USA > Illinois > Marshall County > Records of the olden time; or, Fifty years on the prairies. Embracing sketches of the discovery, exploration and settlement of the country, the organization of the counties of Putnam and Marshall, biographies of citizens, portraits and illustrations > Part 52
USA > Illinois > Putnam County > Records of the olden time; or, Fifty years on the prairies. Embracing sketches of the discovery, exploration and settlement of the country, the organization of the counties of Putnam and Marshall, biographies of citizens, portraits and illustrations > Part 52
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79
619
SAD STORY OF THE GRAVES FAMILY.
.
CHAPTER LV.
THE RESCUE.
HE men who reached Starved Camp formed a part of the third relief party sent forward, and to a better understand- ing of it some' account of the efforts made should be given.
The first relief was contributed by good old Captain Sutter, to whom be the praise. When James Reed reached the settlements, he at once went to San Francisco to com- municate with the Government, and his story created the wildest excitement.
The story that emigrants were starving to death in the mountains pro- foundly stirred people, and offers of provisions, horses and money poured in without stint. It was the time of the Mexican war, and most of the able-bodied men were with the army, so that suitable persons to make the perilous journey were not to be found. Captain Tucker's party, organ- ized upon the arrival of the Forlorn Hope, was the first. Reed and his companions were the second, and the third was led by Eddy and Foster.
When they reached the deep well-like cavity where the Breens and the Graves children were, a very serious question arose. Out of the eleven but two were able to walk. A storm appeared gathering of the mountains, and their supply of provisions was limited. It was proposed to take the Graves children and Mary Donner, leaving the Breens to wait the arrival of another party, which all knew meant death.
Oakley and Rhodes favored leaving them, but Stark said "No, I will not abandon these people. I am here on an errand of mercy and I will not half do my work. You may go, but I will stay by them while they and I live." It was nobly said, and nobly did he perform what he pron- ised. To him the lives of the entire family are mainly due. The greater part of the distance he carried one of the Graves and one of the Breen children. He was a powerful man and niade light of carrying the blank- ets, provisions and some of the weaker children. He was formerly from Monmouth, Ill.
At Donner Lake much suffering had occurred. . Here Lavina Murphy
620
RECORDS OF THE OLDEN TIMF.
was left in charge of her grandson, Geo. Foster, the child of James Eddy, and the three Donner girls .. All occupied the same cabin, and with them was Keseburg.
When Foster and Eddy arrived their children were dead. It is said that Keseburg killed and ate one of them during the night, and while there is some discrepancy of opinion on this subject, all agree that he kept the remains hanging on a nail in the cabin for use until consumed. It will be remembered he was charged with two murders previously, those of Hard- coop and Wolfinger.
In the morning the relief party started back. Eddy was to carry Georgia Donner, Thompson, Frances Donner, and Foster, Simon Murphy. John Baptise and Clark were to accompany them. At Alder Creek George Donner was at death's door, but his faithful wife would not desert him, though well knowing her life was the penalty of remaining. Of ten occu- pants, seven lay beneath the snows, and three survived, one of whom was soon to go. This was George Donner, the captain of the party.
Mrs. Murphy was sick, exhausted and unable to walk. She had cared for others until her health and strength were gone, and she was utterly helpless. The children had best go, but she would remain until able to travel. With her, too, staid Keseberg, who by reason of lameness, as he asserted, was unable to travel; though others assert he had a more pow- erful reason for remaining, -a desire to possess himself of George Don- ner's property.
The night previous to their leaving, Mrs. Tamsen Donner, mother of the three little girls, came up from Alder Creek, seven miles distant, to enquire after her little ones, whom she supposed had gone across the mountains. Oh, the joy and the pain of that meeting. As they wound their arms around her neck, kissed her lips, laughed in her eyes and twined their fingers in her hair, what a struggle must have been taking place in her soul.
As the pleading, upturned faces of her babies begged her not to leave them, her very heart-strings must have been rent with agony. Well may the voice quiver or the hand tremble, that attempts to portray the anguish of this mother during that farewell interview. From the very first mo- ment, her resolution to return to her husband remained unshaken. The members of the relief party entreated her to go with her children and save her own life. They urged that there could only be a few hours of life left in George Donner. This was so true that she once ventured the
621
SAD STORY OF THE GRAVES FAMILY.
request that they remain until she could return to Alder Creek, and see if he were yet alive. The gathering storm-clouds which had hovered over the summit for days, compelled them to refuse this request. An hour's delay might be fatal to all.
