Part 1: The Villain

 

Heinous criminal or hapless victim?

Bridging Nevada from Northern California, the Sierra Nevada Mountains contain some of the most beautiful and wild countryside in North America. With high peaks and secluded placid lakes, it is both a summer and winter recreational playground. Engrained deep in these hills are historical highlights of westward expansion. Through this rugged country passed the Emigrant Trail, the final challenge for the weary and depleted west bound emigrants, before setting eyes on the golden valleys of California. Many tales, both fanciful and gloomy came out of these crossings.

Whether it be a work of fiction or non-fiction, every good story needs that one unlikable character: the backstabber, the opportunist or the villain. Even historical tragedies would not be as compelling without one.

Lewis Keseburg has gone down in the annals of history as the undisputed evildoer of the ill-fated Donner Party. Trapped by early mountain snowstorms, this collection of 81 emigrants, ranging in age from newborn to 62, endured the winter of 1846-47, stranded in up to 20 feet of snow near what is now Donner Lake. 45 of them would survive to see California. The rest of them perished due to hypothermia, starvation and perhaps, even murder.

This dreadful episode in American history is full of heroes, innocent children and, of course, the bad guy.

Although Keseburg himself openly admitted to cannibalizing some of his fellow travelers, it remains unclear if he engaged in murder and theft. History has not been kind at all to Mr. Keseburg. In the extreme cases, he has been demonized as a woman and child murdering, human flesh-eating madman, who also stole money and possessions from those he murdered and ate. On the mild side he was simply surviving by eating those who had succumbed to cold and starvation.

Donner Memorial at the site of the tragedy.

 

Dress rehearsing for disaster

Lewis Keseburg was the last person to be rescued from the Donner Party Campsites. When the rescue party found him, he was insane and surrounded by corpses and body parts in various stages of cannibalization.  But, to better understand the cannibal in the mountains, it is necessary to look at the man before that fateful winter.

Born 1814 in Westfalen, Prussia, little is known about his upbringing, but was later known for having a mean temper. He married Elisabeth “Phillipine” Zimmerman in 1842 and two years later they immigrated to the United States. Living near Cincinnati, he worked in the distillery business.

In 1846 he joined up with the Donner Party which left Independence, Missouri, in May. From the outset of the journey many in the party were witness to his cruelty towards his wife and small child, as well as his foul disposition with people in general.

Stealing a buffalo robe from a Sioux burial scaffold was only the beginning of his alleged disgusting acts during the soon to be, doomed wagon train trip.  Mr. Hardcoop, a 62-year-old Belgian immigrant, was banished from the Keseburg wagon. He died along the trail after his legs gave out and his feet were to bloody and raw to continue.  Not long after, Mr. Wolflinger, a wealthy German, was at the rear of the train with Keseburg. Wolflinger ended up mysteriously murdered, supposedly by Indians, and Keseburg ended up mysteriously carrying around Wolflinger’s rifle. When James Reed killed John Snyder with a knife in self-defense, Keseburg not only called for his hanging, but began to construct a makeshift gallows with the tongue of his wagon. Against Keseburg’s wishes, Reed was banished from the party instead of killed.

By the time the party got stuck in the Sierras, just short of what is now Donner Summit, Keseburg already had a rotten reputation. And it was about to get a whole lot worse!

The trapped emigrants resorted to digging up their dead oxen for food. When that ran out, they ate the family pets. After that, boiling hides and bones to make a type of mush became popular. Buckskin shoestrings were boiled and consumed as well. By the time 1847 began, it is likely the first acts of cannibalism began on those who had perished. Leading the charge into such desperation was, you guessed it, Lewis Keseburg.

This tree was said to be cut down by the Donner Party, indicating the depth of the snow.

Just when you already do not like the man, it gets much worse. Accounts from survivors, both written and oral, point to an eerie possibility that, perhaps, Keseburg began to enjoy the taste of human flesh, especially that of women and children.

The tales are many. While William Eddy was away with the Forlorn Hope, which was a group from the party trying to cross the mountains on foot to reach help in California, his young child died. Keseburg ate him. He took another boy, Jerimiah Foster, to bed with him. The boy was dead by morning. Keseburg consumed him as well, but not before hanging him on the cabin wall to dry out like a slab of game.

Lewis Keseburg did not discriminate. He ate adults as well and ended up possessing much of their money and valuables.  Just as alarming was his demeanor, complete with foul language and a hateful attitude towards the others. Well, at least he was not two faced, not yet. Neither was he free from grief. His own two children, one only an infant, died as well during the ordeal. There is no indication that he ate his own children.

