An Old Timey Podcast - 69: Judgement Day for the Donner Party (Part 5)

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

In the finale of our series on The Donner Party, rescue groups head off for Truckee Lake and Alder Creek, hoping to save as many survivors as they could. For many members of The Donner Party, the rescue crews came too late. Some had died. Others were too depleted to make the journey back to safety. Ultimately, of the 87 members of The Donner Party, 41 died. The survivors did their best to lead normal lives, but many of them struggled. They carried unspeakable trauma. They were judged. They faced prying questions. Through it all, they tried their best to settle in to the place they’d fought so hard to call home.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.com“Refurbished Castro-Breen Adobe offers visitors a glimpse into state history,” Gilroy Dispatch“Lansford Hastings, the Donner Party, and the Civil War,” National Museum of Civil War MedicineAre 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. The finale! Woo-hoo! The finale! Oh, yeah. Lots of cheers.

It's over. Everyone did great. No trauma. Okay. Well, yeah, trauma wasn't invented yet, so in many ways, you're right. Kristen, we actually got a message from the Trump administration about your most recent episode. Oh, really? The Donner Party series.

Well, as you know, they've been going through the Smithsonian Museum looking at all the exhibits. Uh-huh. They're not really happy with the exhibits on slavery. Sure. You're saying it's too sad. It's a real bummer. Uh-huh. And they'd like them to maybe not talk about it so much.

And they listened to part four of the Donner Party, and they also thought, Boy, that episode sure was a bummer. And maybe we need to go back and edit it and make it more uplifting and fun and positive. You know, I think if we just used the fart noise from the soundboard some more, then that episode would have been a lot more uplifting. So in a way, this is all your fault, Norm. Well, you just should have said so. I would have been, you know, spamming that sound all you want.

There we go. You got to write into those scripts. You know, history books would be a lot shorter if we just skipped all the sad stuff. Yeah. So I think these are a lot of great ideas that we have to consider. Well, here's what I say to them. We will not shy away from the bad stuff. And if you want to support a small, sexy, independent podcast that does look at both the good and bad of history, head on over to patreon.com slash old-timey podcast.

Wow. Okay, Norm. Consider becoming a non-threatening fan. For just $5 a month, you'll get access to our monthly bonus episodes with full video and get to chitty chat in the Discord. You know, one of our loyal history hos, Leslie, did a typo, and she said you get to shitty chat in the discord. And I was like, well, sometimes we have some shitty conversations in there. It's true. It's true.

They're not all bangers. Right. But if you're ready to commit to us full time, if you want to leave your old life behind and start a new, you get in on that $10 pig butter investor tier, you get bonus episodes, sign card and stickers, early ad-free video episodes, access to our trivia parties, 10% off all merch, and add. free episodes of Kristen's old decrepit rotting podcast. Let's go to court. So head on over to patreon.com slash old-timey podcast to sign up. And with that, take it away, Kristen. Woo-hoo! Okay, I will say this episode is going to be a bit of a bummer, too.

Not as sad as last week, I don't think. Oh, Kristen. But still very, very sad. I told you, we just got a letter from the Trump administration about this series and how sad it was. And I take those folks very seriously. So I'm just going to have to edit this on the fly. I know you do. You know, you've been making that $100 recurring donation.

Shut up. Shut up. Do you feel like you have a voice, you know? Absolutely. Anyway, Norm, I'm going to do the previously on. Well, before we do, I actually have a mistake of shame. I'm not going to play the sound and all that. I don't want to make a big hullabaloo about it.

Wait, is it your mistake of shame? Yeah, my mistake. Oh, you better play the sound. Okay. Listen to you. Oh, for my mistake, I'm not going to do the whole bit. Can you actually say mistakes of shame? No, you should say it because you're the one making the mistake.

But now I have to go into the settings and change it. All right, hang on. Mistakes of shame. In your last episode, I made a little joke about how the Donner Party found a cabin and it was kind of run down. And I was like, well, you know, that's kind of like love it or list it. You know, you find a house. Maybe you fix it up. How do you buy a new one?

How did you make a mistake in that joke? I made a joke about putting down LVP flooring, which I claimed was laminated vinyl planking. Okay. It actually stands for luxury vinyl plank. So I apologize for getting that terminology wrong. Norm, this is the worst mistake anyone's ever made on a podcast. It's up there for sure. I'm disgusted by it.

I had quite a few people who said, actually, Norman, it's luxury vinyl plank. And I know because I just spent thousands of dollars installing it in my home. Okay, if I had done that, I would be upset too. Exactly. You know, hit dog will holler, as they say. Anyway, this has been another shameful segment of mistakes of shame. That's all I got. Well done. Well done.

Thank you. And with that, Kristen, take it away. Previously, on an old-timey podcast. The members of the Donner Party were losing hope. They'd arrived at the Sierra Nevada Mountains too late in the season. Now they found themselves boxed in by near constant snowstorms. As snow piled high around them, the immigrants crowded into meager shelters. Their food supply dwindled. They hoped that James Reed was off getting help at Sutter's Fort, but he'd been gone so long that many feared

he was dead. They knew if they didn't take action, they'd likely all die. So, out of desperation, a group of men, women, and one child formed their own rescue mission. They strapped on snow shoes and began what they thought would be a six-day journey to Johnson's ranch. They planned to get there and get help and provisions for the rest of the snow-locked, starving group. But with no compass to guide them and the trail completely obscured by snow, they lost their way. They suffered snowblindness. Their feet swelled, split, and bled. frostbite set in, hypothermia set in, they lost feeling in their limbs, they ran low on food,

they ran lower on food, and then they ran on no food at all. But they kept going. They kept going through snow that was up to their waists. They kept going through snow that was up to their chests, and they kept going because their children depended on them, their spouses depended on them, their families depended on them. The people they'd traveled with depended on them. They were the only hope for the members of the Donner Party who were stuck back at Truckee Lake and Alder Creek. Along the journey, some of the snowshoers died. The rest barely clung to life. And in a state of desperation and unbearable hunger, and out of a desire to save the rest of the group, they did the unthinkable. They cannibalized the dead.

Days later, when they ran out of food, one of the immigrants murdered the two Native American guides who'd come to help them. The snowshoers cannibalized them as well. Of that group of 15 snowshoers, eight died. Seven survived. And so, finally, the seven survivors staggered, emaciated, partly blind, and nearly dead, into a Miwok village where they received food and help, and they got to Johnson's ranch. The journey had taken them 33 days. It had been horrible, but they'd done what they'd intended to do. They'd gotten help.

In the final episode of this series, the Donner Party hangs on as the rescue missions begin. Oh, yeah, that was a very serious previously on. It was. I didn't make a peep. Yeah. I feel like I heard something, and it was the sound of everyone turning this off because it's just too sad from the get-go. You heard the sound of people.

It's not an old-timey radio, Chris. It's not like you hear the knob click or anything. All right, here we go. But wait a second. In our last episode, I barely talked about James Reed. How rude! We all remember him. He was the once successful businessman,

the man with the fancy wagon and the even fancier friends. Ever heard of... Oh, sorry, go ahead. Boy, you're just interrupting cow. Moe ever heard of Abraham Lincoln? He sure had. What were you trying to say, Norm? You were trying to talk about Abraham Lincoln?

I was going to say James Reed, not to be confused with the James A. Reed from the Neldonnelly kidnapping. Yes. They were banging and shared a dog run. If people are still confused about that, I don't know what to tell them. Yeah, what was James Reed up to? Because he made it to Fort Sutter, right? He sure did. This man did everything, okay?

And you're going to not believe all he did. going to think back about your own life and what you do in a couple months and just feel ashamed. I'm going to feel like a complete loser when I see what this guy accomplished. I mean, I sure did. So here's a deal. James Reed had been one of the leaders of the Donner Party and one of the biggest advocates for taking Lanceford Hastings's very bad shortcut. But when he'd killed a man in self-defense, James Reed had been banished from the group and forced to leave his family behind. But he'd promised them that he'd do everything he could to get them help. But that had been so long ago.

Yeah. What exactly a James Reed been up to in the months since he'd been banished from the Donner Party? Well, Norm, I'll tell you. He released a hit new single. That's taking the country vice storm. Oh, my God. A country singer star. Can you imagine?

He became a DJ. And, yeah, he worked out some hits. And he kind of forgot about his family, frankly. He left his old life behind. Uh-huh. But wrote some really good, sad songs about it. Exactly. I mean, shoot, you could write some good country songs if you were part of the Donner party. Jesus. Yeah, you could.

Yeah, and it wouldn't be about, you know, drinking beer and sitting on your truck and, you know, your girlfriend left Joe. It would be about some real shit, you know. You know what? Somewhere there's a man whose girlfriend just left him and his dog just died and he's sitting in his truck. And, you know, all he wanted was a little sympathy. He thought, I'm going to listen to an even sadder story and now you're just shitting on him. I apologize. Just a little joke, folks. And you know what?

He just installed some luxury vinyl paneling. Excuse me? Luxury vinyl plank flooring, Kristen. Yeah, well, he didn't appreciate what you said last week, okay? So you're just really giving this guy a hard time and I don't like it. I've admitted to my shame, okay? Okay. I've confessed.

Meanwhile, we're still wondering about Stephen Douglas, Kristen. Norm, I was trying to just pretend that whole thing didn't happen. I showed you the part in my book where it's, said he was part of the Illinois state militia. Did I have the time or the desire to look into it any further? No, I did not. I could be wrong, but I'm

charging forward anyway. You're not looking back. You're looking forward. That's right. I'm like the worst kind of person. Will I look back on my mistake and learn from it? No, I got to keep going. That's right. No regerts. I'm going. Anyway, James Reed. What's he been

up to? When he was banished, he traveled as quickly as he could to Sutter's Fort. The 90-mile journey nearly killed him, but on October 28th, 1846, he arrived at Sutter's Fort, gaunt, depleted, but determined to form a rescue party to save the Donner Party. And he did! He got provisions from Sutter's Fort. He hired two Native American guides. He looped in William Big Bill McCutcheon, Big Bill's wife, and I'm sorry, I said that in a goofy voice, and now I'm about to say that his wife and child were still stuck back at camp, which is a very serious, sad thing.

Yes. My God, what is wrong with me? Big Bill had been resting at Fort Sutter, right? Yeah. Yeah. I would, I mean, resting. My God, that sounds like what I do on a Saturday morning. Okay.

He was recovering. Yeah, there we go. How about that? He'd left them behind so that he could rush ahead and get help for the group. The journey had nearly killed him, too. But by early November, Big Bill was feeling better, and he was more than ready to join James Reed in rescuing their families. So the men began their rescue mission.

