The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 396 - the Donner Party - live

Episode Date: September 18, 2019

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine The Donner PartySOURCESTOUR DATESREDBUBBLE MERCH

The Dallup will be on tour in March 2026. We are going to be in Buffalo on March 22nd. Then on the 23rd, we'll be in Syracuse. Then on March 24th, we'll be in Boston at the Wilbur. Then on the 25th, we'll be in Bridgeport, and 26th the Gramercy Theater in New York. And then on the 27th, we'll be in Albany. And then on the 28th, we'll be in Pittsburgh. And then on the 29th, will be in Philadelphia.

And then on the 30th, we'll be in Washington, D.C., at the Lincoln Theater. Why would you name a theater after Lincoln? Anyway, that's our March 2026 tour. Go to dolloppodcast.com slash tour for tickets. Hello, Sacramento. Or as I like to call it, the nation's capital. You're listening to the dollop.

This is a bi-weekly American History podcast. Each week, I, owner of Larry the dog, You mean the one who hurt Rebecca? Driver of electric car. Man with nipples. Awful. Dave Anthony reads a story from American history to his friend. Gareth Reynolds, who has no idea what the topic is going to be about.

This is one of the most requested dollops. It's a story everybody knows. Even me, pops? Yeah. Hey, should we say real quick that we... just that we have added a second show in London. Yep. So if people want to go on our UK tour, there's another show in London.

Yep. And we have another podcast that's pretty much like this podcast. It's called the Dallup, England and the UK, and the stories are pretty fucking bananas. So listen to that. May 22nd, 1814. How do I know this? Year of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank you. Johann Ludwig Christian, Kesberg was born in Burlberg in the kingdom of Prussia. Wait, okay. Shall I take a knee? It's now known as Germany, people. Oh. Frederick was, his dad, Frederick was a Lutheran clergyman,

and little else was known about the family. In 1842, 28-year-old Johann married 19-year-old Elizabeth Philippe Zimmerman. Okay. They had twin girls, Matilda Elise, And Julian Coraline, who they called Ada. Cute so far. Yeah, it's a nice story. Yeah.

Twin daughters, cute, cute little names? The Prussian Empire was going through a lot of upheaval. You know, everyone's, you know, just a fucking shit show. You say, if you don't need to tell me what's going on in Prussia, the 1840s. I've proven I know that. So in 1844, the Kessbergs headed to the United States where Johann started going by the name, Lewis. Okay.

Sure. Why do you look like a little kid is about to get his picture taken? You're so happy. I just love that no one knows what it is yet. They settled. You look so elated with yourself. They settled near Cincinnati.

He worked as a brewer, distiller. One of the twins, Matilda died. But it's, that, you know, it's a dollop. A kid's going to die in the first couple of minutes. That's just how... I think that's what twins were in the 1840s. You're like, that means we got one for sure. Lock in one.

Oh, it was the bad one. Hey, whatever. They look alike. We're going to call you by the one's name that we liked. Is that okay with you? You're her now. Now you're Ada. You're Ada.

Is that okay? Yes, Ada. Don't act like Matilda. Take the good news. Take the good news, Ada. Yes, Ada, you're a good girl. Manifest destiny was happening in America. Americas were encouraged to move west because of divine providence, national superiority, and exceptionalism.

Yeah. Thank God that went away. We're fucking assholes. So, but getting to places like California, not easy. Sure. I mean, it's kind of like what we went through today. Yep. Just no gimm-

Weird looks at Harley-David Yeah Multiple AM-PMs Yep multiple The trip took four to six months By wagon Last hundred miles You had to go through the tall steep

Snowy Sierra Nevada Mountains It's a total nightmare Oh They're here tonight They love the Some people just love mountains Yeah Timing was very

It's so funny that they sit all the way In the back too They're like We love elevation Timing, very crucial on this trip. You leave too early, you get bogged down my mud in the spring rains. Sure. Leave a little late. You get snowed in.

Sure. Like Edward. So the Kessbergs headed west in 1846. Okay. Loaded up several wagons. They had a party of nine people. Lewis, his wife, who's now pregnant. That's when you want to get in a wagon and head out west. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it might just pop out of you. You won't even notice.

Ada, who is now three. Some other German immigrants, an old Belgian man named Hard Coop. Well, I think, by the way, if you're making cuts to the party of nine, it's Hargoop goes. We're not making cuts yet. I'd like to make a cut early on Hargoop. The wagon driver, everyone called Dutch Charlie,

even though he was German. Sure. That's classic Dutch Charlie behavior right there, not giving a shit. So Lewis is six feet tall. He's 180 pounds. He speaks four languages. Jesus. Yeah. It's a big lad for back then.

Yeah, well, yeah, plus four languages. Yeah. Arthur, Arthur, Arthur, Arthur, C. F. McLaughen described him as, quote, he has a distinct rapid mode of initiation, a loud voice, and a somewhat excited manner of speech. In conversing, he looks one squarely and steadily in the eye and appears like an honest, intelligent German.

It's literally only the... last word that makes it weird. Every other part of it is like, yeah, of course he looked at you when you talked. That's not abnormal. He's like, he looked at me when I talked for a German. Do you know what I'm saying? So in mid-May, 100 miles west of independence, they were joined by two larger groups. The Reed party? James Reed was an Irishman. He was heading west because he hoped California's climate would help his wife's terrible migraines. Okay. So, oh! I pray. He had recently declared bankruptcy also.

Okay. He had served during the Black Hawk War with Abraham Lincoln. Sure. And they became really, really good friends. Lincoln wanted his family to go with the reeds on this journey, but married Todd Lincoln was pregnant, and she was like, fuck, no. But meanwhile, there were pregnant people on the wagon journey. Germans.

Right, right. There's that word again. Germans are like, I got this. and they just fucking do whatever. Hold it in, don't let it slip out. Push your legs together, cross them. Give me the close pin. It's fair to be a disgusted by that.

They were so close to the Lincoln's that Mary Todd, Lincoln came down and wave goodbye as they were driving away. The other big group that joined them, besides a re-party, were known as the Donner Party. What's amazing is that I was genuinely starting to to be like, if I don't know this, I will be embarrassed.

You're like, everyone will know this one. I was like, when does it click in? Okay. There's the family name I've heard before. So now, Lewis was actually not easy to like. On the trip, he was known for absolutely terrible behavior and a very bad temper. He would plunder Native American burial sites on the journey. That's just, I mean, yeah.

Like, we've done enough. The idea that you need to just be like, ha-ha, prank. It's like, dude, fuck off. They have stuff! We will take it. One immigrant said... Hey, look, I got the flowers. Yeah, fuck him.

I'm the worst. Oh, wait, I'm German. I love that your idea of a Native American burial site is flowers. Everybody likes them. Who doesn't like those? One immigrant said Lewis took a buffalo robe from a Sue grave. Oh, and probably some flowers. By the way, I...

I love that they're in your mind. They're fresh graves, or the sewer stopping by and putting flowers down every week. Well, that's the one I'm thinking. You know, like we did with my grandpa. Another person on the trip called Lewis, quote, eccentric, antisocial, and someone predisposed to derangement of the mind. Jesus Christ. James Reed's eldest daughter

claimed Lewis hit a little girl who came to play with his daughter and scarred her for the rest of the journey. Well... What sounds like she had a coming? Like, what? You're going to just fucking roll up on my wagon and be like, is your daughter available to play?

