Ep. 78 - The Donner Party Tragedy

Summary

Podcast Summary: My Victorian Nightmare

Host: Genevieve Manion
Episode: 78 – The Donner Party Tragedy
Date: January 19, 2026

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Overview

In this haunting, deeply-researched episode, Genevieve Manion explores the infamous Donner Party tragedy. She skillfully weaves the grim story of the 1846-47 wagon train disaster into the broader tapestry of Victorian-era obsessions with death, the supernatural, and the limits of human endurance. The episode is rich with anecdotes, direct quotes, and Genevieve's signature darkly comforting tone.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Victorian Era Fascinations & Podcast Introduction

• Genevieve opens with reflections on Victorian obsessions with death, spiritualism, and the comforting allure of dark history.
  • “There’s just something especially intriguing, creepy, and oddly comforting about horror and mayhem from the 19th century.” (01:20)
• The host provides supportive, light-hearted musings for listeners feeling overwhelmed by daily life, emphasizing self-compassion (01:25).

2. "With Their Own Eyes": Wesley Family Haunting

• A recurring segment shares the supernatural experiences of the tormented Wesley family, featuring poltergeist-like occurrences:
  • Strange knocks, crashing sounds, terrified family dog, and the psychological toll of continuous hauntings (06:07–07:47).
  • Memorable quote:

    “He used to bark and leap and snap... but after two or three days he would simply tremble and creep away before the noise began, and by this the family knew it was at hand.” (06:57)

3. Victorian Spiritualism & Mediums

• Genevieve reads from a Victorian spirit communication via a medium, weaving it into her own reflections on energy and psychic connections:
  • “Could you with your spiritual eyes behold this atmosphere? You would find an infinite number of electric ramifications... They are shooting north and south and east and west.” (09:00)
• She humorously recounts her own “psychic hunches,” blending personal anecdotes with era-appropriate beliefs (10:31).

4. Portrait of Fraudulent Medium: Eva Carrière

• "The Naked Medium" section highlights the scandalous practices of fraudulent medium Eva Carrière (born Martha Béraud):
  • Carrière’s over-the-top ectoplasm productions, use of cutout faces, hired accomplices, and even public nude séance performances (12:38–15:22).
  • Standout details:
    • Harry Houdini attending and denouncing her as “a complete fraud.” (14:17)
    • Spirit photography described as “simply preposterous” (12:17).
  • Reputation as a “pornographic, perverse, and neurotic” embarrassment to the spiritualist community (15:10).

5. The Donner Party: Historical Background

• Genevieve transitions to the main story:
  • Background on the westward expansion, motivations for heading to California, and misconceptions held by the emigrants (16:57–18:00).
  • Highlights that the party was relatively well-off, not desperate or unprepared as often imagined.

6. Fatal Decisions & Leadership

• Late start (May 12) and choosing the unvetted “Hastings Cutoff” route by Lansford Hastings—a route he had never traveled himself (19:20).
• Recounts repeated warnings from experienced travelers, including James Clyman at Fort Laramie, which were ignored (21:04–22:09).
• Misguided confidence in shortcuts and misguided trust in dubious guides are emphasized as tragic turning points.

7. The Ordeal Begins: Crossing Desert & Mountains

• Exhaustion, left-behind wagons, dwindling morale as party attempts to cross the Wasatch Mountains and Great Salt Lake Desert; journey lengthened by a month and a half (23:22–24:20).
• Supplies run perilously low; party members sent ahead for help (24:23).

8. The Descent into Tragedy

A Calm Before The Horror

• Genevieve invites listeners to “pause and breathe” amid the chaos, underscoring the contrast between natural beauty and upcoming disaster (25:19–25:44).

Internal Turmoil and Violence

• Infighting erupts; James Reed fatally stabs John Snyder—Reed is banished, which ironically saves his life (25:44–28:30).

The Deadly Trap

• At Sutter’s Fort, the party receives insufficient aid but must press on. Critical, fateful rest day delays their mountain crossing, so they’re trapped by a massive blizzard (30:16).
  • Key image:
    “Five feet of snow—that is up to my neck—quickly covered the whole mountain. Snowdrifts were as high as 20 feet. 81 people were literally buried in the snow.” (30:16)

9. Starvation, Cannibalism, and Survival

• Final food supplies (oxen) exhausted; failed escape attempts; children and families separated by snowdrifts (31:23).
• From the Diary of Patrick Breen:
  • “Snow higher than the shanty. Must be 13 ft deep. Don't know how to get wood this morning. It is dreadful to look at.” (31:23)
• Party “Forlorn Hope” sets out; some die, others turn to eating the dead, including two Native American guides who were murdered for food—an often-overlooked but searing detail (33:14).
• Rescue parties struggle to reach survivors; horror and deaths continue even during rescue (34:57–38:48).

