The Donner Party Starves
The hardships of the trail took their toll from the west-bound settlers. The Donner party, which left Illinois in the summer of 1846, reached the Sierras in October after the winter snows had begun. Marooned at what is now Donner Lake, this group slowly starved to death until only 48 out of the original 87 were left when rescue parties broke through to them in February. Some of them even turned to cannibalism to survive. The following narrative, which does not mention cannibalism, nonetheless tells vividly of the ordeal of that terrible winter. The author is Virginia Reed Murphy, who was a child at the time of the ordeal.