty of the desert at night. August 20, 2020! "These images are meant to evoke a sense of wonder and curiosity,” says Mehmedinović. “I see images as a gateway to a discussion on the importance of the night sky and our impact on the environment.” Photograph By Harun Mehmedinović

The Highest Temperature Recorded on Earth?

The name stuck—and today, the valley is still known as one of the most barren and dangerous places in the United States. In 1913, the ambient air temperature reportedly rose to 134 degrees, still the world-record high air temperature.

Modern-day meteorologists dispute this reading, pointing out that the temperature was not in line with that of other nearby places and that even freak “hot spots” in the valley cannot account for those variations.

“It is possible to demonstrate that a temperature of 134°F in Death Valley on July 10, 1913, was essentially not possible from a meteorological perspective,” wrote meteorologist Christopher C. Burt in a 2016 analysis. However, the World Meteorological Organization, which validates world-record temperatures, still considers the reading a world record.

The group “is always willing to investigate any past extreme record when new credible evidence is presented,” the WMO wrote in a 2020 release, but to date the analysis has never been officially invalidated.

In the meantime, as a potential new extreme approaches, the organization says it’s ready to examine and validate any new records. Death Valley may not have gotten its name from a scorching summer’s day. But 174 years after it was named, the barren, salty valley is still as inhospitable as it was in 1849.

[whitepolaris]

The Ghosts of Donner State Park

by Janice Oberding

Indeed if I do not experience something far worse than I have yet done, I shall say the trouble is all in getting started. -Tamsen Donner, June 1846

Tamsen Donner could not have foreseen the horror that awaited her high in the Sierras when she penned those words to a friend. She was among the 87 people who left Independence, Missouri, in the spring of 1846 headed west to California and a better life. They might well have arrived safe and sound, their names unknown to history, if not for a fateful decision that led to tragedy. 

Experienced travelers warned them not to take the advice found in a certain book, but the Donner Party leaders’ minds were made up. They would follow the new route suggested by Lansford Hastings, author of The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California; it would, according to Hastings, shave off several days’ travel time. Anxious to reach California, they led the party onto the Hastings Cut-off that would its way across the treacherous Wasatch Mountains of Utah. It was a costly mistake. Instead of saving time, the route slowed their travel and caused them to lose both livestock and food. 

It was late October, and a storm was brewing off the coast of California as the Donner Party headed west toward the Sierras. By the time they reached present-day Verdi, California, snowflakes were flying. A broken wagon axle slowed down George Donner; and as the snow continued to fall, he and his family were forced to stop and camp in a hastily thrown-together shelter as Alder Creek. 

At Donner’s urging, the rest of the party moved onward. Six miles west, they too were stopped by the heavy snowfall. They huddled in crudely built shelters and planned to wait out the snow. But with each passing day, the snow piled higher. They were trapped; they could not retreat and they could not move forward. They would wait here near the water’s edge at Truckee Lake until a recuse party arrived. 

Weeks passed and the food supplies dwindled. Hunting was all but impossible in the ten-foot snowdrifts, and the travelers had already butchered the livestock. Tempers were short as food was rationed and fought over. In desperation, the men and women boiled shoes and laces were make a soup of sorts. Then came the day when there was nothing left to eat. From this day on, some members of the Donner Party would resort to cannibalizing those who had succumbed to the harsh conditions. 

A Park Visitor’s Story

Each year, thousands of motorists drive past the Donner State Park unaware of the horrendous events that took place there in the winter of 1847. Others come to the park because of their fascination with the Donner story. They came, hike, picnic, and just enjoy the outdoors; a few have had a brush with the supernatural. Such is the case with a computer technician, Don Nelspeth (named changed to protect his privacy), who shared the following story with me during a recent conference. 

“The first time I ever camped at Donner State Park, I was about ten years old. Every summer after that, my family would drive up from the Bay Area to spend a few days in what my dad called ‘peace and quiet in the wilderness.’

“But it isn’t really. The park is so close to Interstate 80 that you can hear cars and trucks speeding past at all hours of the day and night. I remember my dad used to walk us around and point out where the Donner Party’s shelters had stood, the big rock with the plaque that bore all their names, and where the remains are supposedly buried. 

“These childhood memories came rushing back to me when I learned that the company picnic campout was to held at Donner State Park, and I was thrilled. It had been years since I’d been up to the park; this would be like going home, in a way. My wife, who isn’t an outdoors person, didn’t share my enthusiasm.

“‘What a creepy place,’ she said, shuddering. 

