Chapter I
Donner Lake--A Famous Tourist Resort--Building the Central Pacific California's Skating Park--The Pioneers--The Organization of the Donner Party--Ho! for California!--A Mammoth Train--The Dangers by the Way--False Accounts of the Sufferings Endured--Complete Roll of the Company--Impostors Claiming to Belong to the Party--Killed by the Pawnees--An Alarmed Camp--Resin Indians--A Mother's Death.
Chapter II
Mrs. Donner's Letters--Life on the Plains--An Interesting Sketch The Outfit Required--The Platte River--Botanizing--Five Hundred and Eighteen Wagons for California--Burning "Buffalo Chips"--The Fourth of July at Fort Laramie--Indian Discipline--Sioux Attempt to Purchase Mary Graves--George Donner Elected Captain--Letter of Stanton--Dissension One Company Split up into Five--The Fatal Hastings Cut-off--Lowering Wagons over the Precipice--The First View of Great Salt Lake.
Chapter III
A Grave of Salt--Members of the Mystic Tie--Twenty Wells--A Desolate Alkaline Waste--Abandoned on the Desert--A Night of Horror--A Steer Maddened by Thirst--The Mirage--Yoking an Ox and a Cow "Cacheing" Goods--The Emigrant's Silent Logic--A Cry for Relief--Two Heroic Volunteers--A Perilous Journey--Letters to Capt. Sutter.
Chapter IV
Gravelly Ford--The Character of James F. Reed--Causes Which Led to the Reed-Snyder Tragedy--John Snyder's Popularity--The Fatal Altercation--Conflicting Statements of Survivors--Snyder's Death--A Brave Girl--A Primitive Trial--A Court of Final Resort--Verdict of Banishment--A Sad Separation--George and Jacob Donner Ahead at the Time Finding Letters in Split Sticks--Danger of Starvation.
Chapter V
Great Hardships--The Sink of the Humboldt--Indians Stealing Cattle An Entire Company Compelled to Walk--Abandoned to Die--Wolfinger Murdered--Rhinehart's Confession--Arrival of C. T. Stanton--A Temporary Relief--A Fatal Accident--The Sierra Nevada Mountains--Imprisoned in Snow--Struggles for Freedom--A Hopeless Situation--Digging for Cattle in Snow--How the Breen Cabin Happened to be Built--A Thrilling Sketch of a Solitary Winter--Putting up Shelters--The Donners have Nothing but Tents--Fishing for Trout.
Chapter VI
Endeavors to Cross the Mountains--Discouraging Failures--Eddy Kills a Bear--Making SnowShoes--Who Composed the "Forlorn Hope"--Mary A. Graves--An Irishman--A Generous Act--Six Days' Rations--Mary Graves Account--Snow-Blind--C. T. Stanton's Death--"I am Coming Soon"--Sketch of Stanton's Early Life--His Charity and Self-Sacrifice--The Diamond Breastpin--Stanton's Last Poem.
Chapter VII
A Wife's Devotion--The Smoky Gorge--Caught in a Storm--Casting Lots to See Who should Die--A Hidden River--The Delirium of Starvation Franklin Ward Graves--His Dying Advice--A Frontiersman's Plan--The Camp of Death--A Dread Resort--A Sister's Agony--The Indians Refuse to Eat--Lewis and Salvador Flee for Their Lives--Killing a Deer--Tracks Marked by Blood--Nine Days without Food.
Chapter VIII
Starvation at Donner Lake--Preparing Rawhide for Food--Eating the Firerug--Shoveling Snow off the Beds--Playing they were Tea-cups of Custard--A Starving Baby--Pleading with Silent Eloquence--Patrick Breen's Diary--Jacob Donner's Death--A Child's Vow--A Christmas Dinner Lost on the Summits--A Stump Twenty-two Feet High--Seven Nursing Babes at Donner Lake--A Devout Father--A Dying Boy--Sorrow and Suffering at the Cabins.