George Donner knew that he was dying, and had frequently urged his wife to leave him, cross the mountains, and take care of her children. As she held her darlings in her arms, it required no prophetic vision to dis- close pictures of sadness, of lonely childhood, of longing girlhood, of pil- lows wet with tears, if these three little waifs were left to wander friend- less in California. She never expressed a belief that she would see that land of promise beyond the Sierras. Often had her calm, earnest voice told them of the future which awaited them, and so far as possible had she prepared them to meet that future without the counsel or sympathy of father or mother.
The night-shadows, creeping through the shivering pines, warned her of the long, dreary way over which her tired feet must pass ere she reached her dying husband's side. She is said to have appeared strangely composed. The struggle was silent. The poor bleeding heart brought not a single moan to the lips. It was a choice between life, hope and her clinging babes, or a lonely vigil by a dying husband, and an unknown, shroudless death in the wintry mountains. Her husband was sixty-three; he was well stricken in years, and his life was fast ebbing away. If she returned through the frosty. night-winds, over the crisp, freezing snow, she would travel fourteen miles that day. The strong, healthy men com- posing the relief parties frequently could travel but five or six miles in a day. If she made the journey, and found her husband was dead, she could have no hope of returning on the morrow. She had suffered too long from hunger and privation to hope to be able to return and overtake the relief party. It was certain life or certain death. On the side of the former was maternal love ; on the side of the latter, wifely devotion. The whole range of history cannot produce a parallel example of adherence to duty, and to the dictates of conjugal fidelity. With quick convulsive pressure of her little ones to her heart; with a hasty, soul-throbbing kiss upon the lips of each; with a prayer that was stifled with a sob of agony, Tamsen Donner hurried away to her husband. Through the gathering darkness, past the shadowy sentinels of the forest, they watched with tearful eyes her retreating form. As if she dared not trust another sight of the little faces-as if to escape the pitiful wail of her darlings-she
622
RECORDS OF THE OLDEN TIME.
l'an straight forward until out of sight and hearing. She never once looked back.
There are mental struggles which so absorb the being and soul, that physical terrors or tortures are unnoticed. Tamsen Donner's mind was passing through such an ordeal. The fires of Moloch, the dreadful suttee, were sacrifices which long religious education sanctioned, and in which the devotees perished amidst the plaudits of admiring multitudes. This woman had chosen a death of solitude, of hunger, of bitter cold, of pain- racked exhaustion, and was actuated by only the pure principles of wifely love. Already the death-damp was gathering on George Donner's brow. At the utmost, she could hope to do no more than smooth the dying pil- low, tenderly clasp the fast-chilling hand, press farewell kisses upon the whitening lips, and finally close the dear tired eyes. For this, only this, she was yielding life, the world and her darling babes. Fitted by culture and refinement to be an ornament to society, qualified by education to rear her daughters to lives of honor and usefulness, how it inust have wrung her heart to allow her little ones to go unprotected into a wilder- ness of strangers. But she could not leave her husband to die alone. Rather solitude, better death, than desert the father of her children. O Land of the Sunset! let the memory of this wife's devotion be ever en- shrined in the hearts of your faithful daughters! In tablets thus pure engrave the name of Tamsen Donner.
When the June sunshine gladdened the Sacramento Valley, three sweet little barefooted girls walked here and there among the houses and tents of Sutter's Fort. They were scantily clothed, and one carried a thin blanket. At night they said their prayers, lay down in whatever tent they happened to be, and folding the blanket about them fell asleep in each other's arms. When they were hungry they asked food of whom- soever they met. If any one inquired who they were, they answered as their mother had taught them: "We are the children of Mr. and Mrs. George Donner." But they added something they had learned since. It was, "and our parents are dead."
With the rescue of the Graves family this narrative properly ends; but those who have followed the party thus far will like to know the fate of those still behind.
