Book: The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party
Basic Information:
History: 4 out of 5
Author: Daniel James Brown
Edition: epub on Libby from the San Francisco Library
Publisher: William Morrow
ISBN: 9780061348105 (ISBN10: 0061348104)
Start Date: Jan 6, 2022
Read Date: Aug 29, 2022
288 pages
Genre: History, Biography, Osher
Language Warning: None-but there are gruesome scenes of cannibalism
Rated Overall: 3 out of 5
History: 4 out of 5
Synopsis :
Brown follows the life of Sarah Graves from the time she is in the MidWest until her death in Corralitos, CA. During the book she marries and then loses her husband so close to being rescued.
Brown talks about the trek through the Rockies and across the deserts of Utah and Nevada. He lays the blame on the Donner Party’s fate on Lanston Hastings who promoted a faster, shorter route to California-and this was before the 1849 gold rush.
Over half of the book talks about the Party trying to escape Donner Lake. Even those who were able to get over Donner Pass did not have it easy and many died, and then were eaten.
The final few chapters talk about the disposition of the survivors. Also Brown tried to travel the same route, via car. He relays his experiences and thoughts on the trip.
Cast of Characters:
- Sarah Graves-person whom Brown follows, born January 1825
- Jay Fosdick-married Sarah Graves
- Franklin Graves-Sarah Graves father
- Elizabeth Graves (Cooper)-wife of Franklin Graves, mother of Sarah Graves
- Lansford Warren Hastings-developed the disastrous Hastings cutoff. Not the one which the Hastings Law School is named after, but had his own share of disregard for Native Americans
- John Synder-a person who was a local of Lacon and wanted to go west.
- Mary Ann Graves-sister, 19 years old at the beginning and striking to look at
- Billy Graves-brother, 17 years old and over 6 feet high
- Eleanor Graves-sister,, thirteen
- Lovina Graves-sister, eleven
- Nancy Graves-sister, turned eight on April 26
- Jonathan-brother, seven
- Franklin Ward Jr. Graves-brother, five
- Elizabeth Graves-sister, only about nine months old.
- James Frazier Reed-unofficial leader of another wagon train. He eventually ended up in what is now San Jose. There is a Reed St in San Jose-maybe named after him or a descendant.
- Margaret Reed-James Reed’s wife. Suffered from migraines. It was hoped going to California would help her.
- Sarah Keyes-Margaret Reed’s mother
- George Donner-about 60. Brother of Jacob Donner. Large and well off. Elected leader of wagon train going to California at South Pass.
- Tamzene Donner-George Donner’s fourth wife
- Jacob Donner-brother of George Donner
- Elizabeth Donner-Jacob DOnner’s wife
- Colonel William Russell-Leader of another wagon train which the Reeds and Donners joined.
- James Clyman-mountain man
- Stephen Meek-guide, incompetent
- Moses Harris-black, guide. Well known and well regarded
- Colonel Matthew Dill Ritchie-Sarah Married his son, William Dill Ritchie.
- William Dill Ritchie-Sarah married him as her second husband. He was prone to wander. Eventually left Sarah
- John Stark-Started with the Graves, later was part of the third relief party
- Reason Tucker-Made it to California
- William Daniels-When the Graves family left Fort Laramie, they left as well
- John McCraken-When the Graves family left Fort Laramie, they left as well
- Louis Keseberg-German, thought to be abusive to his wife.
- Wales B. Bonney-Carried a letter from Hastings, reported wanted for myrder in Oregon
- Patrick Breen-part of Donner Party
- Levinah Murphy-widow, leader of six Murphy family. Went with Donner.
- William Eddy-cabinet maker, DOnner Party
- Elanor Eddy-William’s wife
- Wolkingers-family with Donner Party
- Charles Stanton-Donner Party, single
- John Denton-Donner Party, single
- Hardcoop-Donner Party, single, traveled with the Keseberg’s
- Joseph Reinhardt-Donner Party, single
- Patrick Dolan, Donner Party, single =with Patrick Breen
- Samuel Shoemaker-Donner Party, single, teamster
- Noah James-Donner Party, teamster
- Augustus Spitzer-paid by Donner
- Walter Herron-Reed Party, single, teamster
- Antonio-Donner Party, single , Drover
- Milton Elliot-Reed Party, single, teamster
- James Smith-Reed Party, single, teamster
- Baylis Williams-Reed Party, single, teamster, albino
- Eliza Williams-Baylis’ shelf-sister, deaf, worked as a cook
- Luke Halloran-tuberculosis. The Donners took him in at Ft Bridger. He died close to Salt Lake Valley
- Recommendation: Osher Book Club
- When:May 2022
- Date Became Aware of Book:May 2022
- How come do I want to read this book: It is an Osher Book Club pick
- What do I think I will get out of it? I have an interest in the Donner Party. 40+ years ago, I read an account from within a generation of the Donner Party and it was pretty gruesome. Interested in Daniel James Brown take on it.
Thoughts:
I have tried to plot the Graves path on Google Earth. You can see the path either on this map or through Google Earth’s kmz file.