10. Rescue and Aftermath

• Survivors likened to “monstrous, flesh addicted zombies” in sensational news reports; deep stigma follows those who lived (39:16).
  • Chilling survivor report:

    “A woman crawling up out of a hole in the snow, kind of like coming out of a gopher hole... asked, ‘Are you men from California or do you come from heaven?’” (34:57)

• Survivors describe eating mice, pine bark, and engaging in cannibalism out of utter desperation (35:46).
• Final rescue leaves just 48 of 87 alive. The last survivor, Louis Keseberg, is vilified as a murderer and cannibal but his story is likely distorted (39:12–39:48).
• Authorities burn down the camp to erase the “public relations disaster” (39:50).

11. Reflections on Bravery and Humanity

• Genevieve closes by highlighting acts of remarkable courage by survivors like James Reed, William Eddy, Mary Ann Graves, and, possibly, Keseberg (41:16–45:14).
  • Quote:

    “It is actually amazing to me that 48 people survived this at all.” (39:16)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Spiritual Connectedness:
  • "I truly believe that there is an energetic connection between all of us that enables us to share energy with one another across time and space." (11:33)
• On Psychic Family Bonds:
  • "Babies, I always know when someone in the family is expecting. And just as I expected, they came in, we sat down and they told me I am to be an aunt to a punk rock baby in about five months." (11:33)
• On the Isolation of the Children:
  • “Oh, it was painfully quiet some days in those great mountains... the children had lost all inclination to play.” (Eliza Donner memoir, 32:23)
• On the Scene at the Lake:
  • “I saw two bodies entire, except the abdomens had been cut open and entrails extracted... flesh had been evaporated by exposure to dry atmosphere and presented the appearance of mummies, human skeletons in every variety of mutilation.” (Edwin Bryant, 39:50)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• [01:01] – Introduction and reflections on Victorian horror
• [05:45] – “With Their Own Eyes”: Wesley family poltergeist account
• [08:13] – Seance Room: Victorian spirit communication & personal anecdotes
• [11:59] – Marshmallow fluff interlude / preview of episode’s dark turn
• [12:32] – The Naked Medium: Eva Carrière’s fraudulent séances
• [16:57] – Introduction to the Donner Party and their fateful mistakes
• [19:20] – Choosing the Hastings Cutoff and ignoring warnings
• [23:22] – The trek through mountains and deserts turns deadly
• [25:43] – Listener immersion exercise: Pausing before witnessing tragedy
• [25:44] – Internal party conflict and banishment of James Reed
• [30:16] – The party is trapped by a catastrophic snowstorm
• [31:23] – Starvation, cannibalism, and the Forlorn Hope party
• [34:57] – Rescue missions, survivor stigma, and the aftermath
• [39:12] – Dismal state of final survivors, clean-up, and erasure of evidence
• [41:16] – Reflection on cases of extraordinary heroism

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Tone & Language

Genevieve’s narration is compassionate, gently macabre, and detailed, with flashes of dark humor and empathy for her subjects. She strikes a balance between historical accuracy and emotional resonance, never sensationalizing but never shying away from horror.

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Summary Takeaway

Ep. 78 is a chilling, empathetic retelling of the Donner Party’s suffering, illuminating Victorian American attitudes about community, misadventure, and the limits of human endurance. Genevieve’s connection to the emotional realities—whether the Wesley hauntings, spiritualist hoaxes, or the frozen hell of Donner Lake—pulls listeners close to the ghosts of the past, making history both tangible and hauntingly relevant.

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For further resources, original references, and gruesome spirit photography, visit the show notes at myvictoriannightmare.com.

Transcript

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[Genevieve Manion]

Hello and welcome to My Victorian Nightmare. I'm your host Genevieve Manion, and I'm here to talk about mysterious deaths, morbid fascinations, disturbing stories, and otherwise spooky events from the Victorian era. Because to me there's just something especially.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Intriguing, creepy, and oddly comforting about horror.

[Genevieve Manion]

And mayhem from the 19th century. So listener discretion is advised. Hello friends and welcome to this, my 78th episode. I hope that you are not beating yourself up for not being able to check everything off your to do list lists lately. I really hope that you are all giving yourselves some considerable grace for procrastinating, leaving those clothes on the chair of all the things attacking your sweet psyche at the moment, don't join in, have a few gummy bears and leave the laundry till tomorrow. Okay, let's race through Haunted Housekeeping because I have some truly awful things that.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

I simply cannot wait to share with you.

[Genevieve Manion]

First, I have a special announcement. Everyone that subscribes to the show now has exclusive access to the 13 episodes of Dark Poetry. A while back I created this podcast which I love. It's all of my favorite dark poetry from the 19th century read in my most chocolatey, velvety podcast voice.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

But I ran out of time in my life to continue creating it, but.

[Genevieve Manion]

I still wanted to give it a special home. So now everyone who subscribes to the show through Patreon with any tier will have access to it. I put a link in Show Notes if you already subscribe so that it's easy to find. And speaking of subscribing to the show, thank you to Liz, Jael, Sarah, Laura, Michael, Zabrina, Michelle and Tecla for subscribing this week. You guys and everyone who subscribes at any tier are the reason why this show can continue. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to you and everyone who has joined. If you too would like to support the show, receive the show ad free. Perhaps enjoy extra witchy content, True Crime extras and now Dark poetry. Go to myvictorianightmare.com to find out more. Okay, the verdicts are in. All of my friends who got Blissy pillowcases for Christmas from me this year have reported that they are all as delighted as I am.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Never in my life did I think one single thing could change my entire life so dramatically.