George Donner came from Springfield, Ill., and was a man of consid- erable wealth. He had a large amount of valuable goods, and considera- ble gold and silver, -how much is not known, but it is supposed some
623
SAD STORY OF THE GRAVES FAMILY.
ten or twelve thousand dollars at least. These facts were known to Keseberg, and it is supposed influenced his course. It is claimed he could have accompanied the third, or Foster and Eddy's party, but chose to remain. Mrs. Murphy was too ill, and Mrs. Tamsen Donner would not leave her husband. These comprised all that were left.
The fourth, or Captain Fallon's relief party reached the lake April 17, and Captain Tucker, who accompanied them, best describes the awful sight. "Human bodies terribly mutilated, legs, arms. skulls and portions or remains were scattered in every direction. Mrs. Murphy's body was found with one of the limbs sawed off, the saw lying beside the remains. Near the Graves cabin were two bodies entire except that the abdomens were cut open and the entrails removed. In that dry atmosphere nothing decays, but bodies shrivel up and wear away, becoming like mummies. Strewn about were skulls which had been sawn asunder to extract the brains, and skeletons in every variety of mutilation.
The remains of George Donner were found in the cabin, neatly wrapped in a sheet. To carefully lay out her husband's body and tenderly enfold it in a winding sheet was the last act of devotion to her husband per- formed by Tamsen Donner. When this was done, she went to the Mur- phy cabin, and whether murdered by Keseberg to obtain possession of her husband's money, as is generally believed, or whether she died a natural death, only the Father above and one individual knows. Mrs- Murphy probably starved to death.
When Capt. Fallon's party reached the camp at the lake no one was visible, but a fresh track in the snow led away from camp towards the Donner cabins. They pressed forward to Alder Creek, finding his goods as described but the closest search failed to discover any money. On their return to the Graves cabin at the lake they found the same mysterious tracks which proved to be those of Keseberg. When asked for Donner's money he refused to divulge what had become of it, and not until a rope was put around his neck with a threat of hanging did he tell where it was hidden. All that was recovered was $531. Capt. Fallon in his re- port says he found two kettles of human blood, in all supposed to be over a gallon. If Keseberg is guilty of all that is charged he has terribly ex- piated his crimes. Of all men living he is the most miserable, and as no one should be condemned without a hearing let him give his own version of this terrible story. He says :
"If I believe in God Almighty having anything to do with the destiny of
624
RECORDS OF THE OLDEN TIME.
man, I believe that the misfortunes which overtook the Donner party and the terrible part I was compelled to take in the great tragedy were predestined. On Hastings' cut off, we were twenty-eight days going twenty-one miles.
" When we reached the lake we lost our road, and owing to the depth of the snow on the mountains, were compelled to abandon our wagons, and pack our goods upon oxen. The cattle, unused to such burdens, caused great delay by 'bucking' and wallowing in the snow. There was also much confusion as to what articles should be taken and what aban- doned. One wanted a box of tobacco carried along; another, a bale of calico, and some one thing and some another. But for this delay we would have passed the summit and pressed forward to California. Owing to my lameness, I was placed on horseback, and my foot was tied up to the saddle in a sort of sling. Near evening we were close to the top of the dividing ridge. It was cold and chilly, and everybody was tired with the severe exertions of the day. Some of the emigrants sat down to rest, and declared they could go no further. I begged them for God's sake to get over the ridge before halting. Some one, however, set fire to a pitchy pine tree, and the flames soon ascended to its topmost branches. The women and children gathered about this fire to warm themselves. Mean- time the oxen were rubbing off their packs against the trees. The weather looked very threatening, and I exhorted them to go on until the summit was reached. I foresaw the danger plainly. and unmistakably. Only the strongest men, however, could go ahead and break the road, and it would have taken a determined man to induce the party to leave the fire. Had I been well, and been able to push ahead over the ridge, some, if not all, would have followed. As it was, all laid down on the snow, and from exhaustion were soon asleep. In the night I felt something impeding my breath. A heavy weight seemed to be resting upon me. Springing up to a sitting posture, I found myself covered with freshly- fallen snow. The camp, the cattle, my companions, had all disappeared. All I could see was snow everywhere. I shouted at the top of my voice. Suddenly here and there, all about me, heads popped up through the snow. The scene was not unlike what one might imagine at the resurrec- tion, when people rise up out of the earth. The terror amounted to a panic. The mules were lost, the cattle strayed away, and our further progress rendered impossible. The rest you probably know. We returned to the lake, and prepared as best we could for the winter. I was unable
,
625
SAD STORY OF THE GRAVES FAMILY.
to build a cabin, because of my lameness, and so erected a sort of brush shed against one side of Breen's cabin.