You're going to get hit? Wait, everything you've said sounds okay so far. Can she play? No! Oh, the nerve! Now, who makes I look great in a buffalo robe? So Lewis and Reed were constantly fighting. Reed kept confronting Lewis when he beat his wife or neglected his kids.

Jesus Christ. Which apparently happened enough. And Lewis was like, let me be the worst. Yeah. The party reached Wyoming in May 1846 and Lilburn Boggs took control. He was a former Missouri governor. What's his name? Lilburn Boggs.

Lilburn? Like a cartoon character? Like Lilburn? Lilburn. Not a big burn, a little burn. Lilburn. You touch your pants, too hot. Get Lilburn.

That's right. So because he was a big fancy ex-governor, you guys are already done? Because he was a big fancy ex-governor, they started calling it the Boggs Party. Okay. Now they arrived at Fort Laramie, Wyoming in June. Now there was this failed lawyer

named Lanceford Hastings. who was a huge adventurer kind of guy. And he wanted to take California from the Mexicans and establish an independent republic with him as the ruler. Okay. So he's an ambitious seeker. He's got big ideas. Yeah. Nothing wrong with the big idea, man.

No. He thought if he could convince enough Americans to settle in California, the Mexican population would be overwhelmed and would result in a bloodless revolution, which happened. Right. Yeah. Cool.

So to get people to go to California, Hastings made the trip sound super easy. But we just ran into this on another one where someone is just like, oh, you're going to love it. It couldn't be easier. It's like taking a sled downhill. It'll be fun.

And you just are like people die. And you're like, well, I'm a liar. I'm sorry everyone died. I really, I don't care about the feelings of others. He wrote a book called The Immigrants Guide to Oregon and California. It was full of absolute bullshit. For example, he claimed that travelers would not have to worry about Native Americans because, quote,

the desolating ravages of intertribal war have been the chief causes of now abandoned villages which are covered in human skulls. Wait, that's to make people feel better? The real version... Doesn't that want to make you go there? No. Don't mind the skulls. It's just like a stone pathway.

And that the wilderness and timidity of these tribes are such that upon the appearance of white persons at their villages, all of the males, both old and young, immediately flee in the utmost confusion. Boopo,

like running into each other. Bo-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-a-da. To the surrounding hills and mountains, while females remain and commence of the most doleful moaning and crying. So who this sounds great? Wait, so the idea is that if you're white and you walk into that area, the men don't know what to do and just run around like Benny Hill, and the women fall down and start crying. Yes. Sure, that sounds pretty logical. Yeah.

Who needs motivated actions? So a lot of pioneers were into Hastings book, including the reeds and the Donners. Jacob Donner passed his copy around to everyone else in the group, and he would discuss it often. One big lie in the book was about the Hastings cutoff, which is supposed to be a shortcut that Hastings had discovered by looking at a map. Is that how one finds the shortcut? That's right. Normally someone's like, wait, they miss it. a thing here. Look real close there, Arthur. There's a thing.

Look, I can make my finger do this. That'll be easy on foot. Basically the same trip, just with feet. Woo, that was easy. But his shortcut was actually a hundred and twenty five miles longer than the usual route. It's a weird shortcut, sure. It's not your traditional shortcut. And Hastings had never traveled it. Okay, okay. Well, I'm starting to, I mean, I kind of forgive him now a little bit. He really was just like, you go that way.

Fuck off. Get in there. I'm the leader. Now, while they were there, Reid ran into an old friend who was a seasoned mountain man and guy had been all over the west. Well, that's pretty lucky. Yep. And he said that Hastings book was fucking bullshit. Okay.

And Hastings was a scammer, and he met him, and he had no idea how difficult the journey was. And he told Reed, absolutely do not take the Hastings cutoff. Now, Dave, why don't we just go to the next sentence where you tell me that they took the Hastings cutoff? How's that sound? Who needs an experienced mountain man when some guy was like, you go there. There. You don't need a guy, and I found a piece of paper. A guide? What do you need a guide for?

He's got knowledge. Take this paper. So the men of the party spoke all night with the experienced guide, and some took his warnings and kept going on the proven route. But others, like the Reeds and the Donners, did not. Quote, I told Reed to take the regular wagon track and never leave it. Told them of the great desert and the roughness of the Cierras. But he quickly responded, There's a higher route, and it is of no use to take such a roundabout course.

Oh, man. Okay. It's going to be fine. Yeah, no, with the little knowledge I have, I know it will be fine. So the party split up, one party on the original route while reading the others, including the Kessbergs, follow the Hastings cutoff. This group was officially now called the Donner Party. Enjoy. Enjoy your, enjoy your fingers. They're serving fingers tonight. I believed you for way too long on a lot of that.

At the Sweetwater River in Wyoming, the Donner Party was given a letter from Hastings. Good news. I found it even shorter route. So they're at Fort Bridger, and it warned of... So they're going to Fort Bridger. It warned of possible Mexican attacks and said if they met him at Fort Bridger, he would personally lead them on the Hastings'

cut off across the desert and mountains. Okay. So that's nice. It's nice, but it's total bullshit in some way, for sure. Well, they arrived at Fort Bridger on July 27th. Hastings had just left to join another party. Ah. Damn it. What they were not told was a lot of previous travelers at Fort Bridger had left letters

to warn other immigrants to not go on the Hastings cutoff. Where are the letters? Well, but the owners of the fort didn't want to lose any business, so they hid the letters. Oh, my God. Well, Ma, I don't know. I think that's going to affect the cafe business a lot. All them letters that say, don't go this way. I just ordered a case of Coke.

Mm-hmm. Welcome to Survivor's Cafe. So the Donner Party was now 74 people. Jesus Christ. At Weber River, or Weber, whatever, in Utah, on August 6th, they found a message from Hastings. on a stick. You gotta feel good about that. You're like, I was worried for a minute,

but then we got the stick note. Give me a minute, I'm gonna have a twig read. I'm happy with what's happening over here. Good news, there's a letter on a stick. We've got another branch, book. It said the canyon was impassable and drew a new route over the mountain. Oh, no, no, wait. Okay.

So if you're going from book to note on a stick, not as good. You're like, oh, wait, sorry, there's been an update. Thank God we found this note stick. Otherwise, we would have been fucked. He also said to send someone to catch up with them so he could show them the alternative route. Read and two med went ahead and caught up with Hastings.

Okay. And then he talked Hastings into writing back to the Donner camp. Sure. To talk to these people. Sure. But Hastings, a little ways out, had second thought. and said he felt really bad about abandoning the other group he was leading. So he just showed Reed the route, I guess, on the ground.

Like, I don't know what. Oh, that's good. That works. It's just like drawing up a football play when you're seven. You go here and there, and you're fine. You're this, and then you just keep going. You'll figure it out. Just keep going down.

But the route was so vague that Reed just ended up picking his own trail. Well, that's not good, right? Oh, it's fine. No. Okay. Well, I actually know it not to be fine. Well, you don't know that. It could all be lies. Yeah, uh-huh. What if everybody, it's all fine?