Epigraph
W.B. Yeats’ poem, A Dream of Death. The title comes
And planted cypress round;
And left her to the indifferent stars above
Author's Note
Even well after the tragedy was over, Sarah Graves’s little sister Nancy often burst into tears for no apparent reason. I wonder if a tragedy, especially something like this one, if the tragedy is ever really over? Brown notes that none of them knew Nancy’s particular, individual secret. That part was just too terrible to tell.
A mostly factual account of the Donner Party was not publicly told until Charles F McGlashan, a newspaper editor, wrote a book on it in 1879. Brown himself decided to concentrate on only one story: I decided that I would focus on one woman in particular, Sarah Graves, and tell the unvarnished truth about what happened to her in the high Sierra in the terrible winter of that year. There are two parts to this statement which we can judge Brown’s effort’s on. First, did he focus only on Sarah Graves? And two, does he only tell a factual account of the Donner Party or is there some speculation? I think he will do pretty well. But on both accounts he fails in the absolute sense. In order to tell Sarah Graves story, he needs to give background and talk about other people’s stories as well, which brings in other details which are of interest, but tangential. Second, he does speculate here and there, which I think is unavoidable. Such as how does he know about the conversations which go on? He admits this in a few sentences after the sentence above: I have everywhere tried to remain entirely factual in writing about her, I have at times extrapolated from what those who accompanied her reported or from the published findings of experts in particular fields to describe what she must have experienced.
One question, why Sarah Graves?
Brown does try to trace Graves' journey. But he does not walk it, but drives to some points along the way.
Prologue
Brown explains how he got interested in the Donner Party and in particular Sarah Graves. The house which is the headquarters of Bothe-Napa State Park used to be his great-uncle’s, George Washington Tucker. Tucker probably knew Graves as they were on the same wagon train for a while, but parted ways.
Talks about a finding by Wakeman Bryarly who came over that route about three years later.
When Brown was in Napa, he studied it[a picture of Sarah Graves], as I had done many times before. It has haunted me since I first saw it, and ultimately it is the reason I set out to write this book.
Part 1 A Sprightly Boy and a Romping Girl
Chapter 1 Home and Heart
Just before Sarah Graves left Illinois, she married Jay Fosdick. Fosdick decided to go with Sarah to California. Brown describes her state of mind, leaving the land she had grown up on.
Describes Sarah’s family and background.
Why did they move? They grew wheat, which did well. But with the economic cycles, the price of wheat was not a stable income maker. He was able to sell the land for cash, which he put inside of a cleat of one of his wagons.
California was still a Mexican territory. But Most [American immigrants] simply ignored both the Mexican government and its requirements and thus became California’s original illegal immigrants. Talked about Hastings, who will play a part in the Donner Party’s demise. In his book, he talked about a shortcut, one which had not been tried. Hastings decided to ride his route and meet up with wagon trains to “help” them decide to go his route.
Talked about what John Sutter was doing to encourage immigrants and make himself rich.
Chapter 2 Mud and Merchandise
Start of the trip was slow-the whole area was flooded. Leaving Lacon, there were three wagons and thirteen people. In a separate and unrelated group were the Reeds and Donners. Events that would affect Sarah and her family, the Reeds, the Donners, and everyone else setting out for California that spring were also unfolding far to the east, in Washington, D.C. While they were traveling, President Polk declared war on Mexico. Polk wanted California. The dispute over Texas had given him the opening he wanted, and it dovetailed nicely with a carefully choreographed campaign of presidential deception that would find a disconcerting parallel early in the twenty-first century.
Abraham Lincoln, arrived unannounced in Lacon, campaigning for the congressional seat he would soon use to denounce the war with Mexico. This was shortly after war was declared.
The Reeds and Donners joined another group led by Colonel William Russell.
Clyman encountered Hastings. Hastings discussed his shortcut. Clyman thought that the proposed shortcut saved little distance and promised much harder traveling than the proven route. Later on Clyman would encounter the Donner party and proclaim the same thing.
The Graves party and the Russell party met in St Joseph where they got restocked. Since this was Sarah’s first go around as the mistress of the family, she would need to choose wisely about her needs.
Pretty long description of what supplies were needed.
Talks about the problems of falling in with the wrong guide. In this case, it was Stephen Meeks. The route Meeks was leading them was a bad one. Animals and wagons and people were giving out. Ended up at The Dalles, but with many dead and needing relief.
Hastings one piece of good advice was to leave St Joseph before May Day. Graves had heard about a group of wagons north of St Joseph and went to join them. On the day that Sarah, Jay, and the rest of the Graves clan stepped aboard the ferry at Parrott’s Landing, May Day was already more than three weeks in the past
Chapter 3 Grass
People, families and groups are gathering for the trip west. There is an evaluation on who will add to their numbers and who will be a liability. Most were heading to Oregon, a few to California, but their way would be common for a while, until they reached Fort Hall. Physical size seemed to be important: men who were outsize not only physically but, as it would turn out, also in the quality of their character and the quantity of their courage.
The Graves family started to be in the circle with people like Colonel Matthew Dill Ritchie, John Stark, and Reason Tucker. Almost all had fought in the American Revolution. Many of them carried in their hands weapons that had been used in that conflict, and they carried deep in their hearts an absolute devotion to the idea that their liberty was the most valuable thing they owned.
Left St Joseph’s on May 23rd. Most Indians they met were inclined to leave them alone, but there was anxiety concerning Indian attacks. There was well-founded concern, such as the 1832 Black Hawk War which several had lived through.
