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Show r " !C V;:' " ' M 'tmmt) v.faw- fir: I - 7S rr-dJ Sir" - .- r.l --4I - Mrs. Catherine M. Brown of San Francisco, sole survivlor of the Ill-fated Ill-fated Donner party,! recalls the vivid incidents of early ..California history when .he was a little girl during the hectic gold rush ,days, and, being an artist of unusual ability, puis them' on canvas. ' " ' ' ' ' t "' n By ELMO SCOTT WATSON . ff .11 WE other day a news pic-T" pic-T" ture service Issued the photograph shown above and In doing so brought back for a moment from the dim past the memory of one of the most glo-p' glo-p' rlous periods in all Amer-L- -' lean history and recalled the story of one of the two outstanding tragedies of those faraway far-away times. In the annals of the historic his-toric "Days of MO" there ore no more thrilling stories than those of two different dif-ferent groups of homeseekers. whose sufferings on the overland trails to California have Immortalized the names of the ''Donner pnrty" and the "Jayhawker party." It Is a curious coincidence that both parties originated In the state of Illinois, Illi-nois, that both traveled over the famous fa-mous Oregon trail until they reached the region of the Great Salt lake lu Utah and that both made the tfcigic mistake of seeking a shorter route to the Promised Land Instead of following fol-lowing the route which would have brought them In safety to fortune and happy homes in a new land. But there tho coincidence ends except for the fact that both found Death awaiting them along the trail. To the Donner party, which set out from Springfield, III., in 1S40, Death appeared In the form of starvation and freezing cold In the snows of the high Sierras. To the Ja.vJiawker party, which left Gales-burg, Gales-burg, 111., three years later, In the spring of 1849, and which, seeking to avoid the mistakes of the Donner to be abandoned -wnd eventually the party emerged from., the desert and approached " the moimta'fhs." Then It was discovered that their' food sup-. sup-. plies were running low und California was still hundreds of miles awny Py this time, too, dissension had nrlsen ,,ln the party and a dispute between Reed and Snyder resulted In the killing kill-ing of the latter. When they finally reached the mountains it was to find that the many delays had brought them even greater dangers. For the early snows had begun to fall on the Sierras and crossing the mountains would be Impossible. So with heavy hearts they turned back to a cabin , on the shores of a lake, since known V as Donner lake, which had been built ' by a party of emigrants two years earlier, built more cabins and prepared pre-pared as best they could for the winter. win-ter. A series of storms piled up the snow until it was 14 feet deep. The food supplies were almost exhausted and when the last of the cattle had been killed and eaten the emigrants were reduced to' eating the hides, which when boiled, were little more than masses of glue. Several attempts were made to push across the mountains moun-tains and seek relief In the California settlements on the other side, but all, except ope, failed. A "forlorn hope" expedition, of ten men and five women set out and although eight of the men perished on the way, the survivors linnlly reached Sutter's fort A relief party was Immediately sent out by Cuptaln Sutter which e . - party fell In with another emigrant truln, commanded by Edwin Bryant, consisting of US fighting men, .10 women, wom-en, 40 wagons and 3.10 cattle. The addition of the Donner party to this caravan made it so large that it was divided Into two parts for convenience conven-ience in traveling wid an organization with the proper otlicers to direct its affairs was formed. By the middle of June the emigrant train was making mak-ing Its way through Nebraska, and nearing Fort Laramie, which they reached safely and stopped to repair their wagons. Although several of the party (mainly (main-ly the older ones) died and were burled bur-led along the trail, the party reached Fort Bridger without undue disaster Then when it was near the Great Salt lake the emigrant train divided, the larger portion deciding to keep to the old road to California while the Donners, Reeds and many others, .87 in all, made the fatal decision to attempt at-tempt what was called the Hastings Cut-off, which passed along the south-em south-em edge of the lake and was said to shorten the route to California by 300 miles before it rejoined the Fort Hall emigrant road on the Humboldt river In Nevada. 