[Genevieve Manion]

And I am not the only one who feels that way. We are all While sleeping better that 100% silk pillowcase stays so nice and cool. Our hair is shinier, less frizzy, our skin is clearer. Yeah, silk pillowcases actually help to prevent breakouts and even reduce fine lines and wrinkles. And don't be fooled, these are not satin, which is like sleeping on a plastic bag. They're also not mixed with other kinds of fibers. Not mixed with cotton, which I thought was the most breathable fabric for sheets and pillowcases. But it's not. Cotton can actually cause skin issues and it's also way too toasty for me. Also, Blissy pillowcases are machine washable. Thank goodness.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

No matter how much I love these.

[Genevieve Manion]

Pillowcases, I am not hand washing anything ever. Blissey has sold over 3 million of these pillowcases because they are really that good. Give the gift of better skin, more luxurious hair, better cooler sleep to a friend, or simply treat yourself like I did because you're a listener. Blissey is offering 60 nights risk free plus an additional 30% off when you shop at Blissy. MVNPod that's B-L-I-S-S-Y.com M V N P O- and use code MVNPod to get an additional 30% off your skin and hair will thank you. Okay, for you today, dear listener, I will have the tragic tale of the Donner Party, the group of 87 pioneers who became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1847, who were driven to commit acts of cannibalism to survive. It is a truly harrowing tale. But first let us have our first segment with their own eyes, where I share with you the personal, haunting accounts of petrified Victorians. For today's Victorian ghost encounter, we return.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

To the terrorized Wesley family. I've spoken about their horrifyingly awful existence.

[Genevieve Manion]

A number of times, and there's just.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

So much more out there about these folks.

[Genevieve Manion]

We will likely return again at a later date, but for today this article is called Spirit Rapping in John Wesley's.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Family, and it reads On Friday last.

[Genevieve Manion]

My father and mother had just gone to bed, and the candle was not taken away when they heard three blows and a second and a third as it were, with a large oaken staff struck upon a chest which stood by the bedside. My father immediately arose, put on his nightgown, and hearing great noises below, took the candle and went down. My mother walked by his side. As they went down the broad stairs, they heard as if a vessel full of silver was poured upon my mother's breast and ran jingling down to her feet. Quickly after, there was a sound as if a large iron ball was thrown among many bottles under the stairs, but nothing was broken. Soon after our large mastiff dog came and ran to shelter himself between them while the disturbances continued. He used to bark and leap and snap on one side and then the other, and that frequently before any person in the room heard any noises at all, but after two or three days he would simply tremble and creep away before the noise noise began, and by this the family knew it was at hand. Nor did the observation ever fail. A little before my father and mother came into the hall, it seemed as if a very large coal was violently thrown upon the floor and dashed all to pieces, but nothing was seen. My father then cried out, sukey, do you not hear all the pewters thrown about the kitchen? But when they looked, all the pewters stood in its place. There then was a loud knocking at the back door. My father opened it but saw nothing.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

End quote. This poor family. Their encounters with these temper tantruming spirits are stretched over 10 different volumes of the Spiritualist. By the way, they were dealing with.

[Genevieve Manion]

This problem for a long time, it would seem.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

How did they ever get any sleep? Like even if I learned to expect that dead people would be crashing around my apartment, making it sound like my plates were smashing around the kitchen, I.

[Genevieve Manion]

Don'T think I would ever get used to it.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Poor people. It just sounds like torture.

[Genevieve Manion]

Okay, won't you follow me into the seance room where we discuss the goings on in the Spiritualist society of the 1800s and we have a special one today.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

I love these interviews with dead people.

[Genevieve Manion]

That they published in the spiritualist newspaper from 1869. This article is an interview with a spirit through a medium about space.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

The article is called A Spirit on Space and it reads the following remarks.

[Genevieve Manion]

By a spirit were recently made through the mediumship of Mrs. J.H. conant, 158 Washington Street, Boston. And the remarks were as space as defined doubtless by your correspondent, is not what we understand it to be. Go wherever we may. We find no condition where there are not atmospheric tides, it electric conditions that in their action are capable of generating life, all kinds of life of which we cannot conceive. Could you with your spiritual eyes behold this atmosphere? You would find an infinite number of electric ramifications coming out seemingly from no center except the Earth's center. They are shooting north and south and east and west. Then there are cross lines and each one is connected with all the rest and acts upon all the rest. Every living thing that is capable of being sustained or of living at all in this condition of being the animal, vegetable, mineral and spiritual life must of necessity be wedded to all those different currents that are passing to and fro through space. And if we go outside of the Earth's atmosphere, we find the same magnetic and electrical wires stretching from planet to planet and determining the course of each one and binding each one to a certain relationship with all of the rest. Where is the vacuum? I fail to find it.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

End quote. Oh, I love this and believe this to a degree in as much as I believe every living being on Earth.

[Genevieve Manion]

And perhaps even beyond are all connected by like an energy that we maybe can't see. A little personal note here.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

My awesome rock star brother Kevin, who.

