Legends of the Old West - [ENCORE] FRONTIER TRAGEDY Ep. 1 | Donner Party, Part 1

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

In 1846 in Springfield, Illinois, the Donner family teams up with the Reed family to form the core of a caravan that will travel to the rich farmland of California. The problem is, they’re already late. They soon discover that they’re among the very last travelers to begin the journey to the West, and the hardships begin almost immediately. Thanks to our sponsor, Quince! Use this link for Free Shipping and 365-day returns: Quince.com/lotow Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial. For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. On YouTube, subscribe to LEGENDS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every family has a story. Now you can discover the chapters you've never read at an amazing low price. With an Ancestry membership, you can start building your family tree and easily search now the historical records you uncover. Memberships are now at their lowest price of the year. With billions of new records, powerful features, and intuitive search tools, it's easier and faster than ever to get started. Get ready to say, look what I found.

Visit Ancestry.ca slash New Year for more details. Terms apply. In mid-April In mid-April 1847, seven men set out from Johnson's ranch in Yuba County, California. William Johnson had bought the massive 22,000-acre ranch at auction two years earlier, and that space is now occupied by the city of Wheatland, California, about 45 minutes north of Sacramento.

For exhausted immigrants who had survived the trip to the west and successfully crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains into California, Johnson's ranch was the first place of civilization. Sutter's Fort, the village founded by John Sutter further down, on the road near modern-day Sacramento was more well known. But if travelers reached Johnson's Ranch, they knew they were home free. They had made it.

Conversely, for people who wanted to leave the Sacramento Valley and cross the mountains into Nevada, Johnson's Ranch was the last stop before they had to brave the wilderness that could kill them in a hundred different ways. The seven men who left Johnson's Ranch in April 1847 were on a rescue mission. It was the fourth and final rescue mission of its kind, and the men were not optimistic that they would find any survivors.

By that time, anyone who was still alive at the camps near Truckee Lake, now Donner Lake, had been trapped up there for five months. They would be in terrible condition, and they would have done unspeakable things to maintain even that condition. Rescuers who had already been in the camps had seen evidence of those unspeakable things. The reports that came out later made the camps of the Donner Party sound like they had been attacked by particularly vicious bands of Native American warriors. There were ragged shelters that didn't look fit for cockroaches, let alone people. There were bones of animals and humans all over the place, and there were dismembered corpses in the snow.

The seven men who trekked to the camps in mid-April trudged through slushy, muddy, melting snow for four days until they arrived at a sorry excuse for a cabin on the edge of Truckee Lake. It was about 20 miles northwest of Lake Tahoe on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They searched for survivors and found none. They moved on to the second campsite and again found no one. They camped for the night. The next day, they hiked to their last stop, a ramshackle one-room cabin.

They pushed open its door and at first, everything was still. But then there was movement. Huddled under some blankets in a corner was a shivering shell of a man. As the rescuers moved closer, they stepped on a nest of human bones. The man told him his name was Lewis Keysburg, and he was the last survivor in the camp. He knew he was the last, for a reason that would soon become clear. The reason would haunt Lewis Keysburg for the rest of his life, and it would help make his group of travelers. the Donner Party, infamous for all time. 81 people went into the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the winter of 1846.

Only 45 came out, and the story of their survival shocked the nation. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season, we're bringing you the disturbing stories of the Donner Party and the Bender family, a murderous clan who were known as the Bloody Benders. This is episode one, the Donner Party, part one of four. A bad start. In the spring of 1846, exactly one year before the final rescue mission into the Sierra Nevada's, the people who made up the group that, that would be known as the Donner Party were just a small portion of the 3,000 or so immigrants who headed for California or Oregon that year. The common denominator among all of them was land and their desire to possess it. The term Manifest Destiny had been coined the year before,

