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Patrick Breen, 51, was rescued by John Stark of the Third Relief after being abandoned by the Second Relief at Starved Camp. Upon his arrival in California, he befriended fellow Irish emigrant Martin Murphy, Jr., who had a ranch on the Cosumnes River, south of present Elk Grove, California.
As spring approached, rescuers made their way to the Donner party’s mountain encampment. By March, Breen and his family were safely at Sutter’s Fort in California. All seven children and both...
- American Experience
No one at Truckee Lake had died between the departure of the first and the arrival of the second relief party. Patrick Breen documented a disturbing visit in the last week of February from Mrs. Murphy, who said her family was considering eating Milt Elliott. Reed and McCutchen found Elliott's mutilated body. [138] The Alder Creek camp fared no ...
- How The Donner Party Met Its Demise
- What Happened to The Youngest Survivors of The Donner Party
- Survivor Lewis Keseberg’S Controversial Story
- Eliza Donner’s Story
- How Some Family’S Lost No Members
- Denying Cannibalism
In April 1846, 10 families and a collection of single men set out on a westward journey from Illinois through the Great Plains. Around 87 emigrants(though sources differ on this exact number) banded together to take a supposedly shorter — albeit, untested — route to California. Among the group was Illinois businessman James Reed, the Murphy family,...
Out of the 45 survivors, 32 were children. As Donner party survivor, 12-year-old Patty Reed, wrote to her cousin in 1847: “Oh Mary, I have not wrote you half of the trouble we have had, but I have wrote you enough to let you know now that you don’t know what trouble is.” She ominously added, “Thank God we have all got through…[we were] the only fam...
In March 1847 when the third rescue team reached Donner Lake, rescuers discovered that German immigrant Lewis Keseberg, who’d been traveling with his own family, had eaten two children. The rescuers were reportedly forced to leave Keseberg and four other survivors of the Donner Party at the lake as they were unable to transport everyone to safety. ...
At just four years old, Eliza Donner was one of the last survivors of the Donner Party to be rescued from Donner Lake. Donner and her surviving sisters raised each other in the San Francisco Bay Area until 1861 when she married Sherman Otis Houghton, the widower of another Donner Party survivor. Houghton became mayor of San Jose and a U.S. Congress...
Only two families survived the Donner Party without losing a single member: the Breens, who refused to share their supplies with others, and the Reeds. After James Reed stabbed and killed a fellow Donner Party member, the group banished him and he managed to make it through Donner Pass before the snows trapped his family and the rest of the pioneer...
After their rescue, the Donner Party survivors became famous and then infamous. While a small number denied the tales of cannibalism, at least eight survivors personally admitted to eating human flesh. In 1884, Jean Baptiste Trudeau told fellow survivor Eliza Donner that he witnessed no cannibalism – yet in 1847 Trudeau confessed to rescuers that h...
Sep 14, 2024 · On November 20 Patrick Breen, whose family had joined the party in Independence, Missouri, began a diary which he continued until March 1. Breen’s account of the winter of 1846–47 would provide the only contemporary written record of the Donner party’s ordeal.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Feb 17, 2022 · As the Donner Party fought to survive in the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains, four brave rescue missions ensured some traumatized members made it out alive.
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Oct 2, 2024 · In a bundle held by Keseberg the rescuers found silk, jewelry, pistols, and money that had belonged to George Donner. After returning to Sutter’s Fort, one of the rescuers accused Keseberg of having murdered his companions, prompting Keseberg to sue for defamation of character.