[Genevieve Manion]

Was in the band Hankwood and the Hammerheads, one of Iggy Pop's favorite bands.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

He once said, and my fabulous sister.

[Genevieve Manion]

In law Liz, showed up to Christmas.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

This year and before they even walked.

[Genevieve Manion]

In the door, I knew I was.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Going to be an aunt again. I knew it. I knew it so hard that I had to hold it in. I am not psychic in any other real useful ways, like stupid ways usually. Like I want to ask my friend how her stomach problems are doing, because I also have stomach problems problems too and might want to know if what she's doing is working out for her. And then I instantly get a text about her stomach problems. Now, to be fair, when you reach your 40s as a woman, none of us don't have stomach problems. We want to talk about them and don't know what to do about them. So that might not be a psychic thing after all. But babies, I always know when someone in the family is expecting. And just as I expected, they came in, we sat down and they told me I am to be an aunt to a punk rock baby in about five months.

[Genevieve Manion]

Or so. And I truly believe that there is an energetic connection between all of us.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

That enables us to share energy with.

[Genevieve Manion]

One another across time and space. I wonder if we'll ever be able to measure it. I believe it's only a matter of time okay, before we get to the tragic Donner Party story, I wanted to talk a little bit about the naked medium, Ava Carrer.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

The rest of the episode is going to be extraordinarily dark, so I thought I'd add in a little marshmallow fluff to sweeten the mood before we descend.

[Genevieve Manion]

Into a frozen hell strewn with dead, half eaten bodies.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

I mentioned Ava briefly in episode seven.

[Genevieve Manion]

About the dawn of spiritualism.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

I was looking for images to post on Instagram and every time I come across spirit photography of this woman I smile from ear to ear. They are simply preposterous. I put a number of them in today's episode post that you'll find a.

[Genevieve Manion]

Link to in the show.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Notes Ava Carrer was born Martha Berad.

[Genevieve Manion]

In 1886 in France.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

She changed her name name because she was exposed for being a fraud very early on. She was an over the top, unscrupulous, very creative fraud. She would fake materialization of ectoplasm by.

[Genevieve Manion]

Chewing up paper and gauze and then.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

She would pop into her spirit cabinet. That was this big wooden cabinet that she brought with her everywhere. She'd hack up the paper and gauze and then stick it into places on her body like her ears, her boobs make it look like it was coming out of her lady parts. She would also use magazines and newspapers too to make it look like faces of the dead were inside this ectoplasm. She would often claim in seances to materialize a 300 year old Hindu Brahmin named Bien Boa. And in spirit photography of this particular manifestation you can see the guy, which is clearly just a large cardboard cutout with a person drawn on it. She also hired people to play this man. They would hide like behind the curtains or in her cabinet while she would.

[Genevieve Manion]

Fall into a trance and then they would appear and run around the room freaking people out.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

One man admitted that he was hired to play this character and appeared through.

[Genevieve Manion]

A trap door in the floor under.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

The seance table that she had in.

[Genevieve Manion]

Her parlor to spice things up a little.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

She started getting naked during her seances.

[Genevieve Manion]

And had her accomplice and lover Juliet.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Bisson give her a gynecological exam on the seance table to prove that she had nothing hiding up there, which she did hide things up There. And her, her accomplice was just saying that she didn't. Harry Houdini was famously skeptical of mediums.

[Genevieve Manion]

Of the day in general, and he.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Attended one of Ava's seances. He called her a complete fraud. She used to cut out faces of Woodrow Wilson, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria and actress Mona Delza. And then she would ooze them out. She was investigated by the good old.

[Genevieve Manion]

Society for Psychical Research.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

We've discussed them before. And they also agreed that she was a fraud. But she was pretty successful despite all of the accusations. I would wager people didn't really care too much when it was revealed that she was a fraud because her performances.

[Genevieve Manion]

Alone were described as pornographic, perverse and.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Neurotic by psychiatrist Matilda Ludendorff, who wrote about a seance that she attended. And plenty of people were into that kind of thing.

[Genevieve Manion]

Still are.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

So she wasn't left wanting for clients. She was viewed as mostly an embarrassment by the spiritualist community.

[Genevieve Manion]

But many in the community didn't publicly speak out against her because they didn't want her reputation as a fraud to paint the entire community as a whole.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

She wasn't discussed in reputable publications like.

