An Old Timey Podcast - 68: The Donner Party Resorts to Cannibalism (Part 4)

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

By the winter of 1846, the Donner Party found themselves in the exact scenario they’d been dreading. They were trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, pummeled by snowstorms. Their food supply dwindled. They knew that if they stayed put, they’d all be doomed. So, a group of men, women, and children set off to get help. They thought their journey would last six days. They thought wrong.Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from: “The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride,” by Daniel James Brown“The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny,” by Michael WallisThe documentary, “The Donner Party”“How the Donner Party was doomed by a disastrous shortcut,” by Erin Blakemore for History.com“Lansford Hastings, the Donner Party, and the Civil War,” by Elizabeth Eisenstark for the National Museum of Civil War Medicine“The deadly temptation of the Oregon Trail shortcut,” by Laura Kiniry for atlasobscura.comAre you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts!Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Kristen Caruso. And I'm Norman Caruso. And on this episode, I'll be talking about the Donner Party. Part four! Kristen, do you want to tell the folks what you got mad at me about? No, shut up.

Shut up. Oh, God. Shut up. Norman? Hmm? Norman? If you say this. I was getting the cameras ready.

Uh-huh. And, you know, Kristen's camera, it's a good shot. Everything was looking in focus. Color was right. And I just said, Chrissy P on camera one, and Kristen lost it. Listen, show me a Kristen who wants to be referred to as Chrissy. You can't find one. If anyone, any history, who's out there named Kristen, who don't mind being called Chrissy, please drop us a line.

Yeah, there will be no lines dropped. Instead, we'll hear from dozens of women who had the nickname thrust upon them in their youth. I'm guessing, like, 12 years old. And, you know, sometimes... Don't say thrust upon them. Well, it's certainly very non-consensual. I'll say that when you're named Chrissy. Oh, anyway, it's terrible.

Never call me Chrissy again. Thanks a lot for bringing it up on the podcast. I just thought, you know, they call me Normie C. and you could be Chrissy P. And we would be, you know, hip hop's greatest duo. There's this white middle-aged couple out of the Midwest, and they know hip-hop. And they have a podcast. Boy, what could go wrong with that?

Okay, here's the deal, folks. This episode today, it's going to be very, very rough. It's going to be terrible. You're going to hate it. I certainly hate it, but here we are. But before we get into it, Norm's going to give us a plug. That's right. Folks, if you're enjoying this small, sexy, independent podcast, how about you head on over

to patreon.com slash old-timey podcast? Consider becoming a non-threatening fan. For just $5 a month, you'll get access to our monthly bonus episodes with full video, by the way. Tell me another podcast doing that. A lot of podcasts do. But, you know, still, we feel pretty good about it. Mm-hmm.

And you get to chitty chat in our Discord. but if you're ready to commit to us full time, if you're ready to leave your old life behind, get in on that $10 pig butter investor tier, you're going to have no time to do anything else. Sure, sure. Because of all the stuff you get on this tier. Yeah.

You get bonus episodes, sign card and stickers, early ad-free video episodes, monthly trivia, 10% off all merch, and ad-free episodes of Kristen's old podcast. Let's go to court. Incredible. So head on over to patreon.com slash old-timey podcast to sign up. Thank you very much.

Of course, after listening to this episode, you may just be so melancholy. You'll forget to go to patreon.com slash old tiny podcast. So I think at the end of the episode, I will also plug the Patreon. Great. When we're all sobbing, you will tearfully ask people to join the Patreon. Very good. You've got to take advantage of people's emotions. That's wonderful.

Folks, I'm going to say, wait, what? What's that face for? I'm just waiting for the mistakes of shame. Yes, no, we're going to start with mistakes of shame, and that's going to be fun. So we're going to have some fun. It's going to be short-lived, and then it's just going to be terrible for, you know, however long it takes. Yeah, I love Kristen talking about how wrong she is.

Okay. Dear listeners, once again, I come to you with not one, but two. Mistakes of shame! Norm, the people of Utah have spoken, and boy did I hate hearing from them, because they informed me that I have been mispronouncing a word, a word that, frankly, I didn't know could be mispronounced. I'm talking, of course, about Weber Canyon, spelled W-E-B-E-R. Sounds like Weber. Looks like Weber. But how do you actually say it, Kristen?

Well, the people of Utah have told me that it's actually pronounced Weber Canyon, to which I say, Weebeber changed the spelling, then. Weebeber? Did you say we beber? Yeah. But now, we bury me in shame. You're having fun with this one, huh? I must also own up to

another mistake? Oh. Or perhaps we should categorize it as a misunderstanding of shame? Norm, in our second episode of this series, I made some jokes about buffalo chips. I couldn't help it. They fell right out of me. And in that episode, I said that the immigrants

cooked their food over delicious piles of flaming shit. Excuse me, buffalo chips. Which is true. Yes, I said that all the immigrants claimed that buffalo chips made the food taste like Hickory. And I shared my personal belief that that couldn't possibly be true, but I was unwilling to prove them wrong. We have some Hickory smoked bacon in our fridge right now. You think that's cooked with some buffalo chips? It better not be.

It's from Costco. You think Costco wouldn't steer us wrong. if that bacon tastes poopy, I'm going to know something's up. We're taking it to customer service. This bacon tastes poopie. Well, someone left a comment on Spotify about those remarks. Shout out to Spotify comments. It's fun time.

Is it? Yeah. Because here's the comment we received on that episode. The understanding of buffalo chips is majorly lacking. It's not fresh out the damn cow shit. It's old, old, old shit that's turned basically to stone and straw, like how you'll see elephant shit available in museums for similar uses to buff chips to show that it turns back into natural usable material over time,

unlike some excrement. Hmm. Well, sounds like this fecal expert really showed you, Kristen. You must feel very ashamed. Norm, I noticed you're referring to them as a person. person, but I think this is clearly a buffalo in a top hat typing away at a library computer in Jackson Hall. And yet, I do feel compelled to clarify that I never, for one second, thought that the immigrants

were scooping soupy-poopy into their aprons and running that shit into the fire pit. But, you know, hey, to that bison in a top hat, I say, welcome, friend. Whether you are a bison in a library, in a trench coat, or just a passionate history ho with a love of excrement, I wish you a Weber Canyon full of delicious, dry, museum-worthy buffalo chips. Kristen, this feels very tongue-in-cheek. This has been another shameful segment of Mistakes of Shale. It'd be really hard for a buffalo to type on a keyboard. Yeah, probably took them all day. Took them hours to type that comment.

I believe you're missing another mistake, Kristen. Oh, Norm, I will launch you out of a cannon. I'm still waiting for evidence that Stephen Douglas served in the Illinois militia. Fact check that. Are you trying to find an error within my mistakes of shame? Listen. What? It seemed fishy.

And I just can't seem to find any evidence. I've got other people working on this, too. Michael, one of our loyal histories, he, too, cannot find any evidence of this. If he continues to not find it, he will be called a disloyal history, ho. Oh. Okay, I will look into it again. And if I have to do a mistake of shame segment within a mistake of shame, I don't know. We're going to have to like...

This could be a first on an old-timey podcast. Wow, a very shameful first. Mm-hmm. Also, shout out to the person who was... so passionate about the buffalo chips. I'm sorry to make fun, but I did really enjoy the comment. Also, they capitalized buffalo

chips, which to me says, this really is a buffalo who wrote this. A little bow tie. Well, sure. Yeah. But you got to blend in, you know. You don't want to look too casual in the Jackson Hole Library.

Right. All right. Are we ready to do a previously on? We're ready. Previously, on an old-timey podcast. The Donner Party was screw-didly-ooed by Lanceford Hastings cutoff. Turns out, his shortcut wasn't a shortcut at all. In fact, it added 125 miles to their journey. It put them 68 days behind schedule, and that delay unsettled the Donner Party.