Chapter IX
The Last Resort--Two Reports of a Gun--Only Temporary Relief--Weary Traveling--The Snow Bridges--Human Tracks!--An Indian Rancherie--Acorn Bread--Starving Five Times!--Carried Six Miles--Bravery of John Rhodes A Thirty-two Days Journey--Organizing the First Relief Party--Alcalde Sinclair's Address--Captain R. P. Tucker's Companions.
Chapter X
A Lost Age in California History--The Change Wrought by the Discovery of Gold--The Start from Johnson's Ranch--A Bucking Horse--A Night Ride--Lost in the Mountains--A Terrible Night--A Flooded Camp Crossing a Mountain Torrent--Mule Springs--A Crazy Companion--Howlings of Gray Wolves--A Deer Rendezvous--A Midnight Thief--Frightening Indians--The Diary of the First Relief Party.
Chapter XI
Hardships of Reed and Herron--Generosity of Captain Sutter Attempts to Cross the Mountains with Provisions--Curtis' Dog Compelled to Turn Back--Hostilities with Mexico--Memorial to Gov. Stockton--Yerba Buena's Generosity--Johnson's Liberality--Pitiful Scenes at Donner Lake--Noble Mothers--Dying rather than Eat Human Flesh A Mother's Prayer--Tears of Joy--Eating the Shoestrings.
Chapter XII
A Wife's Devotion--Tamsen Donner's Early Life--The Early Settlers of Sangamon County--An Incident in School--Teaching and Knitting School Discipline--Captain George Donner's Appearance--Parting Scenes at Alder Creek--Starting over the Mountains--A Baby's Death--A Mason's Vow--Crossing the Snow Barrier--More Precious than Gold or Diamonds Elitha Donner's Kindness.
Chapter XIII
Death of Ada Keseberg--Denton Discovering Gold--A Poem Composed While Dying--The Caches of Provisions Robbed by Fishers--The Sequel to the Reed-Snyder Tragedy--Death from Over-eating--The Agony of Frozen Feet--An Interrupted Prayer--Stanton, after Death, Guides the Relief Party--The Second Relief Party Arrives--A Solitary Indian--Patty Reed and her Father--Starving Children Lying in Bed--Mrs. Graves' Money Still Buried at Donner Lake.
Chapter XIV
Leaving Three Men in the Mountains--The Emigrants Quite Helpless Bear Tracks in the Snow--The Clumps of Tamarack--Wounding a Bear Bloodstains upon the Snow--A Weary Chase--A Momentous Day--Stone and Cady Leave the Sufferers--A Mother Offering Five Hundred Dollars--Mrs. Donner Parting from her Children--"God will Take Care of You"--Buried in the Snow, without Food or Fire--Pines Uprooted by the Storm--A Grave Cut in the Snow--The Cub's Cave--Firing at Random--A Desperate Undertaking--Preparing for a Hand-to-Hand Battle--Precipitated into the Cave--Seizing the Bear--Mrs. Elizabeth Donner's Death--Clark and Baptiste Attempt to Escape--A Death more Cruel than Starvation.
Chapter XV
A Mountain Storm--Provisions Exhausted--Battling the Storm-Fiends Black Despair--Icy Coldness--A Picture of Desolation--The Sleep of Death--A Piteous Farewell--Falling into the Firewell--Isaac Donner's Death--Living upon Snow-water--Excruciating Pain--A Vision of Angels "Patty is Dying"--The Thumb of a Mitten--A Child's Treasures--The "Dolly" of the Donner Party.
Chapter XVI
A Mother at Starved Camp--Repeating the Litany--Hoping in Despair Wasting Away--The Precious Lump of Sugar--"James is Dying"--Restoring a Life--Relentless Hunger--The Silent Night-Vigils--The Sight of Earth Descending the Snow-Pit--The Flesh of the Dead--Refusing to Eat--The Morning Star--The Mercy of God--The Mutilated Forms--The Dizziness of Delirium--Faith Rewarded--"There is Mrs. Breen!"
