Donner Party Vincent Gonzalez

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  • Journey begins at Springfield. The travelers are George Donner, his brother Jacob, and James Frazier Reed, with their families. Each man has three covered wagons and has hired teamsters to drive the oxen that pull them; Reed also has two servants. The des

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    The Donner Party Vincent Gonzalez

  • The Donners and Reeds arrive at Independence, Missouri, where they spend the next two days completing their outfits for the journey.

  • At Indian Creek, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Independence, the Donners and Reeds join a larger wagon train, which is led by Colonel William Henry Russell.

  • High water stops the Russell Train at the east bank of the Big Blue River in modern-day Kansas. The emigrants build a raft to carry their wagons across.

  • While the emigrants are camped, Mrs. Reed's mother, Sarah Keyes, dies of tubercolosis and is buried under a tree near Alcove Spring.

  • The last of the wagons are ferried across the river. At some point during the delay at the Big Blue, the Murphy family from Tennessee has joined the wagon bus.

  • Tamsen Donner writes that they are now at the Platte River, 200 miles (320 km) from Fort Laramie, in the future Wyoming, and that the journey so far has been easier than expected.

  • William Russell relinquishes his position as captain of the wagon train because he, Edwin Bryant, and others have decided to trade in their wagons and teams for mules in order to travel more quickly. They travel ahead to Fort Laramie to make the transacti

  • The party in which the Donners and Reeds travel, now called the Boggs Company (named for its leader Lilburn W. Boggs, a former governor of Missouri), arrives at Fort Laramie. James Reed meets James Clyman, an old mountaineer, who has just come by horse fr

  • At Independence Rock the Boggs Company encounters a lone eastbound rider bearing an open letter from Hastings urging "all emigrants now on the road" to meet him at Fort Bridger, so he can guide them on his cutoff.

  • The Boggs Company celebrates the Fourth of July at Beaver Creek on the Platte River.

  • The Boggs Company crosses the Continental Divide. They are 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from Independence and have more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to go.

  • The Boggs Company reaches the Little Sandy River, where several other wagon trains have also camped. Here those emigrants who have decided to take Hastings's route form a new company and elect George Donner captain, thus creating the Donner Party.

  • The Donner Party separates from the other wagon trains and takes the left-hand road to Fort Bridger.

  • The Donner Party arrives at Fort Bridger, the corral and two cabins of mountaineer Jim Bridger. There the Donner Party learns that Hastings left the previous week leading the wagons that had already arrived and leaving instructions for later groups to fol

  • James Reed writes "Hastings Cutoff is said to be a saving of 350 or 400 miles (640 km) and a better route. The rest of the Californians went the long route, feeling afraid of Hastings's cutoff. But Mr. Bridger informs me that it is a fine, level road with

  • The Donner Party makes good time following the tracks of the group led by Hastings.

  • The Donner Party stops at the mouth of Weber Canyon; Hastings has left a note for them, warning them that the road ahead is impassable and instructing them to send someone ahead to get instructions. James Reed and two others set out following the wagon tr

  • Reed returns to the wagons. Hastings had accompanied Reed partway back; the men ascended a peak where Hastings pointed out an alternative route, then they separated, Reed blazing a rough trail to his wagon train.

  • The Donner Party sets out on the new route, but are slowed by the necessity of chopping a road through the brush of the Wasatch Mountains. The Graves family catches up with them; the company now numbers 87 people in 23 wagons.

  • The Donner Party enters the Salt Lake Valley. With summer drawing to a close, there are still 600 miles (966 kilometers) to go.

  • In the evening, Luke Halloran dies of tubercolosis; he is buried in a coffin at a fork in the road the following day. About this time the emigrants find another note from Hastings, warning them of a two-day dry drive ahead. They set out again, following t

  • The emigrants stay in camp collecting as much water and grass as possible for the drive ahead.

  • The Donner Party reaches Redlum Spring, the last source of water before the dry drive begins, then sets out to cross the Great Salt Lake Desert.

  • On the third day in the desert, the water runs out. That night, the Reeds' thirsty oxen run off, never to be found; the Reeds take a few things and set out on foot.