They knew that the most challenging portion of their journey lay ahead of them. They knew that reaching the Sierra Nevada mountains before snowfall was critical to their survival. And they knew that they were already too late. They were low on food, low on supplies, low on livestock. Snow had begun to fall. So they sent Charles Stanton and William Big Bill McCutcheon ahead to Fort Sutter, hoping that the men would return with enough supplies to get them through that last leg of their journey. Later, when James Reed killed a man in self-defense, his wife, Margaret Reed, argued that,

rather than exiling him to die, they should send him ahead, too, in the hopes that he might send a rescue party to save them all from what was looking increasingly like certain death. Along the way, James Reed ran into teamster Walter Heron, who offered to accompany him on the journey. That meant that two pairs of men were off in the distance, hopefully getting help. for the rest of the group. But it had been a while since those men were sent off. And so the Donner Party trudged ahead, praying that they'd live long enough to get the help they so desperately needed. In this week's episode, everything's awful. Can't say I didn't warn you. It's here, folks. We've been anticipating this episode. Everyone, just so you know, I cried every single day.

I researched this episode. And I'm ready to be hurt again. as I read this to you today. I had to take Kristen out for an emergency margarita. Medicinal margaritas. Yeah, I just, oh, boy, I couldn't. I walked into her office and I was like, hey, how's it going? And she was like, well, I just finished sobbing. Uh-huh.

I was like, okay, we're getting out of the house. We're going to go get some Mexican food. So all this to say, everybody, take care with this episode if you need to turn it off. I don't blame you. I even floated the idea to Norm What if we just stopped the Donner Party series at episode three? Just kind of wrapped it up there and just say, hey. We just say, you know what?

It gets bad from here on out, and why don't you just do your own research? Okay, bye! Do your own research. That's a great way to end an episode. I did an episode of Game and Astorian one time on the history of Kirby. And at the end of the episode, I remember writing that episode and being like, I'm kind of tired of talking about Kirby. And so I was like, at the other episode, I was like, now there are a lot of other Kirby games, but there's just no time to talk about it.

And I just ended the episode. Norm, you were a very busy single dude who was unemployed living with your mother, and you had no time to tell them all about Kirby. Yeah. Well, I think I was, no, I wasn't dating you yet. So I really had no excuse. I'm a very time-consuming woman. I had two cats. Okay.

Here we go. Picture it. Short King Charles Stanton and Tall King William Big Bill McCutcheon were on their way to Fort Sutter. Their journey was tough. They had very little to eat. And it was cold, terribly cold. Snow surrounded them. They trudged through it. It numbed them. It obscured the trail. But they kept going. Big Bill McCutcheon had a wife and child he'd left behind with the rest of the Donner Party. He knew that their survival depended on his. ability to reach Fort Sutter and get them help. Charles Stanton was a bachelor. He had no familial

ties to anyone in the Donner Party, but he was, by nature, a helper. He'd cared for his aging mother as she died. He had a strong sense of community, and now he was out in the most challenging section of the California Trail, risking his life for people he'd only known for a few months. What month are we in right now? October. October. So, Charles Stanton and Big Bill McCutcheon pushed ahead and pushed ahead through the mountains until finally, oh my God, they made it!

They arrived at Fort Sutter! Located in what is now Sacramento, California. Oh, the capital of California. If you want, you can look up a picture of Fort Sutter. Yeah? Apparently, the people of California, they do field trips to this place. I bet they do. If you're a kid living in Sacramento. What could be more fun than Fort Sutter?

I'll tell you. Reenactments and all that good stuff. Yep, there's a guy in an outfit right there. Oh, God, I hate. It looks like it's in like downtown, Sacramento? It's in Midtown. Okay. You know, something I learned from my gaming historian days is a lot of companies like to use Sacramento as like a test market.

because it's like a very diverse middle income kind of place. And so, you know, a lot of these technology companies in San Francisco, you know, they don't want to do a test market in San Francisco. So they'll do in Sacramento because it's like more average everyday people living there. You just gave me an excellent idea, which is, why not? Instead of finishing this terrible story, you just talk to us about Sacramento and the products that have been tested there. I can really only tell you about the U-Force.

That's fine, we'll do that. So they reached Fort Sutter. That's awesome. And the men explain their situation to John Sutter. They said that there was a group of more than 80 immigrants, all stranded on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They were low on food, low on livestock, low on everything, and most importantly, low on time.

If the Donner Party didn't get through the Sierra Nevada as soon, they'd very likely die. John Sutter immediately helped the men. He loaned them seven mules. He loaned them food. He even loaned them two Native American guides, who to this day are only known as Luis and Salvador. Charles Stanton and Big Bill McCutcheon were incredibly grateful.

John Sutter was a hero. Except was he... Oh? No, he sucked. He was a businessman. man, he often heard of immigrants in need of help, and he pretty reliably loaned them help. And that's great. It made him a very powerful figure. But what also made him a powerful figure was the fact that he enslaved hundreds upon hundreds of people.

John Sutter prayed on Miwok Native Americans. He enslaved them. He bought and sold them. He fed them out of troughs. He raped young Mewaq girls and gave the girls as gifts to his friends. Sadly, that was part of that whole California Indian genocide was enslaving the native people, too. Yeah. Just wanted to clarify that this guy did do a nice thing here, but also he was terrible. Mm-hmm. We could have started on a kind of uplifting note, but no, we couldn't. Because Chrissy P. is here to say. Chris C. P., you've done it again. That this man was not okay.

And that's just a sampling of the hip-hop that we have to offer here at an old-timey podcast. It's unclear what, if anything, Charles Stanton and Big Bill McCutcheon witnessed at Fort Sutter. But what we do know is that their only real priority was getting much-needed supplies back to the Donner Party. But by that point, Bill McCutcheon was too depleted from the journey to Fort Sutter to turn her back around and do it again. Yeah. He needed time to recover. Mm-hmm. So Charles Stanton said he would complete the mission.

And with that, he, the provisions, the seven mules, plus 19-year-old Salvador and 28-year-old Louise, began the long journey back to the Donner Party. I can't believe Charles was just like, yeah, I'll go. I'll go. He didn't stop and rest or anything. Well, I'm sure they rested a little bit. I mean, they would have to. Well, when you said he was a helper, you're not lying. That's...

That's very brave of him. He was very selfless. It's impossible to know what Salvador and Luis might have been thinking on those weeks on the trail. It's possible that they thought about running away. But in all likelihood, they knew that the risks of running away might outweigh the rewards. They knew John Sutter. And they knew that if they escaped, he'd do everything in his power to recapture them and punish them severely. Oh, so they were enslaved.

Yeah, that's what I just said to you, sir. Norm, try to pay attention. Mistakes of shame. Well, hang on. You said they were guides. You never mentioned they were enslaved men. I said that John Sutter enslaved hundreds and hundreds of Mewalk Native Americans. Yeah.

And then... But these two men specifically, you didn't mention if they were enslaved or not. You know what? You know what, Norm? What is it, Chrissy P? No, my God. What have you got for me? Can't you see?

I'm drinking iced tea. I'll shoot you in the eye with a pee. It's delicious to me. Oh, my God. This is terrible. This will all be cut. No, it's not. We need all the humor we can get in this episode.

Is this humor? Hell yeah, it is. Anyhow, Norm. Yeah, they were enslaved men. Okay. Thank you for clarifying, Kristen. Sure. Also, they're on a trail.

It's called the California Trail. I don't know what else we need to clarify here. I hope the ghost of Stephen Douglas visits you tonight. And he says to you, I was in the Illinois state militia, you son of a bitch. He needs to visit you and say that. No, I said he was in the Illinois state militia. Well, he needs to visit you and say, he needs to visit you. Actually, I was not.

I was a short lawyer living in Illinois. They allow short men. in the militia norm, okay. Too short. Bullets fly right over their head. That's why they're so valuable. Oh, I guess you're right. Uh-huh.

They're hard to hit. He was probably thinking all stand in front of Abraham Lincoln and he'll get, oh. Ooh. Ling will get shot in the dick and the bullet will completely avoid Stephen Douglas. That's the height difference they have. So anyhow, Louise and Salvador stayed with Charles Stanton. They helped guide him. And eventually, in late October, wow! They made it! They made it to the Donner Party.