The Donner, Reeds and the Russell Party was stalled at a high river crossing, a hundred miles to the west.
A separate wagon train going to Oregon with Rice Dunbar and Charles T. Stanton.
Part 2 The Barren Earth
Chapter 4 Dust
Talks about California history. Includes John Sutter, John Fremont and Don Mariano Vallejo. Fremont captured Vallejo and Vallejo surrendered California to them. But not all was bloodless: two young American men named Cowie and Fowler were apprehended by a small Mexican force near Bodega Bay. Were they just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or was there a reason for their deaths?
Talks about a death from a Pawnee raiding party. But it was the children who died along the way. Brown describes the various ways they died.
Brown notes that the further west they went and the going got rougher, there was less compassion on people who were left with hardship. Everyone knew that under extreme circumstances individuals would look out first for themselves and their family members and that abandonment of the old, the ill, the lame, the helpless, or the dependent was always a possibility.
Talked about pregnancy and how it was to be avoided as an immigrant. Pregnancy was not generally thought to commence until the “quickening” began—the time at which a woman began to feel movements of the fetus within. Or about three months into the pregnancy
More description of travel. Progress toward Fort Laramie.
Oregonians were not happy that Hastings was going to waylay potential residents of Oregon. They were going to bring people in to expose his lies. In the meantime Hasting and Jim Clyman were getting close to the place where they were going to divert immigrants. Clyman was by now thoroughly disillusioned with Hastings’s so-called shortcut, but Hastings himself was still determined to intercept any Oregon-bound emigrants he could find and divert them to California via his new route, though he must surely have seen that it was nearly impassable for wagons.
Clyman and Reed knew each other from being soldiers together. But Clyman could not convince Reed that Hastings way was going to be almost impossible for wagons and very tough just on horseback. The next day they parted, Reed and the Donners moving on west toward Laramie Peak and the South Pass through the Rocky Mountains.
Clyman also meet up with the Graves party and tried to discourage them from both the Hastings route and California in general. Brown really does not discuss Clyman’s relationship with Oregon.
They made Fort Laramie on July 3rd..
Chapter 5 Deception
On July 5th, the Graves family moved out. Follows the North Platte River. Miserable experience passing through-insects, heat, cold, …
After South Pass, a decision had to be made-California or Oregon. There several wagon trains met Wales B. Bonney who had a letter from Hastings talking about a way to California. Only Tamzene Donner was opposed to the California route.
the Parting of the Ways-Place where the Oregon and California trails parted. Where Donner’s name would be ingrained in history.
Fort Bridger-more of a trading post than a fort. Bridger gave a false report on the status of the Hastings route. Bridger and Vasquez had run the trading post since 1843, but by the summer of 1846 they faced an uncertain future. With most of the emigrant traffic now taking the more northerly route from the Parting of the Ways to Fort Hall, there was little reason for their establishment to continue in business. So it was in self interest which Bridger misled people.
Most of the wagons went north from here. The Donners, Reeds and Graves took the Hastings route.
By August 10th, the Graves had caught up with the Donners and Reeds.
As a note: Manly took much of the same route as the Graves family did until they reached Salt Lake City. There he headed south, to get around the Sierra Nevada.
Chapter 6 Salt, Sage, and Blood
Death-Luke Hallorand as they got close to Salt Lake City. Every villager in the northern half of the country was familiar with the slow tolling of church bells, and many knew how to read in the rhythm of the bells a coded language announcing how old the victim was and of which gender. Death was part of life, particularly once you left the East. Death was also a social time for a community as the body was often laid out in the family’s home. These long, communal vigils typically involved the sharing of food and drink and thus allowed the living—the family and the friends of the deceased—an opportunity to reconnect and assure themselves that their own social connections would survive the presence of death among them.
Much of this intimacy with death began to diminish during the Civil War. There was so much death, no locality could deal with it. It became a government/mortuary affair. at the close of the war, by dint of sheer numbers, the corpse had begun to lose some of its sacred nature, and the handling of the dead had begun to be done mostly by strangers.
When they got to a viewpoint on the Cedar Mountains, west of Salt Lake City, they realized that the salt desert was longer than they were led to believe. Aimed for Pilot Peak, and went north of a place called Floating Island. Water was running low. Men went ahead in search of water. Women and children started walking, leaving wagons behind, driving the ox before them. Took about three days to reach a spring. Many oxen were lost along with the wagons. They lost close to two weeks and one morning they saw snow on top of Pilot Peak. A couple of riders were sent ahead to secure supplies as they were going to run out of food.. One camp spot they stopped at was a place Reed called Mad Woman Camp. Wondered if a woman went insane or if he had an argument with his wife.
Impossible to keep a body clean, along with the clothing.
Detoured around the Ruby Mountains. They then hit the Humboldt River. Hastings Cutoff took 68 days to travel. Some emigrants took 37 days via the main route. Exactly what happened in the Nevada desert on October 5, 1846, has been the subject of controversy ever since. Around Pauta Pass, Reed and Eddy got into a fight with each threatening and then taking after each other. Reed killed Eddy. While many wanted to hang Reed, it was decided to let Reed go by himself without provisions-really a death sentence of a slow kind.
