The Donner Party: Starvation, Cannibalism and America's Deadliest Shortcut
Updated: Oct 26
"Are you men from California, or do you come from heaven?"
That's what Levinah Murphy asked when a party of rescuers finally reached the snow-buried cabins at Truckee Lake in February 1847. She'd been trapped there since November. So had dozens of others, living on boiled ox hides, bark and bones, and in the end on something far worse.
What started as an optimistic trek west turned into the most notorious survival story in American history. A dodgy shortcut, a murder, an early winter and months of starvation in the Sierra Nevada left nearly half the Donner Party dead. And the survivors spent the rest of their lives being asked the same question about what they'd eaten to stay alive.
Quick Answers
What happened to the Donner Party? A wagon train of 87 emigrants heading for California in 1846 took an untested shortcut, fell weeks behind and was trapped by snow in the Sierra Nevada for the winter of 1846 to 1847.
How many survived? 48 of the 87 made it out alive. Children and families who stayed together had the best odds.
Did the Donner Party really eat people? Yes. With nothing else left, some survivors ate the bodies of those who'd already died, both in the mountain camps and among the snowshoe party known as the Forlorn Hope.
Was anyone killed for food? Two Miwok guides, Luis and Salvador, were shot by William Foster during the Forlorn Hope's trek and eaten. They're the only people known to have been killed for food.
Where did it happen? At Truckee Lake, now Donner Lake, and nearby Alder Creek, close to the modern town of Truckee, California. Donner Memorial State Park stands on the site today.
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 lost to raids, 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. Seven survive the 33-day trek, and some resort to cannibalism.
February to April 1847: Relief Parties ArriveFour rescue missions reach the mountains. Survivors are carried out, gaunt and traumatised.
Spring 1846: Setting Out With High Hopes
The heart of the group came from Springfield, Illinois. George Donner, a well-off farmer of about 60, was travelling with his wife Tamsen and their children, and his brother Jacob, 56, brought his own family along. James Reed, an ambitious businessman, came with his wife Margret, their children and his stepdaughter Virginia. Between them they set off in April 1846 with nine wagons and 32 people.
The Reeds travelled in style. Their family wagon was so big and well fitted out that it was later nicknamed the "Pioneer Palace Car", with bunks, a stove and room to stand up inside. It was an early sign of how the Reeds saw themselves, and it would cause them problems later.
Along the way they joined a much bigger wagon train and picked up others heading the same way, including Patrick Breen's Irish Catholic farming family from Iowa and the widow Levinah Murphy and her large Tennessee clan. California, still part of Mexico at the time, promised rich farmland and a mild climate. Most wagon trains made the trip in four to six months. The Donners expected to be there by autumn.
The Shortcut That Wasn't
The fatal decision came at Fort Bridger in July. A promoter called Lansford Hastings had written a guidebook pushing a new route south of the Great Salt Lake, and travellers were told it would save them something like 350 miles. On paper it looked brilliant. In reality almost nobody had taken wagons along it, and Hastings himself had only ridden part of it on horseback.
Most emigrants stuck to the proven trail. The Donners, the Reeds and their companions went for the shortcut, and George Donner was elected captain of the group from then on.
Hastings had promised to guide them. He didn't. He'd gone ahead with another wagon train and left letters along the way, and when Reed rode ahead to find him, Hastings simply pointed out the general direction and went back to his own party. The Donner Party had to hack a road through the Wasatch Mountains themselves, felling trees and hauling wagons up steep slopes by hand. It took weeks of brutal work. A short cut that was supposed to save time had already cost them dearly.
Six Days on the Salt Flats
Then came the Great Salt Lake Desert. Hastings had said it was about 40 miles across and would take two days. It was more like 80 miles, and it took six.
They crossed it in late August and early September with little water and no grazing. Oxen collapsed or wandered off in the night, crazed with thirst. Wagons were abandoned in the salt. The Reeds lost most of their oxen and had to leave their famous wagon behind. By the time the group staggered out on the far side, they'd lost huge amounts of livestock and supplies, and tempers were at breaking point.