But as is the theme of this series, time was not on their side. The winter was one of the harshest the area had ever seen. An unprecedented amount of snow fell on the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It fell and fell. It piled higher and higher. It obscured the trail. It chilled them. It numbed them.

It slowed their movement until finally it stopped them. It was too much. They couldn't get through it. Eventually, they made the heartbreaking decision to turn back. James Reed went back to Sutter's Fort, dejected, but determined to try again. He just needed more help. He needed more expertise. He needed more men.

But much like my undergrad experience, there were no dudes around. Thank you. That was a women's college joke. Shout out to Simmons University. The fighting sharks. It was just bad timing. Incredibly bad timing. See, the Mexican-American War had broken out.

And all the men who might normally have participated in a rescue mission were off fighting in the war. Hmm, I bet Lanceford Hastings is not a fan of this. We all cared deeply about Lance Fred Hastings. We love him so much, and we just want the best for him. Don't we, gang? Because weren't you saying Lanceford Hastings wanted to, like, take over California and make his own country, basically? Yeah, he wanted to be the coolest dude in all of California. California. And by that I mean the leader of California. We hate him so much, everyone. We hate him so much. We do. We will do a little something about him at the end of this episode. And I really think our next bonus episode is just going to be me doing a deep dive into how awful he is. And I'm going to relish every moment of it. Are we going to make those I hate Lanceford Hastings T-shirts?

We should. We should. With all proceeds going to. What would it go to? The Donner Lake Historical Society, if there's such a thing exists, I don't know. We will make up a society and donate money to it. Oh, that sounds like fraud. We'll figure something out. Let's not get into the charity fraud, Kristen. Okay, okay. I hear it's bad news, okay?

So the Mexican-American War is taking away resources from James Reed and Big Bill McCutcheon. Specifically dudes. Yeah. We need, we need swinging dongs. Oh, well. To come help these people. You know what. No one mentioned Dongs, and I feel like that is rude and inappropriate,

but also kind of fun, so thank you. Yeah. I'm trying to keep it upbeat, folks. John Sutter told James Reed what he didn't want to hear, that any rescue mission would be fruitless, at least for a while. For now, there was too much snow, and there weren't enough men available to help him. If he went out there again,

he'd only be risking his own life, the chances of him actually saving. the lives of his wife and children, not to mention the rest of the Donner Party, were next to nothing. It was hard to hear, but it was also the truth, and James Reed knew it. So, instead of immediately attempting another rescue mission, James Reed decided to use his time wisely. And wow, he sure did. With the rest of the Donner Party still trapped on the other side of the Sierra Nevada's, James Reed laid out two foundations.

He laid a foundation for getting his family off the trail, and he laid a foundation for the wonderful life they would lead in California. He bought land. He networked. He made new friends. And, oh, geez, that's where he found himself in a tight spot. See, when he'd arrived at Sutter's Fort back in late October, he'd done a thing, a thing that, in his defense, all the other dudes were doing.

He'd signed a document pledging that he would join the military in the fight against Mexico. Oh, no. Now, to be fair, he'd done so with a caveat. A caveat? Is it caveat or caveat? Caviar. Caviar. How fancy are we going to be? A caveat.

Wait, you just said caveat? No, I said caveat. God damn. Like caviar. Caviot. A caviar caveat that before he fought in the war, he would first be allowed to try and rescue the Donner Party. And here's the thing.

Technically, he had tried to rescue the Donner Party. Right, but the snow. Yeah. And even though that rescue mission had failed, and even though all he wanted to do was begin planning the next rescue mission, he now had to fulfill his promise to go fight in the war. Oh, no. This is nuts.

This is nuts. But, you know, what could he do? He had signed up as an officer, and since he couldn't go back on his pledge, he did some war stuff. And like five minutes later, in late January, he was discharged. Really? That quick? Yes. Hmm.

So was he... Sorry, I know we might be getting some weeds here, but... So he was just volunteering to fight? I think, yes, I think it was one of those things. And I'm saying this kind of in his defense, because I think people might hear that and be like, Why the hell did he sign any kind of document saying he would do anything with his family on the other side of these mountains? I think it actually makes sense when you're in this new area and you know you need help from all these other people, these other people who do not know you at all. And so what better way to endear yourself to people than to be like, oh, there's something here that you need me for?

Absolutely. I will help. I'll do this thing. Well, yeah, it builds camaraderie. Sure. Yeah, of course I'll be with you boys and we'll win this war. And then the war actually happens. And they're like, okay, James Reed.

And then you're like, oh, crap. Oh, shoot. Oh, actually, I've got really bad bone spurs in my feet. That's a real thing. And nothing to joke about Norm. Real painful. Also, I really don't want to go. I've got the number one country single in the United States.

right now. I got to go on tour, so how am I supposed to fight? These are all excellent reasons. Mm-hmm. Okay. So he served. Yeah, but he was discharged. Excellent. Cottage cheese style. Ew. Ew. That's disgusting. Hang on. Honestly, that was kind of your fault, Norm. Why was that my fault? Well, because I said he was discharged earlier, and I actually agonized for quite a while on how to make a cottage cheese discharged joke. My God, the look on your face. I'm trying to find a sound, but I don't have one, and I'm just disgusted. Well, anyway, I tried to figure out a way to make that joke more organically, but I couldn't. But then I thought, oh, my gosh, I'm just going to tee this one up.

If I just say discharge, Norm is going to say, and I really thought it would go this way. I thought for sure you were going to say, oh, honorably or dishonorably? And then I would say cottage cheese, and it would be hilarious. I was actually thinking of Jane. But you said it too quick. I'm sorry. You didn't allow me to make the joke. Well, so I just had to make it anyway. This is all on you, really.

As soon as that happened, he did what he'd been desperate to do all along. He went to what is now San Francisco, where he told the story of the more than 80 men, women, and mostly children who were stranded on the other side of the Sierra Nevada's, locked in by snow with no food and no means of escape. His impassioned speeches worked. People donated money for the, rescue mission. Some pledged money for anyone who volunteered to rescue the Donner Party. They made

tempting offers. Like, hey, how about you risk your life to rescue the Donner Party for $3 a day? Ooh, just for inflation? It's only $118 a day. But $3 a day was more than a lot of dudes could make elsewhere at that point in time. So one of those deals, why not make some money and maybe be a hero? Around that same time, not long after James Reed began his own efforts to form a rescue party, something happened that took the talk of the Donner Party from concern chatter to an outright roar. It was the seven surviving snowshoers. When they made it to Johnson's ranch, they started talking, talking about their own horrific experiences, and talking about the need, the desperate, urgent need to get help for the rest of the Donner Party still stuck at Truckee Lake and Alder

Creek. Words spread quickly. The fact that the snowshoers had resorted to cannibalism drew a level of attention and a level of prying curiosity that would haunt the survivors for the rest of their lives. But attention is a funny thing. It can be awful, but it can also be exactly what you need. When you're trying to get rescued, yeah. Yeah. The story shocked the public. It grabbed their attention.

It got them thinking and worrying about the members of the Donner Party. It drew people out of the woodwork. Soon, men volunteered to take part in rescue missions. And so, as James Reed continued to prepare his rescue mission, another rescue mission came together. it would be dubbed the first relief party. 14 people came together for that first relief party. So had nothing to do with James Reed?

No. Hmm. Okay. James is going to do the second one. Okay. So first relief party, this is just like, these people need help. We're going to go help them. Yeah.

That's cool. That's cool. That's cool. That's definitely helpful. He had gotten the conversation started. But then when those seven snowshoers came in and they were so close to death, and had these stories of cannibalism, people were like, oh, this man wasn't exaggerating. Yeah.

And this is a very dire situation. So 14 people formed that party, including incredibly William Eddie. William Eddie had been one of the snowshoers. He was one of only two men who survived that journey. He was in the first relief party? Yeah. Holy shit. The truth was that by early February of 1847,

When that first rescue party came together, William Eddie wasn't all healed up from his earlier journey. In fact, he was still alarmingly thin. He was depleted. But he insisted on going. He'd left his wife and two children behind. He had to rescue them. By the way. Yeah?

You know William Eddie had a hell of a neck beard, right? No, I did not know that. Are you judging him? No, I just... For not keep enough. appearances on the trail? No, I'm just saying, neckbeards are kind of a thing on this podcast. Uh-huh. And William Eddy had quite a neck beard. Hold on. I'm going to look up a picture of him. Perhaps he. Wait, when you say, okay, when you say neck beard, you don't mean only the neck, do you?

I do. Because that's like the worst kind of. I do. Look at them. Oh my God. No, that's, oh. Oh, my God. You know what? I've seen many pictures of him before. Well, it's always the same one. That, never registered as facial hair to me. I thought it was just a really intense jaw line and I was happy for him. This is disgusting. Well, no, why am I? I love William Eddie, but my God. Kristen, that neck beard may have saved his life. Well, I hope it did something positive because it's not doing anything for me right now. So the first rescue party took off. But wow, it was tough. They had horses loaded with heavy provisions. Before they even reached the worst of the snow, they encountered rain, rain and mud.

Ugh, rain? Yeah. Ugh. So was there, there was still snow on the ground? You know what? It's funny. I don't know if they were encountering snow just yet. I just know that right off the bat, when it was like way too soon for things to be bad, it got bad. And it was all about the mud because those horses with all those heavy provisions began sinking and sinking and sinking. And suddenly, they were hardly moving at all

because they spent all of their time and energy trying to get these horses out of all the mud. It was the start of their journey and already they were making terrible time knowing full well that the worst of it was ahead of them. Before long, William Eddy dropped out.

He didn't want to stop, but he didn't have the energy to keep going. And also everyone kept making fun of his neck beard. Hey. I'm sorry, that was rude. He's like, I'm tired of being teased, guys. I'm going back. I'm going to go shave this off.

So the rest of the crew kept going. But they didn't have the drive that William Eddy had. They didn't have the why. They didn't have their own families out there on the brink of death. And so suddenly, $3 a day didn't seem like all that much money. And just as that thought occurred to them, that, hey, maybe this kind of sucks. It snowed. Oh.

And it snowed. And it snowed. And it snowed. And rescuers dropped out of the rescue mission. Soon there were only ten of them. Later, bogged down by more snow and struggling with the weight of all those extra provisions, more rescuers dropped out. And then there were seven.

Their journey went from tough to impossible. They couldn't carry all the provisions they'd been given. So they tied some of the food. up high in the trees. They figured that the food, spaced out carefully along the trail, would sustain all of them, the rescuers and the members of the Donner Party, on their long trek back to Sutter's Fort. The remaining rescuers kept going, kept pushing, pushing to help save people they'd never met, and although snow obscured their path, they knew they were headed in the right direction. They were headed to Truckee Lake. That was where they'd been told they'd find the majority of

the Donner Party. Roughly 50 people. The rest of the party, roughly 20 people, would be six miles further at Alder Creek. And finally? Finally? After a long, hard journey in which so many people had dropped out, oh my God, they arrived. They'd arrived at Truckee Lake. But it was desolate. A deep blanket of snow obscured the landscape. Solid ice covered the lake. The men looked. The men listened. It was quiet.