The party had expected to be in California by early October, but had barely crossed into Nevada. Food rations were running short. Speed now became essential. Loads were lightened. Hardcoop was left behind. Piutes raided and made off with horses and oxen. This time they killed twenty-one head—all of the Eddys’ team but for one ox, and all of the Wolfingers’ but, again, for one. In a stroke, the Eddys and the Wolfingers were left dependent on the goodwill of the rest of the company, and goodwill was rapidly becoming a very scarce commodity. They had to walk the rest of the way with what little they had.
They made it to the Truckee River. Wolfinger died, either at Piute hands or at the hands of two people who were assisting him. Earlier, two men were sent to Sutter’s Fort to bring back supplies. Stanton finally rode into camp leading a string of seven mules laden with flour, dried beef, and other provisions from Sutter’s Fort. Big Bill McCutchen had fallen ill at the fort and been unable to return, but Stanton—a bachelor with no family connections in the company to draw him back—had nonetheless returned to them for a second time. This part reminds me of Manning who risked his life in Death Valley in ‘49.i
Stanton came across Reed in Bear Valley, very emancipated. Reed made it to Sutter’s Fort on October 28th. Pledged to help with the Californian revolution. Acquired land on the Sacramento River. But would not fight until he got his family.
One man was accidently shot, William Pike, at Truckee Meadows, now Reno. He died. The party then broke up into three traveling parties.
I am confused. Truckee Lake was renamed Donner Lake after the events of 1849. Donner Lake is 14½ miles west of the Nevada/California border. Brown makes a statement that the party camped at a wide grassy meadow just five or six miles short of Truckee Lake, nine or ten miles short of the mountain pass that separated them from California. There did not seem to be a definite boundary at the time of the Donner Party. It was in 1850 where the 120o was established. It also appears that the Party came in from the north rather than following the Truckee River. At least, Brown has them going through Dog Valley. I just do not follow Brown’s description either in the distance from Donner Lake or in the part of Nevada they were in.
They arrived at Donner Lake to see that route was harder than anticipated. The first attempt to go over Donner Pass was unsuccessful. More snow came. Even on the second try, they were not able to make it over the pass. They could not make it and just quit short of the pass. A new storm came in.
Part 3 The Meager by the Meager Were Devoured p. 117
Chapter 7 Cold Calculations
The party awaken after being covered by snow. They realized the fix they were in. There was no way to go forward. They had to return to the lake and probably starve. It snowed for eight days.
Others who had taken the longer way were already in California, safe in their own homes.
The rest of the Donner Party was struggling, a couple of days behind them in Dog Valley. They ended up camping along Alder Creek. From my perspective, if they had just followed this creek up to the Sierra crest, it would have been easier than coming out of the Donner Lake. But then again, I have a topo map and they did not.
They tried to build a cabin, but the snow was faster than they could build.
All knew that life-or-death decisions had to be made as the snow kept falling. They all knew the importance of acting cooperatively; that, after all, was the essence of life in a company. But by nature most of them were independent and self-reliant. Each group had their strengths and weaknesses. But this independence made it so that they did not work together, but independently, causing each weakness to be worse.
The decision was to kill the animals and try to live off of them. Those who had animals sold a few to those who did not.
Reed and McCutchen tried to make it back up to the families with supplies from Sutter’s fort. They made it as far as Bear Valley-I think the one along I-80, just west of Lake Spaulding. This is only about 23 miles as the crow flies from Donner Lake. But the snow became unpassable. They tried, going further, maybe to about Cisco Springs or beyond when the snow just overwhelmed them.
Franklin Graves, Sarah’s husband, may have been the best among all of them. He decided to try to make it out of the lake area and get help. Modern disaster psychologists have found that bold, decisive leadership greatly improves any group’s ability to survive the early stages of an impending catastrophe. When the snow stopped falling around November 12th, he had a plan to go get help. Only those who were physically fit and able to walk themselves would go with him. It did not go well. The snow was ten feet high and fluffy. They turned around.
A grizzly bear was killed.
A second attempt was made. They got beyond the pass. But encountered deeper snow on the second day. They got bogged down. A new storm came in.
Brown talks about the psychology of starvation. All of the parties were starving. The equation produces a number called the basal metabolic rate, or BMR. When converted from metric to English units of measure, it looks like this for women:
BMR = 655 + (4.35 × weight in pounds) + (4.7 × height in inches)-(4.7 × age in years
They were getting no place close to this. The men were worse off.
Chapter 8 Desperation p. 140
Franklin Graves was still determined to break out. Started building snowshoes. One of the hired hands dies due to starvation. Returning empty-handed would only mean starving and watching one’s family starve. They also knew that anyone who could not keep up would have to be left behind to die a cold and lonely death. More snow. But by December 16th, conditions would allow them go to. Parting with those left behind was a tearful event.
The same conditions which allowed them to start, also caused problem seeing. Under normal circumstances, at sea level, the eye can absorb UVB rays without damage. But with every thousand feet in elevation gain, the strength of ultraviolet rays increases by 5 percent. And then the reflection off of the snow.