Wow. Woo-hoo! Oh, man, the members of the Donner Party went absolutely nuts. It was amazing. They'd been so hungry and so cold and so depleted that they'd feared that no one was coming to help them. But Charles Stanton had come back and he'd brought food and mules and two new dudes who apparently knew the area of real. well? Two new dudes. Thank God. Coming this fall to CBS, two new dudes.

I'm guessing they filled in Big Bill McCutcheon's family that, hey, Big Bill's okay. He's just chilling at Fort Sutter. No, it was a hilarious prank. They were like, let's let her think that he died on the trail. And then as she was sobbing, they yelled, it's just a prank, bro. Worst episode of Punk'd ever. Ashton Coochie pops out. You know, they had old-timey YouTube.

Your dad's dead. No, obviously, yes, they filled in Amanda McCutcheon. Thank you, Norm. By that point, it had been weeks since any of the immigrants had had a real meal. But saying that they were elated might be a little strong, they were beyond exhausted. They were scared. They were surrounded by snow. So much snow.

And it's only October. Yep. Oof. And they knew that the odds were. were still stacked against them. But what Charles Stanton and Louise and Salvador gave them that day was hope, hope that somehow they might make it, hope that they at least had a shot of getting off the California Trail alive. It'd be tough, though. Of the 87 members of the Donner Party, more than half of them were children. A fair number of them were very young children. And that journey over the

Sierra Nevada's was hard enough in decent weather. And by late October of 1846, snow had already fallen. But by that point, the high pass that they'd all have to go through wasn't yet blocked with snow. Once it was blocked with snow, they'd likely all be doomed. But Charles Stanton had good news. At Fort Sutter, he'd learned that the high pass probably wouldn't be blocked until late November. That was big. It meant that there was still time. Yeah. It would be an incredibly hard journey, but if they moved fast, they could make it.

And then there was another piece of good news. See, for weeks, Margaret Reed and her children had been worried sick about James Reed. He'd been exiled from the group after the death of John Snyder. For a while, Margaret and the children spotted signs from him along the trail. But then those signs had stopped.

They feared he was dead. But Charles Stanton had good news. He'd seen James Reed. He'd seen Walter Heron. James Reed and Walter Heron had been heading toward Fort Sutter as Charles was making his way back to the Donner Party. Oh. They were alive. But the truth was that when Charles saw James Reed and Walter Heron, he hadn't recognized either of them.

The men were so gaunt, so malnourished, so rough-looking that he didn't even. know who they were. The journey had been tough on James Reed and Walter Heron. They'd struggled. They'd gone days without food. But they were alive. And they were headed to Fort Sutter to get more help. So if they could all just get through the pass before it was blocked by snow, maybe James Reed and Walter Heron would meet them with more supplies just when they needed those resources the most. The situation wasn't good, but it also seemed like maybe the really bad stuff was behind them. There's reason to be hopeful. Yes.

Yes. And then tragedy struck. In last week's episode, I mentioned that a 36-year-old widow named Levina Murphy was the head of a very large family. She was out there on the trail with her seven children, which included her two oldest daughters, who were both married with children. of their own. Okay, this is kind of an adorable story, and by kind of, I mean, super adorable. Both daughters had married two good friends who were both named William, William Pike and William Foster. And in a scenario that seems straight out of an episode of Love Boat, old-timey edition, both Williams worked on a ship, and that's how they met the sisters.

Wow. In fact, they'd all gotten married in a joint ceremony. And soon after, they'd begun having children and then they'd all decided to make the journey out to California. In the love boat. Okay, isn't that kind of cute? It's adorable. Yeah. They call them Bill 1 and Bill 2.

I don't know about that. They'd come so far. Charles Stanton had just arrived with help and hope. And William Pike and William Foster, the two friends who were now brothers-in-law, were getting ready for that journey across the Sierra's. And something happened. William Foster was holding his pistol, maybe reloading it, who knows, and he accidentally fired it. And the bullet went through William Pike's back.

Oh. William Pike was in horrendous pain for about an hour before he died. Accidental discharge of the weapon? Yeah. Oh, that sucks. It was a complete accident. Yeah. The people who witnessed his death were just horrified.

They said that if he'd been an animal, it would have been very easy. They would have shot him again to put him out of his misery. His death was just awful. William Foster sobbed as he buried William Pike. He hadn't meant to kill his friend. It had been a horrible, horrible accident. An accident that left 18-year-old Harriet Pike a widow, a widow with a toddler and an infant to care for. William Pike's death was a tragedy within a tragedy.

There was barely time to mourn him before the immigrants were faced with a decision. Now that they had the extra provisions, and now that they had the seven mules and Luis and Salvador and Charles Stanton to lead them, should they try to complete the journey? It was sort of a funny thing. In all their months on the trail, they'd feared being trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains once the snow started. And now they were in it. A huge snowstorm had come in mid-October, and another one came soon after. And yeah, Charles Stanton had said that the pass wasn't yet blocked with snow, but what if he was wrong?

What if things had changed? Yeah. And hindsight, I think I read that that year the Sierra Nevada's had the most snow in like 200 years or something. It was like a record snowfall that year. Norm, you are right. Normally when you premature effectulate all over the story, I say, hey, no, we'll cut it. But I'm going to let that one slide because it's a very good fact. I'm about to bust.

There you go. You're welcome. They wondered, what if things had changed? Moving through all that snow would be a risk. Some wondered if it might be safer to stay put. What they didn't know and what they couldn't have known was what Norm just said. They were in for an exceptionally punishing winter, one that would bring snowstorm after snowstorm, after snowstorm. The snow would reach almost unimaginable heights.

And what they didn't know and what they couldn't have known was that they were in a window. And if they did everything right, right now, they might save themselves from the tragedy that would befall them. Charles Stanton knew that they were in a window. He knew they had to act fast. But what he didn't know was that the time frame he'd been given had been dead wrong. He'd been told at Fort Sutter that the group had until late November to get through the high pass. The truth was, they didn't have that kind of time. In fact, they didn't have much time at all. Yes, they were tired and hungry and freezing cold and already depleted and the snow was up to their wastes. And, you know, Yes, so many members of the Donner Party were children, but they were less than 90 miles from Fort Sutter. More importantly, they were only about a six-day journey to Johnson's Ranch. Johnson's Ranch was near the Bear River, close to what is now Wheatland, California. Johnson's Ranch was a place where immigrants could get replenishment.

If they just got there, they might survive. Charles Stanton was gung-ho. He was like, okay, Salvador and Luis and I just did this. If we put the seven mules in the lead, they'll create a trail for us in the snow and we'll get there. We'll make it to safety. The group agreed with Charles Stanton. It was a good idea.

They'd make the journey. But when it actually came time to make the journey, they started bickering. Oh, my God. What should we take with us? Well, I'm going to take this heavy sack of silver coins. Well, I'm going to take 12 bolts of. fabric. Well, I better take a whole crate of tobacco. You know what? Hey, you know what? I'm just going to take my whole damn wagon. I'm sure that won't be a problem at all. No. A bolt of fabric.

Sure. What's a bolt of fabric? I should know this. My mother's a quilter. I was going to say your mom, like your old childhood bedroom is just all quilt stuff. It's full of bolts of fabric. Yeah, my old bedroom is my mom's quilting room now. Did the trauma of that stop you from ever learning what a bolt of fabric is? Yeah, maybe. It's just, yeah, what is a history hose? Help me out here. A bolt of fabric.