So quiet. The men bellowed. Hello! They waited. And soon enough, they saw it. Faces. Emaciated faces. Haunted faces.

Faces of faces of people. people who were barely alive. Finally, one of the faces spoke. She said, are you men from California? Or do you come from heaven? The men rushed toward the survivors. They were horrified by what they saw. Emaciated children, starving infants. People, these people, their livestock was all dead. They'd been living on spoonfuls of disgusting gelatinous goo that they'd gotten from boiling strips of the hides that covered their meager shelters. When the rescuers entered the survivors' cabins and lean-toes, they were hit with a stench unlike anything they'd ever smelled in their lives. It was a mix of excrement and death and smoke and decay. It was the stench of people crowded together.

slowly dying. Many of the people were so near death that they barely moved. Some didn't move at all. But others? Oh, wow. Others were energized by the sight of these wonderful men who'd come to rescue them. They swarmed them. They asked about their family members. Nearly all of them had a loved one who'd been part of that group of snowshoers. So they wanted to know, is my dad okay? Is my mom okay? Is my sister okay? Is my brother okay? Did they make it? Did they make it? Are they alive? Are they alive? And to all of those questions, the rescuers responded, yes, yes, all the snowshoers survived. They were all just fine. They were just recovering from the journey.

Do you think that was smart? Yes. I think so, too. When someone's in that state where it's very clear, they might not survive a rescue mission, why do that to them? It's not the time or place to break that news to somebody. No, give them hope, try to save them. Yep.

The survivors at Truckee Lake were overjoyed. By that point, they'd already experienced so much death they couldn't take anymore. And then, with that good news out of the way, the rescuers gave them all small amounts of food, knowing that after surviving on so little, these people might die if they suddenly had too much. As some of the men helped the people at Truckee Lake, other rescuers went to Alder Creek, where they witnessed the same distressing conditions that they'd seen at Truckee Lake. Dying people. Starving people. The worst among them was George Donner. That injury to his hand, which he'd received when his brother's chisel slipped, as they worked to repair an axle a few months earlier, had become badly infected.

It would kill him. But the rescuers told him not to worry. For this first rescue, they'd just take the strongest people, but they'd be back soon for everyone else. No one would be left there to die. It was a funny thing, figuring out who should stay and who could go. The rescuers chose people based on strength. They knew how hard the journey would be. They'd seen multiple, healthy, grown men drop out on their way to Truckee Lake at Alder Creek. Right.

Now, surrounded by depleted skeletal men in Wendell. women and so many depleted skeletal children, they made hard decisions. They had to pick the strongest. They had to pick the ones most likely to survive. But the strongest didn't always want to go. Interesting. George Donner's wife, Tamson, was one of the strong ones. So was Jacob Donner's widow, Elizabeth. Both of the women were chosen for the journey. And both women refused. Tamson wouldn't leave her husband. She wouldn't leave her husband. She wouldn't leave her small children. Elizabeth wouldn't leave her children either. So the rescue party took who they could. In total, they took 23 people, seven adults, and 16 children. I always forget how many children

were in the Donner Party. It's horrible. And it makes it all so much more complicated. What do you think of that, the women staying behind? I get it. Yeah. Well, yeah, you don't want to leave your family. Of course not. In a way, it's like I'd rather die with my family than abandon them, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Margaret Reed counted herself lucky. She'd learned from the rescuers that her husband was still alive. He was forming his own rescue party. They'd likely run into him on the trail. Or hear him perform live in concert in Sacramento. That's certainly the dream. You know, at first I was mad when I heard you abandoned us, but then I found out that you'd been working on this absolutely amazing hit song. And now all I can be is grateful.

Somehow, Margaret and all four of her children had been deemed strong enough to make the journey. Wow. Yes. That's incredible. So they all went that first party? Yes. 12-year-old Virginia, 8-year-old Patty, 5-year-old James, and 3-year-old Thomas, and Margaret, all selected. Wow, that's amazing.

No other parents at camp had been that lucky. She was leaving with all of her children. So they set off into that impossibly high snow. But pretty soon, the children struggled. Some of them, the teens and the pre-teens, did okay. Some of them, the infants and toddlers, were so young that they had to be carried. And they were. But that meant that the children who were in between, the ones who were no longer infants, no longer toddlers, but were still small children, struggled.

And they had no relief. There was no adult to pick them up. The adults were carrying the very little ones. There was no adult to carry them even part of the way. Margaret Reed pushed through the snow. breathing hard with every step as her children followed in her path. But three-year-old Tommy and eight-year-old Patty struggled. They struggled and struggled and slowed and slowed.

It would have been a nearly impossible journey if they'd been healthy. But now, now they were weak from months of malnutrition and exposure to the harsh winter. Eventually, little Tommy and little Patty stopped. They could not keep going. The rescuers knew what needed to happen. They needed to take Tommy and Patty back to that horrible camp, back to Truckee Lake. Oh, my God, no.

Back to a reeking, disgusting cabin where only a little food remained, away from their only remaining parent. Margaret Reed was a mess. Two of her children were fit to be rescued. And now, two of her children weren't. what was she supposed to do? She said she'd go back to Truckee Lake. She'd stay with Tommy and Patty.

But one of the rescuers told her, stay with your older children. As soon as I am able, I will return to Truckee Lake. I will rescue Tommy and Patty. It was horrible. But it had to be done. Margaret Reed hugged her children.

The siblings hugged each other. Suddenly, that brief hope that they might all make it out of this alive, went away. That day out there in the snow, just before they parted ways, eight-year-old Patty Reed told her mom, well, mother,

if you never see me again, do the best you can. I want to pause here because I totally agree with what you were saying earlier about, yeah, I don't see a world where I could be like, okay, I'm strong enough to go, I will go, I'll leave my children behind. Yeah.

But this scene where Margaret Reed is having to make this choice, I started thinking about what the rescuers must have said to her. And when I think about that, I put myself in the shoes of a rescuer. And who am I going to have an easier time rescuing? A small child who can be carried, if need be, or an adult woman. And so I do think there's some logic to, hey, if you're an able-bodied adult, please, my God, get out of here with us and we'll come back for children and we'll take as many children as we can. I mean, logically, but emotionally. Oh, yeah. Leaving your children behind to that horrible place.

It'd be really fun and I'd be happy to do it. No, I got to save your ass with that rim shot. She's joking, folks. So her two youngest kids were sent back to Truckee Lake. Actually, they weren't the youngest. Sorry, the 8-year-old and the... I believe 3-year-old. Three-year-old.

They were sent back to Truckee Lake. And the 5-year-old and 12-year-old continued on. Did a rescuer go to Truckee Lake with them? Yeah, of course. They brought them back. Took them back? It's a horrible decision to make. It is.

Because there's also the thought of, will these other children survive the journey to get to safety? It's not a guarantee at all. Well, and you're leaving your children with this rescue worker who you don't know them. Yeah. You know, you're leaving your children's lives in their hands. That's a huge amount of trust. Well, Norm, as we'll find out over the course of this episode, all of these rescuers were really great

and they were there for the right reasons. Oh, that's great. I want you to just slow down, okay? Okay, okay. Sorry, I didn't mean to jump to conclusions here. And so the first relief party marched on, but the journey was harder than they'd imagined it would be. They'd left food behind for the people

still stuck at Truckee Lake and Alder Creek. They were banking on those provisions that they'd tied high in the trees along the trail. They needed that food, desperately. So they pushed and pushed to that first spot where they knew they'd tied the food and, oh no. Oh, no. Is there a bear dangling from the tree snacking away? The provisions had been knocked down out of the tree.

The food was scattered, picked over. Wildlife had gotten to it. Wildlife had gotten to nearly all of it. There was almost nothing left for the emaciated survivors. not to mention the rescuers. It was demoralizing and alarming. People were barely hanging on, and the rescuers knew that the next spot where they'd tied up food

was 20 miles away, 20 miles away, and they had no guarantee that the food was still there. Yeah, I mean, the first time I ran through my mind was like, surely an animal is going to get to this stuff. Yeah, and I mean, these rescuers aren't dumb dudes, but, you know, I think you try your best and you, hope for the best, but they were in a position where they couldn't possibly carry all of that themselves.

Yeah, I know. I know why they did it, but it's like, yeah. It's risky. Mm-hmm. I wonder if they would be better to bury the food. Oh, I doubt that. I think it would be, you'd be burying it in the snow. Yeah, but you could, like, you know, dig out the snow and then dig a hole in the ground

and bury it, and then put a little signpost, said there's no food here. Go away. For any literate bears, you know. And then the bear would just keep on walking. Right. There's a little sign said there's no food here. If only they'd had you back then. That's not what I'm saying.

I'm just thinking back and wondering, maybe, I don't know, maybe bearing the food would have been a better option. You don't like what I'm saying? I'm just guessing there's probably a very logical reason for why they didn't do that. I'm sure there is. I'm just a curious history ho. That's all. Sure.

I'm just wondering and bearing it might have been the better option. So they lost all the food. Next food's 20 miles. away. No guarantee it's there. Right. But what could they do? Oh yeah. You gotta just keep going. One foot in front of the other, trudging through the snow, hoping they'd survive. But with each passing hour, out in the freezing cold, and crazed with hunger, survival seemed less and less likely. One woman in particular felt herself and her young child slipping. It was Elizabeth Keseberg. She was married to Lewis Kessabberg. He'd injured his foot so badly that he'd been left back at Truckee Lake, but she was out on the trail with their three-year-old daughter, Ada.

Months earlier, out on Hastings cutoff, Elizabeth had given birth to a healthy baby boy. But, stuck out at Truckee Lake, she and Lewis had been devastated to watch their infant boy die. And now Elizabeth was watching their three-year-old begin to fail. It was almost impossible for Elizabeth to face it. Ada had been born a twin, and Elizabeth had already buried that child, and she just buried her infant boy. She couldn't bury Ada, too. She had to survive. Both of them had to survive. So Elizabeth shouted to the other people in her group, please, someone carry my daughter. If you do, I'll give you a gold watch. I'll give you a gold watch in $25. Please. She was offering just under a thousand dollars cash and a gold watch.

for someone to carry her child. But no one else could carry Ada. So Elizabeth kept going, puffing and puffing and clinging to her daughter. That night they set up camp and Elizabeth held Ada close, trying as best she could to shield her from the bitter cold. The next morning, Elizabeth Keseberg woke up to find that Ada had died in her arms. All of her children were now dead.