Now, while they were waiting, now while they were waiting, even more people joined, and the daughter party was now 87 people. Jesus Christ. Now, they all headed out on Reed's path. Summer was now. Do they know that he's just sort of like improvving a path now? I don't think they do.

I think he came back and said, it's this way. Oh, so he's just like, oh, had a really good talk with the Hitchens. It's fine. It's right over here. Yeah. Let's go this way. Summer's now over.

That's a good sign. One young traveler died of consumption. Lewis's wife gave birth to a baby boy. That's a good time. He was named Lewis Jr. It took them three weeks to reach Salt Lake instead of the couple of days that Hastings had promised. That's good.

Two days, three weeks. Sure. The water there was undrinkable, so they had to gather water and grass before heading into the desert, which delayed them more. Okay. Hastings said the desert was about 40 miles wide.

He said the desert was 40? 40 miles wide. Okay. It was 80 miles wide. Okay. Within two days, the cattle and horses started dying. They couldn't pull the wagon. Some broke free and ran off.

Those are the real. By the way, it feels like that's the last good moment of the episode. Just general vibe. Feels like this is the last time we feel happiness. Oh, for those cows who are like, go, go, go! Go! Be free! Without their horses, the Reed family had to abandon most of their wagons,

and they had to carry what they could, now walking through the desert. So, are we at the point where you're like, that hitchin, son of a bitch, that pint, son of a bitch. No, you're like, this is a great path. This is great, really close.

Great shortcut. Super short, really close. The Donners and Kessbergs also had to abandon a wagon each. Once across the Salt Lake Valley, they took inventory and found they didn't have the supplies to make it to California.

Well, that's a problem. So they sent two men ahead to get help from Sutter's Fort in Sacramento, where they found gold. Here you go. You expected bigger applause on that. You were like, this is a beer time. No, I think all these people probably are bored of Sutter Fort.

They all went there. It probably went on like three field trips there as a kid. They're like, okay, I get it, gold. Okay, good, gold. Easy, my dear. What you say? Fuck someone. Fuck John Sutter.

Yeah, John Sutter. Yeah, fuck him. We'll get to that later. That's a different episode, but yeah, let's put a pin in that then I think is what I'm saying. John Sutter worse than Larry, a little bit. On September 13th, the party camp that a place called, a read called the Mad Woman Camp. And he's just riffing, right? He's like got no idea what's going on.

Well, he wrote that his diary because, quote, all the women in the camp were mad with anger. Yeah. But not because. of the location because of the experience. Boy, what is it about this area that makes women go cuckoo bananas?

It's like we're dying out here or something. Which, mind you, we are. I just could imagine the wives. Just like... By the way. You fucking what? Hey, guess what... The Hastings fucking who?

Guess what's going to make all the wives happier? Naming it after that. Oh, God, you guys are so fucking crazy. calling this mad wife, Alan? It's like, you motherfucker! Hey guys, I know you're pissed, but I want to let you know. Kind of an homage moment.

In honor. On September 25th, the party finally completed the Hastings cutoff. I told you. Told you was a quick shortcut. Told you be easier. Sorry, your family's dead. We're so much closer than we were.

It took 68 way, way longer than it should have. You know, sometimes shortcuts aren't shorter. I don't know if you guys know that, but they're not always. So now they're back on the original route, but insanely behind schedule. They're back on the original route. Yeah. Yeah, good work.

That's amazing. Tensions ran high between members of the party. The Reed family Teamster and the Graves Family Teamster got into an argument as their wagons became tangled together. Well, that'll get him untangled. Reed tried to make peace between the men and pulled out his knife to cut the tangled ropes on the wagons.

One of the teamsters cursed at Reed and hit Reed on the head with his whip handle repeatedly giving Reed a wide deep cuts on his face. Wait, he whip-wipped him? He hit him with the handle. Like a pistol whip I'm familiar with.

I think he hit him with the handle of the... He's whip-wipping. Whip-handle. Yeah, his whip. It's got to be like, that's going to be a demeaning beating. Do you not respect me? Not really. I'm hitting you with a butt in my whip, you little bitch.

This is the fucking shit end. How much does it hurt? Not much, but it's really a, ow. The amount of time. It's voluminous. You don't deserve the other end. Stap me like a man. No, you little baby.

Huh? Huh? You like that, you little pussy? Huh? So then that was happening. so Reed's wife rushed in to help. Oh, that's going to help his case. Leave my husband alone!

I'm going to beat him further with the butt. Lewis is like, you want me to hit her? Yeah. So then the Teamster stepped toward the wife, and Reed thought the Teamster was going to attack his wife. Well, he'd been Whip Kust, by the way. He's not sure what's going on. So he stabbed the Teamster in the chest.

Jesus Christ, there's simpler places to start with that move. The Teamster bled out pretty quick and died. Aw? The guy who was just hitting a guy in the face with the handle of a, okay. Demeaning, whip-beating. Look, we all have weird favorites. Teamster, too, was my hero. Even though it was self-defense, many in the party turned against Reed.

But it wasn't really self-defense. He was like... It was kind of half self-defense. Sort of. He'd been beaten with the butt of a whip, so he was a little woozy. but then he was like, he don't touch her. The guy was like, the fuck, you fucking animal.

I was going to hug her. I was just trying to help me, you son of a bitch. People already didn't like the reeds because they were wealthy and then started out with a ton of supplies and animals. Plus, Reed was stubborn and arrogant.

Okay. So the group met and discussed it. Some wanted to take Reed to the law once they reached California. Okay. Others wanted immediate... Which is months away.

Yeah. Others wanted immediate justice. Lewis hated him and wanted... I think I know what Reid wanted. Lewis hated him and wanted him hung immediately in front of his friends and family. Well, I mean, come on. I'm German!

Let it be horrible! Not only should we do it, we should do it in front of his friends and family at supper. And we'll say, this is your dinner, and then we'll make him eat him in a goulash. Is that I teach him? One of the parties said Lewis began to, quote, convert a wagon tongue into makeshift gallows almost immediately.

Wait, so some other German psychopath just hears like a bit of that and is like, I'll make the gallows. They're like, no, we haven't. Nobody signed off on anything just yet. It's a hanging. It's a hanging. Don't worry, I made an Iron Maiden. I got a whole setup over here.

Didn't take too long either. So it's pretty quick. It's weird how it was ready. Pretty quick. Didn't take too long. Before. Here we go. I think then we're done.

We drain all his blood into this. and then we feed all. I'm not sure. I made a lot of stuff. There's a lot of options. There's so many options. We could do them all. We could do one.

I don't know. Let's have a fun. Let's make a day of it. That's what I say. In front of his friends and family. I think they have to be there. They have to be there for that part. I want to see the look in his daughter's eyes.

Oh, no. Hold his daughter's eyes open. Don't let us shut him. Look at what I've done to your papa. You don't fuck with me. Instead, they decided to banish Reed. and they allowed them to have a single horse, and that was it. The gallows guy's like, I mean, okay.

What a waste of a horse? Yeah, sure, give him a horse. Good call. Yeah, who needs a severance package? Whatever. Most saw this as a death sentence, but Reed just rode nonstop until he caught up with the Donners, who were two days ahead.