“’You’ll change your mind once we get there,’ I assured her. 

“My wife and two daughters and I arrived the day before the scheduled campout day so we could enjoy some family time. As we pulled into the park, I was happy to see that things hadn’t really changed all that much; there were more cars on the interstate and a designated walking trail and picnic areas had been added, but Donner Park remained the same. Nostalgia took hold of me as I pulled my wife and daughters to the monument and explained the Donners’ plight. The girls yawned and my wife nodded sullenly. ‘Can you imagine being up here with snow as tall as this monument, and no feed to eat?’ I asked, trying to generate some enthusiasm for the weekend ahead. 

“My youngest answered, ‘But I saw a Burger King down the street.’

“’That was long before fast food,’ I explained. 

“When she asked if there were any dinosaurs here, I decided she was still too young to appreciate the story. 

“My older daughter shivered and asked, ‘What about ghosts?’

“‘No such thing,’ my wife assured her. 

“There was no point in telling them about Tamsen Donner’s glowing ghost that people say roams this park at night, I thought. My parents and I had always laughed at the story, and we even made up a song about it: I see Tamsen’s ghost up in the tree. I hope she gets you instead of me!

“I doubted my wife and daughters would se any humor in the ghost or the song. We pitched our tent in a clearing near tall pines and watched birds flit about. The sound of water rushing over boulders was soothing, but we could still hear the whir of cars rushing along the interstate. 

“Darkness fell early; it always does in the mountains. Traditionalists, we hoisted our hotdogs on sticks over the fire till they were crisp and blackened. After dinner bundled up and sat around the glowing campfire. 

“My older daughter complained, ‘This place is crawling with bugs’ as she swatted at the air. ‘Looks like those Donners could have eaten them,’ she smirked. 

“‘Except that it was winter,’ I explained. ‘And bugs aren’t generally out, and . . .’ I stopped in mid sentence. Directly across the park was something that looked like the glowing figure of a woman; it hovered slightly above the ground and vanished. 

“‘What is it?’ my wife asked. 

“’I lost my train of thought,’ I lied. 

The Wisp in the Tent

Now Don related the part in the story that gave me cold chills-and still does. 

“Wrapped up in their sleeping bags that night, my family fell asleep quickly. But I couldn’t. I got up, sat outside the tent, and spent the next few hours trying to convince myself that what I had seen earlier was nothing but a reflection from a passing car. Maybe it would come back and I would know for sure. 

“It didn’t return until the next night. We were all sleeping soundly when I was suddenly awakened by something that felt cold and wet on my face. Startled, I sat up; that’s when I saw her. She was yellowish and almost seemed to be see-through. She hovered a few inches off the ground and looked around the tent curiously. I have never been as cold as I was in the icy air that emanated from her. I was scared, all right. But I didn’t want to raise the alarm and frightened anyone else. Assuring myself that this wasn’t a dream, I watched as she slowly floated up to the top of the tent and evaporated right through it. 

“‘Tamsen Donner’s ghost. I’ve just seen Tamsen Donner’s ghost. The stories are true,’ I whispered to myself. 

“I know what I saw was real. It wasn’t lights somehow reflecting through the park. I clearly saw its facial features, and it was a woman’s ghost. I’m not sure what she was looking for, but I am convinced I saw Tamsen Donner’s ghost that night.”

[rabid-catboy]

Btw one of my least favorite guys from history is Lansford Hastings. I hate him so much I would tear his face off with my own teeth if I could

[oflgtfol]

this is exactly how cancel culture works nowadays too

[anonymous-dentist]

Truth in the Tales: The Wild West and the Donner Party

This is a repost because Tumblr likes eating my things. Bad Tumblr.

Hi, I'm A.D., and I'm a history student. I've been waiting to do this episode! I've actually already done an analysis, this one on the Democrat Haters, which I'll link here. So, instead of talking about the gay cowboys again, I'm gonna talk about the Donner Party in honor of our favorite cowboy cannibal, Crops. This is, by no means, gonna be comprehensive, but I always answer asks if anybody wants to ask about anything related to cowboys 'n shit!

(Image: On The Way to the Summit.)

Let's start off the way we always do with the episode description courtesy the wiki:

The episode stars Karl Jacobs, BadBoyHalo, ConnorEatsPants, Corpse Husband, Fundy, Quackity, Ranboo, Sapnap, Technoblade, and Tubbo as cowboys. It takes place at around the same time as the Masquerade in a western-style town with many shops and buildings. The episode follows Karl and the townspeople as they join together to stop bandits who have repeatedly robbed the town. The end of the episode also reveals more of the Inbetween and Karl's involvement with it.

