Bad luck and bad decisions dogged the Donner Party a century and a half ago. When it stumbled into Utah, it had no hint of the chamber of horrors it was about to enter.
If the bickering emigrants had known, they would have high-tailed it back home. Instead, nearly half died below a 7,050-foot mountain pass between Reno and Sacramento that now bears the party's name. Their emaciated remains sustained the survivors."They made mistake after mistake," said James Reed III of Edmonds, Wash., great-great grandson of group leader James Reed. "Murphy's law was against them. Everything that could go wrong did."
The disastrous, three-month crossing of Utah and Nevada set the stage for one of the Old West's worst tragedies. Its 150th anniversary will be marked by descendants this weekend, the first of four Donner Party reunions this year.
The story of the Donner Party is one of heroism and treachery, of bad choices and even worse luck, of perseverance and the lifelong, painful memories of those who survived the hardest winter in a century.
Dozens of party members starved to death. The living resorted to cannibalism in the Sierra Nevada over the winter of 1846-47. Forty-two of the group's 89 members died.
The Donner family set out from Springfield, Ill., on April 15, 1846, in search of a better life in California. By July 19, the party had grown to about a dozen families sharing similar dreams.
The group had no major problems until it gambled on a shortcut, the Hastings Cutoff, between Fort Bridger in Wyoming and the Humboldt River in Nevada.
The so-called shortcut left the pioneers exhausted and livid with Lansford Hastings, a guide who had recommended the route before going ahead with another group of settlers, expecting that the Donner Party would catch up. It never did.
Had the company stayed on the regular trail, it would have reached the Humboldt two weeks earlier and made it safely over the Sierra.
"More than anything, I blame Hastings' misdirection for their problems," said Patricia Ramsey of Carmel, great-great granddaughter of Lewis Keseberg. "I can't understand why he would say things, not knowing whether they were accurate or not."
But some descendants concede that party members share the blame because of poor decisions made later in Utah and Nevada.
"It's hard to understand a lot of the things they did," Reed said.
The group was in over its head in what was then a wilderness under Mexican control. It also was plagued by personality conflicts, poor organization and a lack of leadership.
Reed faults the group for wasting three weeks in the Wasatch Range and a week in a fruitless search for lost oxen on the Great Salt Lake Desert. The delays in Utah played a major role in the final outcome.
About halfway across Nevada, the party reached the breaking point. James Reed stabbed John Snyder to death in a fit of rage that stemmed from troubles driving wagons up a steep hill.
Reed claimed self-defense, but was banished from the party. Leaving his wife and four children behind, Reed rode ahead on horseback to California.
Relations among members worsened after the stabbing. An elderly Belgian man named Hardcoop was soon abandoned. Then, a German member named Wolfinger allegedly was killed by two fellow members for his money.
"This is one time a communal effort would have saved them but they were broken into family groups," James Reed III said. "It wasn't a warm and friendly bunch . . . I think they were having a lot of nervous breakdowns, they were so tired."
Many of the emigrants staggered into Reno on Oct. 20 near starvation. The length of their Reno stay, which survivors said was from two to five days, proved deadly.
Some descendants maintain the emigrants could have safely crossed the Sierra had they not rested in Reno. But others note their ancestors had no way of foreseeing the storm that dumped heavy snow a month earlier than usual.
Several families missed getting over the Sierra crest by just one day: Oct. 31. The snow kept falling that day and the pioneers hunkered down for the winter near what is now Truckee.
Their 2,000-mile journey ended in the unthinkable - thanks to a combination of bad luck and their own doing.
"A lot of what went wrong were acts of God and man added to it," James Reed III said. "If they had come through (the Sierra) at the same time any other year, there wouldn't have been a problem."
The party had poor luck hunting; the early winter had driven most animals to lower ground. Many survivors had to eat the flesh of their dead comrades after running out of food a couple of months later.
In desperation, 10 men and five women left Donner Lake on snowshoes on Dec. 16, hoping to get help on the other side of the Sierra. All five women but only two men reached Sacramento. All but one of the dead were eaten.
Reed, who made it across the Sierra ahead of the party, raised money in California and publicized the plight of the stranded pioneers. The first rescuers reached the survivors on Feb. 18; Reed arrived with another group of rescuers on March 1. The last survivor was rescued on April 21, more than a year after the Donners had first started their journey.
Descendants defend their ancestors' decision to resort to cannibalism, saying it allowed many to survive.
"I have no doubt that it happened, but if we were in the same situation, we would do it, too," said Barbara Wilder Politano of Rancho Cucamonga, great-great granddaughter of party captain George Donner. "How much do you want to live?"
"My attitude is, they did what they did to survive, and I wouldn't be here if they didn't," said Adam Breen of Hollister, great-great-great grandson of Patrick Breen.
Some descendants complain that the cannibalism has made them a butt of jokes.
"It was kind of sad. As a kid, it was never a positive," Ann Donner-Simon said at a 1990 reunion of Jacob Donner descendants. "Kids used to say, `Don't sit next to Ann, she'll eat your arm off.' "
But Adam Breen said he has learned to take jokes about the party's cannibalism in stride.
"I've heard all the bad jokes about finger foods and all that," he said. "When the world knows your family resorted to cannibalism to save themselves in the face of death, you'd better be able to laugh about it."
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Fatal timetable
Key events in the Donner Party tragedy of 1846-47:
April 15, 1846 - Donner families set out from Springfield, Ill., for California.
July 19 - Donner families form party in Wyoming with about 10 other families and decide to take Hastings Cutoff.
Aug. 6-21 - Donner Party encounters major delays in Utah's Wasatch Range.
Oct. 5 - Donner Party leader James Reed fatally stabs John Snyder in Nevada and is exiled.
Oct. 31 - Donner Party becomes snowbound near present-day Truckee, Calif., in the Sierra Nevadas.
Dec. 16 - Fifteen members leave Donner Lake on snowshoes; only seven reach Sacramento.
Feb. 18, 1847 - First rescue party reaches Donner Lake.
April 21 - Final survivor leaves Donner Lake with rescuers.