When it was time to continue on the trail, Elizabeth said she couldn't, but one of the rescuers took Ada's little body in his arms, and he told Elizabeth, keep going, reluctantly and nearly immobile from grief. She did. The man buried Ada's body as best he could in the snow. That night, without anything to eat, the group resorted to consuming the strips of rawhide from their snow shoes. It was bleak, but they still had some hope. knew that James Reed had formed his own rescue party. Soon enough, the two groups would be certain to cross paths. For Margaret Reed and her children, Virginia and James, that was enough to keep them

going. Finally, after all those months without him, they'd be reunited. For the rest of the group, the thought of that second rescue group meant the possibility of something that they'd craved for far too long. Food. The second relief group would most certainly have some food. And And so they kept going, kept looking, looking for that other group. And in late February, it happened. The first rescue team met up with the second rescue team. James Reed saw his family. Oh.

Most of them anyway. For the first time in months, they were gaunt and frail. They'd been through unspeakable traumas. They'd wondered if they'd ever see each other again. But here they were. weak, thin, but most importantly, alive. And yes, Tommy and Peggy had been left back at camp, but as far as everyone knew, they were still alive too. And that gave James Reed an even bigger incentive to keep going. His family was still alive. He just had to get to them. He had to get

to all of them. It was joyous and sad and hopeful, but that wasn't everyone's experience. William Big Bill McCutcheon was part of that second relief party. He'd joined James Reed just as he said he would. By that point, Big Bill had reunited with his wife Amanda. Amanda McCutcheon had been one of those brave people to snowshoe out of Truckee Lake. She'd been part of that group of 15 that resorted to cannibalism and ended up a group of seven. She'd left their baby at Truckee Lake in the arms of another woman as she'd gone on that desperate quest for help. Amanda and Bill had both risked everything to get help for their infant daughter.

And they'd done it. They'd gotten word to the outside world about the members of the Donner Party, all stuck on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. And now Big Bill was part of that second relief party with James Reed. While Amanda McCutcheon recovered from her horrible journey with the snowshoers, Big Bill was going to get their daughter and bring her back to safety. But when those two parties came together, the first relief party with all their survivors, and the second relief party, Big Bill received the worst possible news. He was too late. It was all too late. His baby had died. She'd died without either of her parents around her.

Bill was devastated. And who could have blamed him if he'd turned around and gone back to Sutter's Fort? Yeah, really. Who could have blamed him for saying I quit? He had every right to do it, but he didn't. Big Bill dedicated himself to James Reed's rescue group. It was true his child hadn't survived, but maybe he could help someone else's child survive. So the two groups passed each other on the trail,

and the hardships kept coming. The first rescue group had gotten some food, but it hadn't been much. They were still so hungry, so desperate. it. It was all 12-year-old William Hook could think about, that hunger, that gnawing, insatiable hunger. So when he saw a pack of provisions tied high in a tree, he couldn't help himself. He ran to it. Little William climbed that tree, climbed and climbed, and he got to the food and he ate. He kept eating. He couldn't stop. It was such a relief, such a release, such a comfort. But after all those

months with nothing. His little body couldn't handle having something. It certainly couldn't handle having so much all at once. And so he died out there on the trail. Oh, gosh. You hear about that a lot. Yeah. And it's just like a heartbreaking way to die. It really is. Yeah. You're starving and you finally get food and you just eat too much of it. Well, and I mean, that's why, yeah, you would almost have to have a rescuer or someone there who was in charge doling your food out because how could you stop yourself? I know that was a problem in when they freed people from concentration camps. Yeah. Was some people got food and they ate too much and died.

Now I guess I can't remember the science behind that. Is it? Well, I'm a scientist, so don't worry. Well, and I figured, you know, you would know. Uh-huh. Can I Google that real quick? Yeah, sure. It triggers re-feeding syndrome, a life-threatening condition caused by drastic shifts in the body's fluid and electrolyte balance, particularly potassium, magnesium, and phosphorus.

Hmm. The body's metabolic process struggled to adapt to the sudden influx of carbs, rapidly depleting these vital minerals and leading to severe potentially fatal consequences. So it's like an imbalance of stuff in your body. Well said, Norm. Yeah. Thank you. Coming from a scientist, that means a lot. Thank you, Kristen.

You're welcome. Mm-hmm. I should probably get back to doing science stuff instead of this podcast, huh? The lab's wondering where you've been. Sure. Mm-hmm. By the time the first rescue group reached Sutter's Fort, it was early March. The 18 people who'd survived the journey began the strange adjustment to their new surroundings.

They had food. They had shelter. Real shelter. But they also had trauma and so many prying questions to answer. In the meantime, James Reed's rescue group made their way closer and closer to Truckee Lake. When they finally made it there, they came upon a grisly scene. The conditions had gotten worse. So much worse since that first rescue group left them.

They'd starved. They'd laid in their own filth. They'd lost their minds. Some had died. Others had done unthinkable things. Things that they hadn't known the snowshoers had resorted to as well. In the absence of any other food, they'd begun to eat their dead. At Alder Creek, the rescuers came upon Jacob Donner's children, consuming their father's body.

They came upon a teamster, holding his severed leg. At Truckee Lake, they discovered signs of cannibalism as well, bodies that had been butchered, strange pots of food. It was disturbing, disturbing to do and disturbing to witness. But at the same time, it had kept people alive. Mm-hmm. It's amazing that it's now March, so it's almost been a full year. Yeah.

Since they've left Springfield, Illinois. That's what I think is so wild. This journey that, I mean, of course, was going to take a very long time, four to six months. It had now been about a year. Mm-hmm. When James Reed discovered that his children, Tommy and Patty, had survived, he was overjured. somehow in the grimmest, most awful circumstances they'd lived. He hugged them. He made them soup. And then he checked in on the others. He found Lewis Keseberg, filthy and despondent, barely able to move.

Months earlier, when James Reed had killed a man in self-defense out on the trail, Lewis Keseberg had been the first to suggest that James Reed be killed. He'd offered his own wagon as the spot where James Reed could be hanged. And now, after all they'd been through, James Reed helped Louis Keseberg. He bathed him. He fed him. He combed his hair.

And then, just like the first rescue party, the second rescue party had to make decisions, tough decisions, about who was strong enough for the journey back and who would be left behind. And again? Yeah. That's horrible, isn't it?

Well, it's like, man, you just want the weather to be done and you want everyone out of there. It's like, man, it just feels like it's never ending. It's funny. I hadn't even thought about this aspect of it. That, yeah, it's tough enough to get out there. And then you have to make these kinds of decisions. Yeah. You can't even rescue everyone.

Mm-hmm. What a horrible position for everyone to be in. Well, and be like, well, got to go back. We're not done yet. Yeah. Yeah. Rescuers determined that 14 people from Truckee Lake were fit for the journey. They only took three people from Alder Creek because George Donner was somehow still alive.

With his infected arm? Yeah, I don't know how this dude was hanging on. And his wife, Tamsen, refused to leave him. She said that as long as he was still breathing, she wouldn't leave him. Tamsin made the decision that she and George and their three young daughters, six-year-old Francis, four-year-old Georgia, and three-year-old Eliza, would wait for the next rescue group. They'd leave that place as a family.

Wow. Okay, that decision wasn't quite as illogical as it sounds. They had been told that another rescue group was just a few days behind them, and they were coming with plenty of provisions. But that wasn't true. Okay, it turned out to not be true, but the rescuers genuinely believed it because there were provisions. I'll get to that a bit later. Okay.

Those provisions would help strengthen the people at Truckee Lake and Alder Creek. Those provisions would make them more ready for that tough journey to Sutter's Fort. And as you pointed out, Norm, that did turn out to be inaccurate. The other group wasn't anywhere close to the Donner Party, and they weren't planning on getting much. closer. There was just so much snow. Freaking snow. I hate snow, by the way. Don't know if people know that. Not a fan. And here's just another example of why snow sucks. This is probably the most extreme example, but okay, you can go with it. You mostly just hate walking the dogs in snow, but that's very comparable to this situation here, don't you agree? No, it's not. It's just as

hard. It's not. It just causes a lot of problems, like rest of, rescuing the Donner party. Uh-huh, for example. For just one example. So the rescuers knew who would stay and who would go. But before they headed back to Sutter's Fort, they had a party. Well, kind of. They had a shopping spree.

Shopping spree? Yeah, why not? Jacob Donner was dead. His stuff was everywhere. And now it was for sale, kind of. The rescuers happily bought clothes and knives and all the stuff that the Donners had thought fit to pack with them when they left Springfield, Illinois back in the spring of 1846. Wait, the Donners were selling Jacob Donner's stuff to the rescuers?

I'm not really sure who profited from this. This was considered kind of one of the perks of the job. For the rescuers. Well, yeah, they're the only ones who are working. Kind of. What the hell? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, they were being paid and yeah, they were doing a good thing. but, you know, it's not like all the rescuers had hearts of gold, Norm. So, following the world's grimaced shopping spree, James Reed gave out assignments. Some of the rescuers would stay behind. They'd take care of the remaining survivors and wait for the next rescue group. And with that, it was time to get going. The second relief party was ready to head out of Truckee Lake and back to safety.

But one of the women who'd been selected for the journey wasn't quite ready. It was Elizabeth Graves. Elizabeth Graves didn't know it for sure, but she was a widow. Her husband, Franklin Graves, had been the one to construct snow shoes for the group that had gone on that horrible journey to get help. The rescuers had told white lies to the survivors. They'd said, all the snowshoers survived. They're all safe. They're just resting up. Right. Elizabeth's husband had gone on that journey.

So had her two oldest daughters. so had her son-in-law. And although she had been told that they'd all survived, Elizabeth had a feeling that they hadn't. She knew deep in her gut that if her husband was doing as well as they said he was doing,

then he would be back here with her, with the rest of their young children. If Franklin Graves was alive and even kind of okay, he would have come back to save the rest of his family. That's a good point.

Yes and no. Yeah, I mean, it is kind of a funny thing where the rescuers would have to say, no, this guy's not doing very well in order to really sell it that, yeah, he needed to stay back. Because if you're just saying, oh, he's not doing so hot, but he's actually really good, then if you really know the guy, you're going to know that can't possibly be true. Yeah, she's his wife. She knows him. He did that incredible thing of making snow shoes for everybody.

When he died, he was like, eat my body. Yeah, he told his daughters to think about their children, to think about their siblings, their mom back at camp, and to do what they needed to do. Yeah, so she knows her husband. And so she knows, my husband is alive and well. He would be in this second relief party coming to save me. Yes.