and it touched off a half-century of massive migration to Western territories. But whatever their backgrounds or religions or jobs, every potential traveler to the West knew it was better to go in a group. Everyone was equally vulnerable on the long trail from Missouri to what was called Alta, California by the Mexican government. There was harsh weather, rough terrain, loneliness, and the ever-present specter of Indian attacks. Immigrants couldn't even be totally sure about the stability of their final destination. Mexico and the United States were fighting over California even as the Donner Party prepared its wagons. But the story of the Donner Party and the other families on the trip began months before they climbed

into those wagons. The Donners were well off financially. They had 240 acres of land in Illinois, filled with fruit trees and vegetables of every kind. George Donner was a farmer. By the late 1830s, he had already lived in North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, and even Texas before landing in spring. Springfield, Illinois. His wife, Tamson, raised the children, helped on the farm, and found time to work as a schoolteacher. She was extremely well-read and an amateur botanist. George's brother Jacob lived nearby. Jacob was also a prosperous farmer. George and Jacob had made enough money in Springfield that they could live out their last decades in comfort. Even by modern standards,

both men were old to embark on a trip to the west. They were already in their 60s when they decided to make the journey. But with all the good news pouring in about so much rich land in California, they started to get itchy feet. And as 1845 turned to 1846, and the freezing Illinois snow piled up outside, they wondered, what would it be like to never have to worry about cold and snow again?

That driving thought was one of several items, ironies that would play out over the next two years. It was in Springfield that George Donner met James Reed. At 44, the Irish-born Reed was a prosperous businessman. Ten years earlier, he'd married a widow named Margaret, and they had several children. James had done well with several businesses, but most people didn't know that he was over-extended. He'd invested a lot in Illinois' railroad expansion, but those projects went bust in the panic of 18, Reed played one business against the other until 1845, but he could do it no longer.

He quietly filed for bankruptcy. His lawyer for the bankruptcy process was a tall, gangly fellow named Abraham Lincoln, who was two years away from becoming a U.S. congressman and 15 years away from becoming President of the United States. No one knows for sure how George Donner and James Reed met. George was somewhat affable and mellow. Reed was somewhat hot-headed and quick to say whatever popped into his mind. But in 1845, the two men had one thing in common, land fever.

And it may have started with a book called The Immigrants Guide to Oregon and California that was passed around Springfield and other towns. Lansford Hastings wrote the Immigrants Guide's Guide, to Oregon and California. A lawyer by training, the 26-year-old Hastings also had land fever. But more than land, he wanted power. He had traveled from his home state of Ohio to Oregon and Alta, California, then still a Republic of Mexico, and some places in between. Hasting's got an idea. If he could personally persuade thousands of Americans to settle in Alta, California, he could foment a bloodless revolution against Mexico

and worm his way into high political office, maybe even a governorship. But to have his name attached as the leader of the effort, he needed to make sure it was attached to a faster way to get to Sacramento Valley. In his book, Hastings described California in the most glowing terms possible. Given its climate and soil,

he didn't have to take many liberties with the truth, if any. but he did take a liberty with something that was much more important, the road to get to California. He wrote of the new trail he discovered, a shortcut that would reduce the journey by 200 miles or more. The problem was he had never actually used it. The Hastings cutoff, as it would be known, was just a theory when Hastings published his book. The first time he traveled the road that would bear his name was in the spring and summer of 1846, right before the Donner Party used it. Hastings' book and his shortcut was a big factor that convinced the Donners and the Reeds to make the trip.

It would be a painful lesson about things that sounded too good to be true. But, of course, the Donners and Reeds knew nothing of those problems in the winter of 1845. They were dead set on moving to California. and they wasted no time selling their farms and businesses. The Donners placed an ad for strong young men to join them. They gathered goods, surplus cash, letters of recommendation, and things to barter with the Indians. James Reed tried very hard to get his bankruptcy lawyer, Abraham Lincoln, to come with him. Lincoln gave it some serious thought, but he declined.