As relief parties eventually reached the trapped emigrants and began taking them out a few at a time, Keseburg refused to go. It could be that he was enjoying himself too much with his collection of body parts, or it could be he feared retribution for his actions, particularly, if he had indeed murdered people.

Then there was that fateful meeting with Tamsen Donner. Or was there? That will be covered in part 2. One thing for certain, Lewis keseburg was the last person to be removed from the camps and brought to Sutter’s Fort, and the body of Tamsen was never recovered. What the final relief party found instead was unbearable human remains. Severed limbs stripped of flesh, bodies cut wide open with the organs removed and brains missing from split open skulls. Members of the rescue party gave Keseburg, who was in the Murphy Cabin, animal meat, but it was reported that he preferred the human flesh.

The large rock served as one wall of the Murphy Cabin.

Besides half consumed body parts, Lewis Keseburg also had with him the Donner family’s money, jewelry and firearms.

 

California Beef

Once the survivors had been rescued, it did not take long for the deeds of Lewis Keseburg, some of them possibly exaggerated, to spread across the country via the newspapers’ and various media outlets of the time.  He was taken to court on charges of murdering several people in the party. He was vindicated due to lack of evidence.

He sued members of the rescue party who had spread scandalous stories about him. He was awarded one dollar in damages. Then he had to pay the court fees.

Although he went on to work as a ferry captain, an inn keeper and in distilleries, he did not do well at trying to repair his reputation. In Sacramento barrooms he often bragged about eating human flesh, claiming it was better than California Beef. He stated that the finest thing he ever tasted was the liver of Tamsen Donner.

Just when we start thinking this guy got away with it all, karma makes an appearance. He bought a hotel in 1851, but it burned down the following year. He then went on to operate a brewery, but it was destroyed by flood. He had two more children by Phillipine in California; two girls that were mentally unstable. His wife died in 1877 and Lewis,  broke and unhappy for the remainder of his life, died in a charity ward in 1895. He ended up in an unmarked and unknown grave. Descendants changed their last name as not to be associated with him.

There was, however, a little bit of relief for a man with such an evil repute. In 1875, as C.F. McGlashan was writing, “History of the Donner Party,” he arranged a meeting between Keseburg and Eliza Donner, daughter of George and Tamsen. Eliza had only been four years old when trapped with the party and had but a scant memory of the man. Keseburg dropped to his knees and begged for forgiveness, saying he had eaten part of her mother but had not killed her. Eliza believed him and forgave him. So did McGlashan, and as a result, Lewis Keseburg is not portrayed as negatively in “History of the Donner party,” as he has been in other texts.

Eliza Donner

 

 

Conclusion

I think it is important to remember the media of the 1800’s is a direct precursor to the media of today. What I mean is even then, sensationalism, yellow journalism and “If it bleeds it leads,” was prevalent. The public, especially in a time of national expansion, wanted to read of struggle, danger and taboo acts of desperation.

I am not saying there is not a lot of truth to the things that were written, but I do say some of it should be taken with a grain of salt. And who is to say that survivors were not bribed by editors to spice up a story or exaggerate an incident.

Granted, Keseburg’s behavior before and after the tragedy does not help his case, but it could also be used to help perpetuate a scapegoat scenario. Yes, it is pretty certain he ate people, maybe a lot of people. But we must remember he was never found guilty of murder, or any other crime in a court of law.  We must give him that much.

We must also give him the likelihood he was not the only cannibal. Those other folks had to survive somehow! One party member was found by a relief party wandering around carrying the leg of Jacob Donner. Relief and rescue parties found human flesh and organs in several families cooking pots.

Modern psychology tells us that starvation and hypothermia will impact the mind in dramatic ways. One may think things happened that did not and visa-versa. Which leads to the next observation; not only are there no survivors left to clarify exactly what happened, but perhaps even they did not know exactly what happened.

During that 1875 meeting with McGlashan, Keseburg refuted claims about bragging of cannibalism. He said, “The flesh of starved beings provides little nutrient. 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!”

So, the question remains, was Lewis Keseburg a happy go lucky murdering cannibal of men, women and children, or was he simply a reluctant survivor. I, for one, believe the answer lies somewhere in the middle. But some things we will never know.

 

The names of the Donner Party members at the Murphy Cabin site.

Note: Part 2, “The Saint,” should be up on the blog before the end of August.