[Genevieve Manion]

The Spiritualist that I read from on the show. Her exploits would be discussed in the more salacious newspapers of the day. By the 1920s, she was essentially washed up and retired from the profession. She died in 1943. Okay, let's discuss the terribly tragic story of the Donner Party. My main references for today are a kqed.org article by Carly Severn, a britannica.com article and a legendsofamerica.com article as well. All of my other references can be found in the show notes. In the spring of 1846, almost 500 wagons left Illinois to make a long trek to California. Not for gold that wouldn't be discovered until two years later in 1848. Not because they were poor and looking for better life elsewhere. They left for different reasons. Some left because they already had a great deal of land and simply wanted more. These long trips were expensive. They required hired men to help, required oxen, cattle, resources. So these weren't simple folks making these trips. They were mostly well to do travelers, not experienced or used to making these kinds of trips on their own. They would just pay folks to help them along the way. Some folks wanted to set up colonies of like minded religious folks, especially Catholics who felt ostracized in their communities of mostly Protestant folks. A number of people wanted to travel to places that were more spread out, away from devastating and horrible Diseases like cholera and malaria. Those dise were rampant at this time in Illinois, where the Donner party started from. Some folks who suffered with tuberculosis also believed that the drier western air would cure or at least help their conditions. And in some cases they did. But rarely and many, many folks were simply inspired by the notion of manifest destiny, the idea that God his very self gave them this land that was.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Clearly already inhabited by other people who lived there for centuries. And so it was their God given.

[Genevieve Manion]

Right and d to colonize it. California, incidentally, was not part of the United States yet. It was still Mexican territory at this time. So off the Donner party went, having not heeded a very important warning that they should have left about two to three weeks earlier to avoid getting stuck in winter weather. Trips like this could take between four to six months to make. And if things didn't go so well, they could see themselves arriving in late October.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

But that's if they left in the beginning of April.

[Genevieve Manion]

But they didn't. They left on May 12. Of the many mistakes and poorer decisions that these folks made, this first one may have been the very worst mistake of all. They might have actually made it if they just listened to that advice. The Donner party wasn't just a family by the name of Donner. There were a number of families, plus a few lone travelers and hired hands making the 1000 mile trek. The other folks who were part of those 500 wagons I mentioned, thousands of people, were other families making the trip for the same reasons that I mentioned, as the Donner party had. But most of those folks who were part of their own parties who did leave three weeks prior were taking a fairly well worn route along the Oregon Trail, through grasslands, then desert, and then finally over mountain mountains into California. And most of those other folks made it just before October. But the Donner party decided to leave late and to take a different route. They decided to use the quote unquote Hastings cutoff route. A man named Lansford Hastings wanted to cash in on the migration industry. So he wrote a travel guide for folks just like the Donner party that had a new, safer, faster route. He published it in this guide, which the Donner party decided to use.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

But this guy was nothing but a grifter.

[Genevieve Manion]

He hadn't even traveled the route himself. He wrote of a cutoff, a shortcut that he promised would save them weeks of time and make the trip 400 miles shorter. Everything in his guide was based only on guesswork and his own desire to.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Divert travelers toward places that he had other Schemes go.

[Genevieve Manion]

This route would come to add another 30 days to the Donner party's journey and was traced through terrain that was impossible to pass with wagons and livestock. The Donner party was made up of the Donner family, led by 60 year old George Donner. He took his very large family with him and they set out with the Reed family and others would join them along the way. The Breen family, Graves, Kesbergs and many more. At its largest, the daughter party was about 100 people including children, teens and babies. Some of the wagons that they brought were monstrosities. The Reed family had a number of wagons, some double decker ones that could easily sleep the whole family. His had built in stoves and heaters. It took eight oxen just to pull. Reed's daughter dubbed it the Pioneer palace car, not exactly something that could easily travel over rough terrain. Reed's mother in law was sick with tuberculosis and too weak to walk, so she traveled mostly in the palace.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Although that sounds nice. Even with this extravagant wagon.

[Genevieve Manion]

This was not easy even in the beginning with flat terrain and lovely weather. The only reason that this lady went along was because she didn't think she could survive away from her daughter, James Reid's wife, Margaret.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Ironically, on the very day that the.

[Genevieve Manion]

Donner party left Illinois, so did Lansford Hastings.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

The guy who wrote about that route.

[Genevieve Manion]

He never traveled before.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

That's when he decided to try the route that he wrote about for himself.

[Genevieve Manion]

They set out to Missouri, resupplied when they got there, they headed west. And at the end of May they got stuck in high water at the Big Blue river, which is near present day Marysville, Kansas. It was here that Sarah Keys, Reed's mother in law, succumbed to her tuberculosis and died. They buried her next to the river and when the water subsided, they made their way on. They reached another pit stop, Fort Laramie. And here they were explicitly told not to take that route that they were on. A man named James Clyman, who was personally familiar with the whole area they were attempting to travel told them it was impassable. They would never get their wagons over the Sierra Nevada mountains and they would get stuck, if not in the desert around the mountains than in the mountains themselves. Reid ignored the warning. Ugh. The tragedy of this story isn't just the way that it ended, but the.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Many warnings that they were given not.

[Genevieve Manion]

To do what they were doing.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

But they just did them anyway.

[Genevieve Manion]

While they were there at the fort restocking, they met more families on their.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Way who, despite what this experienced man.

[Genevieve Manion]

Warned, decided to also Follow the daughter party. They all made their way and on July 9th 19th, the wagon train arrived at the Little Sandy river in present day Wyoming. This was where George Donner was made captain of the group. Up until this point, Reid was mostly calling the shots. And up until this point they were only about a week behind schedule. They had all the supplies that they thought they needed. But bit by bit, things quickly began to come apart at the seams.