They were only three-quarters of a mile from the narrow notch in the summit that constituted the pass itself, but they still had nearly a thousand feet to climb before they reached it. Altitude was not much of an issue-their systems were by now acclimated to the 5,936-foot elevation of the lake camp. But climbing granite was. During the day, they started to overheat. At night, they fought the cold. Dr Peter Hackett Using data transmitted by NASA-designed radio-thermometer capsules that each climber swallowed, he found that the exertion of climbing on sunny slopes while dressed in clothing designed to retain body heat could cause core temperatures to soar rapidly into the hyperthermic range. Even more troubling, he found that those same climbers’ core temperatures could plunge just as rapidly into the hypothermic range when they stopped climbing and sat down on snow or cold rock.
Having reached the top, they experienced the majesty of the Crest of the Sierra. But they could not enjoy it as tourists. They needed to keep moving.
Stanton died. He appeared to have accepted his death. This left the party without a guide.
They followed the Yuba River down When they reached Cisco Butte, they turned south. I wonder why? From the topo map, following the river up and over Yuba Pass would seem like the best route rather than trying to climb the sides of the canyon. They stopped in Six Mile Valley.
A Pineapple Express system came through, burying them. I wonder if this is what today is called an atmospheric river.
At the Lake, men were dying and starvation was setting in worse.
Chapter 9 Christmas Feasts
They are lost. Snowing again. Without Stanton, they are following the two Miwok Indians. They made the mistake of not going over a ridge, to Bear Valley, but went southwest towards the North Fork of the American River. The North Fork leads into a steep canyon.
While there was warmer weather, it made for harder snowshoeing. Hypothermia started to set in as the last of their food ran out. Foggy thinking set in. A lottery to see who would die so they could eat that person’s meat. Dire though their straits were, murder was still murder, and, for now at least, a gnawing stomach could not supersede their moral codes, nor simple human compassion.
Brown talks about navigation.
Both [Patrick] Dolan and Lemuel Murphy were likely suffering from a toxic combination of woods shock, hypothermia, and hunger-induced psychological stress.
Brown makes a statement that some of the people in this party would never see California. But weren’t they in California? Just that they would not have a life, at least a long life, in California. Sloppy wording. I think if he explained that what the pioneers would think of California being at least Sutter's Fort if not more towards the coast, that would make this statement less confusing.
People started dying, including the Indians. Also Franklin Graves. But an arrangement was made where the twelve people left laid down, feet towards the center with the twelfth person in the center/. That person held blanks over everyone. This provided shelter and some warmth. Christmas Day came. in the end Christmas was above all a religious occasion for most of them, an occasion on which to contemplate the light that their faith brought to the darkest time of the year.
Description of Christmas back at Donner Lake.
Back on the North Fork, the day after Christmas, they started butchering the bodies.
Chapter 10 The Heart on the Mountain
Description of eating the bodies of the deceased. The group was divided up in a way so that nobody saw them eating a member of their own family.
The Native Americans would not eat any of this meat. I wonder what thoughts these people had for the rest of their lives?Were they able to have normal human relations? Most people faced with starvation, most of the time, choose to die rather than resort to cannibalism. Brown talks about recent, 1900’s incidences where humans ate other humans. So the question arises: Why did the men of the snowshoe party draw out their knives on the morning of December 27, 1846, and commence carving?
Brown thinks that the party was not in actual starvation, but in a form of insanity from the stress and lack of food. I am not sure that Brown takes into account the wear and tear which the trek from the MidWest to California took on them. They were already malnutritioned from the journey to California.
To more days of travel when they got boxed in the American River canyon. Many men were willing to give up. They could see the Sacramento Valley. But they could also see many ridges which were snow covered.
They had now gone several days without food. William Foster first brought up an idea that had likely festered in the minds of at least some of them for days. Why not kill Luis and Salvador for food? While the Miwok boys were at least technically Christians, they remained in the eyes of some of the whites, if not all of them, savages nonetheless—the same general class of beings many had come to loathe during the Black Hawk War of their youths. A night or so later, the Native Americans slipped away, not to be seen again.
Jay, Sarah’s husband, was in a bad way. They found a deer and killed it. Jay died with Sarah by his side. Others butchered him when Sarah left.
Chapter 11 Madness
Like all tragedies, hers[Sarrah] took place in a historical context, and as is often the case the context sheds light on how Sarah must have viewed her own situation as it unfolded. … They had been slowly leaving behind the modern world as it was then and walking into the essentially Stone Age world in which the California Indians had lived for millennia. Brown goes on and gives context to the times she was living in-what history teaches us.But with all the advances which they lived in, the party just had a flintlock rifle. If any of them were going to survive the rest of the journey, it would have to be on the basis of strength, endurance, cunning, and courage.
They continued on the North Fork of the American River, until they had to cross it. Tis was a 1500’ descent and ascent.
Back at the Lake, some of the women tried to make their way out as well. They turned back. Things were getting desperate.
Back to the Party. Insanity seemed to be creeping in among the two remaining men. One proposed killing some of the females for their meat. According to Nathaniel Philbrick, Their [extreme stress] desire to survive usurps these emotions and replaces them with a kind of cunning, cruel, self-centeredness. … Small groups of people living under these kinds of stresses and experiencing this kind of psychic numbness tend to form feral communities, tribes governed not by the usual social conventions but by older, more fundamental laws—the laws of necessity, dominance, self-preservation, and brute strength.
The Party came across the Native Americans. The men killed them and they were eaten.