Hey, guys, what are you doing? Shit's fine back there. Let's hustle up. Hustle up. I'm with you. They said it's a race, and we need to beat them. By the way, imagine catching up with the Donner Party being like, few.

I'm home again. So Reed and another man from the Donner Party wrote ahead to Sutter's Fort with a letter asking for a team of oxen and supplies to survive until California. Okay. On October 7th, someone noticed the old Belgian man, Hard Coop, was missing. The gap doesn't help his name any either. was missing. I mean, I'm not going to lie, I've pretty much forgotten about Hard Goop.

So he's been missing for me for quite a while. Now, he was in Lewis's wagon, and Lewis said he had no idea where he was. He's like, I don't know. It's just some old Belgian named Hardgoop just walking around lost. Yep. Okay. So someone backtracked several miles and found Hard Coop on the side of the trail. Hi. Hello.

Hello. Should I keep going? His feet were bloody Sorry, but feet are bleeding So swollen, they were split open They've got a real kind of Bifurcated quality now He said Lewis

Had kicked him out of his wagon to lighten the load And left him on the side of the road Days before All right, now I like Hargoop now Poor little Hargoop with his penguin feet And Flapping out about there

He said to stay here But I will Hargoop Get over here Watch your feet They really are It's like watching a crab walk So

He brings them back to the group But no family would take Hardcoop in their wagon So they just left him again No Oh you found me Yes we sure did Hargoop Unfortunately

Yes I know And remember when I remember I found you, you were very dehydrated in a worse state than this. Yeah. Yes. And, oh. Oh, I can't wait once again to have a Belgian pancake.

Well, hold on there, Hargoop. Let me do some of the talk at first. Oh, waffle. I just, I'm so crazy. I don't, I mix up pancakes. Of course, yes, yes, yes, yes. Hargo. Hargo.

I'm so glad to see you. Hargoo. Harbu, I'm really need to jump in right here right now. I really missed you guys. Hargoo. Hargoe. Yeah, of course. Hargoo.

No, no, no, no, no. And by the way, that would be called a hard group hug, and no. And let me tell you this. I think you're fantastic, and I love everything about what's going on in the new you. I think your feet are fantastic. I really do.

They're going to scab. Don't point them near me. What I'm trying to say is that, unfortunately, after pitching some of the families about taking you in their wagon, unfortunately, there's just no takers. So we're going to have to... There's 20 wagons.

It would appear to be so. but again, I mean, I can't, I can't jam me into one of them. I can't, that's just not my role here. My hands are tied. I can't do anything. So, sadly, this is kind of a second goodbye. Why? Well, just because, you know, again.

Well, I don't like the attitude shift. Why the fuck, did you fucking shit asses come back from me in the fucking first place? Hargub, Hargub, Hargub. I'm not going to end on the second. ready to die. I'm not going to end on a sour note with you. And you're a bunch of fucking shit asses, and I hope you fucking die and eat each other up in the fucking mountains.

Well, look, look. Well, someone's English is coming along suddenly. Welcome to the curse of Hardgoop. Okay, all right. All right, you know what, Hargoop? We've tried, and I was very nice to you. And here, take these grains. I'm rubbing my foot on your doctor's face.

Not you leave her alone. That's Ada. She's so much better than that bitch, Matilda. So he just died out in the middle of nowhere. He just died out in the middle of nowhere. They're like, okay, bye. Hey, we came to get you. Bye.

You can now die further from the spot you were in before, which I think is really nice for you. On October 14th, Mrs. Wolfinger's husband was missing. Okay. Everyone assumed Lewis had killed him for his money. If someone's missing, he's like, Lewis. What? I didn't.

Did you kill another fucking guy? I am 90% I did not. What does that even mean? Did we not have been percentages yet? But they didn't do anything because they didn't have any proof. So on October 16th, the Donner Party arrived in the Sierra Nevada's. That's when the front axle of the Donner Party wagon broke. And George cut his hand very badly,

making a new one. It slowly began to gangrene. Is this where the expression the wheels coming off comes from? Because that's pretty quickly deteriorating. Well, we lost a wheel. He's got gangrene. Oh my God. It was five minutes ago.

The Donner started lagging behind the party. By now many families had lost most of their cattle to starvation or Native American thieves. Food and supplies were decreasing rapidly. In early November, the Donner Party moved with urgency.

Sure. Hoping to make the steep crossing before the snow came. Oh my god, yes. Patrick Breen, quote, the weather was clear, but a large circle around the moon indicated an approaching storm. Eight inches of snow fell that night. It's gonna be fine. It's not good.

This was when Reed arrived at Sutter's fort. Over weeks, he put together a group of three men, many horses, food, and supplies. To head to where he hoped the Donner Party would be. When the party arrived at Truckee Lake in northeast California, the snow was several feet deep. Okay. They decided to set up camp around the lake and hold on through the winter.

They set up camp right near the lake? Well, yeah. There's abandoned cabins around there for whatever reason. I don't know why. That makes more sense. So some of them took the cabins, others just had to make shelters. It's kind of like the beginning of a reality show where everyone picks rooms. Except your life depends on it.

Some made lean-toes. Lewis, despite his injured... Some made lean-toes? Yeah, where you lean something up against whatever fucking tree or another building, and then you cover it, and that's what you're in. Hey, relax, survivor expert. You're the one who watches naked and afraid.

I live naked and afraid. I don't just watch it. I'm naked while I watch that show. And I'm terrified. The only way to watch that show is naked and afraid, too. I watch it outside on an iPad in the cold naked. Poor Jose.

He's with me, asshole. So Lewis, despite his injured and infected foot, built this shed for his family. Okay. The Donna Party settled on the other side. Is that kind of like a dig at Hargup? Like he's got a fucked up foot

and he's like, I'm building a shelter. I don't remember why he got the fucked up foot. Did I say? He just fucked it up somehow. Okay. So the daughter party is set on the other side of the lake in another cabin. Snow starts falling harder and harder. Snow drips are growing, taller and taller. The wet firewood is impossible to burn.

This feels like your Christmas Carol. Yeah. Food went uncooked. Food went uncooked. It's not the right thing to sing. And the food was not cooked. The only things to eat were roasted mice and a fatty glue-like broth from boiling cowhides. Oh, my God.

so you can either eat mice or drink glue? These are the options? Yeah. Fucking A. Welcome to winter. I'd rather be hard coop at this point. Yeah. In December, a bunch of them made snow shoes out of the remaining cattle hides.

They were able to make 17, and they gave them to the strongest and healthiest members of the party. The hope was they could make it over the mountains and get help at a settlement. Okay. So they set out with six days of rations. Okay. On December 17th, two return to the lake exhausted. It's not good news at all. We just left.

We left. It's really hard to get up there, and the shoes are ruined. So five women, nine men, and a 12-year-old walked on. That 12-year-old was like, I want to die. I am ready to be a footnote. This is so fucking boring. Yeah. Yes, I see this.

snow. Fucking shut up, dad. How great would it be to be able to take your 12-year-old that put him in this situation for just 10 minutes? Why don't you go do that? You're upset about the iPad? Why don't you use your imagination, Todd, and just think of stuff. You're out here in wonderful

nature. Take it in. We're dying. Fuck you. Fuck you, dad. Yeah, I said, fuck you, dad. I mean, you... Why did you take the Haysings cut off? Because it made sense.