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[Genevieve Manion]

The Donner party had to hack a trail through the Wasatch Mountains and none of this was mentioned in Hastings book.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

It's said that they would have a.

[Genevieve Manion]

Clear path all the way through before they got there. They were making about five to eight miles a day now. They were lucky to be making two and Hastings route in reality actually added another 40 miles to the trip than that well worn route. Some of the terrain was far too difficult to travel so they had to start leaving wagons behind. Morale began to sink and folks sure cursed the hell out of Hastings. It was too late to turn back now and they assumed or hoped, hoped that the trail would just get easier. But it only got far, far worse. Hastings said that the trip through the Great Salt Lake Desert would take only two days. But the desert sand was moist and deep. Wagons quickly got stuck and bogged down. Some had to be left behind entirely stuck in the sand.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

It was now August in the desert.

[Genevieve Manion]

And their water supplies were running low. Animals were getting restless and several oxen were able to break loose and run away. When they reached the edge of the grueling desert after five days, not two, they were already now exhausted and still had a long way to go. Two young men, William McCutcheon and Charles Stratton, were sent ahead of the party to go to the next pit stop at Sutter's Fort and get supplies and bring them back. While they continued on toward their direction, which they did the in a few weeks time bringing back just enough to get them through until the whole party reached the fort. By the time they reached The Humboldt River. They had traveled an extra 125 miles through strenuous mountain terrain and desert, and they were already starting to completely lose it. It was now October and they still had a long way to go. And if you would follow me through this thick breath brush.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Sorry, there's just no other way to.

[Genevieve Manion]

Get to the rock over there. There are no real paths here and it is rather steep. It is October 5, 1847. We are approaching Iron Point along the Humboldt river in Nevada. Okay, the brush is clearing up a little bit. Let's nestle behind this tree over here. Don't worry, you don't have to pop a crouch or anything. How you doing?

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

There's of a lot lot going on.

[Genevieve Manion]

Right now for everybody. Just wanted to check in. I know we usually make these trips to somewhere terrible and we will be watching something terrible pretty soon. But I made sure we got here a little early so we could just take the opportunity to breathe in some of the freshest air in history. Ah, that's the stuff. It's so peaceful, isn't it? And don't worry, I'm not like gearing up for a jump scare or anything while we're here. Just enjoying the view. I know sometimes I need a little reminder to stop, take a look around at what's going right, what's peaceful, what's beautiful. When things seem to be coming undone, I know how important it is to remind myself that no matter what horrors may come or are happening at the time, same very moment, these beautiful things, places and people are all happening at the same time. Thank you for sharing this peaceful little moment with me. Okay, just make sure to stand extra still. Stay tucked back because the Donner party is approaching. They're tired, angry again. They should have arrived at their destination by now. And they have at least 400 miles left to go to get to California. Here, stay tucked back. We don't want them to see us. I'll explain what's happening. All right. That sound is two wagons getting entangled on the rocks over there. And now a man named John Snyder is violently whipping his oxen. Even though there's nothing they can clearly do, the wagons are entangled. James Reed is yelling at him to see. Stop. He's hurting them and they're not moving. He's not stopping. Reed is now pulling out a knife. Oh, God. He just stabbed John in the stomach. Oh, God. Okay, other folks down the line are running up here. Let's go back. Go back into the brush. It's about to get really ugly though. Not as ugly as what we just saw. A couple guys let James have it with a couple of blows to the face, but they aren't going to kill him, although that's what some of them really want to do. The party is going to vote to banish Reid, send him off. His own family decided to stay with the party. Harsh, but what else could they do? It was believed that Reid wouldn't survive wherever he would be going to all alone. There were native tribes that only stayed away from the wagon train because of the large numbers of folk with guns and without any provisions or anything at all. It was likely that he'd be a goner in no time.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

But that turned out not to be the case, which will contribute to a.

[Genevieve Manion]

Wild twist later on. Eventually, the Donner party made it to Sutter's fort, which must have looked like heaven to the weary travelers. John Sutter offered them supplies and two native men who, it's unclear but possible, were men who he had enslaved. They were again native men, but their names were Louis and Salvador. Likely they were renamed. When Spanish missionaries came to also colonize the land, he offered these two men to help them as guides for the rest of the trip. But again, it was already mid October and they still had the Sierra Nevada mountains to get over, which they could already see were peaks with snow. The Donner party were essentially told, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here by John Sutter. So they took a chance and made their way to the mountains. Sutter didn't give them as many provisions as they would need for a group of 81 to get them all the way to California. He couldn't have provided that, so they were still lacking in food. They were all exhausted, but had to trek on. The party reached the granite cliff faces of the Sierra Nevada mountains just as as snow was beginning to pick up. After resting in an area which is now Reno for a full day, they edged on slowly to Truckee, apart from leaving weeks later than they should have from Illinois. If they had not taken that one day rest, they may have made it through the mountains before the snow made it impossible to move. But they didn't. On October 20, 1846, a monster snowstorm, wilder than any I have ever seen in my life, lifetime, and probably most people have ever seen, hit the mountains.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Five feet of snow that is up.

