One hundred and sixty-three years ago this week, the members of the Donner Party were desperately low on food supplies, and were beginning to eat nearly anything. A few families at the Donner Lake site still had some dried beef left, but others had been fending off starvation by boiling ox hides for the revolting glutinous residue they provided. The pioneers were also eating the leather from their shoes, boots, and the harnesses of their long-dead horses and oxen. Even shoelaces were consumed.

Dogs, Mice, Rabbits
The Reed family had been forced to eat its dog, Cash, at the end of December. The Breen family was surviving on their meager, yet relatively ample supply of oxen meat, which had enabled them to spare their own pet dog so far.

At the Alder Creek site, north of present-day Truckee, the hired men with the two Donner families stayed busy making lead shot and taking pot shots at rabbits and other rodents. Occasionally they were able to catch mice that wandered into their lean-tos; this added a bit of fresh meat to their meager diet of boiled ox hides.

60 Pioneers Still Alive in Mountains
In early December 1846, there had been 59 emigrants trapped at Donner Lake and 22 at Alder Creek, making for a total of 81 pioneers in the mountains. By late January, exhaustion and hunger had taken six lives in the two camps, which were about five miles apart. Fifteen other original members had left in the Forlorn Hope snowshoe party in mid-December. So, in mid-January, there were 60 of the original 81 pioneers remaining, snowbound, in the two camps.

On January 21, Milt Elliot, John Baptiste Trudeau, and John Denton helped lead Eliza Williams from Alder Creek to Donner Lake. Eliza, who couldn't digest the vile, boiled hides, made the trip to beg Patrick Breen and Margaret Reed for meat. With their hungry children crying for food, neither the Breens nor the Reeds could afford to share their last morsels of precious beef, so Williams was sent back to the Donner camp at Alder Creek, empty handed.

Starving and desperate, some of the emigrants began to pull the dried ox-hides off the shelters, reducing their protection from the elements. Patrick Breen wrote, "Provisions scarce. Hides are the only article we depend on... we have a little meat yet, may God send us help."

Blizzard
Shortly after dawn on January 22, a huge storm roared into the Sierra. It reached blizzard proportions that night with heavy snow and gusty winds. The next day, Breen wrote, "Blew hard and snowed all night. The most severe storm we experienced this winter."

On January 26, there was a break in the precipitation. In a clear display of his fluctuating emotions, Breen again dared dream that winter was over: "Cleared up yesterday. Today fine & pleasant. Wind south. Hope [that] we are done with snowstorms." The next day, snow and sleet once again swept down from the summit.

Seven Forlorn Hope Survivors Reach Valley
Ten days before the January 22 storm hit the Sierra crest, the seven haggard people left (of 15) in the Forlorn Hope group stumbled out of the snow and into a Sacramento Valley Miwok Indian encampment. Stirred to compassion by their pitiful appearance, the Indians shared acorn bread with them. A pair of strong Indian men took each victim by the arm and supported him or her as they all walked west.

The exhausted snowshoers struggled through rain from one Indian village to the next; they were given a little more bread and pine nuts to eat. It was the Miwok tribe's generosity and steady nurturing that kept the seven alive for nearly a week during this last push to safety.

Finally, late in the day on January 17, two Indians carried William Eddy to an outlying cabin in the American settlement of Johnson's Ranch, about 40 miles north of Sutter's Fort. The cabin's occupants were the Ritchie family who had arrived in 1846. Once the Ritchie's got over their shock at Eddy's emaciated condition, he was given biscuits and coffee. Other members of the little community saddled horses and rode out to find the other survivors who had collapsed in the mud from exhaustion.

It had taken the Forlorn Hope group 33 days to reach civilization from Donner Lake. The hardships the seven survivors had endured stunned the California community. Once it was explained that starvation and death threatened to wipe out the remaining Donner Party members still trapped in the mountains, the news spread like wildfire.


Editor's Note: This installment is #30 in an exclusive, weekly series tracing the actual experiences of the Donner Party as it worked its way into American history. Mark McLaughlin, a weather historian and photographer, who lives on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe, wrote the series for Tahoetopia. Copies of all the installments can be found by clicking on the Donner Party.