It was a shortcut. It was only 128 miles out of our way. I'm going to eat your eyes! Oh, I doubt that, probably, maybe. Might have happened. Love you, son. Love you too, Dad. On December 20th...

That's like a breakthrough for you. On December 20th, they reached Yuba Bottoms. I mean, they know about Yuba, but... Was that the original name of Yuba? Okay. But some snowshoers... Why'd you look at me? I don't know.

But some snowshoers had now gone missing. Patrick Breen wrote quote, Tough times. Is that the end of the journal entry for the day? You know you're fucked when you're like, tough. Tough times, but not discouraged. Our hopes are in God.

Amen. Amen. How great. Are you going to do with that guy right now? God is great. Fuck you! The idea that God? It's just, God won't let us die.

No, he will. It'll be... You remember Hard Coop? Yeah, remember Hard Goop? Flapping on the rocks like a newborn penguin? Yeah, it's over. On December 21st, the rations ran out. Charles Stanton...

Happy Christmas! Charles Stanton was... two weeks to head back to camp and he sat down on the snow, pulled out his pipe, and his last bit of tobacco, and told the others to go on without him. Oh, man, that's, by the way, that's a pretty great way to go to just be like, I'm just going to smoke and die. Like, go ahead.

I'm just going to have a bit of a pipe and then I'll just out here. Have a good day. His final words were, quote, Yes, I am coming soon. He was never seen again. Yes. Five days later, is on December 26th. The group was completely lost in frostbitten.

They drank melted snow. The men wanted to return to Donner Camp. That's water, by the way. Yeah. The men wanted... It's water. It's also melted snow, technically. It's also water.

The molecules separate. So do friends. So the men wanted to return to Donner Camp by the women angrily opposed, demanding that they find help. Silly rationality. Then they all became so hungry they started hallucinating. And then someone suggested they eat one of them.

Whoa. I have an idea. So they are tripping. My idea is we eat Frank. Because I'm fucking hungry. This is why we should have kept Hargoop around. By the way, you cannot get offended in the Hargoop story in this audience right now.

So they're desperate, and they talk about it, and they agree to draw straws and decide who will be eaten. What? What? What? What about the dude who just smoked his pipe and died? Why not go back and be like this dude? He's still ready. He's dead. That was five days ago.

They walked away from him. My timeline's off, obviously. Yeah. I mean... Okay, so... Jesus Christ. I'm also surprised drawing straws existed that earlier. But they couldn't do it.

They couldn't bring themselves to do it. They couldn't cut the straws. small one? Yeah. So they decided to wait until one of them died and then they would just eat that person. Within three days, Patrick Dolan died and was eaten first. Jesus Christ, Dave. This is... Slow down. Three people died. Patrick was eaten first because he wasn't related to anyone. The idea of some sort of categorizing of this. Okay, so they...

My uncle and aunt here, I want them to know how to eat them first. That's awesome. Congratulations. I would eat you guys first. That's awesome. What a heartwarming woman. My uncle was a history teacher, and he came here tonight, and I was like, do you know what my podcast is about it? He's like, no.

And now he's going to get eaten. What a turnaround. Talk about a Cinderella story. So they eat Patrick. By the way. They skewer. Hold on, Dave. It says a lot about where we are that you just said, so they ate Patrick.

It's actually my own. uncle's name, which is hilarious. Why is he leaving? You can't get far, old man. I'll see you on the rock, Hargoop. Yeah, so they skewered him on sticks over a fire. Well, that's at least a nice way to do it.

Yeah, well, else are you going to do it? Yeah, yeah. Turn, turn him. Rotate him. You know, Patrick looked good before, but he looks great now. He was a great guy, too, which I think is going to really helped. I really liked him. I've never had a connection like this

to the food I'm going to eat. I've never known them this well. I had a chicken named Bob that I used to have sex with. This is far different. What's that? What was the middle? No, maybe I'm hallucinating. You better be. You never...

Huh? Nothing? All righty. They didn't look at each other as they ate Patrick. The shame, yeah. That's awkward. That's a hard. meal. Well, what are you going to do? Like, mm-hmm. Oh, fuck. Guys, you might... Guys, try the dipping sauce.

Okay. You feel pure shame. You know, it's not a shame. You're not Anthony Bourdain. Oh. No, you're like... No, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g. Give me more glue. Give me more glue. I need more glue to pound it down with.

They also didn't look at each other when they cooked an 8, 12-year-old Lemuel Murphy. But that's like veal, you know what I mean? So, this location would later be called the Camp of Death. Finally, a good name. So the meat from the bodies did not last them much longer. And they began eating their shoes. What? Wait a minute, who goes human to shoe?

You go shoot a human. What the fuck? Well, now we should probably eat the other things we could since Patrick and the teenager are dead and in us. When do we eat our shoes? I could really go for another Patrick, though. Of course we all could. We're not doing it unless we die of natural causes.

Now everyone eat their shoes. Not the Nikes. Someone suggested killing and eating their two Native American guides, Lewis and Salvador. By the way, of course, of course. Of course white people are like, should we eat the navigation? Should we...

Is that crazy? But another man was appalled by this, and he warned the two Native Americans who ran away into the forest. Well, there we go. We've got a real win-win. That guy's the next to get eaten, by the way. Loose lips eat dips. Lewis and Salvador were from a nearby

Miwok village. But a few days later, they keep wandering. and they find Lewis and Salvador dying in the snow. The guy who, the first guy who suggested they should eat people, shot them without hesitation, and then they sliced and dried Lewis and Salvador. Packing meat. Now they're packing it.

On January 17th, the snowshoe group... I mean, they're eating a lot of people. On January 17th, the snowshoe group reached Lewis and Salvador's Miwock Village. Oh, no. Hey! We haven't seen them I have your son right here

They were so thin That Mewox thought they were ghosts And ran away By the way, right move entirely They are and run Yes Always run from white people Yeah always run for sure

Always run from white people When they show up gaunt And fully your friends Take off Hey No no We're not the regular assholes We're desperate

So soon they realized that these were starving people and they actually cared for them until some were covered. They didn't have much. They mostly just had acorn bread, but they shared it with the white people. These people have been eating friends in shoes. They'll take acorn bread. After a week, two Native Americans led William Eddy to Johnson's Ranch, which is about 15 miles away.

The settlers at Johnson's Ranch were absolutely horrified when they saw Eddie. and they quickly formed a party to go help. They followed Eddie's bloody footprints to the Miwok village. This was very clear, actually. It's a clear path. Very clear. We call this a Hargoop.

Eddie wrote an SOS letter to the magistrate of Sacramento, who then wrote one to the magistrate of San Francisco. He's really passing the buck. Can you do something? I'm going to go home. During all this, at Truckee Lake, things had been super fucked. People were dying of starvation.

Lewis Kessberg Jr. died. Joseph Reinhardt died, and right before he confessed to killing Mr. Wolfinger. I killed Wolfinger. Which had one who blamed on Lewis. That's a good way to go out. To be like, I lied. Well, we have closure. At least we have closure. Now, Reed is still...