Instead, he arranged for all of Reed's remaining assets to be sold at public. auction later that summer. As the reeds and Donners continued to research their trip, they used more than Lansford's immigrant's guide. Like so many others, they gathered information from their church and from maps and reference books, and they also consulted firsthand accounts from John C. Fremont's expeditions, which were guided by a trailblazer named Kit Carson. Like Fremont's accounts, Lansford Hastings' book didn't mention any of the potential pitfalls in

his route. Fremont had at least a passable excuse for the omissions. His earliest expeditions went smoothly. He really didn't face any of the hardships that had plagued other travelers. He wasn't lying about his experiences, but he gave readers a false sense of security that the journey westward was safe and easy. Hastings' omission was worse. He knew he was selling people a theory about an untested, unproven road. By the time the Donner Party learned the truth, it would be too late, which was a recurring theme of their trip and had started right from the beginning. The journey began on April 14, 1846.

Several core families, led by George and Tamsin Donner, left Springfield, Illinois, with a goal of Independence, Missouri, 250 miles away. Independence was the start of the fabled Oregon Trail, and it was considered the true jumping-off point for all expeditions to the West. The problem was, the Donner Party was already late. A friend of James Reeds told him repeatedly

that their caravan should plan to reach independence by April 1st. That meant they needed to leave Springfield by the second week of March at the very latest, but they didn't leave until April 14. On day one of the trip, the Donner Party was already more than a month behind schedule. The Reeds and the Donners probably knew it wasn't ideal, but James Reed didn't have his financial issues settled. For whatever reason, Reed didn't or couldn't sign his bankruptcy papers until April 13, 1846. That same day, he smuggled 300 pounds of bacon and two barrels of pickled

pork into a wagon. He didn't want his creditors to see that he was preparing to flee the area. So the party left the next day, April 14th, and didn't arrive in independence until May 10th. It was the first of many late starts and miscalculations on the way to the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. The party consisted of a large number of animals and wagons, including Reed's very fancy, arc-like, two-story wagon that they called the palace car. The wagon drew respect, or laughter, from almost everyone they met. When they finally made it to Independence, Missouri, the caravan quickly understood why they should have left Illinois earlier. The bulk of the groups bound for California and Oregon that had flooded independence in the previous weeks had already

set out for the West. Those groups had spent a week or two in Independence. They were rested, and more importantly, their animals were rested. Horses, cattle, and oxen were critical for both food and transportation on the trail. With a week or two to graze in independence, they were fattened up and ready for the journey into the sprawling landscape of the Great Unknown. The Donner-Reed party, as it was called at that point, was tired. They only had a day and a half in independence to rest, make repairs, and gather more supplies. They quickly packed enough food for four months on the trail, about what the trip to San Francisco should take.

They wanted to catch up with the rest of the wagon trains, so they hustled out of independence on May 12th. They were among the very last to begin the journey west. The group traveled on their own for a few days before crossing the Missouri state line. A week later, they caught up with a group of 50 wagons led by William Henry Russell. Most recently, Russell was a marshal for the vast district of Missouri. Russell's party was huge. It had 290 men, women, and children, plus about 700 cattle and 150 horses. The Donner Reed party added roughly 90 people to the caravan.

Because of Russell's service in the Black Hawk War, he carried the courtesy title of Colonel. Colonel Russell allowed the Donner Reed team to join his own party. Also in the new party was journalist Edwin Bryant. As Bryant wrote in his journal, he feared that the 90 newcomers had no concept of the extent and the labor of the journey before them. A few days later, Bryant's observations proved correct, as the group encountered their first major setback

at the Big Blue River. On May 27, 1846, the Russell Wagon Train, now with the Donners and Reeds, stopped at the banks of the Big Blue River that cuts through the eastern third of modern-day Kansas. Late spring rains and snow melt swelled the river beyond normal.

Most travelers going to California and Oregon knew their best bet was to cross it a month earlier before the worst of the rain and snow melt flooded the river. The wagon train lost four days while it waited and hoped that the water level would go down. During that time, the Donna Reed party lost its first member. Mrs. Reed's elderly mother passed away. The family built a coffin, carved a gravestone, and held a funeral on the Kansas Prairie.