They got to an Indian village, near either modern day Colfax or Auburn. Takema near modern-day Colfax. It may be that they had wandered as far south as the village of Hangwite near Auburn. The Indians started to feed them. Description of Johnson Ranch on Bear Creek. This is now in Wheatland. One of the men was taken there.
Chapter 12 Hope and Despair
Recuperating at Johnson ranch. Also dealing with loss and all which they went through. The residence of the Ranch worked to get a rescue party together, sending a request to Sutter for additional support.
Sarah’s loss was not only emotional, but financial. Brown goes through how children and women were dependent.
Meanwhile, back at the Lake, fighting over the last of the food was taking place. the three full months since they had all become entrapped, he[John Landrum] was the fourteenth member of the Donner Party to die, all of the dead, so far, male.
The First Relief Party was on its way at the start of February. They made Donner Lake on February 18th with initial supplies. On February 22nd, they started their return trip with those who might be able to make it out.
Despite the provisions brought, they were not enough to keep people from starving. The people at the Lake started easting the dead.
James Reed led the Second Relief Party which met the first on the way out. The survivors were even worse off than when the first relief party arrived. More decisions on who to leave behind and who was strong enough to go.
Chapter 13 Heroes and Scoundrels
The second Relief leaves Donner Lake: three adults and 14 children. It still would be a rough trip. They got trapped in a bowl surrounded by Mount Disney, Mount Judah, and Donner Peak. This would be called Starved Camp. Two died there. Many were unable to go on. Reed and a group of able bodied people took a few people out with them to locate a cache of food.
Back at the Lake, the abled bodied men who Reed left there to care for people decided to leave. They agreed to take a couple of Donner’s kids with them for payment. More people were coming up, but when they encountered the Relief teams, they would decide to go back as being too risky. Some would go on for payment.
The Third Relief party came across the group at Starved Camp. That group had resorted to cannibalism to survive. One of them, Nancy Graves later found out she was eating her own mother. Nancy Graves’s later emotional distress was just one small thread in a much broader fabric of mental anguish that inevitably afflicted many of the Donner Party survivors and rescuers alike for years following the disaster.
Regardless of the necessity of having done so, they had violated a fundamental human taboo, and it was almost inevitable that they would experience significant amounts of guilt and its close cousin, shame. The two are not quite the same thing. Brown talks about how they experienced what we know today as PTSD. For the most part, people were expected to keep their emotional problems to themselves.
What to do: go to the Lake or rescue the people at Starved Camp. The vote was go to the Lake. John Stark said When his name was called, Stark stepped forward and said, “No, gentlemen. I will not abandon these people. I am here on a mission of mercy, and I will not half do the work. You can all go if you want to, but I shall stay by these people while they and I live.”
When the Third Relief party left the Lake, there were only four people remaining alive: George and Tamzene Donner, Louis Keseber, Levinah Murphy. There was an assortment of people now going down the mountains at various stages.
When they made it to Johnson Ranch, they each had to deal with the loss of both family and material.
Part 4 In the Reproof of Chance
Chapter 14 Shattered Souls
Fourth Relief party set out. Not so much to save, but to recover whatever valuables they could find. Keseberg was the only one left alive. He also had some of the Donner possessions.
87 people were part of the party when they came out of Utah. 47 died along the way. More men died than females. Not just the normal discrepancy of death. Men now die earlier largely as a result of high rates of smoking, homicide, suicide, ischemic heart disease, war, and higher degrees of risk taking. Interestingly, men who have been castrated have been found to have a life expectancy 13.6 years longer than that of intact males. Brown goes into some findings about why.
Brown excerpts some of the letters the survivors wrote to relatives.
Sarah Graves owed Sutter close to $90. But because of a bargain her mother made, the Reed’s owed her some Oxen. Reed, though he had presumably arrived in California penniless himself, had gotten off to a surprisingly promising start. He already owned a large swath of land in the Santa Clara Valley.
Chapter 15 Golden Hills, Black Oaks
Talks about what happened to Sarah and her siblings. After living in San Jose for a while, she moves to Sonoma, then gets invited to Napa Valley. She became a school teacher. Eleanor, Sarah’s sister, husband was murdered. Eleanor came to reside with Sarah. they set about the more serious business of finding husbands, the only real path to economic stability open to young single women in the 1840s. Sarah found an old acquaintance, who was younger than her, William Dill Ritchie, and married him. He ended up being a mule thief, was caught and the owners of the mules killed him.
Chapter 16 Peace
Nancy Graves married Richard Wesley Williamson and became a Methodist missionary. Sarah married her third husband, Samuel Spires. … By now Sarah had likely had her fill of adventurous young men. After spending time in the Napa Valley, they moved to Visalia and then to Corralitos. Sarah died at the age of 47 in her sleep.
Chapter 17 In the Years Beyond
Brown goes through what happened to several people who were part of the Donner Party.
- Billy Graves went back east and lead a party back across Donner Pass.
- Mary Ann and James Clarke lived out their lives on their ranch in Visalia.
- Elanor Graves married and lived in Knights Valley around Calistoga
- Lovina Graves married and lived in Calistoga
- Breen family-survived intact. Made a fortune in the goldfields. Bought the Castro adobe in San Juan Bapista.
- Reed family kept the memory of the Donner Party alive.
- Donner children lived short lives.