Reid is still out trying to get people to, you know, go help. Sure. He hasn't given up hope. His first rescue attempt failed, and he was now in San Francisco enlisting volunteers. He raised 1,500 to buy supplies, but on February 5th, the first rescue party left Johnson's ranch as rescuers in San Francisco kept organizing. At Sutter's fort, John Sutter offered $3 to anyone who had joined the relief parties. Yeah.

Way to go all the way there, John. And a glass of water. I mean melted snow Reed then headed to Napa and Sonoma to recruit So obviously everyone's like Clearly everyone's like no No, I don't want to To future wine country

And he just goes on a tour This is all so good Do you have a reasoning? I'm here to actually Some of my friends are in trouble but I actually want to really nail this down This is That's good too, I don't know It's a pino, it's great Muscatto, a little too for

I'm not crazy about that. It's a little too sweet. Yeah, soon I should get back, but I really want to lock this down. Oh, more crackers. Yay! Yum yum, yum, yum. I just spit on my iPad. A rescuer quote,

they gave the alarm that people would all die without assistance. It was two weeks before any person would consent to go. Oh, my God. That's pretty bad. They're going to die if we don't get up there. All right, we heard you. Stop. We're out. Finally, we concluded we would go or die trying for not to make an attempt to save them would be a disgrace to us in California as long as time lasted. So two weeks later, they're like, all right, this will be bad.

All right, we should probably do this. So on February 19th, the first relief arrived at the Donor Party's campsite. Quote, no living thing except ourselves was in sight. Oh, no. We raised a loud hello. Oh, that's... Hello! Then we saw a woman emerge from a hole in the snow.

Hello! Everything's on fire! As we approached her, several others made their appearance... Hello, too. In like manner coming out of the snow. Hey, we're the snow people! Hello! They were gaunt with famine,

and I never can forget the horrible, ghastly sight they presented. Hello! The first woman spoke, in a hollow voice, very much agitated, she said, are you men from California, or do you come from heaven? Oh, my God. Answer me, ghost man!

Oh, my God. The idea that you're in the state, whether your two options are, are you from California or heaven? There's no in between. What is it? The clouds or the nearby? I would actually say California is heaven.

And that's why Dave Anthony is running for governor of this state. the great state of California. My campaign slogan is let's eat the Patrick's. Down with the patriarchy. So the first relief rescued 23 people and left 31 behind. That's all they could bring out was 23. Well, I mean, good Lord.

Talk about lining up for... I know. Can I go with the first group? No. Okay. We're full. All right. Lewis's wife and daughter Ada were among the rescued.

Lewis remained at the camp because of his injured foot. Ada died in route. Tams and Donner would not leave her dying husband's side. She wouldn't leave George, who has the gangrene. Sure. And the first rescue left her, but she sent her children away to be saved. But a storm came with the rescuer who had taken the Donner children, so he left the kids in Lewis's cabin

on the other side of the lake. Just the two of them? I think there's more than two. Okay, but just all the kids in one cabin? Yeah, she put him in that cabin. He's like, I can't take you in this snow. So good luck, your children. It won't go well.

See you later. By the way, don't play with this guy's daughter. He hits him. Oh, she's dead? Never mind. Oh, no, yeah. Play with her then. Too soon, Dave.

It's so hard to play with a dead friend. Too soon. So Tamson, became worried. Why? And a man visited the other side, visited the cabins on the other side, looking to see if anyone knew

if the Donna children had reached safety over there, and he found the Donna children in Lewis's cabin. And, quote, witnessed such scenes of horror and suffering that he believed their lives were in danger of a death more violent than starvation. What?

So I think he's hitting them. Oh, shit. I can't imagine. I mean, that's all I can... Okay, so Eliza Donner, quote. I remember being awakened while there were... I remember being awakened while they were by two little arms clasped suddenly and tightly around me. And I heard Francis say, no, she shall not go with you.

You want to kill her. Near us stood Kessberg, the man with the bushy hair. What is going on right now? In limping past our sleeping place, he had stopped and said something about taking me away with him, which so frightened my sisters that they believed my life in danger. would not let me move beyond their reach while we remained in that dungeon. We spoke in whispers, suffered as much

as the starving children in Joseph's time, and were more afraid than Daniel and the dead of lions. So I think he wanted to eat them. Oh, what? I think he was trying to take one to eat, eat. And the rest were like, you know, you're not eating her.

Yeah, and so they were just holding on to each other to try to keep, but that's, I grew up like that. I mean, that's just normal. That's so fucked. You guys staying here. One of you gets to come with me. Let's go outside and play axe. Yeah.

But they were rescued by the second relief. Again, Tamson refused to go. She stayed with George. The third relief was led by William Eddy and William Foster, who came hoping their sons were alive. When they arrived, Miss Murphy said a single word to them, dead. Miss Murphy, how about an opener? What about hello?

dead dead oh hello both of the boys had been cannibalized ah Jesus Christ Mrs. Murphy

whose 12 year old was the one that died earlier and was evening was one of the first at the camp to cannibalize a body but she accused Lewis saying he had grown impatient wanting the boys to die

took little George Foster to bed one night and killed him by morning hanging his carcass on the wall like a slab of game. Oh, for fuck's sake. Both Eddie and Foster were outraged, but Foster then saw that Miss Murphy was out of her fucking mind

and believed Lewis's claims of innocence. Eddie, on the other hand, swore he would kill Lewis once all this was over. Just then, Tams and Donner stumbled into the cabin after walking miles. Eddie and Foster offered to take her and her children, but once she saw her children were gone,

and alive in good hands she returned to George. He died a few weeks later. When the third relief mission was completed, they assumed George Samuel Donner, and Mrs. Murphy had died. Sorry, sorry, it must have been Tamson. That's just a change. So George, Tamson, and

Mrs. Murphy had died. I think that's all that was left up. That's all they left there. Oh my God. That left... Oh, no, so wait. That left, Tamson, and Lewis is the only survivors. Okay, so there's George, Simon, Donner, Miss Murphy, Tamson, and Lewis. Those are the survivors. Okay. None thought Lewis was worth risking their life for.

Uh-huh. Finally. And Tamsin had already turned down three chances to leave, so they weren't going to go back for her. So they waited for the weather to clear up a month later, and then they went, and this was the fourth relief, and they just saw this as like a salvage operation to get all the belongings.

Okay. On April 17th, the fourth relief arrived at Donner's family camp. Outside there was a kettle filled with human flesh. Oh, Jesus. Christ. Leftovers? George Donner's body... We're going to make sandwiches tomorrow.

George Donner's body was covered in a sheet, his head butchered, and brains removed. Oh, wow. You really got to get in that skull. If you get in the skull, that's where the candy is. Stop talking now. Stop everything you're saying. It's where the candy is.

So, Tamson was nowhere in sight. When the group got to Lewis's pad, this crib. They saw him with Tamsan's body preparing a meal of human lungs and livers. Oh, Jesus Christ, dude. Lewis was the sole survivor. All around the camp were bodies...

I've put on a couple pounds. Gotta shake off that Christmas weight, am I right? Around the holidays, am I the only one who eats more of your family than usual? I ordered a Peloton. Oh, good Lord. Santa gave me stuff in my stock in this year

Lewis also had $225 worth of gold from Tamsin in his waistcoat So the rescue party interrogated Lewis That must have quite the interrogated Yeah I'm sure Tell me about all the body parts

Everywhere Well I don't know what to tell you He admitted that he'd eaten Tamsin Okay I ate Tamsin Now's that to start. Did that help? But he said he did not murder her. He waited for her to die of natural causes.