"When Reed's relief party left the cabins, Mr. Reed left me a half tea- cupful of flour, and about half a pound of jerked beef. It was all he could give. Mrs. Murphy, who was left with me, because too weak and emaciated to walk, had no larger portion. Reed had no animosity against me. He found me too weak to move. He washed me, combed my hair, and treated me kindly. Indeed, he had no cause to do otherwise. When Reed came with the relief party to the lake, he found his children in my cabin. Some of my portion of the flour brought by Stanton from Sut- . ter's Fort I gave to Reed's children, and thus saved their lives. When he left me he promised to return in two weeks and carry me over the . mountains. . When this party left, I was not able to stand, much less to walk.
"A heavy storm came on in a few days after the last relief party left. Mrs. George Donner had remained with her sick husband in their camp, six or seven miles away. Mrs. Murphy lived about a week after we were left alone. When my provisions gave out I remained four days before I could taste human flesh. There was no other resort-it was that or death. My wife and child had gone on with the first relief party. I knew not whether they were living or dead. They were penniless and friendless in a strange land. For their sakes I must live if not for my own. Mrs. Murphy was too weak to revive. The flesh of starved beings contains little nutriment. It is like feeding straw to horses.
"I cannot describe the unutterable repugnance with which I tasted the first mouthful of flesh. There is an instinct in our nature that revolts at the thought of touching, much less eating a corpse. It makes my blood curdle to think of it! It has been told that I boasted of my shame-said that I enjoyed this horrid food, and that I remarked that human flesh was more palatable than California beef. This is a falsehood. It is a horrible revolting falsehood. This food was never otherwise than loathesome, in- sipid and disgusting. For nearly two months I was alone in that dismal cabin. No one knows what occurred but myself-no living being ever be- fore was told of the occurrences. Life was a burden. The horrors of one day succeeded those of the preceeding. Five of my companions had died in my cabin and their stark and ghastly bodies lay there day and night, seemingly gazing at me with their glazed and staring eyes. I was too weak to move them had I tried. The relief parties had not removed
626
RECORDS OF THE OLDEN TIME.
them. These parties had been too hurried, too horror stricken at the sight, too fearful lest an hour's delay might cause them to share the same fate. I endured a thousand deaths. To have one's suffering prolonged inch by inch, to be deserted, forsaken, hopeless; to see that loathsome food ever before my eyes, was almost too much for human endurance. I am conversant with four different languages. I speak and write them with equal fluency, yet in all four I do not find words enough to express the horror I experienced during those two months, or what I still feel when memory reverts to the scene. Suicide would have been a relief, a happi- ness, a godsend! Many a time I had the muzzle of my pistol in my mouth and my finger on the trigger, but the faces of my helpless, depend- ent wife and child would rise up before me, and my hand would fall pow- erless. I was not the cause of my misfortunes, and God Almighty had provided only this one horrible way for me to , ubsist."
" Did you boil the flesh ?"
"Yes! But to go into details-to relate the minutiæ-is too agoniz- ing! I cannot do it! Imagination can supply these. The necessary mu- tilation of the bodies of those who had been my friends, rendered the ghastliness of my situation more frightful. When I could crawl about and my lame foot was partially recovered, I was chopping some wood one day and the axe glanced and cut off my heel. The piece of flesh grew back in time, but not in its former position, and my foot is maimed to this day.
"A man before he judges me, should be placed in a similar situation ; but if he were, it is a thousand to one he would perish. A constitution of steel alone could endure the deprivation and misery. At this time I was living in the log cabin with the fire-place. One night I was awakened by a scratching sound over my head I started up in terror, and listened in- tently for the noise to be repeated. It came again. It was the wolves trying to get into the cabin to eat me and the dead bodies.
"At midnight, one cold, bitter night, Mrs. George Donner came to my door. It was about two weeks after Reed had gone and my loneliness was beginning to be unendurable. I was most happy to hear the sound of a human voice. Her coming was like that of an angel from Heaven. But she had not come to bear me company. Her husband had died in her arms. She had remained by his side until death came, and then laid him out and hurried away. He died at nightfall, and she had traveled over the snow alone to my cabin. She was going, alone, across the moun-
627
SAD STORY OF THE GRAVES FAMILY.
tains. She was going to start without food or guide. She kept saying, 'My children ! I must see my children !'
