One hundred and sixty-plus years ago this week, members of the Donner Party were approaching South Pass in south, central Wyoming.

The pass is a gap in the Rocky Mountains; it leads into the Great Basin and beyond to California. Although they were making slow progress, the emigrants were excited. The weather was pleasant and spirits were high.

Earlier in 1846 (April 15) three families from Springfield, Illinois started west together in search of a mild climate and open, disease-free land. James Reed, along with his wife and four young children, joined the George and Jacob Donner families in the overland journey. Even today their story resonates of fortitude, perseverance, and faith. It is a story that is an integral part of the West.

During the first week in July 1846 the party was about a week behind its rough schedule. Still ahead on the trail was the famous geologic formation known as Independence Rock. It represented the halfway point to Sutter's Fort on the Sacramento River in California. First mountain men, and now pioneers, scratched their names and the year into the rock. It had become a touchstone as more and more wagon trains were crossing from east to west. As a rule, pioneers wanted to pass or reach the rock by July 4th.

The Donner's slow-moving caravan, however, failed to reach the outcropping as planned. The rock was still eight days ahead of the party on the 4th, which it spent at a North Platte River encampment in present-day Wyoming.

July 4, 1846
Caravan members greeted the dawn by shooting pistols and hoisting an American flag up a makeshift pole. Patriotic pioneers marched around in a mini-parade, listened to speeches, and finally paused while someone read the Declaration of Independence.

That day everyone feasted on fresh buffalo meat, warm bread, and other fixings. Children enjoyed a treat of lemonade made from dried lemon rinds and precious sugar, while the adults toasted each impassioned speech made by tossing back cups of wine and liquor.

Before James Reed had left Illinois he had exchanged bottles of French brandy with a few friends and neighbors he expected he would never see again. Reed's stepdaughter, Virginia, wrote about the arrangement:

"Some of my father's friends in Springfield had given him a bottle of good old brandy, which he had agreed to drink at a certain hour of this day [July 4] looking to the east, while his friends in Illinois were to drink a toast to his success from a companion bottle with their faces turned west, the difference in time being carefully estimated."

Edwin Bryant who, like Tamsen Donner, was writing a book about the journey west on the California Trail, noted:

"Mr. Reed had preserved some wines and liquors especially for this occasion-an anniversary, by the way, which in this remote and desert region crowded our memories with reminiscences of the past, pleasurable from the associations they recalled, and painful from the position we now occupied. I thought, on the whole, that the 'glorious fourth' was celebrated here in this remote desert with more spirit and zest, than it usually is in the crowded cities of the States."

Reed Photo: California State Parks, Sutter Fort Archives

Editor's Note: This installment is the first in an exclusive series tracing the experiences of the Donner Party as it worked its way into American history. The series was written for Tahoetopia by Mark McLaughlin, weather historian, who lives on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe. All forty weeks in the series can be found by clicking on Donner Party.