All told, the shortcut ended up around 125 miles longer than the main trail. They were weeks behind schedule, short of food and still hundreds of miles from California.
Murder on the Humboldt
In early October, as the wagons struggled along the Humboldt River in what's now Nevada, the tension boiled over. A teamster called John Snyder lost his temper with Reed on a steep hill, and Snyder hit him over the head with his whip handle. Reed pulled a knife and stabbed Snyder, who died within minutes.
Some argued it was self-defence. Others wanted Reed hanged. In the end the company banished him and sent him off alone and unarmed, leaving Margret and the children behind. His stepdaughter Virginia, just 13, crept out after him with his rifle and some food. Reed rode ahead to California, planning to come back with help.
By now Paiute raiders were shooting oxen, food was running low, and the group was fraying. They pressed on, desperate to cross the Sierra Nevada before the snow came.
Snowbound
They didn't make it. The main group reached Truckee Lake, now Donner Lake, at the foot of the pass at the end of October. They made a few attempts to get over, floundering through deep drifts, and then on the evening of 4 November a heavy storm closed the pass for good.
Most of the emigrants crammed into rough cabins by the lake. The Donner families were stuck about six miles back at Alder Creek, after an axle broke and slowed them down. George Donner had cut his hand chiselling a replacement. It seemed like nothing at first, then it became infected, and he was soon too ill to move.
They ate their remaining cattle, then their dogs, then they boiled ox hides into a kind of glue and chewed on bones and bark. On 20 November Patrick Breen started keeping a diary, and it's one of the most extraordinary documents in American history, a plain, day-by-day record of the weather, the hunger and the deaths, written by a man who had no idea if anyone would ever read it.
The Forlorn Hope
By mid December it was obvious that waiting meant dying. On 16 December, 17 of the strongest set out on homemade snowshoes to try to cross the mountains and bring back help. Two turned back almost at once. The other 15 became known as the Forlorn Hope.
Among them were Charles Stanton, who'd already made it to California once and come back with supplies, and two Miwok men called Luis and Salvador, who'd been sent by John Sutter to guide them. The snow was deep, the weather was brutal and the food ran out within days. On 21 December Stanton, snow-blind and exhausted, stayed behind by the fire, saying he'd catch up. He never did.
Then the group was hit by a blizzard and people started dying. Starving and freezing, the survivors did what they'd sworn they wouldn't. They cut flesh from the bodies of the dead, cooked it and ate it, taking care that nobody had to eat their own relatives.
Even that wasn't enough. After roughly nine days without food, Luis and Salvador were close to death, and William Foster shot them both. Their bodies were butchered and eaten too. They're the only people known to have been killed for food during the whole disaster, and they're often left out of the story.
After 33 days in the mountains, William Eddy stumbled into a settlement on the edge of the Sacramento Valley and raised the alarm. Rescuers brought in six more. Of the 15 who'd set out, only seven survived, two men and five women.
Rescue
The first relief party reached Truckee Lake on 18 February 1847, which is when Levinah Murphy asked whether they'd come from heaven. They found people too weak to stand, cabins buried under snow and the dead lying in the drifts. They could only carry so much food and only take out those able to walk, so they had to make agonising choices about who left first.
One of those left behind was eight-year-old Patty Reed, too weak to make it over the snow. As her mother had to leave without her, Patty reportedly told her: "Well, mother, if you never see me again, do the best you can."
Things at the lake got even worse after the first rescuers left. Breen's diary recorded the moment the last taboo started to fall. "Mrs Murphy said here yesterday that thought she would Commence on Milt. & eat him," he wrote in late February. "I dont that she has done so yet, it is distressing."
On 1 March the second relief party arrived, and with it James Reed. He'd made it to California, failed to get back over the mountains once, and now came through the snow to find Patty and his son Tommy still alive. Margret and the other children had already been brought out by the first relief, and Reed had met them on the trail. The whole Reed family survived, one of the very few that did.