Well, I think I can tell you, it's just like when you go to a quilting store and they have, I realize I'm trying to give you a definition by using the words in the definition. But, you know, the thing where it's wrapped, you know, wrapped in fabric, isn't that a bolt of fabric? Yeah, a commercial unit of length or area used to measure finished cloth, a bolt. Okay. Yep, it's, yeah, it's like the quilts wrapped in this, it's like a cardboard box looking thing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Got it. I'm very familiar with those because when I was dragged to quilt stores as a child, they just had hundreds of these things. You were surrounded. Yep. And I can bet that if you were in this situation, you would say, I'm not going anywhere. without my bolts of fabric. No, I think I would abandon those first. Well, actually, no, if there's snow, you'd probably want warmed. I was going to say, in hindsight, it's so easy to say, what are you doing?

Take next to nothing, get going. But I can see how... Well, the silver coins you would want for buying provisions or trading with Native Americans, and to live your damn life when you get to California. Right. The fabric or quilt or whatever, yeah, you want to stay warm. So, of course, you want to keep that. Now, the person bringing their entire wagon, yeah, that's going to be tough.

To me, it says I have not accepted the reality of my situation. I still think there's time. I don't think it's as dire as it is. And it's frustrating, but I get it. What about that person bringing the complete works of William Shakespeare? They had the only addition, you know? People argued back and forth. Some people did say, hey, let's only take what we really need,

but, you know, those people sounded dumb and not very fun. And then there were the people who thought that the journey was just a bad idea altogether. Oh, so there were people that were like, let's just chill here Yeah. And let the winter pass and then we'll finish. Yeah. Ooh, that's, that seems riskier to me. It's a risk either way.

I know, but at least, you know, one way, there's a chance you can escape going through a hellish winter, you know? Right. Finally, a group of them began the journey. And wow, it was tough. Whose idea was it to bring all this stuff? There was no trail. The snow obscured. everything. It made movement exhausting. But they did it. They moved through it. Children struggled.

Adults carried their youngest. Snow fell. It continued to fall. At one point Charles Stanton went ahead with Luis and Salvador and the snow got deeper. It was up to their chests now. But holy shit, Charles and Luis and Salvador reached the summit. The pass wasn't blocked yet. Charles and the men returned to the group, eager to give them the good news. They were close, just three miles from the summit. They told them, we need to get through the pass before it's too late, before it's blocked by snow. Yeah.

But the group was tired, so tired. They're only three miles. They were men, women, and children all running on fumes. They were cold, so cold. And by the time Charles came to them with good news, they'd lit a tree on fire, and it felt so good to just sit and be warm. Charles Stanton implored them,

please get up, let's go. Lewis Keseberg became Charles Stanton's unlikely ally. Lewis Kessabberg was the man who had ruffled so many feathers by being cruel to his wife and for being so eager to hang James Reed after he'd killed John Snyder in self-defense. That's right.

By that point, was suffering from a foot injury. He'd hobbled through the snow to get to that point. Every movement was painful, but he told the group, please, let's get through the past before we stop. This weather is terrible. It looks like it's going to get worse. We need to get through the pass before that happens. But nobody wanted to go. They were spent. They thought they were at the end of their rope. They thought that they couldn't push themselves any further. So they fell asleep and it snowed. And it snowed. And it snowed. And it snowed. And the pass was blocked. When Lewis Keseberg woke up the next morning, he could barely breathe. The snow was that heavy on his chest. When he sat up,

snow fell off of him. He looked around blinking. He saw nothing. Just. snow, white nothingness. Lewis screamed. They left him behind. They'd left him to die. But then people popped up out of the snow. They hadn't left. They were just covered. People got up. And soon they realized their mistake. They'd missed their opportunity. The night before, the pass had been unblocked. Now it was blocked. So they did the only thing they could do. They retreated, colder, and more hungry, and with less energy than they'd had before. When they got back to the immigrants who'd elected to stay behind, they began constructing shelters. Most of them, about 60 of them, camped out at Truckee Lake.

The rest of them, including the families of both Donner brothers, camped out about six miles away at Alder Creek. There was some logic to the group spreading out. They were kind of on each other's nerves by that point. You need some peace and quiet. Need to get away. Uh-huh. But the biggest reason that the Donners were at Alder Creek was that they had fallen pretty far behind. Interesting, because they were ahead.

Yeah. This is a very old-timey story, though. They had fallen behind largely because of what today would be considered a relatively minor injury. See, they've been traveling in their wagons when one of the axles snapped. It was pretty chaotic and scary. The wagon overturned and ultimately everyone was okay, but they knew they needed to get going quickly. So Jacob Donner had immediately gotten to work on a new axle. He was almost finished chiseling away at it when the chisel slipped.

It hit the back of George Donner's hand. You okay, Norm? I have experienced this injury before, that's all. A chisel to the back of the hand? Probably not this severe. But no, when you do woodworking, you're chiseling something. And, yeah, I was stupid. And I was holding the wood wrong.

Yeah. Yeah. And you chiseled away at it? The chisel slips in it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's what happened here. It was a bad cut. But as it often is with these old-timey stories, the risk of infection was what really made the cut so dangerous.

Yeah. Germs had not been invented yet. That's right. And you, with the modern technology of Flintstone gummies, healed yourself from that chisel wound. Isn't that right? One ibuprofen, and I was good as new. George's wife, Tams and Donner,

had done everything she could to keep the wound clean, but it hadn't healed. As the days passed, George's hand looked worse and worse. And as the days turned to weeks, George's entire arm ceased to function. Ugh. It was scary, not to mention any. inconvenient. As a group, they needed strength. And as more snow fell, they realized they needed

shelter fast. Everyone did what they could. They crowded into hastily built shacks. They constructed tents. The Breen family had been lucky to discover a cabin that had been built two years earlier by another group of immigrants. But the cabin leaked so much that it was virtually unusable the first night they found it. Hey, love it or list it. We're going to repair this cabin or we're going to move somewhere else? What the world needs is a time travel HGTV show. We've talked about doing this.

I agree, but this is a new twist on it because mine was more of a spite show. Yours, I like the idea of you going to people in dire situations where what they need is to be rescued. They need food. They need supplies. They need everything. And you're just like, well, you know, here. you are and are you going to stay or are you going to go i say we knock down this wall here we really open things up a bit okay this cabin it's really rustic love that but the roofs leaking that's that's a

major problem now that's going to set us back weeks mr breen i noticed you don't even have a floor really this is dirt this is dirt and it looks cool it looks very earthy but i'm just wondering is it in style have you thought about lvp laminated vineyard Planking. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. I was like, what the hell is LVP?

That would just, yeah, say some of that stuff to folks in these dire situations, see what happens. And they'd say, do you have any food from the future?

I think they might just old-timey slit your throat. I don't know. Just kill me. I mean, they would probably kill me. Yeah. The immigrants huddled together,

cold and scared and hungry in their makeshift shelters. By that point, the provisions that Charles Stanton and Louise and Salvador had brought them were nearly gone. People worried. They worried about themselves. They worried about their children. The group had been divided and individualistic ever since those hard days on the Hastings cut off. Now they found themselves in dire straits and with unequal

resources. Some families still had livestock. Others had none. Some families still had some food. Others had none. And so, in those early days of winter, a weird economy came into place. Margaret Reed bought oxen from the Breen family on credit. The Murphy family gave the Breen's a gold watch in exchange for some oxen. People charged each other exorbitant prices for nearly dead or already dead emaciated animals. They tried hunting, but game was hard to come by. Soon enough, firewood was hard to come by. Because that's snow kept coming and kept coming and kept coming and everything was wet.

Nothing was getting easier. Soon there'd be nothing left to trade. And then what would they do? They still hoped that James Reed and Walter Heron might be coming with a rescue crew. But at a certain point, some of them decided that they couldn't keep waiting. So a group of them came together. They were 13 men and two women. And as soon as the snow let up, they decided to make another attempt to get through the pass. So they set off in the snow, snow that was at least 10 feet deep now. And worst of all, soft. They sank with each step. Each movement required so much effort. It ate up so much energy. Energy they didn't have to spare. Can you just imagine 10 feet of snow? No. It's unfathomable to me. The only thing I can compare it to is when I lived in Boston

and it would snow really hard and there would be multiple snowstorms, the snow plows would push all the snow basically to the sidewalks, and it would pile up really, really high. Yeah. That's the only thing I can even compare it to. I can't imagine just a blanket of snow that thick. I mean, 10 feet is like, that's like the height of our garage. That's so much snow. So did they have snow shoes or they were just trudging through 10 feet of snow? Norm, I like where you're thinking with the snow shoes. They don't have those. Okay. But that'll come into play later. Okay. Right now what they're doing is they're having the mules lead the way.

