HILF 29 - The Donner Party, Part 2 with Andy Kraft

HILF: History I'd Like to F**k

In the previous episode [The Donner Party Part 1] Dawn and her guest, Andy Kraft climbed aboard with The Donner Party wagon-train as they begin their ill-fated journey West. We met some of the most prominent individuals including George Donner - after whom the sad collective is named. Also James Reed, who tragically murdered his friend, John Snyder and was subsequently banished. He left, promising his wife and children he would do everything he could to be reunited and save them.

00:05:30 - When we left off, The Donner Party had just reunited with the hero, C.T. Stanton - a single, childless man who had ridden ahead of the party months earlier to get help and supplies. His return provided much needed food and comfort, but it proved to be yet another nail in the coffin as it delayed their attempt to cross the summit before a huge snow storm.

00:11:07 - After several attempts to cross the summit with the mules, the Party realizes that they simply cannot make the passing the snow. Instead, they will be slaughtered in the morning, the meat prepared - and then they're all going out on foot before the snow comes... but that very night a snow storm begins that lasts 8 days. The animals are dead and lost beneath the snow and everyone is suddenly oh-so-much more desperate.

They're divided into two camps about seven miles apart from one another. Sixty are at Truckee Lake - nine men over eighteen, twelve women, and twenty-nine were children, six of whom were toddlers or younger. The other camp, at Alder Creek, has twenty-one people: six men, three women, and twelve children in all.

00:17:38 - Realizing that the situation was going to lead to inevitable starvation, they decided that the strongest individuals among them would make snowshoes, and attempt to walk to Sutter's Fort in California. If they could make it, they would raise the alarm and return with help. Some call them "The Snowshoe Party", others "The Forlorn Hope". There were fifteen of them: five women, nine men and one twelve-year old boy.

00:29:52 - It has been mutually determined among the members of The Forlorn Hope that starvation was imminent and that 'should one of them die, the others might live.' They were the first among The Donner Party to resort to cannibalism when: "“The men finally mustered up the courage to approach the dead”.

00:37:07 - BREAK - Check out the podcast Story Worthy by Christine Blackburn.

00:38:20 - The First Relief Party arrives at Donner Lake on February 1847. It’s bad. Of the sixty-five people who were left there when The Forlorn Hope left (two months prior), thirteen people have died, leaving about thirty survivors. They have not *apparently* started eating each other yet. Twenty-one leave with the rescuers: six adults, six children under ten-years-old, nine children who are ten-fourteen-years-old.

They have a hell of a trek to safety and three die on the way back. One adult (John Denton), Ada Keseberg (3), William Hook (12, fatally gorges himself when they finally get to food.

0042:30 - Incredibly James Reed meets the First Relief Party as they're returning and not only reunites with his wife, but provides them much-needed supplies after their caches were destroyed. He then continues back down to Donner Lake only to discover a scene significantly more disastrous than when last they were contacted.

The Second Relief takes with them seventeen people: three adults, two teenagers, and twelve children between nine and one-year-olds. On the way back, three people die, two five-year-old children and a forty-year-old woman. Most of the children are carried out by one guy - John Stark.

01:02:14 -After two more relief parties, the last group to go to Donner lake, are less of a relief, than a 'retrieve'. They arrive on April 10th - It had been a month since the 3rd Relief had left.

The first thing they see - there are bodies and body parts EVERYWHERE: Skulls, legs, fragments. Mrs. Murphy is lying there with a leg sawed off and the saw still lying next to her. Mrs. Donner is dead and partly devoured in Keseberg’s Cabin, but he is gone and they see a fresh set of tracks leading to the Donner Cabin. Soon, Keseberg is found walking back carrying much of the Donner’s money.

01:06:06 - Here is the final head-count (so to speak) of the survivors and victims of the Party: Of the 87 who took the notorious Cut-off, about 42 died. What do you think of those odds?

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HAPPY NEW YEAR! Next new episode: February 1st, 2023

**We are moving. It's just across town - not as harrowing as The Donner Party move - but a big ol' time-sucking pain in the ass so we're taking January off.

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