Part 2: The Saint

 

No stranger to tragedy

The tragic circumstances of the Donner Party produced many a hero in the westward expansion of this country. The actions of people like William Eddy, James Reed and Charles Stanton helped to save the party from complete loss in that winter of 1846-47. But only one member rises to a saintly status. Her name was Tamsen Donner.

Physically, she was a very slight woman, standing at barley five foot in height and weighing in at 95 lbs. However, her compassion, selflessness and care for others was monumental, not only during the Donner Party ordeal, but throughout her prior life.

She was born Tamsen Eustis in 1801 at Newburyport, Massachusetts. Her family were well to do members of the community and Tamsen followed suit, completing her studies by age 15. She went on to become a teacher, a writer of prose and poetry, a botanist, and excelled in mathematics and philosophy. She was also a skilled painter and fluent in French. She went to Elizabeth City, North Carolina, where she was head of the female department for the academy there.

She married Tully Dozier in 1829. Their two children died in infancy of fever. In 1831 her husband suffered the same fate. She stayed on with her position for a few years, until she journeyed to Illinois to teach botany and help her brother raise his kids, whose mother had died. As you can plainly see, life was tough and full of loss, even for the well-off folks in those days.

It was there in Illinois that Tamsen met George Donner, a wealthy farmer and twice widowed. They married in 1839 and during the next five years, produced three daughters to add to the children George had from his two previous marriages.

The greatest tragedy, of course, still lay ahead. One of the most overwhelming questions regarding this chapter in American history was why did wealthy and established families like the Donners and the Reeds pick up and depart for a five-month wagon train trip into the unknown? Whatever the reason, what began as a pleasant summer stroll through the prairie, would end as a winter nightmare.

 

Impatient with desire

We can only imagine the anxiety and high hopes in which the Donner Party began the journey with. In an earlier trip, when she travelled from Massachusetts to North Carolina, Tamsen had written her sister saying, “I do not regret nor shall I the fatigue expense nor embarrassment to which I have subjected myself. My heart is big with hope & impatient with desire.”

I am inclined to believe this was her attitude, as well, setting out for California, as she was an ambitious woman who welcomed adventure. Using her background and influence, it was her dream to open a girl’s school in California. She was also a learned woman and understood the dangers of a cross continental emigration through an untamed wilderness. Perhaps this is one reason her demeanor turned from contented to concerned when the party decided to take the Hastings Cutoff; an untested shortcut which would prove to be brutal and time consuming. One member of the party described her as “Gloomy, sad and dispirited,” as they departed the main route for the supposed cut off. It would turn out her inclination was better than most.

Wagons had to be disassembled, its parts and contents being hoisted up and down steep ravines and cliffs. Forests had to be painstakingly chopped through. By the time the party reached the great salt flats they were worse for wear. At the Humboldt River they rejoined the main trail, hungry, depleted, and behind schedule. They began to lighten their wagons by throwing furniture and non-essentials out.

It took every fiber of discipline Tamsen had to throw out her book collection into Nevada’s Forty-Mile Desert. They were now in a race for time to cross the Sierra’s before the first snows. They missed it by a few days.

The Donners were at the tail end of the party as they ascended the mountains. They had to stop to repair a wagon at Alder Creek. George sliced the top of his hand open with a chisel (a wound that would eventually get infected and kill him.) It was snowing heavy and they were forced to erect crude shelters against large trees. The rest of the party had made it as far as Truckee Lake (now Donner Lake.) The two camps were 7 miles apart.

It kept snowing and snowing. And then it snowed more.  It snowed for days, until the wagons and oxen were lost beneath the white landscape. It got so deep that the shelters were soon covered, and one had to descend down tunnels into the living spaces. It became all too apparent they would have to remain many months until spring.

Part of the Donner Family Campsite

Comprising the two Donner families and their teamsters, the Alder Creek Camps consisted of 25 people. With such a bleak outlook, it became Tamsen’s resolute quest to not only save her children and family, but to care for as many as she could. In the dismal months to follow, many would look to her. At such a small stature, she would be a giant sign of hope.

With Elizabeth Donner (Wife of Jacob Donner) at her side, they went shelter to shelter comforting the ill and hungry. John Baptiste Trudeau, a 16-year-old teamster at the time, told Eliza Donner, youngest daughter of George and Tamsen, many years later, “I don’t know what I would have done sometimes without the comforting prayers of those two women.”

