The Donner Party, sometimes called the Donner–Reed Party, was a group of American pioneers who migrated to California in a wagon train from the Midwest. Delayed by a multitude of mishaps, they spent the winter of 1846–1847 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada. Some of the migrants resorted to cannibalism to survive, mainly eating the bodies of those who had succumbed to starvation, sickness, or extreme cold, but in one case murdering and eating two Miwok guides.
The Donner Party originated from Springfield, Illinois, and departed Independence, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail in the spring of 1846. The journey west usually took between four and six months, but the Donner Party was slowed after electing to follow a new route called the Hastings Cutoff, which bypassed established trails and instead crossed the Rocky Mountains' Wasatch Range and the Great Salt Lake Desert in present-day Utah. The desolate and rugged terrain, and the difficulties they later encountered while traveling along the Humboldt River in present-day Nevada, resulted in the loss of many cattle and wagons, and divisions soon formed within the group.
By early November, the migrants had reached the Sierra Nevada but became trapped by an early, heavy snowfall near Truckee Lake (now Donner Lake) high in the mountains. Their food supplies ran dangerously low, and in mid-December some of the group set out on foot to obtain help. Rescuers from California attempted to reach the migrants, but the first relief party did not arrive until the middle of February 1847, almost four months after the wagon train became trapped. Of the 87 members of the party, 48 survived. Historians have described the episode as one of the most fascinating tragedies in California history and in the record of American westward migration.
During the 1840s there was a dramatic increase in settlers leaving the east to resettle in the Oregon Territory or California, which at the time were accessible only by a very long sea voyage or a daunting overland journey. Some, such as Patrick Breen, saw California, then a part of Mexico, as a place where they would be free to live in a fully Catholic culture; others were attracted to the West's burgeoning economic opportunities or inspired by manifest destiny, the belief that the land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans belonged to European Americans and that they should settle it. Most wagon trains followed the Oregon Trail route from a starting point in Independence, Missouri, to the Continental Divide, traveling about 15 miles (24 km) a day on a journey that usually took between four and six months. The trail generally followed rivers to South Pass, a mountain pass in present-day Wyoming which was relatively easy for wagons to negotiate. From there, pioneers had a choice of routes to their destinations.
Lansford Hastings, an early migrant from Ohio to the West, published The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California to encourage settlers. As an alternative to the Oregon Trail's standard route through Idaho's Snake River Plain, he proposed a more direct route (which actually increased the trip's mileage by 125 miles) to California across the Great Basin, which would take travelers through the Wasatch Range and across the Great Salt Lake Desert. Hastings had not traveled any part of his proposed shortcut until early 1846 on a trip from California to Fort Bridger, a scant supply station run by Jim Bridger at Blacks Fork, Wyoming. Hastings stayed at the fort to persuade travelers to turn south on his route. As of 1846, Hastings was the second person documented to have crossed the southern part of the Great Salt Lake Desert, but neither had been accompanied by wagons.
Arguably the most difficult part of the journey to California was the last 100 miles (160 km) across the Sierra Nevada. This mountain range has 500 distinct peaks over 12,000 feet (3,700 m) high, and because of its height and proximity to the Pacific Ocean, the range receives more snow than most other ranges in North America. The eastern side of the range, the Sierra Escarpment, is notoriously steep. After a wagon train left Missouri for Oregon or California, timing was crucial to ensure that it would not be bogged down by mud created by spring rains or by massive snowdrifts in the mountains from September onward, and that horses and oxen had enough spring grass to eat.
In the spring of 1846, almost 500 wagons headed west from Independence. At the rear of the train, a group of nine wagons containing 32 members of the Reed and Donner families and their employees left on May 12. George Donner was about 60 years old and living near Springfield, Illinois. With him were his 44-year-old wife Tamsen, their three daughters Frances (6), Georgia (4), and Eliza (3), and George's daughters from a previous marriage: Elitha (14) and Leanna (12). George's younger brother Jacob (56) joined the party with his wife Elizabeth (45), stepsons Solomon Hook (14) and William Hook (12), and five children: George (9), Mary (7), Isaac (6), Lewis (4), and Samuel (1). Also traveling with the Donner brothers were teamsters Hiram O. Miller (29), Samuel Shoemaker (25), Noah James (16), Charles Burger (30), John Denton (28), and Augustus Spitzer (30).
James F. Reed (45) was accompanied on the journey by his wife Margret (32), stepdaughter Virginia (13), daughter Martha Jane ("Patty", 8), sons James and Thomas (5 and 3), and Sarah Keyes, Margret's mother. Keyes was in the advanced stages of tuberculosis and died at a campsite they named Alcove Springs. She was buried nearby, off to the side of the trail, with a gray rock inscribed, "Mrs. Sarah Keyes, Died May 29, 1846; Aged 70". In addition to leaving financial worries behind, Reed hoped that California's climate would help Margret, who had long suffered from ill health. The Reeds hired three men to drive the ox teams: Milford ("Milt") Elliott (28), James Smith (25), and Walter Herron (25). Baylis Williams (24) went along as handyman and his sister, Eliza (25), as the family's cook.
Within a week of leaving Independence, the Reeds and Donners joined a group of 50 wagons nominally led by William H. Russell. By June 16, the company had traveled 450 miles (720 km), with 200 miles (320 km) to go before Fort Laramie. They had been delayed by rain and a rising river, but Tamsen Donner wrote to a friend in Springfield, "indeed, if I do not experience something far worse than I have yet done, I shall say the trouble is all in getting started". Virginia Reed, a young teenager during the journey, recalled years later that, during the first part of the trip, she was "perfectly happy".
Several other families joined the wagon train along the way. Levinah Murphy (37), a widow from Tennessee, headed a family of thirteen. Her five youngest children were: John Landrum (16), Meriam ("Mary", 14), Lemuel (12), William (10), and Simon (8). Levinah's two married daughters and their families also came along: Sarah Murphy Foster (19), her husband William M. (30), and son Jeremiah George (1); Harriet Murphy Pike (18), her husband William M. (32), and their daughters Naomi (3) and Catherine (1). William H. Eddy (28), a carriage maker from Illinois, brought his wife Eleanor (25) and their two children, James (3) and Margaret (1). The Breen family consisted of Patrick Breen (51), a farmer from Iowa, his wife Margaret ("Peggy", 40), and seven children: John (14), Edward (13), Patrick, Jr. (9), Simon (8), James (5), Peter (3), and 11-month-old Isabella. Their neighbor, 40-year-old bachelor Patrick Dolan, traveled with them. German immigrant Lewis Keseberg (32) joined, along with his wife Elisabeth Philippine (22) and daughter Ada (2); son Lewis Jr. was born on the trail. Two young single men named Spitzer and Reinhardt traveled with another German couple, the Wolfingers, who were rumored to be wealthy; they also had a hired driver, "Dutch Charley" Burger. An older man named Hardkoop rode with them. Luke Halloran, a young man with tuberculosis, could no longer ride horseback; the families he had been traveling with no longer had resources to care for him. He was taken in by George Donner at Little Sandy River and rode in their wagon.