[Genevieve Manion]

To my neck, quickly covered the whole mountain and snowdrifts were as high as 20ft. 81 people were literally buried in the snow that didn't stop for days. When the snow was reaching up to their shins, they decided to stop at what is now called donner lake. They desperately, as quickly as they could, began building shelters, rough cabins, which is.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Unimaginable to me, not to make light.

[Genevieve Manion]

Of any of this, but like me.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

And some friends, got stuck in traffic on our way to a campsite and got there like two hours late and had to set up our tents in the dark and it was almost impossible.

[Genevieve Manion]

We barely got anything set up at all.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

And it was a beautiful evening, just dark.

[Genevieve Manion]

They were building cabins, lean tos and tents with sticks and canvas In a blizzard after starving and having walked for the previous six, six months, the donner family themselves were at this point actually.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Not with the rest of the families.

[Genevieve Manion]

After the reed murder incident, families were.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

Sick at the sight of each other.

[Genevieve Manion]

And spread out a bit. They were about a mile away down the mountain, but still just as much snowbound. Families decided to kill the last of their oxen for food. Some folks desperately tried to make it through the snow to the other side of the mountain. But when get stuck in the snowdrifts and were forced to turn back, the weeks turned into months. It was now the middle of winter at the top of a mountain. A man named patrick breen kept the only known diary of the horror that unfolded. His diary says, Wednesday, 13th, January, 1847. Snowing fast. Snow higher than the shanty. Must be 13ft deep. Don't know how to get wood this morning. It is dreadful to look at. Thursday, January 26, 1847. Provisions getting very scant, people getting weak, living on short allowances of hides. There were a great number of children in the party and one of them that actually survived, Eliza donner wrote later in a memoir. Oh, it was painfully quiet some days in those great mountains and lonesome uncle upon the snow. The pines had a whispering, homesick murmur, and we children had lost all inclination to play. End quote. Oh, I can only imagine how long and quiet those days must have been. Eventually, 15 of the strongest people in the party made makeshift snowshoes and decided to cross the mountains to return to sutter's fort. They took the two native guides with them, and they had the wherewithal to name this party of last resort. They called it the forlorn hope. Oh, with frostbitten, bleeding feet in the blinding snow, they set off, and after not too long, they began to succumb to the elements. Two people died, and for the first time, the party openly discussed cannibalizing those who passed away for survival. After the Death of a third person. They decided it was time. They stripped his bones and ate his frozen flesh raw. The guides, Louis and Salvador refused, refused even though they were also dying of hunger. One of the party of forlorn hope murdered them both to eat their bodies to keep the rest of the group alive. All of this is devastating, but this is perhaps the most devastating event of all in the story to me. In most stories written about the tragedy, this detail is often left out. But a historian in 1995 named Joseph King used records at Mission San Jose to identify these men who were at best mentioned as a footnote in previous retellings of the history. Seven of the 15 members of the party made it back alive to Sutter's fort. They told him that they needed a rescue party. News quickly spread of the situation, and folks as far as San Francisco heard about the situation. A number of folks who heard what happened also happened to be some of.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

The folks who left when they should.

[Genevieve Manion]

Have and took the well worn trail and. And many felt a personal desire to help, imagining that if they had just made the same mistakes, that's where they would have ended up themselves.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

And it was here in San Francisco where James Reed, who was exiled, was doing just fine and waiting for his family. Getting banished actually saved his life.

[Genevieve Manion]

And despite what the Donner party did to him, he chose to lead the rescue teams to find them. He led fundraising efforts to convince enough folks to join him on the dangerous mission and pay for supplies. Supplies. Seven folks had already left from Sutter's Fort, and by the time they reached the donner party camps, 13 people there had died, and the remaining people were still under 15ft of snow and barely alive themselves. The first thing that survivors saw was just plumes of smoke coming out of rudimentary chimneys under the snow. And as was claimed by a rescuer, quote, a woman crawling up out of a hole in the snow, kind of like coming out of a gopher hole, end quote. They said this woman, half delirious, asked, are you men from California or do you come from heaven? All the men could really do was deliver food to most of the survivors. They couldn't get most of them out of the camps, as most of them could barely walk even if they tried. Even with a rescue team, they still had to make the trek back down the mountain with people who could barely move. They started with the ones who had the most strength and ability to move. But more folks died along the rescue route, which is so painful a fact like help came, but it was just too late. My lord. While the seven men led seven people away. Of the 60 or so still living people, folks then resorted to cannibalism as there wasn't enough food left for all of them. And it continued as more and more folks perished, waiting to be saved. Eliza Donner said in her memoir, quote, the little field mice that had crept into the camp were caught, then used to ease the pangs of hunger. Even the bark and twigs of pine were chewed in the vain effort to soothe the gnawings which made one cry for bread and meat. It was now February and Eliza wrote that it wasn't until mothers had watched their children eat the very last of the food the first relief party had left them days ago. And until wolves had found the snowed over graves that they dug, dug for the dead. She wrote. Perhaps God sent the wolves to show Mrs. Murphy and also Mrs. Graves where to get sustenance for their dependent little ones. Was it culpable or cannibalistic to seek and use the only life saving means left them? End quote. It wasn't until several weeks later that the other rescue party arrived, led by James Reed himself. There were 17 people in his rescue party and 17 more people were led out of the camp. James led his family out along with about 10 others, including most of the Donner family. The Donner family camp, which was still a bit of a ways off, was the worst of all, surrounded in frozen bodies, stripped mostly of their flesh. Two weeks later, more rescuers arrived and evacuated out almost everyone. God, imagine being one of the last. There were still a few people left in the camp, some of whom refused to leave because they believed the trip out of the camps would kill them. George Donner was too sick to leave with the first few rescue teams, and even though his wife still had some strength, she had refused to leave without him. She watched her own children get rescued first and stayed with George. They both did not survive. It was assumed that there may be no one left when the last rescue party approached the camp, which was now littered with bodies, bones, even heads that were separated from the bodies in the snow. They found one last survivor, a man named Lewis Kesberg, who likely went a bit crazy. He had gathered as many of the Donner family's possessions as he could, claiming they were his and that he wanted them brought out.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