And so the mules are kind of breaking through a path. And obviously they're not falling 10 feet with every step. Fall and climb up. They're sinking. Yeah. Well, at a certain point, the snow compacts enough to where you can take a step. But yeah. But it is amazing.

They're already climbing mountains, which is exhausting enough. But then to add snow. Yeah. It's just a whole different beast. Yeah. And then you factor the fact that they haven't had decent meals. No, it's exhausting. You would have to be running on fear.

Adrenaline, I don't know what. Ultimately, the group turned back. They came back to their families, exhausted and ejected and hungry. But not fully down. They went back to their miserable shelters, their meager rations and freezing cold, and they regrouped. On November 21st, they tried again. This time, it was a group of six women and 16 men. Once again, Charles Stanton and Luis and Salvador would lead the way. They loaded up the seven mules that John Sutter had loaned them for the journey, and they set off. And wow, even though the snow was 25 feet deep in some places, the group made it further than the previous two groups.

They reached the summit. They went through the pass. Holy shit, they'd done it. They just had to go further, a lot further, but still. It was tough. They were all freezing cold. They were running on empty. Many of them had children they'd left behind in the care of other people just for this, for this opportunity to save everyone. The good thing about the area that they now found themselves in was that the snow had a crust on it, a crust, thick enough that they could walk on it without sinking. That's huge. The mules were a different story. The mules were too heavy. Their hooves broke through the crust. They sank into the snow. The mules became exhausted.

They slowed the group down. And so people began to argue. We should leave the mules behind. They're slowing us down. We won't get there. But Charles Stanton told the group, no, those mules belong to John Sutter. He wasn't going to show up at Fort Sutter without all of John Sutter's property.

He told them, I'm not going anywhere without the mules, and neither are Luis and Salvador. And about how far are they from Fort Sutter once they get through the pass? They are pretty far. Yeah. The bigger thing is, none of them had any idea where they were going. The trail was completely covered in snow. None of them had done it before. They couldn't navigate it without the help of Charles or Luis or Salvation.

So they turned back, back to camp, back to Truckee Lake, back to Alder Creek, back to the children and families they'd left behind. Except now they were more exhausted than ever before, and there was even less food to go around. It snowed again. It snowed again and again and again and again, and it snowed so much that the immigrants barely left their shelters. When they finally did, they made an unsettling discovery. All those mules, those precious mules belonging to John Sutter, were gone. They turned back because of those mules, and now the mules had vanished. Did they just leave, or were they buried in snow and died?

There are a couple different theories. One theory is that they were taken. Another is they wandered off. people became gaunt, their eyes bulged, their cheeks hollowed, babies screamed from hunger, and there was no relief. There were no more oxen to buy, no more cattle to purchase. They'd already used every part of the oxen and cattle they'd slaughtered. Now they revisited what remained. They took cattle hides that they'd been using as badly needed tarps for their shelters,

and they took sections of the hides and boiled them and boiled them until they had a disgusting, gluey substance. They fed it to themselves and their starving children. They boiled and re-boiled bones until the bones crumbled to dust. Occasionally, mice got into the immigrants' cabins and lean-toes. If they were lucky enough to catch one, they ate it. In time, the immigrants began to die in quick succession. The first was a 25-year-old man named Bayliss Williams.

He'd worked for the Reed family. Then death came for Jacob Donner, George Donner's younger brother. Later, his niece, Eliza, would be harsh about Jacob's behavior after that first snowstorm. She said, quote, his courage failed. She said, quote, he gave up in despair. And that, quote, not even the needs of his feelings of his family. family could rouse him to action. Jacob Donner died, surrounded by his starving family, with his head in his hands.

And if Eliza Donner were alive today, I'd say, honey, let me tell you about a thing called depression. You're saying she's wrong to say that? Here's the thing. I can't imagine going through this. And I'm sure I would look harshly on other people, too. I think just reading about it, it just made me so sad. This story of this man who they took the shortcut,

thinking it would be the right thing for their family. He loaded up his family thinking this will be what's best for everyone, even though, you know, they had a good life back in Illinois. They were just hoping for something better. And, you know, it's 1846. He's the head of his household. He put his family in this situation. and now his children are starving?

Yeah. I can't imagine. And yeah, you want to think, oh, yeah, I'd go out there, I'd do this, I'd do that. But I think it's understandable that depression would set in. Well, sure. Hopelessness. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, not long after Jacob died from being too lazy and not caring enough, two young single men. That's how it sounded to me. I was like, geez, Eliza. There's a lot of complex emotions there. Yeah. And I don't know at what age she gave that interview. I guess I would hope that time would make her a little more forgiving or understanding. Yeah, but I'm sure she was very angry about the situation too.

And so... Well, and depression, much like germs, hadn't been invented yet, I don't think. No, it was called melancholy, Kristen. Abraham Lincoln suffered from it. Who? I've only heard of Stephen Douglas. Illinois militia hero, Stephen Douglas. That's right.

Then two young single men passed away as well. They were Sam Shoemaker and James Smith. As those men died, a man named Joseph Reinhart struggled. We learned about Joseph Reinhart in last week's episode. He was one of the two men who volunteered to stay back with Jacob Wolfinger, when Jacob wanted to bury his valuables. Ah, yes, and they were ambushed by Native Americans, but Joseph Reinhart escaped. It was a totally real story.

Mm-hmm. Yes, he'd later told Jacob's wife, Doris Wolfinger, that her husband had been, oopsies, killed by Native Americans. It was a very true, real story. It was also a story that no one had really believed. On his deathbed, Joseph Reinhart talked. He talked and talked. Sometimes he spoke German.

Sometimes he spoke nonsense. but in the end, he told Doris Wolfinger that he'd been the one to kill her husband. Really? He'd shot Jacob Wolfinger in cold blood because he'd wanted his gold, and then Joseph Reinhardt died. Jesus.

Of course, the other participant in Jacob Wolfinger's murder, Augustus Spitzer, was still alive. Was he sitting by the bed hearing all this? No, no. Looking around. Oh, he's talking crazy again, guys. He's delirious. Oh, I think that was German, yeah.

So Augustus Spitzer was still alive, not there in the room, but still alive. But by that point, who had the energy to do anything about it? George Donner told Doris Wolfinger that as soon as they were rescued, they'd bring Augustus Spitzer to justice. He'd go on trial in California. Her husband's death wouldn't go unpunished. It was a hopeful thought, the idea that they might actually be rescued. the idea that there might be truth and justice and a normal life after whatever this was. Some people still held hope that James Reed and Walter Heron might be trying to rescue them.

Other people had given up on them. But they hadn't given up entirely. They had a will to survive. And although they were weakened, some among them still had some strength. In early December, a man named Franklin Gray, announced a new plan. He was making snow shoes. Hell yeah, snow shoes. Uh-huh. Franklin Graves was a 57-year-old farmer, originally from Vermont. He was on the trail with his wife and their nine children. Their oldest, Sarah, was a newlywed. She was out there with her husband, Jay Fosdick. Their youngest child was just a

year old. Franklin Graves needed to get his family out of this, and he knew how to make snow shoes. So he got to work. He used oxbowes and strips of hide, whatever he could find. His plan was to make enough pairs for 15 people. Those 15 people would make it to safety and they'd send help. People pitched in. They watched the sky, wondering when they should leave. When they had 14 pairs of snowshoes, they sent someone to Alder Creek to ask Tams and Donner if they could borrow her compass for the journey. She said yes, but by the time she did, the sky looked perfect, too perfect. It was so clear. So the snowshoers decided that the best thing to do was to start the journey now without that compass. I feel like this is foreshadowing.