- William Eddy-lived in San Jose. Died in Petaluma
- Several other brief biographies.
The coins the Graves family had hidden were found in 1891. Half was kept as a reward, the other half returned to the Graves family.
Charles McGlashan-wrote one of the first authoritative accounts of the Donner Party.
Lansford W. Hastings-Brown’s summary of his life showed that he was a money losing schemer.
Epilogue
Brown describes trying to find Sarah’s marker in the Watsonville Pioneer Cemetery. He could not find it there or in Corralitos. Find A Grave web site notes that there are 100 plots with no markers. She may have been in one of them when the Corralitos cemetery was moved because it was being turned into an orchard.
Brown recounts his own journey in 2008, trying to duplicate Sarah’s journey-not that he walked it, but drove it. He notes the landscape has changed: bridges instead of fording rivers, roads instead of grasslands, civilization instead of wilderness. He stands in St Joe, Missouri and thinks That was a kind of paradox, for I could see almost nothing on the far side of the river, only what Sarah must have seen in 1846—a dark line of trees etched against a soft evening sky. I couldn’t see anything beyond the trees, and that was what interested me.
He also thinks about whether he would have uprooted his own family to go on a dangerous journey because you think life might be better later. He says that the choices I have made and the chances I have taken shrink to insignificance compared with Franklin Graves’s choices and chances.
As he followed the route, he gained an appreciation of what the party faced and the decisions they made, and the joys they found. At “Reed’s Gap”, he was able to survey into the Salt Lake Valley and beyond and figured out that it was sheer lunacy to go the way Hastings told them to go. There were places where the pioneers marked their passage. Such as when James Reed carved his initials, “JFR,” and the date, “26 May 1846,” on a rock at Alcove Spring in Kansas, where they can still be seen today.
Brown did this route in sections.
Brown went through the salt flats. He could only go about half a mile before he gave up. By the time I got back to the rest stop, everything around me seemed to be growing dim and vaguely blackened, like a shadow world. I started up the car, turned on the A/C, put my face to one of the vents, and eagerly sucked up the cool air. My God, I thought, those people were tough.When Brown got to Reno, he went into a casino and wondered if the habit of taking chances and thus far surviving them had lulled them into a false sense of security, left them as mesmerized by the temptations of fortune and the hazards of chance as those sitting around me seemed to be as they watched the wheels spin before their faces.
The interstate and the inspection station were built in the 1960s, directly atop the spot where Franklin Graves had built his cabin in 1846. The old Highway 40 is about the same route the snowshoe party went.
Brown had read where Mary Anne Graves had stood at a spot and wondered at the beauty of what she was seeing. Brown thought this must be an exaggeration until he came to the spot and had similar wonder. Survival psychologists have since discovered that the people who are most likely to live through extreme, life-and-death challenges are those who open their eyes to the wonders of the world around them, even as their own lives hang in the balance. Brown goes on and talks about how humility allows you to adapt and in a survival situation you need to adapt. That wonder is the opening to humility.
When he got to Emigrant Gap, he saw why the Snowshoe group went towards the American River instead of to Bear Valley. The easy way led them to disaster. From the time they had first encountered Wales Bonney carrying a note from Lansford Hastings back on the approaches to the South Pass, a ridge of deception had slowly arisen between them and the truth of their situation-this was the choices they made wrong. Choosing what looked easier instead of the best way.
To conclude, he tries to process Sarah’s story. Was she a hero or just a rat trying to survive? What he describes was a human, who had joy, sorrow and hardship. But she still persevered. If we choose, take the harder road, walk forth bravely under the indifferent stars. … the story tells us that hope is the hero’s domain, not the fool’s.
Evaluation:
Daniel James Brown’s telling of the demise of the Donner Party is well researched. It is a story which should be read to understand the pressures of trying to survive starvation and why people in trying to survive will suspend their moral restrictions, such as cannibalism. In that sense, it is an ugly story about an ugly time-how could it be otherwise
There are times when Brown is confusing, such as if you try to follow the path he laid out for the pioneers or when he talks about the people of the Donner Party trying to get to California, when they were already within the current state boundaries-a little explanation of what Brown meant would have been helpful
Within the last year, I have read two other survival stories-Death Valley in ‘49 and The Long Walk. This book falls in the middle. Still, the book is a worthwhile read.
Notes from my book group:
Brown starts his story with the W.B. Yeats’ poem, A Dream of Death. How does this poem set the tone for the book? Do you think the world is a cold place or a warm one?
In Brown’s author’s notes he says that I decided that I would focus on one woman in particular, Sarah Graves, and tell the unvarnished truth about what happened to her in the high Sierra in the terrible winter of that year. Do you think he succeeds in this task?
The Donner, Reed, and Graves parties all talked with James Clyman who gave an unfavorable description of the Hastings route. All rejected his advice. Why do you think they rejected his advice? What are their motives? How can you tell when you are receiving good advice?
What kind of person did it take to make this trip successfully?
Identify key points of decision in this book. How did they affect the outcome?
When does the journey start falling apart? What could the Graves family have done differently to give them a better chance of success? How do you know when you should look at alternatives? Or leave a failing project?
What would be a comparable trip today as what Sarah and her family made? What would cause you to make such a trip? Greater riches? Better chance of survival? Are there any comparable migrations being made today?