I was a good guy about it. He confessed to taking the Donner's goods, their gold, bundle of stolen silks, jewels, firearms. But he said Tamson had asked him to gather the Donner's goods and give it to her children. Well, almost. On April 21st, the fourth relief left with Lewis. On April 29th, 1847, almost exactly a year from their departure,

the last member of the Donner Party hobbled into Sutter's Fort and was reunited with his wife. Who ate him? Who ate him? He immediately ate him. Of the 89 immigrants, 45 survived. 32 of them were children. The reeds and brains were the only families to survive without a single loss.

On average, the women survived months longer than the men. Okay, that doesn't have to be. We don't have to make gender lines. William Eddy started searching for Lewis to kill him, but James Reed talked him out of it. Tams and Donner gained a cult following and became the heroine of the Donner party. Her loyalty to George and her love for her children

were commended by men and women everywhere. Not so much for Lewis Kessberg. Interesting, what happened? News of the Donner Party spread across the and newspapers and by word of mouth. The cannibalism was shocking. Though many members of the Donner Party ate people, Louis Kessberg took the heat.

Because he was really eating people. He was like, oh, no, have you tried this? Where's some macaroni at the end of the buffet? It was really good. Try him with a biscuit. You will not regret it. He was known as, quote, The Savage who ate humans for pleasure.

Journalists dubbed him, the human cannibal and reported he murdered Tams and Donner as fact. The human cannibal? I know. Yeah, no shit. He had never seen anything like this. This cannibal happens to be human.

It sounds good. I know, but it's really... It's good. It's an extra word. It works. It's redundant. It's one more word. I think it works.

I get paid by words. A rumor began that Lewis went to bars and bragged about eating people. What? He was at bars like, you know, you guys ever eat like Patrick or Murphy? Excuse me?

It's fucking great. Oh, this is the guy who eats people. Yeah. Once you start, you're like this is fucking awesome. I eat I eat people like I did it up in the mountains but now I'm just like yeah, all the time.

So I hang out at the beach what? And when people walk by I bite him and I just take a chunk out of their leg or whatever and they can't get it back because it's in my tum-tum. You know what I mean? I'll take another shot.

This is a nice bar. He's taking a shot of flesh. I'll have one more. I'm a human cannibal. I'm a human cannibal. When he jumps at the pool, Cannibal! The rumor was he was going to bars saying human meat was more delicious than

California beef. Okay, all right. Now you hold on there, sir! Imagine, like, and I kind of, I'm not trying to, I'm just going to say, his headspace. This is his headspace. I am now the guy who eats humans. I have now been, I am, that's, when people see me, they go, that's the guy who eats humans. Okay, I'm gonna lean in.

That's what I'm gonna do. I'm so sick of being categorized. being categorized as a freak that I'm now not, no longer was it survival based solely. This is actually the better meat. This is the other white meat. You guys, I'm telling you we should get like a people farm and just raise people and we should ship that out to Oregon

and see if they like it and if they like it, we... Well, by the way, right, the horror people feel over that is... Oregon? Well, no, no. Like if we were to eat people and have them in fields being like, hey, let us out. Yeah.

Like what cows do. Like, we have that. Like, we can see that. They just don't speak English. But they are out there like, hey! There's some beautiful cow branches. Oh, really? You drive up the five.

Gorgeous. They look so happy. Yeah. No. So, they also said, the rumor was that he said, Tamsan's liver was, quote, the sweetest morsel he'd ever tasted. This fucking guy. Who's trying to own this?

And then he said, and then he looks at me and he goes, Tamsan was the sweetest morsel. He ever said that to my face. Which is what brings me to my cookbook. How to eat your pals. The best meat you've ever had. Have you ever had a pal chili? Pilly. A pilly. So Lewis was tried for murdering six immigrants, but acquitted because there's no evidence. Well, I mean, good Lord.

Except for all the people. It was like sitting there like, there's nothing? There's no evidence, you say. I wonder where I'd going to. But his reputation is a disaster. I wonder why. He sued a rescuer for slander and won,

but only received a dollar in damages and had to pay his court fees. All right. We'll get you a side of ranch. In 1848, John Sutter hired Lewis as a captain on a merchant. ship. Oh, people are to follow this guy, for sure. Just seven months later, Heinrich

Leinhardt wrote, quote, finally Sutter decided to replace Mr. Kessberg, because so many passengers complained that the boat traveled so slowly down the river that when they ran out of food, the captain, who was accustomed to human flesh, might kill passengers who were asleep and eat them. My own feeling is that Sutter invented this story. Well, I completely understand.

But imagine, when would you sleep, eat your arm? Did you know? The boat's going slow. M-nom-nom-nom-nom-n-nom-n-m-m-m-m. You're spaghetti. So after this, Lewis worked in Sonoma for General Vallejo before running a boarding house at Sutter's Fort. Okay.

In 1851, he bought a hotel in Sacramento. What? Stop. This reinvention is probably not going well. And a rumor started in... This guy's just hearing. whispers everywhere he goes. This guy who eats people.

So stop it. One time for a year. Enough. Lord. A rumor started in Sacramento that he was running a restaurant. I mean, look, you eat a bunch of people.

Sorry, that's going to stick with you. That's the only way to survive. Yeah, but it felt like he was reveling a little more than everyone else. I mean, if your last man's standing, sorry, you're just going to be the guy who people are like... He sold the hotel, but it was destroyed by a fire the night before the purchase was official. So he got no money. No...

Hey, let's not feel too bad for this fucking guy. No known cause of the fire. Next, he ran the Phoenix brewery, and that became worth $50,000. But it was destroyed by a flood. Okay. He was broke again. In 1866, Lewis moved to Calistoga and became a partner in a distillery. Life went well until his wife died in 1877.

They had... Yeah, you know what? We're just going to go ahead and do without a burial. I'll take care of that. We figured the best way to save on some of these cremation fees you're talking about is to... We will get rid of it on our own. Last thing we want to do is take a plot or anything like that. We know a way that she will be with us forever and not...

Yeah, yeah. Mm. Something's not sitting right. Classic her. Nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag. Even from the tummy. So they had four children, and two of them were intellectually disabled. Okay.

C.F. McGlashen was writing in writing a history of the Donner Party. said of Lewis's children, quote, Bertha and Augusta live with the father at Brighton, Sacramento County. Both these children are hopelessly idiotic. Well, there's that empathy we've read about from the time.

Bertha is 26 and has never uttered an intelligible word. Augusta is 15 and possesses only slight traces of intelligent. Both are subject to frequent and violent spazes or epileptic fits. The state provides for insane, but

not for idiots. They scream so loudly while going into their spasms that he cannot dwell near other people. He therefore lives isolated in a plain little house back of his brewery. Here he lives the saddest, loneliest, most pitible creature

on the face of the earth. What the fuck? Now you feel a little bit bad for him. Yeah, I do feel bad for him. Well, not for him, for the kids. No, no, it's not good for anybody. Well, yeah, but, yeah, sure. So when Lewis was 65 years old, he was living near Sacramento, and this author, McLaughen, found him.

