[MUSIC PLAYING] The westward expansion around the time of the California Gold Rush saw a gaggle of pioneers and immigrants moving out west to seek a better life, but the most infamous of these, the Donner Party, ended in people eating other people, and is often known as the most gruesome tale of westward travel lore. So what went wrong exactly? Well, pretty much everything.
Today, we're taking a look at what went wrong with the Donner Party. But before we get started, be sure to subscribe to the Weird History Channel, and let us know what friend or family member you would eat in a pinch. Now, uncover those eyes.
It's about to get disastrous. [MUSIC PLAYING] April was considered the prime time to make the trek west, specifically mid-April, when the weather conditions were more favorable for long wagon based travelers. Leaving around that time meant missing the springtime muddy terrain unfavorable for wheels, while also avoiding winter time in the mountains and passing through before winter's chilly arrival.
It also meant the grass on the plains was high enough to provide food for the cattle should they start feeling peckish. Once the snow hit the ground, crossing a snowy landscape was a dicey and slow process at best, and desperately eating your human travel companions at absolute worst. The Donner Party hit the road on May 12th, about a month later than desirable for reasons unknown.
[MUSIC PLAYING] The Donner Party, led by wealthy brothers George and Jacob Donner, and their Irish immigrant pal James Reed, found themselves in trouble fairly quickly into the journey. They ended up on the wrong side of the Big Blue River, which runs through parts of Nebraska and Kansas. On May 26, 1846, the Donner party reached the river, which because of a recent heavy rain, raised the water by 20 feet, making it extra difficult to pass.
They spent a few days chilling on the banks of the river building rafts to carry their wagons and belongings safely across. This process should sound familiar to all those who played The Oregon Trail. Unfortunately, for Sarah Keyes, the choice to wait it out and build some rafts proved fatal for her.
She succumb to tuberculosis on May 29. Two days later, the Big Blue River had subsided enough to allow the group to pass with no further casualties or sudden cases of dysentery. [MUSIC PLAYING] Before leaving for any road trip, it's always important to assess the food situation, which, unfortunately, didn't seem to be a priority to the Donner clan, or at least not as high of a priority as storage for the things.
They left Independence, Missouri with only enough food to tide them over for four months, which had everything gone according to plan would have been enough for the average trek to California, if not a little scarce towards the tail end of the journey. With a limited space available in the covered wagons and a weight capacity to account for, the Donners packed light with only 150 pounds of flour and 75 pounds of meat for each person traveling. The rations also included rice, beans, and cornmeal to have more variety and balance in their daily meals, something that later became less of a priority for the starving travelers.
[MUSIC PLAYING] By late June, the Donner party had finally reached Fort Laramie, Wyoming, over a week behind schedule. While at the Fort, they were warned several times about the New Hastings Cutoff Route. This shortcut would lop off about 300 miles from other traditional paths, but it was not the easy breezy shortcut they were being sold.
One man, James Clyman, recently returned from the Hastings Cutoff with Landsford Hastings himself, and reported back to James Reed that the road was barely passable by foot. And with covered wagons, Clyman said it would be impossible. Clyman suggested the Donners stick to the conventional route and not get cute within Hastings Cutoff.
Unfortunately, for several members of the later digested party, this advice was ignored, and the party rolled the dice with the path less traveled, the Hastings Cutoff. [MUSIC PLAYING] Speaking of Lansford Hastings, boy did this guy kind of suck. Hastings claimed to have discovered a new route to California.
He went so far as to boldly publish a guidebook, Lannsford Hastings Immigrants Guide that included his cool new shortcut, humbly named Hastings Cutoff, which allegedly made the journey faster since it was the most direct route to California. Hastings, who was the California tourist bureau of his time, was one of the people responsible for making the move out west to California popular for settlers. There was just one teensy little problem.
Hastings had never actually traveled the path he named after himself until after his guide book became popular. He was one of only two men documented to have taken the route, neither of whom tested the path with covered wagons. To promote this poorly research guidebook, Hastings offered to lead a group of travelers through the Hastings Cutoff.
He wrote a letter to the Donner Party, with a pitch to travel with the Hastings of Hastings guidebook and Cutoff fame. Unable to pass up this generous offer, the Donner Party planned on meeting Hastings at Fort Bridger. But with their two weeks lag time.
Their paths never crossed. Hastings letter, however, was so confident and convincing they soldiered on without him, guideless through an unproven path to the west coast. What could possibly go wrong?
[MUSIC PLAYING] Edward Bryant was a journalist with experience taking the Hastings Cutoff. He knew firsthand the path was rough, untested, and potentially dangerous. Bryant was particularly concerned about the women and children traveling with the party.
He knew the route was far too treacherous to the point of impossible for them to take safely. He let his concerns be known in letters to the Donner party imploring them to take the traditional route and not the doomed shortcut. Those letters fatefully were never received.
Bryant and Reed both later accused Jim Bridger of intentionally intercepting the letters. Jim Bridger, proprietor of Bridger Trading Post, would benefit greatly if people took Hastings cut off and did a little stop over at old Bridger's Trading Post to stock up on supplies. Because of this, Bridger was a huge advocate for people taking Hastings path, which is why he most likely hid the letters of warning not to take the cut off.
Hope that $0. 30 for the guide was worth it Jimmy. [MUSIC PLAYING] Once the Donner party arrived at the Wasatch Mountains, situated outside the Great Salt Lake section of Hastings stupid Cutoff, they stumbled upon a note Hastings left attached to a wooden stake.
