History Donner Party Rescued

[BosnMate]

[FONT=&quot]20 February 1847, the first rescuers reach surviving members of the Donner Party, a party of California-bound emigrants stranded by snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In the summer of 1846, a party of 89 people–including 31 members of the Donner and Reed families–set out in a wagon train from Springfield, Illinois. After arriving at Fort Bridger, Wyoming, the emigrants decided to avoid the usual route and try a new trail recently blazed by California promoter Lansford Hastings, the so-called “Hastings Cutoff.” After electing George Donner as their captain, the party departed Fort Bridger in mid-July. The shortcut was nothing of the sort: It set the Donner Party back nearly three weeks and cost them much-needed supplies. After suffering great hardships in the Wasatch Mountains, the Great Salt Lake Desert and along the Humboldt River, they finally reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains in early October. Despite the lateness of the season, the emigrants continued to press on, and on October 28 they camped at Truckee Lake, located in the high mountains 13.5 miles northwest of Lake Tahoe. Overnight, an early winter storm blanketed the ground with snow, blocking the mountain pass and trapping the Donner Party. Most of the group stayed near the lake–now known as Donner Lake–while the Donner family and others made camp six miles away at Alder Creek. Building makeshift tents out of their wagons and killing their oxen for food, they hoped for a thaw that never came. Fifteen of the stronger emigrants, later known as the Forlorn Hope, set out west on snowshoes for Sutter’s 16 December. Three weeks later, after harsh weather and lack of supplies killed several of the expedition and forced the others to resort to cannibalism, seven survivors reached a Native American village. News of the stranded Donner Party traveled fast to Sutter’s Fort, and a rescue party set out on 31 January. Arriving at Donner Lake 20 days later, they found the camp completely snowbound and the surviving emigrants delirious with relief at their arrival. Rescuers fed the starving group as well as they could and then began evacuating them. Three more rescue parties arrived to help, but the struggle to reach Sutter’s Fort proved equally harrowing, and the last survivors didn’t reach safety until late April. When you realize that it is only 98 miles from Donner Lake to Sutter's Fort, and probably less than half of that was in deep snow and rugged mountain terrain, one realizes the severity of the snow pack during the winter of 46/47. Of the 89 original members of the Donner Party, only 45 reached California. Had they known, only 39 miles back the way they came, the meadows where Reno is now located would have been free of snow, and they would have been able to hunt and fish, and there would have been feed for their livestock. In one account I read, in the area of Alder Creek, near the Donner camp, Tamsen Donner hid 800 silver dollars. However, apparently the cache was found a long time ago, and I've seen a few of the silver dollars in a museum at Donner Lake.
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[Tom_in_CA]

bosn'mate, thanx for the post. Although "much storied", I don't think a person would have good odds at metal detecting the site EVEN IF they could find "the exact site". Because, think of it: That was just 89 individuals, at a single spot. Contrast to normal stage stop/emigrant camp spot type locations. That have recurring camp spots for continuous years of stoppage of continuous parties. Such that every day (albeit not "trapped", yet camping out none-the-less) there were a non-stop usage of particular stops. The next days/weeks passer-by's would tend to use the same spots , as they were close to springs, or at the forks in roads, or where some enterprsing fellow throws out his shingle for a trading post, etc....... My experience is that THOSE sites are the ones to detect. Not a spot where a single party stopped. Not-with-standing the much storied press and tragedy it may have garnered.

With that said though, I know a guy who did detect the claimed spot of the Donner party camp area (whether or not its accurate , who knows.....). He got a mule shoe that tickled him to no end ! He fancied that it was a relic of the Donner party. Who knows ? Hard to date mule shoes