And he said Lewis was afflicted by, quote, misery and desolation, tormented by enduring accusations that he was a cannibal. The writer got... Well, to be fair, it's not even an accusation. Well, but they're saying he keeps doing it. Oh, yeah, for sure. Well, again, I mean, you eat 30 people. Well, see, now you're doing it. He didn't eat 30 people.

He ate some people. Yeah. He had a good amount of people. Well, I don't know about 30, though. Look, dude, he won. He won. Sorry. Sorry.

This is the downside to living. That is actually what he said when they came to rescue him. I won, motherfuckers! Winner! Like a million or something, right? By the way, Dave, how long until there's a reality show of people eating other people for weight gain. Five years. Max. I love you.

Max. The biggest winner. Eating other people? So, the writer got Eliza Donner and Lewis together. When they saw

each other, Lewis dropped to his knees and swore he had not murdered Eliza's mother, Tamson. Eliza said she believed him and that she felt no ill will. But people still not believe Lewis and saw him as evil personified. Lewis told McGlachian, quote,

that camp has been the one burden of my life. Yeah, I mean, yeah, the place where you ate a bunch of people? Yeah. That's a fucking burden. You know, wherever... Sometimes I feel like it defined me in a way. I do. I know it's wacky.

Wherever I have gone, people have cried, Stone him, stone him. It's tough. sure. That's tough. That's tough. Mortification, disgrace, disaster, and unheard of misfortune have followed and overwhelmed me. I often think the Almighty has singled me out among all the men on the face of the earth

in order to see how much hardship suffering and misery a human being can bear. Well. And then he takes a rip off a thigh. Lewis's descendants changed their family name when they settled in the Napa area. Today there's only one person claiming to be related to Kestani.

on file. He spent the rest of his life poor and died in 1895 at a hospital for the poor. His grave is unknown and unmarked to this day. But if you go over his grave, you can quietly hear. Why is the grave empty? There's just a napkin with a bunch of barbecue sauce on it. Yeah. Jesus Christ. How do you feel? Not hungry. I mean, you know when you watch a movie that you watched, that you used to love when you were a kid and you watch it as a grown-up. And you're like, I didn't even understand the movie. Yeah. Like, there's so many parts that I'd be

laughing at and I don't understand. That's what I feel like this is. Like, I've known what the daughter party is, but I did not know what the donor party is. I wonder if they still teach it in school. I do not think they do. Do they? They do? They're busy teaching the new Patriot Day. I guess the value

of it is, is like, the hardship of travel, but it's also more of an idiot taking the wrong past story than it is. Yeah. No, what it is is the complications from doubling down on something that you know is probably stupid, which is kind of how we based our government.

But would you be able to eat a person? Yeah. But that's a little too fast. Yeah, it's just, I mean, if I'm starving and you're a fucking dead meat thing, yeah, I'm going to eat you. I'm going to fucking cook you up. I have a stew. Yeah, you eat the guy.

If I was dying about it, eat me. Do you have any doubt? I hope my dog eats me if you're, shit goes bad and he's, you know, and he's got to live. Would you want Jose to eat you if he had to survive? I know that he would. I laid down one time. I took it.

One time I took a nap and he was eating me. I was like, dude, my arms open. He was like, sorry, I didn't feel a pulse. I was like, those are veins. I've been to sleep for 10 minutes. You just look weird. You didn't seem yourself. I thought I'd just start eating foot up.

Am I crazy? If you and I were in this situation, who do you think would eat who? Oh, I eat you. I have 100%. 100%. Absolutely. you an arpeas. 100% you'd eat me.

I would eat before you die. Yeah, I know. Yeah, you'd take the whip end. Beat me with a blunt whip end. Dave, no. I think there's a fruit tree. Shut up.

I want steak. I like meat. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'll do that afterwards. Okay. I said, do you want a blowjob now? Jesus Christ.

Yeah. It's not the story I heard when I was a kid. It's better. What are you here when you're a kid? just that they fucking went up into the hill the wrong time and ate each other. Oh no, it's dark. They don't tell the back story

of like they went the wrong way and listened to be fucking idiot. Yeah. Yeah, it's full of the classic fucking dollop morons. A guy who's like, I want to own California and gets a bunch of people killed. It's the first. And other people are like, I know better. Let's go the wrong way. And then of course the women are nuts.

They hate this. They hate it when we stop and ask for directions. us, man, we'll figure it out. Gnom, yum, yum, num, yum, yum. Well. That was the, I wanted to do that one for a long time. Congratulations on a great story from your town. What a great journey.

Congratulations. Sir, why aren't you clapping? Come on, get your fucking hands together. Thank you. Jesus Christ. I was going to do a different one, but it's going to scare the fuck out of you, so I'll just save it for a studio one. Yeah, it's bad. It's bad. You're all going to be fucked.

It's all right. It's fine. Okay. Thank you guys very much for coming out. We really appreciate Sacramento. Thank you to Steve Fury's mother. Thank you guys. We appreciate it. See ya. The sources for this episode are The Diary of Patrick Breen, One of the Donner Party by Patrick Breen. It's his own diary. I said that. The indifferent stars above, the harrowing saga of the Donner Party from 2015 by Dan James Brown, The Expedition of the Donner Party and its tragic fate from 1997 by Elizabeth, sorry, Eliza Donner Houghton, the Immigrants Guide to Oregon and California by Lensford Hastings,

unfortunate immigrants, narratives with the Donner Party by Kristen Johnson. History of the Donner Party, A Tragedy of the Sierra by C.F. McGlasham. From the desk of Truckee C.F. McGlachan, his letters to Eliza Houghton, Donner Party, Survivor, investigative report of a massacred wagon train, Truckee Tahoe Adventures, and more by C.F. McClashon. Desperate Passage.

The Donner Party's Perilist Journey West by Ethan Areric. Encyclopedia of Frontier. Here Biography, Volume 2, G.O. by Dan Thrap. The Best Land Under Heaven, the Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny by Michael Wallace, and the following articles. How Lewis Kessberg was branded the Killer Cannibal of the Donner Party by Michelle Debazak. On Mental Foss, how Lewis Kessberg was branded Killer Cannibal. Oh, I think I just did that one.

Tracking down the truth of what happened to the Donner Party, Los Angeles Times by Anna Jappenga. Charles F. Glasson Truckie Patriarch in the Sierra Sun by Mark McLaughlin. Beyond Cannibalism, the true story of the Donner Party, National Geographic by Simon War Al, and then a ton of websites that you can check out on the source list. Hey, Dallup fans.

you love the dollop. You love listening to the dollop. Do you want to watch the dollop? You're like, Gareth, what are you talking about? By the way, it's not Gary. It's Gareth. Well, we have partnered with Lakeside Animation, and we are starting to animate some of our episodes. So if you want to go to go watch a five-partner animation, which is actually like a 22-minute episode or 30-minute episode, I can't remember, of the Rube, you can go to Lakeside Animation on YouTube and watch a really awesome animation of the Rube. It really genuinely kicks ass and we're very proud of it. And the more you share it, the more you give it to people, the more you follow Lakeside, all that stuff, the better chance we have of making a lot more of them. We're already making a second one. So go

there and watch The Rube.