'I' I , T t, ....... . - m .1 .... The Donner party soon found that It had made a mistake, for the emigrants emi-grants were seven days in reaching Weber canyon and then found that they must make their own trail by cutting cut-ting their way through heavy underbrush under-brush and making a road as they went. While they were struggWng through the Hasting Cut-off they were joined by the Graves party, another Illinois group which had setjmt from their homes near what Is now I. aeon. 111., at about the same time as the Donner parry had started. The Graves party consisted of W. . Graves, his wife and eight children, his son-in-law. Jay Fosdlck, und a young man named John Snyder, and they were to play a prominent part In the tragedy that was so soon to foUow. No less dramatic dra-matic than the stories of Eliza Donner Don-ner und Virginia Reed Is the account of the Donner tragedy as given from the viewpoint of the Graves family and recorded in an old book "Records of the Olden Time, or Fifty Years on the Prairies" by Spencer Ellsworth and printed In Lacon, 111., in 1880. After making their way at last through Weber canyon, the combined party found Itself facing a desert They hud been told It was only 40 miles wide and they took what they thought was an ample supply of water. But the desert proved to be more than twice that distance across and foi two nights and a day they struggled across the dreary alkali waste, suffering suf-fering from heat und thirst by flay and from cold at night. When the third day came and the unending des ert still stretched before them, one of the party went ahead in search of water, leaving instructions for the drivers to unhitch their oxen and fol low if the cattle began to give out All of the, wagons except one, hud party, fell into greater tribulation, Death nppeared In the form of starvation starva-tion and thirst and the overpowering heat of that earthly Inferno to which they gave the name of Death valley The Donner party was one of the hundreds which began to llock to Call fornla almost Immediately after the war witn Mexico. On April 15. I84C 81 men, women Hiid children who bad assembled at Springfield, 111., for what they thought would be a five-months Journey to t he pacific coast, set out for the Gulden West. The 01 .nlzer of the party was James F. Reed, but it took Its mime from the Donner brothers, George und Jacob, who were neighbors of Reed. Of the 31 in the purty, 16 were children, among whom were two little girls. Eliza Donner and Vlrginu Reed, who later wrote stories of their Journey which have become classic uccounts of this expedition. Eliza Donner's description of the equipment which her father and uncle provided for the long Journey Is as vivid a description of the "covered wagon" era In Amerl can history us can be found anywhere. In one wagon were the seed and farming farm-ing Implements for use when they reached California and with these the laces, muslins, satins and velvets to be used In trading for land. In the second were tiie supplies for the Journey, Jour-ney, the food, clothing Mild camp equipment, us well us various bright colored garments, beads, necklaces, mirrors and the like, to be used in making friends with the Indians ulong the route. The third wagon was thf family "home on wheels" and It. as well as each of the other two was drawn by three yoke of oxen. For several weeks the Journey was uneventful. On May 19, the Donner cached a supply of food along the way and arrived with only a small amount r of provisions which were doled out to the famishing members of the party. On February 22 a party of 23 started out to cross the mountains and after struggling through the snow feund that wild animals hud destroyed the cache of food. Fortunately, another relief party from Sutter's fort reached them In time to save them from starvation. star-vation. In the meantime scenes of utmost Indescribable horror were taking place among those who had remained at Donner lake. Faced by the alternative of starving to death or resorting to cannibalism the wretched survivors chose the latter and it Is In the account ac-count of the Graves family, as written writ-ten by Ellsworth, that the harrowing details of what took place then are revealed. More relief parties eventually even-tually arrived and by degrees the remnants rem-nants of the pnrty made their way over the snows of the mountains down into the valley of the Sacramento and to Sutter's fort. Starvation and the cold had exacted a fearful toll. Forty-two of the S3 members of the party who had been overtaken by winter In that terrible camp had perished. Only 18 of the original party of 31 which hud left Springfield ever reached California. Descendents of some of the survivors still live in California and In 1018 hart a part In dedicating a monument on the spot near Donner lake where many of the party perished. It Is a monument monu-ment to the dauntless pioneer spirit which carried the survivors of the historic Dhiner party through bor rers and privations such us few human hu-man beings have experienced to death less fame. |