Bad Luck, Starvation and Cannibalism. The Story Of The Donner Party And Their Doomed Journey.
- Daniel Holland
- Apr 23
- 10 min read
Updated: Aug 20
“Are you men from California, or do you come from Heaven?”
These were the stunned words of an emaciated Mrs Murphy, emerging from a snow-buried cabin at Truckee Lake as rescuers from California finally reached the stranded emigrants. By then, some members of the ill-fated Donner Party had not eaten anything substantial in weeks. Others had turned to the unthinkable, eating the frozen remains of those who had died before them.
What began as an optimistic journey of American pioneers chasing prosperity on the West Coast turned into one of the most harrowing survival sagas in United States history. Trapped by snow, plagued by poor decisions, divided by infighting, and beset by starvation, the Donner–Reed Party endured months of winter in the unforgiving Sierra Nevada. By the end, nearly half were dead, and tales of cannibalism would overshadow everything else.
A Quick Timeline of the Donner Party’s Doomed Journey
April to May 1846 – Departure from Illinois and MissouriFamilies like the Donners and Reeds gather in Springfield and Independence to head west on the Oregon Trail.
July to August – The Hastings Cutoff DecisionAt Fort Bridger, they gamble on a shortcut promoted by Lansford Hastings. It proves disastrous.
Late August to Early September – Crossing the Salt DesertA six-day ordeal across the Great Salt Lake Desert drains their strength, kills cattle, and shatters morale.
September to Early October – Violence on the HumboldtOxen are stolen, tempers boil, and teamster John Snyder is killed by James Reed, who is banished.
Late October – Trapped by Sierra SnowAn early blizzard blocks the pass. Families set up winter camps at Truckee Lake and Alder Creek.
Mid December – The Forlorn Hope LeavesSeventeen set out on snowshoes. Only a handful live to tell the tale, some resorting to cannibalism.
February to April 1847 – Relief Parties ArriveFour rescue missions reach the mountains. Survivors are carried out, gaunt and traumatised.
Spring 1846: Departing with Hope
The Donner Party originated from Springfield, Illinois. It included several families: George and Jacob Donner, prosperous farmer brothers in their sixties; James F. Reed, an ambitious businessman with a well-equipped wagon; Patrick Breen, a devout Catholic; the Murphy family; the Graves; the Eddys; and others. By spring, they made up a sizeable portion of the 500 wagons departing Independence, Missouri, bound for the Far West.
California, still under Mexican rule but already drawing American settlers, promised rich farmland, a mild climate, and fresh opportunities. For some, like Patrick Breen, it meant freedom to live within a Catholic community. For others, it was the lure of Manifest Destiny, the great push to settle the continent.
Most wagon trains completed the journey in four to six months, travelling around 15 miles a day along the Oregon Trail before branching toward California. The Reeds in particular stood out with their lavish “Pioneer Palace Car,” a two-storey wagon fitted with bunks and even a built-in stove. This was a group that began with optimism and confidence.
But decisions made in those early weeks would seal their fate.
The Fatal Decision: Hastings Cutoff
Among the earliest and most consequential choices was whether to follow the well-established California Trail or attempt a newly advertised shortcut. Lansford Hastings, a lawyer and promoter, had published The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California, promising that his “Hastings Cutoff” would save 300 miles. On paper, it looked tempting. In reality, it was untested by wagons and fraught with obstacles.
At Fort Bridger, in July 1846, the Donner Party faced their crossroads. Most emigrants ignored Hastings’s advice and stayed on the established route. The Donners, Reeds, and their companions chose the gamble. It was a decision that would set them weeks behind schedule, sap their energy, and leave them critically weakened just as winter approached.
The cutoff demanded that they hack a road through the rugged Wasatch Mountains. It took weeks of exhausting labour, men felling trees and women pushing wagons by hand up narrow defiles. Instead of saving time, they lost nearly a month.
The Great Salt Lake Desert
The true disaster came in late August when they reached the Great Salt Lake Desert. This barren expanse stretched for over 80 miles with little water and no grazing for cattle. Hastings had not bothered to travel it himself by wagon.
The Donner Party spent six days crossing under blistering heat. Oxen collapsed, tongues swollen. Wagons broke apart. At night, exhausted emigrants staggered onward under the moonlight. By the time they emerged on the far side, much of their livestock had perished, many wagons were abandoned, and tempers were fraying. George Donner later remarked that this was the moment hope began to fade.
The shortcut had cost them dearly. Instead of arriving in California by early autumn, they were still hundreds of miles away with winter looming.
Conflict on the Humboldt
As they moved west along the Humboldt River in September, hunger and fear gnawed at the company. Native raids killed oxen. Families accused one another of theft. The breaking point came when teamster John Snyder, employed by the Graves family, beat James Reed’s oxen. Reed intervened, tempers boiled, and Snyder struck him with a whip handle. In the fight that followed, Reed stabbed Snyder to death.