He would do whatever it took. Yes. So, yeah, she knows they're full of shit. So now, facing rescue, Elizabeth thought about what her life might look like without her husband. She'd be a widow in a place she'd never been before, with so many children to care for. How would she do it? How would they all survive? She knew only one way. She'd have to take her nest egg. She and Franklin had hidden silver coins in their wagon for most of the journey out west.

when they'd had to disassemble the wagon, they'd hid the coins again. And now she and her remaining children were about to be rescued. She couldn't leave without her coins, so she gathered them. And though it made her itchy with paranoia, Elizabeth knew that she had to hand that bag of coins over to one of the rescuers. Ooh. She had her own infant daughter to carry on the journey. She couldn't carry the bag of coins, too.

But then, just as they were about to take off, off. Elizabeth overheard something. It was one of the rescuers. He was joking about running off with her coins, joking about taking the only material thing she had left in this world. Elizabeth stopped, cold. She demanded the coins back. She told James Reed, my children and I are staying back for a bit. We're going to catch up to you. As the rescue group began their journey to Sutter's Fort, Elizabeth hurried around back at Truckee Lake, figuring out where exactly to hide. her bag of coins. It was a balancing act. She needed to hurry so that they could catch up to the group and be rescued, but she also needed to take enough time to find a hiding spot that wouldn't be too

obvious to anyone who came along looking for loot. Before long, she found a spot to hide her bag of coins. She memorized it, or tried to anyway. She told herself she'd come back to that spot as soon as she could. She'd retrieve those coins one day. Once she was satisfied, she took off with her children. They hustled to catch up to the rest of the group. It trudged through the snow. There were 17 survivors in that group, and 14 of them were children. So three adults? Yeah. Holy moly. Again, I'm just, I always forget how many children were in the Donner Party. And they obviously have adult rescuers there too. Yeah. But it's, it's incredible how many children there were. I really do think children are forgotten about in this story. Every time I hear it told,

you don't, there's not a lot of focus on the children. It's uncomfortable. Yeah. I think it's uncomfortable for obvious reasons, but I think that their omission from a lot of the stories makes sense when you think about how people sometimes talk about the Donner Party. People make a joke about the cannibalism, or especially back then when it happened, there was a lot of shaming. Like, they did this because they wanted to. Yeah. Well, I even talked about that stupid-ass big podcast that said that they developed a taste for cannibalism. For human flesh.

Yeah. Which is such an awful and untrue thing to say. And I think it's just an attempt on our part to distance ourselves from these people. We don't want to ever imagine that we might be in a situation like this. And so one of the easiest ways to do it is to demonize them. Yeah. And, well, you can't really demonize children. So let's not focus so much on the kids.

I think another thing, and this came out a lot in the stories about them, kind of immediately after they were rescued, was this idea that, well, they did it wrong. Yeah, they got on the California Trail and all that stuff, but they did it wrong. They were ill-prepared. They took that shortcut, blah, blah, blah. Did it wrong? Yeah, dumb, dumb, dumb.

No, they were given bad advice. Yeah, I mean, it's inaccurate in every way. But also, I think it's another attempt to distance ourselves. Like, well, I would never make that decision. And I think you can only really talk that way about people when you really just forget about the fact that there were children, so many children involved. who even if the adults had been ill-prepared, which they weren't,

even if they had been stupid, which they weren't, the children were blameless. Right. The journey was hard. They were so much more depleted than that first group. They were running on fumes, fumes that would have to take them through the freezing cold, through high snow. There'd be no relief.

They had hardly any food. Snow blindness set in. Frostbite set in. Their result. They were far from Truckee Lake now, and they were far from any relief, and it was in that state, gathered around a fire, surrounded by snow, and having gone without any food for two full days, after months of eating next to nothing, that most of them said, no more. They couldn't do it. The Breen family stopped cold. So did the Graves family. They couldn't go any further. They were done. James Reed implored them. If you don't keep going, you'll die. But they couldn't. They couldn't keep going. They had nothing left. So James Reed and the other rescuers did what they could. They cut some firewood and left it for them. They warned them that they were choosing death. Seven-year-old Mary Donner wanted to keep going. She wanted to keep going with James Reed and the other rescuers and the three children they were taking with them. James Reed's own children, plus her older brother. but the night before Mary had fallen asleep by the fire and her foot had fallen into it.

Her foot had been so frostbitten that she hadn't even noticed. And now with the rescuers leaving, Mary tried to follow them. She hobbled on her badly damaged foot through the snow. She moved as fast as she could, but she fell. Her injured foot meant that she wasn't up for the journey. Not anymore. Mary cried as the men took her back. back to the spot where the graves and the brain families had stopped. She was stuck, stuck at a

place that would later be dubbed the Starved Camp. Meanwhile, the second relief party moved forward. Now they were four rescuers and three children, but they kept going. They kept going. And then, what the, huh? Up marched two rescuers? Two rescuers who had been assigned to stay at Truckee Lake and Alder Creek. They were Charles Katie and Charles Stone, and they were supposed to be watching over the survivors, the ones who were too weak for the journey. Well, how the

hell did they end up there? What the hell? The truth didn't come out that night, but it did eventually, and I'll tell it to you now. Charles Katie and Charles Stone had been at Alder Creek, where they'd been assigned to stay, and they'd been talking quietly, but not

too quietly, about the weather. It looked bad. It looked like there would be more snow. And the food was running low. Way too low. Together, they agreed that as two healthy, able-bodied men, it'd be in their best interest to escape. Escape while they still could.

But Tams and Donner overheard their conversation. She freaked out. It had been one thing for her to decide to stay behind with her ailing husband. But she'd made that decision for their three young daughters, too, thinking that they'd make it out alive. But with another snowstorm coming and the rescuers plotting their escape, Tamsin knew what might happen. Her three daughters would die.

So she bargained with the men. She told them, okay, okay, you're leaving. But please take my daughters with you. My two stepdaughters have already been rescued. Just bring my three daughters to them. And in exchange, I will give you $500. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $20,000. A lot of money.

Wouldn't you? I mean in a situation like this, the men obviously said, yes, it was an amazing sum of money. Tamson loaded her daughter's packs with every valuable possession she could. She knew she was sending them off without any money, but surely they could barter with what she gave them. She hugged the girls. They said goodbye. They say goodbye to their father, George Donner, knowing it would likely be the last time they'd see him. Tamson could have gone to, but she still refused to leave his side.

So the rescuers took off with Tampson and George Donner's three daughters, plus the $500 and all those valuable possessions. And you know, they went away. And the men decided that the journey was pretty hard with those three little girls. So they turned around. Oh, my God. Oh, it gets worse. Because instead of going back to Alder Creek to their parents,

they went the shorter distance to Truckee Lake, where they dropped the girls off with the only remaining survivors, Levinna Murphy, the 36-year-old widow who was barely hanging on to her mind, two children, and of course, Louis Kessberg. In other words, the two rescuers left those little girls behind, but took their parents' money and all of those possessions. Absolute. Pieces of shit. Reprehensible behavior. That's horrible. It's funny. I don't know that I fully blame anybody for wanting to make an escape. I don't even know that I would blame anybody for making an escape and just saying, you know what? I think all these people are going to die. And I've

got a shot. I'm leaving. Sorry, I'm leaving. Yeah, that's not the bad part. But to separate this family and take their stuff, unbelievable. But you know what, Norm, the two men moved really quickly when they didn't have three little girls to take with them. Isn't that great? They made good time. Yeah. So they came out ahead of the second relief party, huh? Well, they caught up to them pretty fast. They caught up to them, yeah. The horrible stuff's not done, so... Oh, cool. Strap in. At one point, they'd come across that camp, the starved camp, where the graves and brein families had stopped. It was an odd sight. By then, the group's fire had melted the surrounding snow. It had melted it and melted it until now the two families were in essentially a pit. Charles Katie and Charles

Stone had looked down into that pit. They'd seen the starving people. They'd seen what looked like a couple of corpses, and they kept going. And then they'd caught up with James Reed and the other rescuers and the three young survivors. What words were exchanged is a mystery, but what isn't a mystery is what happened next. They all kept going. and kept going. It's funny, I think it would be a situation where once you see what someone's capable of doing and they're out there on the trail with you,

I'm not going to pick a fight. It'd be very unwise to. I know, but I'd be like, why the hell are you here? Yeah. In my head. Finally, against all odds, they reached safety.

It was incredible. The entire Reed family was reunited. Somehow they'd all survived James, Margaret, Virginia, Patty, James, and Tommy. They'd all lived. That is incredible. Yes. And of course, others weren't so lucky.

By that point, a third rescue group was headed toward Truckee Lake and Alder Creek. It was headed up by two men, William Eddie and William Foster. Both of those men had been part of that snowshoe group that had gone off in search of help. They were the only men who'd survived it, and they hadn't always gotten along. William Foster had been the one to suggest they murder and consume the Native American guides, Luis and Salvador. And William Eddie had been the one to quietly warn Louise and Salvador that their lives were in danger. Right. Days later, William Foster tracked the men's bloody footprints in the snow.

He murdered them. In many ways, William Eddie and William Foster were polar opposites. But now they were back on the trail, back in those horrific conditions. but united for the same reason. Both of them had young sons back at camp. In fact, William Foster had his mother-in-law, Levinna Murphy, back at camp. She, no doubt, was the one looking after their two young boys.

And so, although William Eddie and William Foster were so different, they shared their most important goal, a goal to get back to that God-forsaken camp and rescue their loved ones. So the two of them, along with her, five other hired men made their way back on the trail, back through the snow, back into the cold, and soon spotted smoke in the distance. Just smoke. They got closer. The smoke seemed to be coming out of the snow. They peered over the edge of that snow. It was a pit, a pit that was now

24 feet deep and 15 feet in diameter. Is this the starving camp? Yes. Oh my God, 24 feet? Yeah. Some of the people down in that pit were still alive. The entire Breen family was alive. Mary Donner, the little girl whose burned foot had prevented her from leaving with that second crew, was still alive. How? Elizabeth Graves, who'd feared her husband was dead, who'd been so afraid of her coins being stolen that she'd stayed back to hide them, was dead.

So was her five-year-old son. so was five-year-old Isaac Donner. The survivors had cannibalized their bodies. That's how they were alive. Oh, my God. But by that point, they were all nearly dead. Well, nearly dead and like stuck in a pit now. Yeah.

What's going through your head down there? It's like, well, you know, if the lack of food doesn't kill us, us being in this pit is going to kill us. I wonder when you're in that position, how much you're even able to think at all. Yeah. The rescue crew had decisions to make. Some of them would stay behind.

They'd take the survivors to safety. The rest would keep going. It was an incredible challenge. But thanks to that rescue team, the Breen family joined the Reed family as being the only two families to survive the ordeal intact. Wait, they got out of that pit?