I don't have much to say on this one, but I never do, do I? One of these days I'll do an actual Tales analysis and it'll be over for all y'all. (First I need to actually be able to watch the fucking streams. Someone give me the Wild West vods please Mr. Jacobs sir)

Part One: Crash Course in Western Expansion

Really, really briefly I'm gonna explain what the fuck the wild west even was. I'm not even gonna cite anything here. Just send an ask if you want further clarification!

So way back in the early 1800s, American president Thomas Jefferson bought an assload of land from French 'president' Napoleon Bonaparte. Following that, America fucking exploded. Pioneers moved west past the Appalachian Mountains for the first time in the nation's history, pretty much. A couple of decades later, America beat the American southwest and California out of Mexican control, and people started moving west to manifest the hell out of their desiny.

There were a couple of official trails out west, and many more unofficial. The important one here is the Oregon Trail, the most famous of the lot. Beginning in Independence, Missouri, and spanning the length of the North American continent up to Oregon, the trail was basically the highway of the American west. Y'all might've played the video game in school, or might've seen the Starkid musical about it. It was used from the 1840s through the 1870s, but it really became obsolete with the establishment of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869. It took about six months to travel down the trail by wagon train.

This is important.

(Map: Oregon Trail, 1907.)

Part Two: Going West

(Note: A lot of this comes from my memory! I'll cite what I need to, but I was a kid very invested in this, once upon a time.)

Our story begins in the 1800s in a little city in Missouri. Independence, to be exact, because, that's right, these guys were heading down the motherfuckin' Oregon Trail.

It's the spring of 1846. About 500 wagons are heading west along the trail, and at the very end, taking up about nine wagons, are the Reed and Donner families. Made up of 32 people, the Reed and Donner families really weren't anything special. Neither was the trip, for that matter. It was pretty chill, really. Within about a month and a half of traveling, the wagon train had made it to Fort Laramie, Wyoming. On the way, some other families had joined the Reeds and the Donners, including the Murphy family, the Eddy family, the Breen family, and the Keseburg family. Remember Keseburg, he comes up later.

So they're in Fort Laramie, and it's a pretty straight shot west to Oregon. They're making great time. It's July, so they would be in Oregon by early fall, or late fall at the very latest.

Unfortunately, this is where they started doing some very stupid things. Namely, they followed the advice of one Lansford Hastings, who said that he knew a shortcut west that would shave off a pretty good amount of time from the trip. Hastings said he would meet the wagon train at Fort Bridger. Now, the head of the Reed family, James Reed, had been advised by several people not to follow this guy's advice at all. Even better, Hastings wasn't even at Fort Bridger when the group got there. He was with a different wagon train, but he said that he would leave markers for them to follow.

(Map: The Hastings Cutoff vs the California Trail.)

Still, a group of 89, contained in about 20 wagons, left Fort Bridger to take the Hastings Cutoff. Now, the cutoff was supposed to shave off 300 or so miles from the trip. In reality, it added 125 miles, and it took the group through some of the most inhospitable land out west. They were driven to only being able to make it just over a mile per day, which really wasn't good at all. They lost a good deal of food and water when crossing the Great Salt Lake Desert in Utah, which would really bite them in the ass a few short months later. By the time they made it to the end of the pass, the rest of the wagon party had already made it to California. It was late September, and the Donner Party had to make it clear across the Sierra Nevadas before winter set in.

Reed had taken off at this point, pretty much banished after killing a guy, and had arrived in Sutter's Fort out in California. At the same time, two Miwok Native Americans had joined the party to sort of serve as guides. Sort of. At this point, the party had lowkey admitted they were just a bit fucked, but they thought they still had a chance of getting to the end of the line safe and sound.

And then it started snowing.

Part Three: The Cannibalism Bit

This is the part of the story that has gone down in history.

The party had been forced to abandon most of their wagons at this point, leaving behind precious supplies. Namely: food.

By November 1, the wagon party was separated and snowed in. Everybody save the Donners were set up by Truckee Lake. The Donners, meanwhile, were about 5 miles away. This area of land is called Donner Pass, these days, which really just shows about how well these guys did that winter.

On November 20, Patrick Breen began keeping a diary. This is the only contemporary account of the Donner Party we've got.

(Image: Artist's rendering of the Truckee Lake settlement.)