The Boy With the Leg
At Alder Creek, things were just as grim. Jacob Donner was dead, George was dying, and several of the hired men had gone too. One of the survivors was Jean Baptiste Trudeau, a teenage wagon driver who'd been working for the Donners.
The first two rescuers to reach the camp saw Trudeau carrying a human leg. When he spotted them, he threw it into a hole in the snow that held the dismembered body of Jacob Donner. In an account from 1847, Trudeau reportedly boasted about eating Jacob Donner and said he'd eaten a baby raw. Decades later, talking to Eliza Donner, one of George's daughters, he flatly denied ever eating anyone. Eliza chose to believe him.
Tamsen Donner's Choice
The most heartbreaking decision of the whole winter belonged to Tamsen Donner. When the relief parties came, she could have left with her daughters. Instead she sent the girls out and stayed with George at Alder Creek, because he was too ill to move and she wouldn't leave him to die alone.
After George died she set off across the snow towards the lake, and ended up at the cabin where Lewis Keseberg was holed up. According to Keseberg, she died there during the night. Her body was never found.
Lewis Keseberg
When a salvage party reached the lake in April 1847, Keseberg was the last man alive there. He was a German emigrant who'd never been popular with the rest of the company, and what the salvagers found sealed his reputation for good. There was a pot of human flesh in his cabin, along with George Donner's pistols, some jewellery and $250 in gold.
Keseberg admitted he'd eaten the dead to survive, but swore he'd killed nobody. The rescuers didn't believe him and accused him of murdering Tamsen Donner for her money. That summer the California Star newspaper reported that he'd preferred human flesh to the cattle and horses that were starting to appear as the snow melted, a claim that followed him for the rest of his life.
He sued several members of the relief parties for defamation and won, but the court awarded him one dollar in damages and made him pay the costs. He was never charged with any crime. He stayed in California, tried his hand at running a restaurant and a brewery, and lived for decades with people pointing at him in the street. He died poor in 1895.
Who Survived?
Of the 87 people who were part of the Donner Party at some point, 48 survived. Historians have spent a lot of time on the numbers, and they tell a pretty clear story.
Children between six and 14 had the best odds. Men aged 20 to 39 fared terribly, with more than two thirds of them dying, probably because they did the hardest work and had the least body fat to burn. And people travelling with their families were far more likely to come out alive than single men on their own. The Breens and the Reeds both came through intact. Patrick Breen, at 51, was the oldest survivor.
The Legacy of the Donner Party
The story was all over American newspapers within months, and it's never really gone away. Lansford Hastings got a lot of the blame, and so did the emigrants themselves for gambling on his shortcut. Fewer people used the route afterwards, and when gold was discovered in California in 1848, the stampede of new travellers knew exactly what could happen if you were late into the Sierra.
Virginia Reed summed it up best in a letter to her cousin Mary in May 1847, written with all the authority of a 13-year-old who'd survived the whole thing:
"Never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can."
Today Donner Lake and Donner Pass carry the family's name, Interstate 80 runs past the site, and Donner Memorial State Park has a monument whose base stands as high as the snow was that winter. It's still one of the first stories Americans think of when they hear the word cannibalism, although it wasn't the last one the West produced. Thirty years later in Colorado, Alfred Packer came out of the snow with a very similar story, and a lot more questions to answer.
Suggested Reading
Want to dig deeper into the Donner Party? These are worth a look.
Desperate Passage: The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West by Ethan Rarick. A gripping, well-researched account that sorts the facts from the myths.
The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party by Daniel James Brown. Told through the eyes of 21-year-old Sarah Graves, one of the Forlorn Hope.
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Sources
Breen, Patrick. The Diary of Patrick Breen: One of the Donner Party. 1846 to 1847.
Reed, Virginia. Across the Plains in the Donner Party. 1891.
Hardesty, Donald L. The Archaeology of the Donner Party. University of Nevada Press, 1997.
McGlashan, C.F. History of the Donner Party: A Tragedy of the Sierra. 1879.
Smithsonian Magazine: “The Tragedy of the Donner Party Began With the Quest for a Shortcut.”