That group of people, which would one day be dubbed the Forlorn Hope, consisted of 10 men, five women, and two children. 10-year-old William Murphy and 13-year-old Lemuel Murphy. For the most part, it was a strong group. Three of the five women were mothers with small children. Before they left, they handed their babies to other women in the camp. One of the young mothers was Amanda McCutcheon. Her husband, Big Bill McCutcheon, had gone with Charles Stanton on that trip to Fort Sutter. By the way, shout out to Franklin Graves for knowing how to make snow shoes.

That's a very useful thing to make. I wish I could make useful things like that. Don't you think in a situation like this, you would? I mean, I don't know how to make snow shoes. I guess I would just like... You would figure it out. I guess. I'm just, I think about people that know survival things like that.

And I'm like, damn, that's useful. Yeah. Yeah. I respect the hell out of it. Her husband, Big Bill McCutcheon, had gone with Charles Stanton on that trip to Fort Sutter. He'd become ill. He'd done that for her and for their two-year-old daughter, Harriet. And now, Amanda McCutcheon decided that it was her turn to take that hard journey. It was her turn to try to save their daughter from starvation. She handed Harriet over to Franklin Graves' wife, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth would stay behind with her own seven children, plus little Harriet. Oof. Another young mother who took part in the journey was Harriet Pike, the 18-year-old who'd recently become a widow when William Foster accidentally shot and killed her husband. She left her infant and her toddler behind with her mother. In that group of snowshoers, four of the men were fathers. The rest were single men. Leading the group, of course, was Charles Stanton and Luis and Salvador. They dressed as warmly as they could. They took rations for what they anticipated would be a six-day journey to Johnson's ranch. They didn't take any more than they needed because to do so would mean taking food away from their children, away from their parents, away from their siblings, and away from their friends.

And on December 16, 1846, they started their journey. But the little boys struggled. They didn't have snow shoes. They walked at the end of the line in the footprints of the adults who walked in front of them. But that was so difficult. It's completely different when you don't have snow shoes. And I guess they thought that that would be a good solution, but it wasn't. The group moved so slowly in that first day that one of the men, along with the 10-year-old, decided to go back to camp. Probably for the best, yeah. Absolutely. You don't want to be slowed down. Yeah. The rest kept going.

They traveled over snow. In some places, it was 12 feet deep. In others, 60. 60 feet deep? Because of the winds. Winds moving the snow, snow drifts. Oh, my God. Before long, their eyes began to sting.

Their corneas burned. They might not have known it, but they were likely all suffering from some degree of snowblindness. It hit Charles Stanton hard. He fell behind. Fifty-seven-year-old Franklin Graves was the oldest person in the group. He relied on his adult daughters, Mary and Sarah, and his new son-in-law, Jay Fosdick, to keep him on track as his eyes reddened and swelled. The journey was hard and slow and bitterly cold. They hallucinated. They worried they were off track. Frostbites set in. In those days, it was believed. believe that the way to cure frostbite was to rub the affected area with snow. So they did. They rubbed their hands and feet with snow, not knowing that they were making it so much worse. Why was that the solution back then? I don't know.

Why did they think bloodletting would cure everything that ailed them? Well, because you're like draining the sickness out of you. They had an explanation. They're not just going to be like, we're going to drain your blood and see what happened. happens. Fight fire with fire. That's my explanation. Yeah, frostbite. Why would you You know what? Damn it, Norm. I, as I was working on this, I was like, Norm's going to ask me why they did this. Damn right I am. And here I sit. Yeah. I got nothing for you. Do you know I'm a context slut? You sure are. My goodness. Tell me why. I'd rather just rub snow on you.

days passed too many days at one point long after the rations were gone william eddy was digging through his bag when he found some bear meat hidden away he'd killed a bear about a month earlier and his wife eleanor had secretly put some of that meat into his pack we learned about william eddy in last week's episode he was the one who'd threatened patrick breen when patrick wouldn't give him water for his children He was the one who'd begged the breans and graves families for food when his children were hungry. And when they'd said no, and he'd eventually shot some geese, he shared those geese with them. He did. Rubbed it in their faces. But now, months later, pushed to his absolute limit, he kept that bare meat hidden.

He ate it in secret as those around him starved and suffered. One morning, when the party was ready to get going, for another punishing day of travel, Charles Stanton sat in front of the fire, blind and hungry and in pain. He told the others that he'd be right behind them, and they went on. It was the last they ever saw him. The Bachelor, the man who had sacrificed so much for people who weren't his relatives, who'd come back to save them, who'd tried to get them to go just three more miles on the night before the pass was blocked with snow, died, blind, and alone.

And then there were 14. And they were lost? Maybe? But they kept going. And it kept snowing. And it kept snowing. And it was just too damn much. On Christmas Eve, the men,

all of them except for Louise, Salvador, and William Eddy, said that they should stop. They'd been without food for three days at that point. They needed to accept defeat. they needed to go back. But all of the women were united against them. They told the men, no. They'd gone too far to turn back.

They had to keep going. But going was tough. Their bodies were shutting down. They were dizzy. By that point, many among them weren't thinking clearly. But it didn't take a clear thinker to understand what was about to happen. They were going to die. All of them.

Unless they did something drastic. It's generally agreed that a single, guy, Patrick Dolan, was the first to suggest it that someone in the group needed to die. Someone needed to die so that the rest of the group could cannibalize their body. Some people didn't like the idea, but they weren't super opposed to it either because what other choice did they have? It was horrible, but they had children back at the lake. They had family and friends who are all depending on them. Consuming one of their own might mean that at least some of the more than 80 people in the Donner Party might survive. And wasn't that the whole point? Wasn't that

why they'd given their babies to other people? Wasn't that why they'd put snow shoes on their frostbitten feet? Wasn't that why they'd kept trudging forward? So that some of them might survive? It was horrible, yes, and taboo and disgusting, but without some form of food, how much longer did any of them have? Without some form of food, how much energy did any of them have to finally reach Johnson's ranch? Patrick Dolan suggested that they draw lots. That would determine who would be killed for food. Oh, my God. William Eddy suggested that they draw lots.

and that the two people who drew the short sticks could face off in a duel. A duel? Yeah. Good Lord. That's kind of sick. Oh, it's all sick. Oh, there's something about, like, making a sport of it. I think it gives more chance.

I guess. And this was in a time when duels were still kind of a thing, so maybe it would feel a little more civilized. I don't know. Yeah, I really shouldn't feel any certain way. I mean, this is just survival. Much like you, Norm, the group as a whole didn't like the idea. They weren't ready for it.

And, of course, there was the unsettling, obvious truth, that one of them would die soon, naturally. And maybe then? See, that would be my choice, I think. Yeah. It's like, okay, whoever dies naturally first, we're going to eat you. Yeah. You just have to play a waiting game, though.

Yeah. That night, they set a fire. They gathered around it, shivering. A 23-year-old single man named Antonio fell asleep close to the fire. And the story goes that at one point in the night, Antonio's hand fell into the fire. And William Eddy pulled it out. But Antonio didn't stir. He was unconscious.

And when his hand fell into the fire again, William Eddie didn't intervene. Soon, the young man died, and more snow came. They built a bigger fire, but they didn't know that they'd built their fire over a stream. A stream piled high with snow. The snow had been so high that they'd assumed they were on solid ground. But that fire fell through the snow and plunked into the water deep below. Those who were able to scramble to gather firewood. In the chaos, damn it, the head of their hatchet flew off.

lost somewhere in the snow. But they had to have fire. They had to have fire. And they worked at it and worked at it. And in the meantime, Franklin Graves, the man who'd made all their snow shoes, struggled. His daughters, Mary and Sarah, were by his side.