They didn't have much food at all. Whatever cattle they did have died off pretty early on. They didn't have any other real food. Ox hides were boiled, ox bones were boiled, ox hide rugs were boiled. They ate tree sap, pine needles, whatever they could get their hands on.

The first to die was an employee of the Reed family, Baylis Williams, on December 15. From there, it only went downhill.

I'm not going to go super into detail describing the winter. A lot happened! Instead, I'll link the Puppet History episode on the subject.

It fucks.

Back to the story.

On December 16, 15 members of the party strapped on snowshoes and set off on a journey to try and get help because people were dying. This party was known as the "Forlorn Hope", probably for good reason. Nothing went right for them, either. Eight of the group died en route, including the two Native Americans that had joined the party back before the snow-in. A couple of the dead became the first to be eaten in the party. Patrick Dolan, first, then a handful of others, including 12-year-old Lemuel Murphy and the Native American guides. In the end, though, the remaining party members managed to get to a Native American tribe. They recuperated there, and party member William Eddy headed off to get further help from a settlement on the outskirts of the Sacramento Valley. The first rescue party arrived to get the remaining members of the Forlorn Hope on January 17.

It took 33 days.

The first relief party made it to Truckee Lake on February 18, rescuing 23 people, the majority being children. By that point, all the cabins were completely snowed in, and thirteen people were dead. The second arrived on March 1 and retrieved 17 people, all but three of which were children.

No one had died between the rescue parties, but the guys stuck at Truckee Lake had considered eating a man named Milt Elliott. His body was found mutilated. Down at the other camp, Jacob Donner's body was found in a pit completely dismembered. His children were being nourished on his organs. Three other bodies from the camp had already been consumed.

(Photo: Tree stumps at Truckee Lake, 1866. The stumps' heights indicate just how high the snow was that winter.)

The third relief party arrived March 14. Those who left with it were all children, the remaining adults either too sick to leave or unwilling in the case of Tamsen Donner and Lewis Keseberg.

In the end, Keseberg was the only survivor left when the final search party arrived in mid-April. He had admitted to the previous party that he had eaten a child or two, and, when confronted by the final party, he was seen to have a pot filled with boiling human flesh his cabin along with a good amount of money and George Donner's pistols.

In the end, 42 died, 47 survived, and we've got a lovely picnic area and interpretive trail located in the area to remember them by.

And what did the survivors think?

Well, let me put it in their own words:

"I have not wrote you half of the truble, but I hav Wrote you anuf to let you now what truble is... Dont let this letter dishaten anybody. Never take no cutofs and hury along as fast as you can."

- Virginia Reed, aged 12 at time of rescue

Part Four: Conclusions?

Alright, now what else can I say about this?

Well, it certainly didn't stop anybody from heading west. Gold was discovered in California in 1848, and we all know the San Francisco 49ers, named after, uh, the 1849 Gold Rush. The golden age of cowboys wouldn't come about until the opening of the first railroads out west in the 1860s and wouldn't end until the 1890s. If you traveled by train, it could take a week to reach California. No risk of getting snowed in and eating your family members. I'm always happy to talk about this, so, again, send me asks if you're curious!

Back to Tales, this is the episode where Karl really started seeing how... weird the Inbetween is. We know now that it's one of the Jack Manifolds' territory, but at the time, I'm pretty sure it was just Some Creepy Time Castle. I wouldn't know. I wasn't there. But this is what a historian does, looks at the past and pieces what happened together based off of minimum evidence. Hell yeah.

"Stay on the path."

Well, Karl, you'd best do that. Else I'd hate to see what becomes of you. I mean, the Donners didn't stay on the path, and we saw what happened to them. Only they had someone there to help them.

Who do you have, Karl Jacobs? You blink, and you're alone. You blink again, and there's a man in front of you frowning, concerned, hands gently framing your face. He asks if you're alright. The Inbetween's warning echoes in your mind. You say you're fine.

You aren't fine.

Next 'week': The Haunted Mansion and, uh. The Haunted Mansion.

(maybe next week tumblr will actually let me upload it...)

[henrylevesconte]

Never kinned a character harder than the weird journalist in Oregon Trail 3rd edition who rants about how Lansford Hastings needs to be punished and the downfall of the Donner Party to anyone willing to listen

[ipictureitsoftandiache]

podcast i’m listening to as i drive: the donner party decided to take hasting’s cutoff, a route proposed but never actually travelled by lansford hastings

me: [shakes head] how foolish! the donners never should’ve trusted such a route

siri: in 300 feet take a left turn into the ocean

me: [flicks left turn signal] as i was saying