  • The emigrants finish the five-day journey across the eighty-mile desert, which Hastings had said was half as wide. They have lost 36 head of cattle, half of them Reed's, and four wagons have to be abandoned. They spend the next week at the foot of Pilot P

  • The Donner Party sets out again. After taking an inventory of their supplies, the emigrants have realized that they don't have enough food to get them to California and have sent Charles Stanton and William McCutchen ahead to Sutter's Fort to request more

  • The party arrives at the Humboldt River, where the cutoff meets the standard trail, which is actually 125 miles (200 kilometers) shorter than Hastings Cutoff.

  • While struggling up a sandy hill at Iron Point, Nevada, the Reed and Graves teams become entangled. A fight breaks out between Milt Elliott, Reed's teamster, and John Snyder, driving the Graves wagon. When Reed intervenes, Snyder grows angrier and hits Re

  • Reed heads west. The following day he overtakes the Donners, who have moved ahead of the rest of the party. One of Reed's teamsters, Walter Herron, has been traveling with the Donners; he decides to accompany Reed to California. Knowing that time is runni

  • Louis Keseberg turns Mr. Hardkoop, an elderly Belgian traveling with him, out of his wagon to lighten the load. Everyone who can is walking. Hardkoop gives out, but nobody can take him in. He is last seen sitting by the road.

  • At night, Paiute Amerindians kill 21 of the Donner Party's oxen. Shortly thereafter the Indians steal another 18 oxen and wound several others. More than 100 of the party's cattle are now gone.

  • Patrick Breen begins keeping a diary: "Came to this place on the 31st of last month that it snowed. We went on to the pass, the snow so deep we were unable to find the road, when within 3 miles (4.8 km) of the summit, then turned back to this shanty on th

  • The two sections of the Donner Party camp for the winter. Near the lake, the Breen family takes shelter in an abandoned cabin, against which Louis Keseberg builds a lean-to. About 200 yards (180 m) away William Eddy and William Foster build a cabin agains

  • Charles Burger and young William Murphy are unable to keep up with the snowshoers and return to the camp. Fifteen continue: five young women, nine men, and twelve-year-old Lemuel Murphy. Around this date or the next, the snowshoers get over the summit. Pa

  • Baylis Williams, one of the Reeds' hired men, dies, probably of malnutrition.

  • The snowshoers reach Yuba Bottoms. Patrick Breen's diary: "Night clear. Froze a little. Now clear & pleasant. Wind N.W. Thawing a little. Mrs Reid here. No account of Milt. Yet Dutch Charley started for Donners; turned back, not able to proceed. Tough tim

  • About this date, the snowshoers' rations run out. Charles Stanton, too weak to leave camp in the morning, sits in the snow, smoking his pipe, and tells the rest of the Hope to go on. Patrick Breen's diary: "Milt. got back last night from Donners' camp [wi

  • The snowshoers resort to cannibalism, "averting their faces from one another and weeping."

  • Charles Burger dies in Keseberg's lean-to.

  • Snowshoers: About this time, the surviving snowshoers come upon Luis and Salvador, lying exhausted and near death. William Foster shoots them; their bodies provide food for their erstwhile companions.

  • The Mexicans lose Los Angeles, California, to the United States Marines. The war in California is essentially over, freeing men and supplies for another rescue attempt.

  • Harriet McCutchen dies.

  • Margaret Eddy, whose father left with the snowshoers, dies.

  • Augustus Spitzer dies.

  • Jacob Donner's son Lewis dies as the storm ends. Jacob's wife Elizabeth and another son, Samuel, are the only members of his family left at Alder Creek; Elizabeth dies a few days later.

  • Sometime toward the end of this month, George Donner dies. After laying him out, his wife Tamsen sets out to cross the mountains. She arrives at the Breen cabin, where Louis Keseberg is living, but she does not survive the night.

  • The last member of the Donner Party, Louis Keseberg, arrives at Sutter's Fort.

  • General Stephen Watts Kearny, heading east, reaches what he calls the "Cannibal Camp." Mormon Battalion veterans in his party gather the remains into the Breen cabin. The bodies are buried there and the cabin is then set afire.