"She feared she would not survive, and told me she had some money
in her tent. It was too heavy for her to carry. She said, 'Mr. Keseburg I confide this to your care.' She made me promise sacredly that I would get the money and take it to her children in case she perished and I sur- vived. She declared she would start over the mountains in the morning. She said, 'I am bound to go to my children.' She seemed very cold, and her clothes were like ice. I think she had got into the creek in coming. She said she was very hungry, but refused the only food I could offer. She had never eaten the loathsome flesh.
"She finally laid down, and I spread a feather bed and some blankets over her. In the morning she was dead. I think the hunger, the mental suffering and the icy chill of the preceeding night caused her death. I have often been accused of taking her life. Before my God, I swear this is untre! Do you think a man would be such a miscreant, such a damna- ble fiend, such a caricature on humanity, as to kill this lone woman? There were plenty of corpses lying around. He would but add one more corpse to the many !
"Oh! the days and weeks of horror which I passed in that camp! I . had no hope of help or of being rescued, until I saw the green grass com- ing up by the spring on the hillside, and the wild geese coming to nibble it. The birds were coming back to their breeding grounds, and I felt that I could kill them for food. I had plenty of guns and ammunition in camp. I also had plenty of tobacco and a good meerschaum pipe, and al- most the only solace I enjoyed was smoking. In my weak condition it took me two or three hours every day to get sufficient wood to keep my fire going.
" Some time after Mrs. Donner's death, I thought I had gained suffi- cient strength to redeem the pledge I had made her before her death. I started to go to the camps at Alder Creek to get the money. I had a very difficult journey. The wagons of the Donners were loaded with tobacco, powder, caps, shoes, school books, and dry goods. This stock was very valuable, and had it reached California, would have been a fortune to the Donners. I searched carefully among the bales and bundles of goods, and found $531. Part of this sum was silver, part gold. The silver I buried at the foot of a pine tree, a little way from the camp. One of the lower branches of another tree reached down close to the ground, and appeared
1
.
628
RECORDS OF THE OLDEN TIME.
to point to the spot. I put the gold in my pocket, and started to return to my cabin. I had spent one night at the Donner tents. On my return I became lost.
"When it was nearly dark, in crossing a little flat, the snow suddenly gave way under my feet, and I sank down almost to my armpits. By means of the crust on top of the snow, I kept myself suspended by throw- ing out my arms. A stream of water flowed underneath the place over which I had been walking, and the snow had melted on the underside until it was not strong enough to support my weight. I could not touch bottom with my feet, and so could form no idea of the depth of the stream. By long and careful exertion, I managed to draw myself back- ward and up on the snow. I then went around on the hillside, and con- tinued my journey. At last, just at dark, completely exhausted and almost dead, I came in sight of the Graves cabin. I shall never forget my joy at sight of that log cabin. I felt that I was no longer lost, and would at least have shelter. Some time after dark I reached my own cabin. My clothes were wet by getting in the creek, and the night was so cold that my garments were frozen into sheets of ice. I was so weary, and chilled, and numbed that I did not build up a fire, or attempt to get anything to eat, but rolled myself up in the bed-clothes and tried to get warm. Nearly all night I lay there shivering with cold, and when I finally slept, I slept very soundly. I did not wake up until quite late the next morning.
"To my utter astonishment the camp was in the most inexplicable con- fusion. My trunks were broken open, and their contents were scattered everywhere. Everything about the cabin was torn up and thrown about the floor. My wife's jewelry, my cloak, my pistol and ammunition were missing. I supposed Indians had robbed my camp during my absence. Suddenly I was startled by the sound of human voices. I hurried up to the surface of the snow, and saw white men coming towards the cabin. I was overwhelmed with joy and gratitude at the prospect of my deliver- ance. I had suffered so much, and for so long a time, that I could scarcely believe my senses. Imagine my astonishment upon their arrival to be greeted, not with a 'good morning' or a kind word, but with the gruff, insolent demand, 'Where is Donner's money ?'
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.