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Tragic Fate, by Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

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Title: The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate

Author: Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

Release Date: February 18, 2004 [EBook #11146]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: S.O. HOUGHTON]

THE EXPEDITION OF THE DONNER PARTY

AND ITS TRAGIC FATE

BY ELIZA P. DONNER HOUGHTON

[Illustration: Eliza P. Donner Houghton]

PREFACE

Out of the sunshine and shadows of sixty-eight years come these
personal recollections of California--of the period when American
civilization first crossed its mountain heights and entered its
overland gateways.

I seem to hear the tread of many feet, the lowing of many herds, and
know they are the re-echoing sounds of the sturdy pioneer home-seekers.
Travel-stained and weary, yet triumphant and happy, most of them reach
their various destinations, and their trying experiences and valorous
deeds are quietly interwoven with the general history of the State.

Not so, however, the "Donner Party," of which my father was captain.
Like fated trains of other epochs whose privations, sufferings, and
self-sacrifices have added renown to colonization movements and served
as danger signals to later wayfarers, that party began its journey with
song of hope, and within the first milestone of the promised land ended
it with a prayer for help. "Help for the helpless in the storms of the
Sierra Nevada Mountains!"

And I, a child then, scarcely four years of age, was too young to do
more than watch and suffer with other children the lesser privations
of our snow-beleaguered camp; and with them survive, because the
fathers and mothers hungered in order that the children might live.

Scenes of loving care and tenderness were emblazoned on my mind. Scenes
of anguish, pain, and dire distress were branded on my brain during
days, weeks, and months of famine,--famine which reduced the party from
eighty-one souls to forty-five survivors, before th