The wagon train split over whether Reed had acted in self-defence. Instead of execution, the company voted to banish him. Reed left on horseback for California, leaving his wife and children behind to fend for themselves. It was a bitter fracture that deepened divisions within the group.
By October, food was scarce, oxen were dying, and the emigrants moved slowly through Nevada. Yet they pressed on, hoping to reach the Sierra Nevada before snow fell.
Trapped by Early Snow
In late October 1846, the party reached the eastern slopes of the Sierra. But an early blizzard swept in, dumping several feet of snow and closing Truckee Pass. Attempts to break through failed as wagons sank and oxen floundered. Exhausted and demoralised, they had no choice but to camp.
Two main sites were established: one at Truckee Lake (later renamed Donner Lake) and another six miles away at Alder Creek, where the Donner families were stranded with broken wagons. Rough cabins were built, food was rationed, and hopes of rescue seemed slim.
By November, hunting had failed, cattle had vanished, and the emigrants boiled hides and chewed on twigs. Patrick Breen began a diary that remains one of the most haunting records of the tragedy. On December 1, he wrote simply: “Snowing. Wind about W.S.W. We live on short allowance of hides.”
The Forlorn Hope
By December, starvation was imminent. Seventeen volunteers set out westward on makeshift snowshoes, later called the “Forlorn Hope.” For 33 days, they trudged across mountains and forests. When their food ran out, some resorted to eating the dead. Survivor William Eddy later admitted,
“We ate the bodies of those who had died before us.”
Only seven staggered into California settlements alive. Their tales of desperation spurred rescue missions to head back into the mountains.
Relief Efforts and Grim Discoveries
Between February and April 1847, four rescue parties braved the snow. Each time they found skeletal survivors clinging to life. Children were often prioritised for evacuation. Adults too weak to walk were left behind with promises that more relief was coming.
Some were discovered gnawing on bones. One rescuer, horrified, described “the remains of a ghastly feast.” Yet the survivors themselves insisted they had not killed but only consumed those who had already died.
By April, the final rescue party removed the last survivors. In total, 48 of the original 87 emigrants lived. Children had the best odds, women fared better than men, and no one over fifty survived.
The Grim Tale of Jean Baptiste Trudeau
At Alder Creek, the Donners endured suffering every bit as grim as their companions at Truckee Lake. By the time rescuers finally broke through to the camp in February 1847, George Donner lay incapacitated from a festering hand wound, Jacob Donner was dead, and the family’s hired men had begun to perish one after another. Among the survivors was sixteen-year-old Jean Baptiste Trudeau, a French-Canadian orphan hired by the Donners to drive a wagon.
When rescuers first approached the camp, they claimed to have seen Trudeau emerging from a snow shelter carrying a human leg over his shoulder. Startled, he allegedly tried to throw it aside and cover up what he had been doing. The implication was chilling: that Trudeau had been actively butchering the bodies of the dead to survive.
Accounts of his actions remain divided. Some accused him of desecrating corpses and possibly even consuming George Donner’s young son. Others suggested that he was simply following the grim necessity that all at Alder Creek faced, survival by whatever means. In later life, Trudeau gave contradictory statements. In one interview he admitted to eating human flesh, while in another he denied it flatly.
Seeking redemption, Trudeau tried to distance himself from the scandal. He reassured Eliza Donner, one of the surviving daughters, that he had never harmed or eaten her parents. Eliza later wrote that she believed him, though rumours persisted. Trudeau went on to live a quiet life in California, working as a farmer and blending into anonymity. Yet the shadow of the accusation, the boy with a human leg slung over his shoulder, followed him forever.
The Final Survivor: Lewis Keseberg
If Trudeau’s story was clouded by doubt, Lewis Keseberg’s reputation was cemented in infamy. Born in Germany, Keseberg had emigrated to America with dreams of prosperity, but he never endeared himself to his fellow travellers. Survivors later recalled him as quarrelsome, moody, and prone to violent outbursts. By the time the fourth and final relief expedition arrived at Truckee Lake in April 1847, Keseberg was the only adult left alive in one of the cabins.
The rescuers entered a scene that would become the stuff of nightmare. The bodies of Lavinah Murphy, Tamsen Donner, and several children lay nearby. In a pot, they claimed, they found cooked human flesh. Keseberg himself admitted that he had eaten from the dead, though he denied killing anyone.
The fate of Tamsen Donner, in particular, became a subject of lasting speculation. Keseberg insisted she had died of natural causes and had chosen to remain at Truckee Lake rather than abandon her dying husband at Alder Creek. But others suggested a darker ending: that Keseberg had either hastened her death or exploited her vulnerability. Newspapers at the time fanned the rumours, calling him a “ghoul” and branding him the villain of the entire tragedy.