He told them he didn't fear death. He asked them to tell their mother and their siblings that he loved them. And then he asked his daughters for one more thing, to stay alive. He reminded them of their mother and siblings back at camp. He reminded them of the people who were depending on them. He told his daughters,

Use my body for nourishment. Stay alive. That night, the immigrants did stay alive. By lying in a circle with their feet in the middle. One person squatted in the center of the circle with a blanket draped over the group, tucked behind each person's head. In that terrible, relentless snowstorm, that technique trapped the group's body heat. It provided some shelter.

They stayed that way all night. The next day was Christmas Day. The snowstorm continued. They stayed under the tent. But that morning, Patrick Dolan, the single man who'd first suggested that they resort to cannibalism, went nuts. That's how it seemed anyway. He screamed, he fought, he tore off his clothes. the group didn't realize that Patrick was in the final stages of hypothermia.

He was doing that thing that just a certain percentage of people do where they suddenly feel hot, way too hot. He fought to get out of the tent. The immigrants fought to keep him in. He escaped. They brought him back. Finally, William Eddy brought him back and held him long enough that eventually Patrick Dolan went still and died.

I'll told they spent nearly three days in that tent. By the time the storm ended, three members of their party, Antonio, Franklin Graves, and Patrick Dolan were dead. The group was too depleted to do anything but eat. They agreed that they wouldn't eat blood relatives. And since Patrick Dolan had been a bachelor, he was the first to be consumed. They cut strips of flesh.

they cooked it over the fire. The immigrants ate, but they couldn't look at one another. They couldn't believe what they were doing, but they couldn't stop either. Their bodies needed nourishment. Some people refused to partake. Luis and Salvador and William Eddy, who still had some bare meat, refused.

So did 13-year-old Lemuel Murphy. He was the youngest in the group. He'd wanted so badly to be part of this brave group of snowshoers. He'd fought to be part of it. And now he was starting to lose it, just like Patrick Dolan had lost it. His older sisters, Sarah and Harriet, tried to get him to eat the flesh. But little Lemuel refused. Just a day earlier, the group had spotted a mouse, and he'd been so crazed with hunger that he'd grabbed it and he'd eaten it alive. That's catching him. He was able to just catch a mouse?

Well, they were all trying to catch it. Yeah. And, of course, it would have to be shared in everything. And it was just a mouse. And, yeah, he was just, he was dying of hunger. Right now I'm thinking about, like, when I'm hungry. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, you know, sometimes we'll just say casually, man, I'm starving.

Mm-hmm. And then you hear a story like this. Oh, God. What true starvation is like? I can't even imagine it. He'd done that with the mouse, but he couldn't do this. He couldn't eat human flesh. That night, he grew weaker and weaker.

His older sister, Sarah, held him. She told him how much she loved him. And then he died. They were now a group of ten, five men, five women. And they'd done unspeakable things, unspeakable things, in an effort to stay alive. They'd eaten people. and while they hadn't eaten relatives, they'd seen other people eat their relatives.

And that was its own kind of horror. But they had energy now. They did what they had to do to survive. I agree. And I've got to say, I'm sure, I don't know if it'll be next week's episode or what, but like I've covered a few stories. Well, I did some bonus episodes on this

where people resort to cannibalism. and I never understand the judgment that people have for people in this situation. Yeah. Even some of, I will not name the podcast, but it's a big more corporate podcast, and they've covered this. And they used a phrase something like, in regard to the cannibalism, they developed a taste for it. like they, you know, ate some of the people and then days later when they're starving and they do it again.

Oh, they developed a taste for it. Oh, so they started enjoying it and they wanted to eat more people. I think sometimes when people do that in storytelling, it's like you're trying to make these people into ghoulish, nasty caricatures. People who are doing things that, oh, I would never do. And I think that's such a disgusting way to tell this story. Because they didn't do this because they wanted to. And man, that thing about Franklin Graves telling his daughters stay alive. Yeah. Do what you have to do.

Yes. Yes. And I didn't include this part, but I believe he said the same thing to a young mother and said, think about your child. if you need to eat my body to stay alive, I want you to do that. Yeah. And I just, I don't know, I feel the same way. I would think that if I were in this situation and I was dying, Norm, you better eat me. You better, you know, just nibble on these thighs.

I would be, your thighs would be the first thing I'd take a chunk out of. For sure. But seriously, I just, I. Oh, same. you, I hope. I hope you I do it while you were still living and you'd be like, hey, hey, yeah. Hey, what? And so they walked.

Their frostbitten, bloody feet left a bright red trail in the snow. And still, they were nowhere. By early January, they'd run out of food again. William Foster came up with a plan. What if they killed Luis and Salvador? The guides? Uh-huh. Those are like the last two guys you want to kill.

But why were they the first, Norm? Well, one, they were Native American, and so there's some discrimination prejudice there. But also, well, they're not part of the wagon train. They're not one of us. Sure. And they were probably in the best shape. They probably had the most meat on the bone, I guess. God, you know what?

I hadn't thought of that. But yeah, they did not think of Native Americans as fully human. Right. I mean, there was a genocide going on in California. And so, yeah, he threw this idea out there. Yeah, they probably, well, who cares about them? Let's eat them. It seems that William Eddy was the only one in the group who was horrified by that idea.

The rest of them weren't all that bothered by the idea of murdering. the two men who'd brought them supplies and who were leading their way. So as soon as he could, William Eddy quietly warned Luis and Salvador that their lives were in danger. And that night, the two men disappeared. Yep. Meanwhile, newlyweds Jay and Sarah Fosdick struggled. Sarah had just lost her father days earlier. And that night, her husband died in her arms.

Sarah grieved. That morning she went to the rest of the group, reeling. And when she returned to her husband's body, she was horrified to discover that William and Sarah Foster were preparing to butcher it. She tried to stop them, but she was outnumbered. Her husband was butchered and consumed. And then there were seven, two men, five women. And that's when someone floated a new idea. whose idea was it? Depends on who you want to believe. Did William Foster suggest killing one of the women? Did William Eddie suggest killing one of the women? We know two things for sure that the idea of killing one of the women for food was discussed.

We also know that it didn't happen. Mostly because, not long after that conversation, the immigrants spotted Luis and Salvador's bloody footprints in the snow. They tracked the men. They found them lying in the snow. William Foster shot both of them while the others looked away. Oh, they were still alive. Yeah.

They tracked them down and killed them. Yeah, reading that they were lying on the ground, I was hopeful. And they, I mean, they obviously were not doing well. No, they were probably resting. Yeah, they were probably resting. Once again, they all ate. By that point, William Eddy had consumed human flesh, but he didn't consume them. Two days later, the group of emaciated, frostbitten, horrified snowshoers came upon a Native American village.

The people there were Miwarks, the same as Luis and Salvador. And the Miwarks were terrified by the appearance of these starving emigrants. Initially, they ran away from them. That's how scary they looked. Yeah. But eventually, the Miwok's. took them in. They fed them. They gave them shelter. They gave them bread and soup. Just enough to nourish them, but not enough to make them sick. But there was still work to be done. The

snowshoers had been saved, but now they needed to save the rest of the Donner Party. The group stranded on the other side of the mountains. So, after about a week, two Native Americans carried William Eddy to Johnson's ranch. Carried him. Yeah. Boy, it sure would have been helpful to have Luis and Salvador there to help communicate with the Milwaukee people. Well, it's probably always helpful to not murder people. Yeah. You wonder if they were feeling any guilt of having killed those two guides and then stumbling upon a village and how they helped them? Yeah.

I would really hope. And they murdered two of their people. Yeah. It's just horrible all around. Again, I feel like I'm being too judgey of the situation, but like... No, it's awful. It's just terrible. And I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, in regard to cannibalism, they're doing what they have to do.