And here's another really, really intense fact.

[Genevieve Manion]

They carried him out and while stopping to rest, he pulled out a piece of cloth underneath him. It was the dress of his daughter who had horrifyingly been buried in the snow. Directly beneath him a few weeks earlier as she died on the trail back to California during the rescue.

[Genevieve Manion's Co-host or Alternate Voice]

In a way, it is actually amazing.

[Genevieve Manion]

To me that 48 people survived this at all. Again, there were 87 original members. They survived, survived months with virtually no food under mountains of snow. Oh, it's just so unbelievable to think about what these people endured. When word of the horror and what was left up at the lake reached California, a military detachment was sent by General Stephen Kearney to clean up the lake where all of this transpired and remove what was left of the bodies. The folks sent to do this task were understandably horrified by what they saw. When the mountain had thawed, A writer accompanied the military named Edwin Bryant, and this is what he said of what they came upon as they approached the camp near the principal lake cabin. I saw two bodies entire, except the abdomens had been cut open and entrails extracted. Their flesh had been either wasted by famine or evaporated by exposure to dry atmosphere and presented the appearance of mummies, human skeletons, in short, in every variety, variety of mutilation. A more appalling spectacle I never witnessed. End quote. The soldiers collected what was left of the bodies, not to return them to families, but to pile them in a hole that they dug in one of the makeshift cabins. They then set the whole thing on fire. The orders were not to take care of what or who was there. No reverence. The orders were to erase everything. The tragedy was a terrible PR situation for California and for the very lucrative emigration industry. The industry wanted this situation erased quickly before other folks could make their way to the scene and write about what they saw. And the fact that no one did make it there apart from these soldiers and this writer didn't stop people from writing entirely fictional accounts of what happened there that were claimed to have been survivor stories or stories from rescuers. The California Star newspaper published an article that claimed a rescuer said, quote, a more shocking scene cannot be imagined than what was witnessed by the party of men who went to the relief of the unfortunate emigrants in the California mountains. A woman sat by the side of the body of her dead husband, cutting out his tongue, the heart she had already taken out, broiled and eaten. The survivors were often written about like monstrous, flesh addicted zombies. A tragedy like this was never heard of before by many people and the idea of cannibalism wasn't even in their imaginations as something anyone could ever resort to. A line in that newspaper also read, quote, so changed had the emigrants become that when the rescuing party arrived arrived with food. Some of them cast it aside and seemed to prefer the putrid human flesh that still remained. The last survivor, Louis Kesberg, was smeared most of all. One of the rescuers was paid to write an expose of exactly what they found, and this man just exaggerated as if he needed to, and also flat out lied. He said that he discovered Kesberg lying down amid the human human bones and beside him a large pan full of fresh liver and lungs. And he heavily implied that he had murdered Eliza Donner's mother, Tamsin Donner, just to eat her. This man had a very hard time finding anywhere to live. He lived the rest of his life in poverty. James Reed, however, who was banished and then returned to save people, struck it rich in the gold rush one year later later this story was such a horrific one, but I wanted to end on a few of the astounding acts of bravery that some of the party exhibited. Apart from James Reed, who returned to save the very folks who nearly murdered him. A man named William Eddy, one of the first people to reach Sutter's Fort to tell them to send help despite his being nearly dead himself, returned almost immediately to rescue the remaining stranded members of the party. He even made numerous trips, despite his terribly frostbitten feat to save others, and despite losing every member of his own family himself. Mary Ann Graves, a teenager whose parents died, ensured the survival of all of her younger siblings. She dug through the mountains of snow to gather fuel despite her own starvation and illness. And although his history was buried in smears and distortion, it is believed that Louis Kesberg, the very last survivor, was actually offered the ability to leave sooner. But he stayed to look after a woman who would not have survived. She attempted to leave the camp. Sadly, she died in the camp and he was the only one left. He didn't want to leave her to die alone, and she didn't, making him no less a hero. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please rate the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Leave me comments because I love them so much and join the fan coven to directly support my show. Listen ad free and for even more creepy and witchy content. Until next time, be kind to yourselves and I will see you in your nightmares.

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