Yes. Yes, they got them out of the pit and got them to safety. Holy moor how what do you mean how do they get them out of there 24 feet um using the using the snow one source said using the snow they had kind of notched steps into it oh like winding down wow i don't know if it was that elaborate i doubt it just build a beautiful staircase yeah normally if they've got that kind of energy i think they would have been on the trail again look at the trim work on these snow stairs it's incredible it's all decorative which seems kind of

of silly, but you know, we can't judge. William Eddy took his time. Handcrafted snow stairs. Wow. I can't believe anyone survived from that starvation camp. When they all decided to stay back, I thought, well, they're all just going to die. Oh, yeah. I can't believe that.

And it's very reasonable to assume, like, this will be the end for them. Yeah. But they made it. As those survivors recovered, William Foster and William Eddie pressed ahead. They had to get to their boys. When they arrived at Truckee Lake, they didn't waste time. They rushed to the pitiful shelters. There, William Foster found his mother-in-law, Levinna Murphy, barely clinging to life, barely clinging to sanity.

He asked her where the boys were. Where was three-year-old James Eddy? Where was two-year-old George Foster? Levinna Murphy responded with one word. Dead. Soon, the truth, or some version of it anyway, emerged. Both boys had died. Both of their bodies had.

been cannibalized. But Levina told the men that her grandson, two-year-old George Foster, hadn't simply died. Lewis Kesseberg, had murdered him. She said Lewis had brought the boy to bed with him one night and strangled him and then cannibalized his body. Oh my God. Lewis Keseberg was laying right there in the cabin when Levina Murphy made that accusation, and he protested. He hadn't killed anyone. Yes, he'd eaten human flesh. Yes, he'd butchered the boys bodies, but both of the boys had died from natural causes. Neither of the men believed Lewis Kesseberg. They weren't just grieving. They were enraged. They were traumatized. William Eddie had worked so hard to save his family. His wife, Eleanor, his daughter, Margaret, his son, James. And not only were they

all dead, but he discovered that all of their bodies had been cannibalized. It's been said that William Eddie vowed to one day kill Lewis Keseberg. But that day, he turned his focus on survival. Those three young Donner girls, the children of George and Tams and Donner, they were right there at Truckee Lake. They'd been left there by those asshole rescuers who'd taken the Donner's money and valuables and left their children behind. So William Eddie and William Foster decided that their best course of action would be to rescue the three Donner girls. They looked like they might survive the journey. And just as they were about to make that decision, Tampson Donner rushed in, frantic. She'd come all the way from Alder Creek, where there'd been more death, more cannibalism, more heartbreak.

And she'd come all that way because one of the rescuers, the one who'd actually stayed behind to help, had recently come to Truckee Lake and discovered that her three daughters had been left there. Yeah, yeah, because Tamson was like, oh, I thought they were being taken all the way to, to, to, Fort Sutter or whatever. And the one good guy who stayed behind finds out, oh no, they've been at Truckee Lake for God knows how long. Yeah. Tamson begged William Eddy, please take my daughters.

She offered him money, but he refused it. He told her he didn't want her money. He'd take her daughters to safety or die trying. Then Tampson asked him for one more thing. Time. There were still people at Alder Creek, people who could be rescued. There were two people, Nicholas Clark. and a 16-year-old named Jean-Baptiste Trudeau,

who would definitely be up for the journey. Maybe one of them could carry out her nephew, one-year-old Samuel Donner. She just needed time to rush back and let them know. But William Eddy said no. It looked like it was going to snow again. They needed to get going. Freaking snow.

Yeah. Good, Lord. Just not stopping. Yeah, the snowfall in this winter, it's a cruel joke. It's awful. Ridiculous. Yeah.

And then William made her an offer, an offer that Tamsin had heard from every single relief party thus far. Come with us. You're strong enough. And once again, she said no. Her husband was still alive. George is still alive. Yeah. Tamson said goodbye to her three little girls, a second time.

She headed back to Alder Creek as the third rescue party made its way out of Truckee Lake. They left behind Levina Murphy and Louis Kessie. The third rescue party made their way through the snow. They traveled. They traveled. And then one night, in a scene that was strangely reminiscent of what happened with the second relief party, two dudes walked up. They were Nicholas Clark and Jean-Baptiste Trudeau. What? Yep. The two dudes who Tams and Donner had been so dead set on rescuing, the ones she wanted to go back and warn so that they could hurry up and join the rescue crew.

and here they were. So soon. And strangely, not carrying little Sammy Donner. Instead, they were carrying valuables, valuables that didn't belong to them. The dudes claimed that they didn't have Sammy Donner because Sammy Donner was dead. Sad, but so true.

Whose stuff did they have? The Donner's stuff. They just stole the rest of the Donner stuff. Yeah, so the truth was that Samuel Donner was still alive. He wouldn't be for long, but he was still alive. And they'd snuck away with some of the Donors' valuables when Tamson had been at the lake, ironically, fighting for them to be rescued. Oh my God. But just like that other scenario, what could be done now and who was going to start a fight out on the trail? You're introducing a lot of shitheads in this episode, Kristen.

This is the episode with all the shiths. Yeah, we have a shit list. We're going to make a shit list. They pressed on as a group until finally they arrived at Johnson's ranch. That concluded the third rescue mission. And there were still people out there at Truckee Lake and at Alder Creek. But how many of them were still alive? What were the chances that any of them were still alive? They knew for sure that they'd left behind George Donner, Tampson Donner, Sammy Donner, Levina Murphy, and Lewis Casaberg.

But George Donner had to be dead. Same with Sammy Donner, same with Levina Murphy. That left just two people, two people with opposite reputations. Tams and Donner, the former teacher who everyone loved, and Lewis Casaberg, the one who was maybe a murderer and most definitely an asshole. Can confirm he was definitely an asshole. Yeah, but there was something else out at Truckee Lake, Norm, something else out at Alder Creek, something that drew me. people's interest, something that made people inclined to go along on a fourth and final rescue mission. What was it? Uh, I don't know. I'm going to need more energy. It was stuff. Oh,

there was stuff. They want their stuff? Yeah, Elizabeth Graves' sack of silver coins was out there somewhere. You just had to look for it real hard. And you know what? I heard George Donner was super rich, like super rich. Actually, you know what? I heard everyone in the Donner Party was all super rich. It's just Prada and Gucci and Kirkland's signature out there buried in the snow. Oh, this is gross. Oh, all that's stuff. So treasure hunters. That, no, rescuers. No. Norm, these are rescue rangers. And if they just happen to get some bolts of fabric, which is a term you just learned the other day, then so be it. Is this how Chippendale came along? It is. Chit, The dancers and the cartoon.

Going to Donner Lake, no more danger. Wow. You know a lot. Oh, that's a really grim version of that song. There's a grim episode of Chippendale Rescue Rangers. Let me tell you. Norm, you don't seem excited enough, but I'm excited because all that stuff, that valuable stuff that the immigrants had taken in covered wagons on that slow, arduous journey was out there still

right for the taking. So the fourth group came together, a group that would, yeah, sure, find the survivors and rescue them, whatever, but also a group that would help themselves to all the stuff. Okay, now there were some rules, unfortunately. Before that fourth group took off in April of 1847, a judge decided that there would be a bonus given to anyone who rescued a survivor. And that was common throughout this.

And that whatever stuff they found out there, half of it would go to the estates, and half of it would go to the rescuers. To which I say, how are we going to get an accurate accounting for what they find out there? The honor code, I guess. Yeah, that's not going to happen. Yeah, I didn't find much. If I'm one of these rescuers, I'm going to find some stuff, bury some stuff, and come back to it later and then show up for the accounting process and be like, here's what I found.

A whole set of Desert Rose China. I would sure hate if someone took half of this. That's all I found. It's like underreporting on your taxes. Careful, Norm. We don't want the IRS listening. Well, I don't want to give anyone bad tax advice. People do this. Didn't Mike the situation do that from Jersey Shore? You know, I was very worried that we wouldn't bring up Mike the situation on this episode. I'm so glad you found a way to do it. We've got cottage cheese discharge, Mike the situation, and once again, bolts of fabric. How can anyone be upset with this episode?

It's got it all. So woohoo, treat yourself. It was time. They hauled us. They went to Truckee Lake. Was this the biggest rescue party yet? Oh, I don't know about that. I do wonder.

But they were certainly enthusiastic. Sure. So they arrived to Truckee Lake and Alder Creek and they found. Death. Death and evidence of cannibalism. Oh, and, ew, Lewis Keseberg. Louis Kessabberg was the only person still alive. The rescuers interrogated him. They asked about Tams and Donner,

and he said that she'd come to his cabin after George and Sammy died. He said he'd told her to go to bed, and she had, and the next morning she was dead. And he admitted that he'd cannibalized her body. But had she really died naturally? or had he murdered her? Had he murdered Levinna Murphy too? There were those questions,

but really, the bigger question was, where was all the stuff? Oh, God, they were surrounded by gross bullshit. Ew, it smelled bad. Ew, where was the silver? Where were the bolts of silk? Where were the Nintendo Wees? No.

Yes, where were they, Norm? Louis Casaberg claimed ignorance. There wasn't. any stuff. The men were furious. They knew he was hiding something. He'd gathered up all the valuables and he'd tucked him all away, probably after he'd murdered everybody who'd ever lived. But Lewis denied it and denied it and denied it until finally the men created a noose and they hung him from it. What? Just before he was about to die, they released him. They gave him one more chance to tell the truth. And he did. Lewis Kessabberg admitted that he did have some money.

He led them to it, but it was less than $300. Adjusted for inflation just under $12K. Not exactly the massive pot of money that they were anticipating. You get a decent used horse. Only 55,000 miles on this. Uh-huh. You know. A while later, the dejected rescue crew took off back for Fort Sutter,

with Lewis Kesseberg as the lone survivor. But along the way, Lewis spotted. something in the snow. It was a piece of cloth. By that point, the snow had melted significantly from where it had been just months earlier. Maybe he recognized the fabric because he pulled it, and there she was. It was the body of his three-year-old daughter, Ada. Lois Kese-Kesberg, the man who had been deemed a villain, and who would be deemed a villain for the rest of his life, stopped. Heartbroken. He'd been told that his wife and daughter had survived. He'd been told. He'd been told, He'd believed it. What a horrible way to find out that he had been wrong. All of his children were dead.

Yeah. More than a week later, Lewis Kessaberg arrived at Sutter's Fort. He was the last member of the Donner Party to be rescued. It had been a harrowing journey for everyone. The rescue effort alone had taken two months. Ultimately, of the 87 members of the Donner Party, 41 people died. Forty-six, survived. Afterward, the survivors did their best to live normal lives, but it was hard. They had this stigma. They were infamous. They had severe trauma, but were looked at not always with compassion, but as curiosities. Some of the stories that got printed about them were wildly inaccurate. Some were downright cruel. They implied that the survivors had relished eating human flesh, mothers had feasted on their babies, not because they'd had to, but because they'd wanted to. Hmm, sounds familiar. Other, less cruel, but still inaccurate stories, painted the Donner Party as ill-prepared, stupid. They'd gone too slow on the trail. They'd taken an untested shortcut. How dumb!