But when it comes to murder, they're not doing what they have to do. Well, and those two guys were helping them, and then they'd turn around and murder them. Yeah. When the snowshoers had set off from Truckee Lake, they'd believe that their journey to Johnson's ranch would, take six days. It had actually taken 33. Eight people had died on that journey. Seven survived. And the second that William Eddie arrived at Johnson's ranch, the people knew. They knew he had to be part of that group, that Donner Party group. See, ever since Charles Stanton and Big Bill McCutcheon, and eventually James Reed and Walter Heron had arrived at Fort Sutter, word had gotten out about a group of

emigrants who were stuck on the other side of the Sierra Nevada's. Some wondered if it was true, but the sudden appearance of William Eddy, so starved and depleted, meant that it was true. People were stuck, and they were badly in need of help. In no time, word spread. People came together. They formed a rescue party. But they had to wonder if they might be too late. back at Truckee Lake and Alder Creek, the immigrants who'd stayed behind held on. They held on and they held on and they held on and they cared for their children and they cared for other people's children. They prayed for the snowshoers but feared they were long dead. Well, yeah, if they were thinking six days and it's been over a month now, I bet they all presume they were dead.

Absolutely. They thought the same of James Reed and Walter Herron. They were desperate back at camp. Levinah Murphy, that 36-year-old widow, was in charge of so many children. She did her best to ration their food, to keep them alive. But she was starting to lose it.

Her grasp on reality weakened as she tried and tried and tried to keep all those children alive. They were all doing things. They'd never imagined themselves doing. The people at the lake and the creek hadn't resorted to cannibalism, but they'd done other unthinkable things.

Not long after Christmas, after watching her children slowly starve and selling or promising anything she could for some meat from the other immigrants, Margaret Reed accepted that she'd have to do something terrible to keep her children alive. They'd started the journey on the California Trail

all those months ago with five dogs. Now all they had was cash, their favorite dog, In many ways, he was all they had. He was a source of joy and comfort. He was a source of uncomplicated love. But he was also all they had, literally. And so on New Year's Day, Margaret Reed had slipped a knife into her pocket.

She told the children she was taking cash for a walk. And on that walk, she let cash play in the snow. And then she petted his head. and slit his throat. Yeah. Margaret sobbed, and later her children sobbed. She told them why she'd done it, that Cash was going to keep them all alive.

And for several days, he did. Not long after that, Margaret Reed had formed her own rescue party. She knew that her three youngest children weren't up for the journey, so she asked other people to take them in. She said goodbye to them, fearing she'd never see them again, but unable to sit still and watch them suffer. So she, two employees, Milt Elliott and Eliza Williams,

and her 13-year-old daughter, Virginia, set off. They're going now, too? Yeah. Snow shoes? Nope. They didn't have anything to make snow shoes. By that point, they were so weak. They were running on almost no food.

And then the compass malfunctioned. After five days, they were all back at camp. Over the next month and a half, people at the lake and the creek died in quick succession. Big Bill McCutcheon had gone to get help. Months later, Amanda McCutcheon had joined the snowshoers to get help too. Amanda had survived. Big Bill had survived. But on February 2nd, 1847, while they were off trying desperately to get help, their baby Harriet died.

back at camp. William Eddie had fought so hard to get to Johnson's ranch. He wanted to get help for his wife, Eleanor, and his two children, all still waiting back at Truckee Lake. He didn't know that his youngest had already died, and that Eleanor died shortly thereafter. There was death, after death, after death, after death, but also, there was still some life. People were still hanging on. And although they didn't know it, they did have people coming for them. They did have people searching for them. They just had to hang on a little longer. On next week's episode of an old-timey podcast, the rescue missions begin. Technically, I guess they've already begun. Now, is it true that a lot of the rescue missions,

you'll probably talk about this on the next episode. Sorry. Actually, this is where it all ends. I'm premature effectulating again. I'm about to bust. Isn't it true that some of the rescue missions were... Norm, don't ruin my whole story. Joe, will you do a fun thing where you bleep some of the stuff, Norm said?

What a tragedy. Yeah. This is making me want to print up. some new shirts. What? And they're going to say, we all hate Lanceford Hastings. And it's a picture of that dumbass's face on there. Norm.

And I'll give them away for free. I appreciate. All proceeds will go to the Donner Historic Site or something. No, I like the idea. What if we started a new charity? But instead of like doing something, well, we would consider it good. What if it was just a charity for promoting the hatred? of bad people.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm down for that. And people are like, wait, no, there's really good things you could do in the world. Yeah, we could. But also, we could really tell everyone how much Lansford Hastings sucks. I think that'd be very popular. Thank you for sitting here through that story. Listeners, if you made it this far, thank you for listening.

Yeah, thank you. It's no wonder why it kind of gripped American society when people, when people found out about it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, and still. Still does, yeah. It's one of the most infamous stories about manifest destiny.

There's so many things I want to say, but I know I'll be premature effectulating all over the place. Well, stay in the moment. I am staying in the moment. I don't think you are because you're trying to jump ahead. No, I'm thinking about stuff I know. So you're not staying in the moment. You're not staying with the story I've just done. told you. Oh, my God. You're right. I am thinking a little bit ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Kristen, very well told,

very sad. The story about cash always gets me. I hate that part. But I also know that, like, a dog's love, you know that dog would have done anything to help that family. I think that's why it's so sad. Yeah. You know, and I was thinking about that, too, of, you know, there were two parts where I was really emotional. And for me, it's Franklin Graves telling his daughters, you need to do this. Stay alive. Yep. Stay alive. Eat.

Use my body. Yeah. Yeah. Very selfless. Margaret Reed with the dog. Mm-hmm. And it's interesting in a way because it's like, well, there were more human deaths there. But I think in those stories where we have more information, and especially a story about a dog,

I think it hits me the same way that it hits me when I hear stories about children. You know, there's an absolute innocence there. And it just hits you harder, I think. Absolutely. The story of babies or the really young children just crying, they're starving and they don't know why they have this basic human need that's not being met and they don't know why. It's just, it's heartbreaking.

It is. And that's why I wanted to tell it on this comedy history podcast. Well, on that note, maybe we should wrap up this horrible episode. Folks take all the time you need to listen between these episodes. Man. Do what you need to do to get those good vibes going again. We had fun with the buffalo chips, didn't we gang? Then I had to tell this part of the story.

You know, I've been watching some Bar Rescue compilation. on YouTube. Those have really been lifting my spirits. That is nasty. That is nasty, nasty, nasty. Norm wants to watch Bar Rescue compilation clips while we're eating. That was too far. That one. It's all too far. I don't want to want to want. No. No, the one specifically I watched it was too far because it was like the grossest food. Yes.

And bar rescue and it was pretty gross. Also, I'm sorry. If you're on Bar Rescue, you're the trashiest. Kristen. John Taffer is helping these people. No, no, you know how I feel about these stupid shows you watch. These big, angry dudes come into these absolute shitholes where people should not be running businesses, certainly shouldn't be preparing food for anyone,

and they like lift them up for a couple days and keep them going. No, they should be shut down. They just need a little guidance. No, they don't. They need to be shut down. There was one part where a lady's making a pizza. And she puts the sauce on the pizza out of a jar. Right.

And then she just takes her bare hand and spreads it on the dough. And I was just like, there was something about seeing that. Mama Mia! That's what I yelled. Mama Mia. That's nasty. No, that show. Mm-mm.

Kristen, can you do us a favor for next week? What? Can you look into this Stephen Douglas fella and let us know if he actually served in the Illinois militia or not? Fine. Fine. Thank you. All right, you. Thank you. And with that note, let's wrap up this episode. Oh, my God, please.

Kristen, you know what they say about history, host? We always cite our sources. That's right. For this episode, I got my information from the books, the indifferent stars above, the harrowing saga of a Donner Party bride by Daniel James Brown. The book, The Best Land Under Heaven, the Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny. by Michael Wallace. The documentary, the Donner Party, plus more. Check the show notes for a full list of our sources.

That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to an old-timey podcast. Please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're at it, subscribe. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. Join the Reddit community,

our slash old-timey podcast. Follow us on Facebook and YouTube and Instagram at Old Timey Podcast. You can also follow us individually on Instagram. I'm at Kristen Pitts-Karuso, and he's at Gaming Historian. And until next time, Tooteloo, Tata, and Cheerio. Bye!