Describe the wagon train’s sense of community? How did they rely on each other? How were they independent? Do you think if the stronger part of the parties were to travel faster, more would survive? Do you think a greater amount of interdependence would have made a difference?
How long have you gone without food? What were the cravings like? How much longer do you think you could have gone without food without severe mental or moral compromises made?
The Donner Party story is essentially a story of survival. What would you do to survive? How much of your moral code would you be willing to suspend? Robbery? Murder?
Are there heroes in this book? What did they do to deserve to be called heroes?
Why is there a general repulsion to eating human flesh?
Have you read accounts of other expeditions across the United States? What obstacles did they have to overcome? Did any of them resort to behavior which is questionable?
How do you want your life to change because you read this book?
Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.
Why the title of Under Indifferent Stars Above?
Does this story work as a history or biography?
Which character did you identify with?
Which one did you dislike?
Every story has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?
In what context was religion talked about in this book?
Was there anybody you would consider religious?
How did they show it?
Was the book overtly religious?
How did it affect the book's story?
Why do you think the author wrote this book?
What would you ask the author if you had a chance?
What “takeaways” did you have from this book?
What central ideas does the author present?
Describe the culture talked about in the book.
How is the culture described in this book different than where we live?
What economic or political situations are described?
Does the author examine economics and politics, family traditions, the arts, religious beliefs, language or food?
How did this book affect your view of the world?
Of how God is viewed?
What questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?
Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?
What was memorable?
New Words:
- Miasmas: a highly unpleasant or unhealthy smell or vapor.
- Cleats: a T-shaped piece of metal or wood, especially on a boat or ship, to which ropes are attached.
- Travois: a type of sledge formerly used by North American Indians (especially of the Great Plains) to carry goods, consisting of two joined poles pulled by a horse or dog.
- Star-crossed: a phrase describing a pair of lovers who, for some external reason, cannot be together. The term also has other meanings, but originally means that the pairing is being "thwarted by a malign star" or that the stars are working against the relationship.
- anthropophagic dreams: the custom and practice of eating human flesh
- Daguerreotypes: the first publicly available photographic process; it was widely used during the 1840s and 1850s.
- Euchre: a trick-taking card game commonly played in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain, and the United States. It is played with a deck of 24, 28, or 32 standard playing cards. Normally there are four players, two on each team, although there are variations that range from two to nine players.
- History of the Donner Party by C.F. McGlashan
- Patriot Battles: How the War of Independence Was Fought by Michael Stephenson
- Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr
- The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California by Lansford Warren Hastings
- Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America by John James Audubon
- Birds of America by John James Audubon
- Hunger: An Unnatural History by Apt Russell
- Survival Psychology by John Leach
- Miracle in the Andes by Nano Pardo
- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
- Donner Party by J. Quinn Thornton
- Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle by Charles Darwin
- The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
- In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
- The Cry of the Children by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
- The Donner Party: Weathering the Storm by Mark McLaughlin
- The Emigrants’ Guide to Brazil by Lansford Warren Hastings
Good Quotes:
- First Line: Even well after the tragedy was over, Sarah Graves’s little sister Nancy often burst into tears for no apparent reason.
- Last Line: Because we dare to hope--even when doing so might undo us-we leave the worlds we create behind us, swirling in our wakes, eternal and effervescent with the beauty of out aspirations.
- Survival psychologists have since discovered that the people who are most likely to live through extreme, life-and-death challenges are those who open their eyes to the wonders of the world around them, even as their own lives hang in the balance. Chp Epilogue.
- Author's Note p. xi
- Prologue p. 1
- Part 1 A Sprightly Boy and a Romping Girl p. 7
- Chapter 1 Home and Heart p. 9
- Chapter 2 Mud and Merchandise p. 25
- Chapter 3 Grass p. 45
- Part 2 The Barren Earth p. 59
- Chapter 4 Dust p. 61
- Chapter 5 Deception p. 76
- Chapter 6 Salt, Sage, and Blood p. 93
- Part 3 The Meager by the Meager Were Devoured p. 117
- Chapter 7 Cold Calculations p. 119
- Chapter 8 Desperation p. 140
- Chapter 9 Christmas Feasts p. 159
- Chapter 10 The Heart on the Mountain p. 176
- Chapter 11 Madness p. 189
- Chapter 12 Hope and Despair p. 204
- Chapter 13 Heroes and Scoundrels p. 222
- Part 4 In the Reproof of Chance p. 243
- Chapter 14 Shattered Souls p. 245
- Chapter 15 Golden Hills, Black Oaks p. 256
- Chapter 16 Peace p. 264
- Chapter 17 In the Years Beyond p. 267
- Epilogue p. 274
- Appendix: The Donner Party Encampments p. 289
- Acknowledgments p. 293
- Chapter Notes p. 295
- Sources p. 325
References:
- Publisher's Web Site for Book
- Author's Web Site
- Wikipedia-Author
- Amazon-Book
- Amazon-Author
- Barnes and Noble
- GoodReads-Book
- GoodReads-Author
- New York Times Review
- Kirkus Review
- YouTube
- 60 Second Review
- Roving Reader review
- Historic America Review
- Truly Booked review
- Books on the Table review
- www.utahcrossroads.org/DonnerParty
- www.donner partydiary.com