One rescuer, Moses Schallenberger, later claimed that Keseberg had boasted of enjoying human flesh, allegedly saying it was “the sweetest meat I ever tasted.” Whether this was true or another slander to blacken his name, the accusation stuck.
Infamy Beyond the Mountains
Keseberg’s life after the rescue was defined by scandal. He attempted to run a restaurant in Sacramento, but customers avoided it, unable to stomach the idea of eating food prepared by a man who had once dined on his fellow emigrants. His reputation was further damaged when a newspaper accused him of stealing money and valuables from the dead at Donner Lake.
In response, Keseberg sued for libel. He won the case, but the court awarded him only a token sum of one dollar, a symbolic judgment that confirmed how deeply his reputation had been destroyed. Even in victory, he was branded forever.
Despite the stigma, Keseberg lived for decades in California. He married, raised children, and continued to protest his innocence regarding any murders. In later years, he gave several interviews attempting to tell his side of the story. Yet the public never forgave him. For most Americans, the name Lewis Keseberg became synonymous with cannibalism, a man remembered not for surviving the mountains but for what he had eaten to do so.
He died in 1895, poor and still carrying the weight of accusations first made nearly fifty years earlier. His story, like that of the Donner Party itself, lingers as a reminder of how quickly desperation can blur the line between survival and damnation.
Aftermath and Legacy
The Donner Party quickly became a sensation across America. Newspapers called it proof of both frontier courage and frontier folly. Critics blamed Lansford Hastings for promoting a deadly shortcut. Others blamed poor leadership within the group.
For survivors, the stigma lasted decades. The Reed children, despite surviving, grew up haunted by whispers about cannibalism. Virginia Reed, aged 13 during the ordeal, later wrote,
“Never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can.”
Today, Donner Lake and Donner Pass are named in memory of the tragedy. Monuments stand where cabins once buried families beneath snow. Historians still debate details, but the story remains one of endurance, tragedy, and human desperation pushed to its limits.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Donner Party
What happened to the Donner Party?
The Donner Party was trapped by early snow in the Sierra Nevada during the winter of 1846–1847 after taking the untested Hastings Cutoff. With no way forward and little food, nearly half the group died. Survivors endured months of starvation, and some resorted to cannibalism to live. Out of 87 emigrants, only 48 survived.
Why did the Donner Party resort to cannibalism?
By January 1847, every other food source was gone. They had eaten their oxen, boiled hides, chewed leather, and even boiled bones into soup. Facing certain death, survivors turned to eating the bodies of those who had already died. Some accounts from the Forlorn Hope group suggest killings may have occurred, but survivors disputed those details for the rest of their lives.
Who survived the Donner Party?
Children had the best chances, followed by women, while no adult over 50 survived. The Reed children all survived, as did most of the Breen family. Several Donner children survived, though George and Tamsen Donner did not. In total, 48 people lived through the ordeal.
Where is Donner Pass today?
Donner Pass is above Donner Lake near the town of Truckee, California, in the Sierra Nevada. Today it is crossed by the Union Pacific railway and by Interstate 80, a modern highway that runs roughly parallel to the emigrant trail. A monument at Donner Memorial State Park commemorates the emigrants and the depth of the snow that winter.
Was the Hastings Cutoff really shorter?
On paper, the Hastings Cutoff looked like a shortcut. In practice, it added about 150 miles to the journey and drained the emigrants’ strength. The Donner Party had to cut their way through mountains, crawl across salt flats without water, and by the time they rejoined the main trail, they were weeks behind schedule and dangerously weakened. The so-called shortcut became the decision that sealed their fate.
Sources
Breen, Patrick. The Diary of Patrick Breen: One of the Donner Party. 1846–1847.https://archive.org/details/diaryofpatrickbr00bree
Reed, Virginia. Across the Plains in the Donner Party. 1891.https://archive.org/details/acrossplainsindo00reedrich
Hardesty, Donald L. The Archaeology of the Donner Party. University of Nevada Press, 1997.https://www.nevadapress.com/product/the-archaeology-of-the-donner-party/
McGlashan, C.F. History of the Donner Party: A Tragedy of the Sierra. 1879.https://archive.org/details/historyofdonnerp00mcgl
Rarick, Ethan. Desperate Passage: The Donner Party’s Perilous Journey West. Oxford University Press, 2008.https://global.oup.com/academic/product/desperate-passage-9780195305021
Donner Memorial State Park (California State Parks).https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=503
Nevada Historical Society – Donner Party Collections.https://www.nvhistoricalsociety.org/
Britannica: Donner Party.https://www.britannica.com/event/Donner-party
PBS: The Donner Party (companion to Ric Burns documentary).https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/donner/
Smithsonian Magazine: “The Tragedy of the Donner Party Began With the Quest for a Shortcut.”https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/tragedy-donner-party-began-quest-shortcut-180961994/
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