Because if etiquette teaches anything, it's always good to leave a note attached to a wooden stake in the wilderness. Hastings wrote that the road ahead was rough, and he didn't think it was wise to continue on this way, saying he'd meet up with the party and guide them towards a better, less impossible path. The Donners and their fellow traveling immigrants decided to stick around and see what Hastings had to say.
They stayed, despite having reservations about being at a standstill, since they had already lost so much time. After eight days and Hastings seemingly ghosting the group, James Reed and two companions set off to find their missing guide and keep the party moving. Reed eventually found Hastings, though his companions ended up lost and soon so desperate for food they almost ate their horses, a treat by comparison knowing what was down the road.
Hastings directed Reed towards a different nameless route through the Wasatch Mountains he assured them would be better. Despite Hastings having given them several reasons not to trust him at all, Reed took this new route back to the group and it proved, not shockingly, to also be bad. This allegedly new and improved route was so full of obstacles difficult for a wagon train to pass through, little things like trees that had to be physically moved, adding days onto the trip that it desperately didn't have.
At their lowest, the party was only traveling a mile and a half a day when on average pioneers would travel about 15. [MUSIC PLAYING] Despite this sounding like a disheveled chaotic group of ragtag misfits, people were clamoring to join this disastrous little group. At several different points, they picked up the occasional stray family to beef up their numbers.
In July, they picked up more immigrants at Fort Bridger. Then, in August, as they were cutting their way through the Wasatch Mountains, the coincidentally named Graves Party join in and all the fun too. Once the Graves Party was in, this brought the group size up to 87 people, a strain to the already low amount of provisions.
[MUSIC PLAYING] The Donner Clan was also ill prepared for the travel conditions in the desert which surrounded the Great Salt Lake. Wagons were getting stuck in the sandy elements. And what a time to get bogged down.
With desert conditions grinding the wagon trains to a stop and parched party members hitting the water supply pretty hard, those water rations were going faster than they had planned for. Some of the oxen grew so weak they were left in the desert to die, while others just ran away saying, nope, fleeing towards a better life for an ox, and a death march through the desert. Had they just taken one of the more well traveled routes to Cali, the ox most likely would've been spared.
[MUSIC PLAYING] The Donner Party took a breather at Humboldt Sink, a dry lake bed in Nevada, for several chillaxing days. The cattle needed a break and a meal to remain nice and alive for the duration of the journey to California. One night on the staycation, however, things took a turn when 21 cattle were stolen by a local Native American tribe.
This became a bit of a theme for the party over the duration of their trek. Native Americans continued to shoot/and or steal their cattle until they had lost almost 100 cows. Losing their cattle also meant losing the drivers of the covered wagons, which meant some wagons had to be left behind.
The burden of hauling all the stuff then fell onto the literal backs of people walking with heavy loads. It also ruined their backup plan of eating the cows. [MUSIC PLAYING] From the jump, things were not copacetic with the full group.
Rival factions divided the party. And in July 1846, the wagon train split for the first time. The majority chose to travel along the traditional safer route, with the smaller group opting fatefully to go through Hastings Cutoff.
When the crap started to hit the fan in Wasatch Mountains, the group grew hostile. They blamed James Reed for pitching this dumb, troublesome round in the first place. As the trek grew more and more precarious, people really started to get hangry.
On October 5th, two wagons became ensnared and John Snyder, driver on one of the wagons, started whipping oxen, much to the distaste of James Reed, who didn't care for this treatment of the animals. Reed ordered the man to stop. And when Snyder kept on whipping, Reed straight up stabbed the man in the stomach.
John Snyder died from his wounds. With no judicial system on the wagon train trail or jails to throw Reed in for murder, the group had to bring him to justice in their own way. Some thought hanging him was the right call, but others said, maybe let's just exile him.
That's quite a punishment. The second group won out, and Reed was sufficiently shunned casting off the man who murdered another man over an ox. Barely recovered from this incident, two days later, the group lost another member when a 70-year-old man grew too weak to continue.
Growing desperate, the group decided just to leave him behind to die. Grandpa would've wanted it that way, son. [MUSIC PLAYING] Finally, by October 1846, the Donner Party technically made it to California.
Alder Creek to be more exact, a part of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range just past the state line, but still, in California. So they made it, right? It all turns out OK, right?
Right. No. The party was told it wouldn't be snowing until November, but seeing how this trip seemed cursed, it was snowing in October, and the group found themselves once again unprepared.
As they tried to push their way across the mountains, they caught an early snowstorm which left them marooned for months. The decision to eat people wasn't the first move of the stranded group of settlers. Once they ran out of food, they first ate cow bones and hides, followed by second course of leather, tree bark, or the oxen hide.
The hide we should note, was being used as roofing for their makeshift shelters. And, finally, in the last bit of desperation, to get them through the winter, they eat their fallen settlers. Not everybody eight human being hoagies though.
Some chose to starve themselves to death instead. Of the 87 people who entered the Wasatch Mountains, only 48 people and three mules made it to California alive, which if you think about it, isn't exactly a ringing endorsement for a mule meat. See, they didn't eat the mules everybody, so that means the mule meets bad.
I didn't get it the first time either. It's OK, you'll catch up. So what do you think?
How would you prepare your friend or family? Let us know in the comments below, and while you're at it, check out some of these other videos from our Weird History.