It was a hard thing to process, and some of the survivors fared better than others. The only two families who survived the ordeal intact were the reeds and the breans, and both families did well for themselves in California. The brein family landed in San Juan Batista, where they were welcomed into the now, very famous Castro Adobe. What is that? Hang on to your hat, sir. Okay. The owner, Jose Antonio Castro, took the breeds in. He let them stay in his beautiful home in what is now the home's gift shop. Well, we gotta love a gift shop. Uh-huh. Later, when 16-year-old John Breen came home with gold, he'd discovered at Sutter's Mill,

the Brines purchased the home. They turned it into a hotel. They called it the United States Inn. Oh, okay. Very patriotic. Uh-huh. Almost trying too hard to be patriotic, I think. Well, maybe a little too hard, yep, yep.

That just reeks of, this definitely isn't Mexico anymore, okay, come on. on. Yeah, this is America, an American inn. Over the years, a bunch of people stayed there, including General William to Comsa Sherman. Ever heard of him, Norm? Oh, Norm's needs... Oh, Norm's needs... Oh, gross.

I didn't anticipate that, although I should have. What a great man. An American hero. Also, some jerk named Jay Ross Brown stayed there. He wrote an article for Harper's Magazine that was like, oh, my God, you guys. I stayed at a hotel, and it was run by Cannibal. I was like so scared the whole time. I thought they were going to nibble on me or something.

Oh, so like sensational. Yeah, what an asshole. Yeah. Like, okay, these people have been through the worst thing anyone can imagine. And you're like, ew. I was by them one time. And they were polite to me, but I was super scared. Yeah.

I bet he's ugly and his breath stinks. How about that? How about that? Future generations of the brain family stayed in that home until the 19th, 30s, and it is now known as the Castro-Breen Adobe, and it's part of San Juan Batista State Historic Park. Oh, I love a historic park. Okay, you should look it up.

You can go there now. All these places, you can go there. I'm so jealous of all these California history hoes who are like, oh, I took field trips to all these places. Yeah. What I have to do is go to California and enroll in the public school system as a fourth grader and go on all the field trips. Yeah, we've talked about this.

It's Billy Madison is what it is, I think. Well, Billy Madison failed those grades, so he re-enrolled. But, like, I feel like you... I don't know that I knocked it out of the park. I'm sure I could learn some things. Also, that's a movie. Right. You know, not real life.

Oh. Ooh. Is it still a hotel? Can you stay there? I don't think it's a hotel anymore. Yeah, that's cool. Oh, was that built? 1838.

Ooh, that's an old building. It does kind of look like an old-timey hotel for sure. I mean, yeah. Yeah. They were right to make it one. If there is a Coke machine on that second floor deck, I'd be like, who, yep, I think it's still an operation. There better be an ice bucket somewhere.

That's right. The Reed family settled in San Jose, and James Reed did exactly what he'd intended to do when he left Springfield, Illinois in the spring of 1846. He got rich again. He became successful again. Country superstar. He became a prominent citizen.

Top the charts. Uh-huh. He became who he'd always known himself to be. And Margaret Reed, who'd suffered her whole life with debilitating migraines, apparently never had another one. But not everyone fared as well as the reeds or the brains. Louis Kesseber got the worst of it. He and his wife, Elizabeth, survived the ordeal.

They went on to have eight children. Whoa. But their life wasn't happy. Louis Keseberg, rightly or wrongly, became the bad guy of the Donner Party. He sure did. Newspapers printed stories about him. Most of the sources were the men who'd been part of that fourth relief party. The men who'd arrived at Truckee Lake and Alder Creek convinced they'd find treasures and instead just found Lewis.

To journalists, the men painted a ghoulish picture of Lewis Kessaburg. He'd chosen to eat humans. There were horses and cattle right there, he chose human flesh instead. It got so bad that Lewis sued the men for telling false stories about him. He won his lawsuit, but he only got a dollar. Over the years, he tried opening different businesses, but none of them took off. One of them apparently was a restaurant, which...

Lewis, no, man. Here's the thing. I've got no judgment. In fact, I'm reverse judging. I'm hating all the people who are judging them, but I do have to admit, my God, Dude, if the one thing people say about you is that you're a ruthless cannibal, don't open a restaurant. No. Or a butchery. You can't do either one.

Absolutely. Do anything else. Yeah. Lewis died unhoused in a hospital. The cannibalism was a tough thing for the survivors of the Donner Party. The Reed family always claimed that none of them ever resorted to cannibalism. To which I say, sure, Jan. Yeah, I don't believe that.

No, I think what that says to me, first of all, of all, the Breen family and some of the others were caught in the act of cannibalism. Yeah. Or caught with so much evidence that it couldn't be denied. And I say caught. I really don't think they did anything bad or wrong here. They survived. The Reeds, there was never any evidence.

And I think the Reeds definitely stand out in this group as the family that was the best at PR. You know, James Reed was the one who came to California. with his fancy little suit and gloves and his letters of recommendation, you know, he really thought about how he was presented to the world. And so most of the survivors said nothing about cannibalism, would never speak on it. Some said, yes, I did what I had to do to survive.

And the reeds said, no, we all survived it. We're just really lucky. We're the one group that never did that. Boy, are we lucky. Yeah. it's better to just be like not say anything at all, especially knowing what your friends went through

to say like, yeah, we didn't have to eat anybody. Now, did they say like it's bad that people ate other people? Or are they just like kind of bragging that they didn't have to anybody? No, but they made it very clear to everyone that they had never done that. And I think it's interesting you use the word friends. Because I think in this situation it would be natural if this group all bonded together. but that is not what happened. After they were all rescued, they really scattered.

You know, the families stayed together, of course. Yeah, I would figure the survivors would bond over an experience like that. Because, like, they're the only people who can understand what you really went through, you know? I get that. But there were so many stories printed, you know, diaries that weren't supposed to be shared publicly, letters that weren't supposed to be shared publicly. Some stuff was just made up. Yeah.

And so I can see how there would be divisions. And especially if, you know, one group saying, oh, well, I never did that, that would be hard to hear. Because some of these, the Donner girls, yeah, they were fed human remains. They were fed those remains by their parents in an attempt to keep them alive. And I think there would be some feeling of defensiveness, defending your parents who died, to say, they kept me alive. Yeah. It's always sad hearing about Tams and Donner dying. Yeah.

After everything she did. Absolutely. Yeah. Staying behind. Yeah. To be with her husband and like trying to help her kids and like giving up everything she had to have her kids rescued and. Yeah. finding out that she ended up dying there, sad.

It's awful. And she's the one that was like, let's not take this shortcut. It sucks. Yeah. She had Lanceford Hastings number. She knew he was a selfish adventurer. She knew he was full of shit. Yeah.

But she was also a woman, you know? Mm-hmm. What do you think about Lewis Kesseberg? Do you think he killed her? I don't know. Well, it would be weird if you knew for sure. I know, but I can't. say anything.

I've been sworn to secrecy. Yeah, I really don't know how to answer that. It's like, it's like I can see it both ways, if that makes sense. I can see him killing people to survive. The thing is like, you know, there's no witnesses to this. They're all dead. Right. So.

There's also part of me that almost feels not very judgmental about it if he did. He was trying to survive. I know that seems probably insane to say that, but these situations where people maybe start thinking, okay, we're all going to die, or maybe one of us can die and the rest can survive, that's a dire situation. It would not shock me if he did it.

Yeah. He was a violent man. Yeah. If he felt like he could overpower someone and eat them and survive longer, he's going to do it. Maybe. One of the people who really struggled, with the cannibalism stuff was nine-year-old Nancy Graves.

She was one of the people rescued from the snowy pit, known as the starved camp. Her mother, Elizabeth Graves, had died there, and so had her brother. Nancy didn't find out until later that she'd consumed her mother's flesh down there in that pit. And she lived a very long life, but she was never able to get past that and never able to forgive herself. How did she not know? She was eating her own mom. I think you have to imagine the conditions they were in, how cold and dizzy. And, you know, when you get really cold, you kind of hold in on yourself.

I also think if I'm an adult in that situation, so if I'm one of the Breen parents, because there were only three adults, it was the two Breenes and Elizabeth Graves. And Elizabeth dies. Yeah, I'm going to feed all the children, including Elizabeth. Elizabeth's child. Yeah. And I'm going to do that in a way that hopefully the kids won't know what they're eating. So I think it's a combination of she's not working with all of her senses at that time. And also there are two adults in charge who I think understandably would want to feed her,

but not want her to know it was her own mom. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. Or to know that it was human. You know, I think in that situation, if you're the adult, I can see just. saying, eat this. Yeah. And you're so starving, you don't care what it is. You eat it.

I can also see lying to a kid. Now, there are a few men who actually needed to atone for what they'd done. Though, of course, they didn't. William Foster, the man who murdered the Native American guides, Luis and Salvador, was never charged for their murders. Seems that at that time murdering two Native American men was not a crime. And speaking of absolute bullshit, let's talk about our pal, Lansford Hastings. Oh, we all hate him. What's all Lansford Haystings react? Oh, you think he cared. The man who's racist, irresponsible bestselling book, the emigrants guide to Oregon and California encouraged readers to take a shortcut that he himself had never taken. And then, when he did take it and saw firsthand that it wasn't fit for wagons,

he continued to promote it. Remember that guy? Yeah. Well, although he was certainly hated by the surviving members of the Donner Party. He faced no real consequences for his role in their fate. He moved to San Francisco, tried to practice law, but didn't do so great. He still wanted something big for himself, Norm. And then, oh my gosh, the Civil War happened. And you'll never guess which side Lanceford Hastings was on. I know what side he went on was the Confederacy. Yeah, he thought it was very cool. and just the way for him to become the big, important boy that he'd always dreamed himself to be. Yeah, it didn't work out that way, though, huh?

You are just a sassy little man. Lanceford floated an idea, quite an idea, I'd say, that he should lead a Confederate army to what is now Arizona and claim it for the Confederacy. When the Confederacy was defeated, Lanceford believed that the Confederacy would rise again. In Brazil! That's right. Lancford Hastings was part of a very weird group of dudes who set up a colony of Confederates in Brazil. Okay, I have to do a bonus episode on this. This is ridiculous. I had no idea this happened. Really? Yeah, I was reading this with like my jaw on the floor. Like, of course, Lanceford Hastings was in on this.