But the group could not afford to mourn for very long. Every new day was more valuable than the last, and they had to get across the river. While the reeds prepared a decent burial for their lost relative, the rest of the party decided to build rafts to try to get the wagons across the Big Blue River. It was still swollen and dangerous, but they decided it was more dangerous to continue to wait. In order to make the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains before early fall, the group needed to travel about 15 miles a day, every day after leaving independence.

They had now lost four days and 60 miles of travel. The men chopped down cottonwood trees and made a huge raft. With it, they managed to sail nine wagons across the river. At sun-up the day after the funeral, the party started transporting the rest of the wagons, hoping to finish before nightfall. Seemingly out of nowhere, a cold wind blew in that afternoon,

and the temperature dropped considerably, and it began to rain. The men were exhausted, having spent the better part of two days standing in a strong current, hauling the raft back and forth across the river with ropes. One of the wagons, owned by a German immigrant Louis Keysburg and his family, fell over. His pregnant wife and a young daughter were tossed into the water. They weren't injured, but some of the wagon's contents were soaked, including some food which was wasted. Everyone's nerves were frayed,

and there were a couple fist fights, but on June 1st, the party was able to resume its journey. Between the rivers rise, the funeral, and the raft building, they'd lost five days of time and potentially 75 miles of travel. Even so, at that point in the trip, the five-day loss wasn't an insurmountable problem, problem. They could still make it to the Sierra's on time, if nothing else went wrong. The hard feelings from lack of sleep and the hard work of crossing the big blue leveled out.

Everyone's spirits rose, and the party pushed hard. They were 200 miles from their next stop at Fort Laramie. The party managed to move 15 to 20 miles a day, the rate of their slowest ox. In early June, they reached their first major milestone, the Platte River, around modern-day Kearney Nebraska. The platte was a godsend to Western travelers. It was relatively shallow and gentle, and it was easy to follow to Fort Laramie. Alongside it, there were plenty of animals to hunt. The men of the party hoped they could get some, since they'd been living off salted supplies they had packed in independence. Their prayers were answered on June 12th,

when James Reed shot an elk and brought it back to camp. But then something else happened that revealed Reed's impetuous nature. The day after Reed brought the elk back to camp, two other men managed to track a buffalo herd, which was a welcome accident. They brought stakes back, and the entire party celebrated, all except Reed. He was bitter about being outshined,

and irritated when the men wanted to go hunt with the buffalo killers the next day and not him. Reed goaded a few men into riding with him. He raced far ahead of his fellow hunters and charged straight into a buffalo herd. He killed two bucks and a calf. He and his friends packed what they could, but wastefully left much of it for the wolves. As the Russell train followed the Platte River, Tams and Donner wrote that the journey so far had been easier, than they'd expected. But in Edwin Bryant's letters home, he hinted that all was not well.

He and some of the other unmarried men, or men who were traveling without their families, would soon leave the Russell Party. He felt the group was moving way too slow. And yet, not even the impatient Bryant was blameless for lost time. On June 14th, a party rode up to the Russell wagon train and begged the journalists to come to their camp. A week before, a little boy in their group had fallen off a wagon, and his leg had been crushed under a wheel. They'd heard Bryant had medical training. The Russell Party thought the boy's case might be a lost cause and they should move on. But Bryant reluctantly decided to go check on the young patient. He almost vomited when he saw the little boy, stretched out on

a bored, feverish, and unconscious. His leg was terrible, and gangrene had set in. The journalist was no doctor, but he knew the boy couldn't survive in operation. However, he couldn't ignore the pleadings of the mother to try to amputate. Bryant gave the boy some of the opiate he'd brought with him, and he cut off the leg. The boy died two hours later. Despite the morbid outcome, the other campers swarmed Bryant to help them with their own ailments. By the time he'd finished treating everyone and helping with the burial and the meals and even a wedding,

he'd spent a day and a half away from his own caravan, and the wagon train sat and waited for Bryant to return. It was just one example on a long list of delays that the travelers would look back on with regret. On the evening of June 18th, Colonel Russell held a campfire meeting. He was resigning his post as, captain of the wagon train. He told the party that he hadn't been feeling well for several days and he just didn't have it in him. He would stay with the caravan, but he didn't want to lead anymore.