Reduced to boiling hides and bones for food, it is not clear if the people at Alder Creek engaged in cannibalism, as was the case at the other camp. Jacob Donner was the first to perish and others soon followed. Only 11 of the 25 people there would survive, mostly children. These children survived largely to the efforts of Tamsen and Elizabeth. When a relief party finally made it to Alder Creek, Tamsen insisted the party take her children back to Sutter’s Fort. She paid $500 to make sure it was done.

The children of the Alder Creek camps were taken out by two separate rescue parties. Eliza Donner would later describe the scene when the first children left camp, “Mother stood on the snow where she could see all go forth. They moved in single file, the leaders on snowshoes, the weak stepping in the tracks made by the strong.”

More than once, Tamsen made the 14-mile trek to the Lake Camp and back, relaying events, checking on their status and making sure her children, taken that far, were indeed taken out over the pass to safety.

When the last relief party rescued the rest of the children, Tamsen was urged to go with, as she was still in fair health. But she refused to leave her dying husband, although George had insisted that she go and save herself. This left only five people remaining at Alder Creek: George, Tamsen, Elizabeth and her two sons. It was not long before Elizabeth and her two sons died of hypothermia and starvation. Tamsen tried desperately to keep her husband alive until help could arrive once again, but the infection, originally from the chisel accident, had grown throughout his body. Gangrene had set in and he died in March 1847.

 

Alone

What happened after the death of George Donner has been debated for 173 years. The only thing fairly certain was that Tamsen left Alder Creek. Some have said that she attempted to cross the mountains to reach her children. Others say she went to the Lake Camp.

Old Donner camp signs

Her children arrived safely at Sutter’s Fort and began to recover from their ordeal. Often, they were found looking despairingly at the distant mountains, saying, “If only mother would come.” But she did not.

Lewis Keseburg, the last emigrant left at the Lake Camp, had his own story.  His rendition states Tamsen came to his cabin, but had fallen in a creek along the way and spent a night lost in the wilderness. He claims to have taken her in, given her coffee and wrapped her in blankets. Dead by morning, Keseburg commenced to eat parts of her, including 4 lbs. of fat. Some members of the fourth and final rescue party charged Keseburg of murdering her for food. But at the same time, no remains of Tamsen Donner were ever found.

It is entirely possible that Keseburg concocted the story in order to justify why he had possession of the Donner money, firearms, and other valuables. He claimed she had entrusted him with it before she died.

One popular theory is she died somewhere between the camps, where she remains evermore. But some things we will never know.

 

Conclusion

The mystery of Tamsen Donner lives on. She is, perhaps, the most sought-after enigma of the Donner Party Tragedy. As a result, she has been resurrected as a pop-culture icon, being celebrated in books and plays. There is even a band that bears her name.

If you want to learn more about Tamsen Donner, Lewis Keseburg, or any of the other 79 emigrants that made up The Donner Party, there are plenty of books, articles, and a few movies as well. But if you want to get up close and personal, I strongly urge you go to the place where it happened. It is now a California State Park.

The Donner Memorial State Park encompasses the cabin sites that made up the Lake Camp at the east end of what is now Donner Lake. Walking trails take you from the Breen cabin site to the Murphy site and beyond. On the premises there is a museum with artifacts, books, and sources of all kinds. Access to beautiful Donner Lake is here. There is also camping—if you dare! The base of the huge monument is 22 feet—the depth of the snowfall that awful winter of 1846-47.  Donner Memorial Park is located on Donner Pass Road in West Truckee.

For more information on the park and its amenities, visit https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=503.

There are other sites to see while in Truckee, such as the mysterious Rocking Stone Tower. See my blog post https://outerrealmz.com/the-rocking-stone-tower/for more information. Of course, Lake Tahoe is also near.

The Alder Creek campsite is 7 miles to the Northeast. Take I80 east to highway 89 north.  It is about 2 ½ miles north of 80. A half mile walking trail will lead you through the Donner Camp, where Tamsen spent her last winter.

This place is often deserted, and I suggest a leisurely stroll through the meadows at Alder Creek. When the breeze gently filters through the trees and grasses, you just may feel the presence of Tamsen Donner.