This is ridiculous. It was a thing. Yeah, and some people really did go to Brazil. But of course, Lancford wanted more people to go to Brazil. So what did he do? He wrote a book. He titled it, The Immigrants Guide to Brazil. Oh, boy. He died in 1870.

By that point, the hair on his head had manifest destinyed all the way to his butt, and it trapped his farts in. And that's how he died in an explosion of his own farts. Wow. Yeah, that's a true story. Source on that. It is very funny, and I hope it's true. You know what? Let's believe it's true.

just like some people believed in his shortcut. Okay. Ding! Yeah. Oh, it's infuriating that Lanceford Hastings just kept on living while the survivors of the Donner Party struggled. They had PTSD before that was a term. They had unbelievable trauma without the resources to cope with it.

Later in life, one of Mary Graves' grandchildren talked about how Mary had always been so serious. She seemed to have a wall up all the time. They said she once told them, I wish I could cry, but I cannot. If I could forget the tragedy, perhaps I would know how to cry again. Well, when you experience something so horrible, what would make you cry? Yeah, I think you would disassociate you would go into a state of numbness.

Yeah. And this is all very dangerous of me to say because I do not have a degree in psychology. That's true. You are a scientist, though. It's true. And I know that stuff about hair-trapping fart. in butts and people dying. So let's all think about that for a while.

Do you think Lanceford Hastings shot himself when he died? Oh, absolutely. And it all got caught in the hair in his butt. So it was just a mess of dingleberries. Yes. And the coroner was just like, I got to shave the hair for the funeral, but it's just filled with dingleberries. It's going to clog up my razor.

You know what? I'm just going to put a tie on him and we're just going to call it good. Call it a day, yeah. And you know, legend has it, Norm, that as Lansford Hastings was dying from those farts and the poop and all that, he started running around, kind of chicken with its head cut off type of situation, and he fell face first into a buffalo chip. But it wasn't quite a buffalo chip because it was a fresh one.

It was a little fresh. Yeah, and so it was just a real humiliating experience for him. Man, I can't believe this is all true. I know. I know. It's wild. This is what the history books don't tell you. So I have to listen to this podcast.

These days, the story of the Donner Party still strikes a chord with people. It's horrifying. It's inspiring. And it's so deeply human. For years after the tragedy, people struggled to find the right way to remember it. Truckee Lake was renamed Donner Lake. Truckee Pass was renamed Donner Pass. Donner Memorial State Park, located in Truckee, California, preserves the area where so many members of the Donner

Party died and where the rest of them struggled to stay alive. And in 1918, a monument was unveiled commemorating the Donner Party. It was titled, The Pioneer. Is this a plaque alert? Absolutely. It features a man looking off into the distance, a woman hunched at his side, carrying an infant, and a young girl at their feet. It sits atop a platform 22 feet high in the air, the same height as the snow in the winter of 1846. Three of the Donner Party survivors were there for the statues unveiling. They'd been young girls out on the trail. But now, Francis Donner, Eliza Donner, and Patty Reed were old women. Francis Donner still carried food with her, everywhere she went. Patty Reed still had that lock of her grandmother, Sarah Keys' hair. From the trail, the women were glad to see a memorial for their

families after the hardship and criticism they'd all faced. I'd like to close this series with a quote from a woman who lived a very long life, but didn't live quite long enough to take part in that unveiling. I'm talking about Virginia Reed. Virginia had been just 12 years old when her family set off on the California Trail. She later wrote a memoir about the experience, but it was a letter that she wrote to her cousin, not long after being rescued, that contains the piece of prose that is so often repeated at the end of every retelling of the Donner Party's story. It goes like this. We have left everything, but I don't care for that. We have got through with our lives. Don't let this letter dishearten anybody. Remember, never take no cutoffs, and hurry along as fast as you can.

Virginia's words, I think, stand out because it highlights in such a concise way how dire it was, And yet, running through it, after all they'd been through, was that fundamental optimism. That optimism that got them on the trail in the first place, don't let this letter dishearten anybody. And that's the story of the Donner Party. Great job, Kristen. Thanks. How do you feel? Oh, good.

This story, it means a lot to me. It's, I'm fascinated by it. Yeah. Yeah, it just, it makes me very emotional what people went through. Some people say that the reason this story strikes a chord with people so much is because it's about ordinary people. Every single one of these people was just an ordinary person. Right. And they were put into these extraordinarily awful, difficult circumstances and just did what they could to survive for their family.

I think that's why people connect to it so much. Yeah. Yeah, it's not, I always forget the term, like big name history, you know, like the big titans of history, like the presidents and the generals, you know, it's not that history. This is like everyday people. That's what makes it so horrifying and what makes it, you know, people just can relate to it, I guess, in some way. I feel like when you do kind of a deep dive into it, you can't help but put yourself in people's shoes. Yeah. And that's why it's so tempting to say after three episodes of this series, I'm done.

I'd rather stop putting myself in their shoes. Thank you. Yeah. Yep. I always loved that photo. I don't know if you came across this photo of people showing some trees that were much shorter than the other trees. And that's because the Donner Party had cut those trees when the snow was super high. Yeah.

That is chilling because so much of this stuff you're like, well, was this exaggerated? This can't be real. But there are some photos taken from not long after the rescue, but when the snow had melted. And yeah, you have these trees that were cut really high up in the air. Right. And the only way that happened was because that's where the ground was. That's where the snow was. Oh.

Horrifying. I do want to talk briefly about a thing that I've noticed nearly everyone else talks about, and I didn't write anything about it, but now I kind of feel compelled to. A lot of people are very fascinated by the fact that so many men died and so many women survived. Ah, yeah. And I initially wasn't going to talk about it because it felt kind of weird to me for a while. I was like, is this just like history dudes back in the day were like, what happened to the boys? Let's hear it for the boys.

Yeah, I thought it was kind of weird. But then one of the books I read, it contains some kind of interesting information that made me kind of go, okay, I can understand why people were so perplexed by this back then. And the author said that this thing we have now where we just assume like, well, yeah, women live longer than men. That's the way it is. It wasn't that way back then at all. That's a relatively recent phenomenon because, you know, women died a lot in childbirth and stuff. Right. And so the idea of men and women going through something like this and the women faring better than the men was just shocking to people. And of course there are all kinds of potential reasons for that. One of them being women tend to hold more weight. And some people say, well, the men were doing more of the harder work out on the trail.

Who knows? But I have a theory. Let's hear it, Kristen. As a scientist, we want to know your thoughts. Yeah, I should preface this with, I have no real qualifications. This is just something I've been thinking this whole time. Okay. And I think about what it would be like to be a man in this situation.

And at this point in time, as the head of the household, you're probably the one who said, we're going to California. We're moving. You made the decision. You're probably also the one who decided we're taking this shortcut. And I just keep thinking, what would it be like to be the head of the household, the one who made all those critical decisions, and then be saying, stuck out there and watch everyone starve. Watch your children starve. Watch your wife starve. I think about Jacob Donner and how, you know, what was described to me seems very obviously to be a horrible depression. He dies with his head and his hands, clearly feeling awful. And to me,

I wonder about the debilitating guilt and depression some of these men faced. And then I think about what it would be like to be a woman in that position. And I didn't include this part, but at one camp they had along the cutoff, James Reed dubbed it like, I think it was the angry women camp or the mad mother's camp or something that it kind of sounds like a joke

when you hear it, but then you think about these are women reacting to, oh my God, I'm in this position. watching my children starve and suffer, and I didn't make this choice. Yeah. And I wonder if that feeling of kind of being second in charge and seeing the first guy in charge screw it up, so to speak, if that wouldn't energize you to get creative with solutions. A little extra will to survive.

Yeah, a will to find a way. Mm-hmm. There's also the fact that a lot of the men on the trail were single dudes, and I think that's more of, yeah, if you're on your own, you don't have someone else looking out for you. No. So to me that makes sense that those men didn't fare well. Like poor hard coop.

Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. I was curious. One history, ho mentioned that at this time you could get an enema for a dollar in Independence, Missouri. before you set off on the trail. But yet you did not mention that at all. And so we're just wondering why.

Okay. Seems like a good deal for an enema. That is funny. And like I really wanted to keep this to five parts. And of course this episode is going to be longer than the others. But I really didn't want to go for it to go on for too long just because it is very sad. But I also don't want people to lose interest, you know. But man, leaving the enema.

details on the cutting room floor. You know that hurt me. It hurt me deeply. I know it. Also, like, what's an enema going to do for you before you go on the trail? You'll feel real cleared out. It sounds like. You know, when I go on vacation, I always want to make sure my manicure and pedicure is on

point. Is it the same thing? My colon's got to be in good shape. Exactly. Okay, well, it all makes sense. You want to be stopping on the trail? I got to poop again, guys. Well, you're still going to have to poop.

I don't know who's lied to you about animas, Norm. Well, you wanted to poop for a while, right? I don't know how these things work. I've never done one. Let's see. Liquid directly into your rectum to help you poop. So you get it before you go. And then maybe for a couple days, you don't have to poop.

You are inventing that next part of where it then stops you from needing to poop for a while. But you're emptied out. Your body has to like build it up again. Well, yeah, but how long does it take you to build it up? Not too long. It's different for everyone. Don't know if you know that. Well, I would guess.

Maybe for you, maybe for you, an enema would last four hours, and you're pooping again. You're acting like, then you're out there on the trail, everyone else is pooping. You're like, ha-huh, should have sprung for the enema back in Independence. I would have loan you a dollar, man.

Whatever. That's fine. I'll loan you the dollar now. You can wipe your ass with it because you're pooping and I'm not. Pooping in the prairie. Well, should we wrap up this series, We should. And you know what?

The people have spoken. They do not want another sad series from us for a while. They want the history of farts. Norman, no. Are you doing something sad? Well, it's not as sad as this. Well, what could be? My God.

You'll see. Oh, boy. Everybody, please don't leave us. Stick around, folks. Stick around. There's free enemas for everyone. New tier? Oh, my.

New tier on the Patreon. We can call it Enema of the State. Oh, that's really cute. I wanted to hate wherever you were going with that, but I really enjoy it. Yeah. So you get everything in the previous years plus an enema. An enema kit sent to you. Okay, I was going to say, who's performing the animus?

Just a kid. You got to do it yourself. Right. But it's an old-timey podcast branded Enema kit. And we don't guarantee that you'll go too long without pooping afterward. because everybody's different. It will say in bold, results may vary. No, it'll be say in bold, everybody's different.

Results may vary, everybody's different. Results may last four hours or six months on the trail. Six months. That dollar was worth it. Oh, God. Kristen, you know what they say about history hosts? We always cite our sources. That's right.

For this episode, I got my information from the books. The Indifference 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, R-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-Keruso, and he's at Gaming Historian. And until next time, Tooteloo, Tata, and Cheerio! Bye! Bye!