Put simply, he was extremely frustrated. In a letter to a newspaper editor, Russell complained that they were only averaging 15 miles a day. That wasn't unexpected since all of their teams were led by slow-moving oxen. It was frustrating, though, because they weren't banking any time in case unexpected things happened. Russell didn't name names, but he grumbled that everyone seemed more concerned with their own agendas than the bigger picture. He couldn't even get those in his party to stay awake when they were supposed to be guarding against potential attacks by the Pawnee. In reality, the situation was probably fairly normal. The people worked together as best they could, but none of them had experienced traveling, and they didn't know what the future

would bring. In fact, their optimism was often what slowed them down. In addition to necessities like stopping to fix wagons, they paused or slowed to socialize or to enjoy the scenery they'd never seen before and might never see again. It was hard to blame them, but the lost time added up. The group nominated Lilburn Boggs as its new leader. He was a former governor of Missouri, and most people had faith in his leadership. A good leader was vital on a wagon train to the west. On June 19, 1846, the caravan managed 20 miles to a comfortable camping spot in a valley of the North Platte River.

There, Bryant and a few others temporarily separated from the main group. They wanted to move faster, and they had an idea. Bryant and his companions traveled ahead about 150 miles to Fort Laramie to trade their oxen and wagons for mules. Mules were moody, but they were faster. The men were all unmarried or had no families on the trip. They had fewer possessions and no children. They could strap their belongings to the sure,

footed mules and make up for lost time. But they still didn't break away completely, not yet. On June 27th, the wagon train, led by Boggs, arrived at Fort Bernard, about eight miles short of Fort Laramie. The travelers had heard that they could get better prices on supplies at the smaller fort, so they stopped short of the usual goal of Fort Laramie. At Fort Bernard, James Reed spied an old friend, James Clyman. Climmon and Reed, had fought together during the Black Hawk War. The two men, along with other prominent men of the wagon train, talked late into the night.

They discussed the two most prominent routes to California. The caravan was still hundreds of miles from the spot at which the people would have to make the critical decision, but it was on everyone's mind. They were way behind schedule, and in the southwest corner of Wyoming, they would be forced to make a choice. Climmon was a mountain man and a guide, and he strongly advised the caravan to stay on the proven trails, follow the Oregon Trail until the California Trail split off from it and led down into the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Sacramento Valley on the other side.

But James Reed was a believer in Lansford Hastings book. Reed insisted that they take the unproven Hastings cutoff, which promised to shorten their trip by hundreds of miles. Climman knew the territory of the Hastings cutoff, and he warned his old friend that the route was barely passable by foot and was virtually impossible with wagons. That night, the leaders of the wagon train sat up late and debated their options around the campfire. It was a split decision. In about two weeks' time, the wagon train would break apart. Some would stay with the proven trails, and some would try the Hastings cutoff. and that split would be the birth of the Donner Party as we know it.

Next time on Legends of the Old West, the wagon train reaches its crossroads in southwest Wyoming. The Donner Party makes its choice between the Oregon Trail and the Hastings cutoff and pays for it dearly. The party experiences one calamity after another, and the stress pushes them to the. their most difficult decision yet. That's next week on Legends of the Old West.

Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week to receive new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials. And they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. This series was researched and written by Julia Brickland. Original music by Rob Valier. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. If you enjoyed the show,

please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Check out our website, blackbarrelmedia.com for more details and join us on social media. We're at Old West Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And all our episodes are available on YouTube.

Just search for Legends of the Old West podcast. Thanks for listening. Thank you.