Chapter XVII
The Rescue--California Aroused--A Yerba Buena Newspaper--Tidings of Woe--A Cry of Distress--Noble Generosity--Subscriptions for the Donner Party--The First and Second Reliefs--Organization of the Third--The Dilemma--Voting to Abandon a Family--The Fatal Ayes--John Stark's Bravery--Carrying the Starved Children--A Plea for the Relief Party.
Chapter XVIII
Arrival of the Third Relief--The Living and the Dead--Captain George Donner Dying--Mrs. Murphy's Words--Foster and Eddy at the Lake Tamsen Donner and her Children--A Fearful Struggle--The Husband's Wishes--Walking Fourteen Miles--Wifely Devotion--Choosing Death--The Night Journey--An Unparalleled Ordeal--An Honored Name--Three Little Waifs--"And Our Parents are Dead."
Chapter XIX
False Ideas about the Donner Party--Accused of Six Murders Interviews with Lewis Keseberg--His Statement--An Educated German--A Predestined Fate--Keseberg's Lameness--Slanderous Reports--Covered with Snow--"Loathsome, Insipid, and Disgusting"--Longings toward Suicide Tamsen Donner's Death--Going to Get the Treasure--Suspended over a Hidden Stream--"Where is Donner's Money?"--Extorting a Confession.
Chapter XX
Dates of the Rescues--Arrival of the Fourth Relief--A Scene Beggaring Description--The Wealth of the Donners--An Appeal to the Highest Court--A Dreadful Shock--Saved from a Grizzly Bear--A Trial for Slander--Keseberg Vindicated--Two Kettles of Human Blood--The Enmity of the Relief Party--"Born under an Evil Star"--"Stone Him! Stone Him!" Fire and Flood--Keseberg's Reputation for Honesty--A Prisoner in his own House--The Most Miserable of Men.
Chapter XXI
Sketch of Gen. John A. Sutter--The Donner Party's Benefactor--The Least and Most that Earth can Bestow--The Survivors' Request--His Birth and Parentage--Efforts to Reach California--New Helvetia--A Puny Army Uninviting Isolation--Ross and Bodega--Unbounded Generosity--Sutter's Wealth--Effect of the Gold Fever--Wholesale Robbery--The Sobrante Decision--A "Genuine and Meritorious" Grant--Utter Ruin--Hock Farm Gen. Sutter's Death--Mrs. E. P. Houghton's Tribute.
Chapter XXII
The Death List--The Forty-two Who Perished--Names of Those Saved Forty-eight Survivors--Traversing Snow-Belt Five Times--Burying the Dead--An Appalling Spectacle--Tamsen Donner's Last Act of Devotion--A Remarkable Proposal--Twenty-six Present Survivors--McCutchen--Keseberg The Graves Family--The Murphys--Naming Marysville--The Reeds--The Breens.
Chapter XXIII
The Orphan Children of George and Tamsen Donner--Sutter, the Philanthropist--"If Mother would Only Come!"--Christian and Mary Brunner--An Enchanting Home--"Can't You Keep Both of Us?"--Eliza Donner Crossing the Torrent--Earning a Silver Dollar--The Gold Excitement Getting an Education--Elitha C. Donner, Leanna C. Donner, Frances E. Donner, Georgia A.--Donner, Eliza P. Donner.
Chapter XXIV
Yerba Buena's Gift to George and Mary Donner--An Alcalde's Negligence--Mary Donner's Land Regranted--Squatters Jump George Donner's Land--A Characteristic Land Law Suit--Vexatious Litigation Twice Appealed to Supreme Court, and Once to United States Supreme Court--A Well taken Law Point--Mutilating Records--A Palpable Erasure Relics of the Donner Party--Five Hundred Articles--Buried Thirty-two Years--Knives, Forks, Spoons--Pretty Porcelain--Identifying Chinaware Beads and Arrow-heads--A Quaint Bridle Bit--Remarkable Action of Rust A Flintlock Pistol--A Baby's Shoe--The Resting Place of the Dead Vanishing Landmarks.
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