The proposition seemed so feasible, that after cool deliberation and discussion, a party was formed to take the new route.
My father was elected captain of this company, and from that time on it was known as the "[Donner Party]." It included our original Sangamon County folks (except Mrs. Keyes and Hiram Miller), and the following additional members: [Patrick Breen], wife, and seven children; [Lewis Keseberg], wife, and two children; [Mrs. Lavina Murphy] (a widow) and five children; [William Eddy], wife, and two children; [William Pike], wife, and two children; [William Foster], wife, and child; [William McCutchen], wife, and child; [Mr. Wolfinger] and wife; [Patrick Dolan], [Charles Stanton], [Samuel Shoemaker], [—— Hardcoop], —— Spitzer, [Joseph Rhinehart], [James Smith], [Walter Herron], and [Luke Halloran].
While we were preparing to break camp, the last named had begged my father for a place in our wagon. He was a stranger to our family, afflicted with consumption, too ill to make the journey on horseback, and the family with whom he had travelled thus far could no longer accommodate him. His forlorn condition appealed to my parents and they granted his request.
All the companies broke camp and left the Little Sandy on the twentieth of July. The Oregon division with a section for California took the right-hand trail for Fort Hall; and the Donner Party, the left-hand trail to Fort Bridger.
After parting from us, Mr. Thornton made the following note in his [journal]:
July 20, 1846. The Californians were much elated and in fine spirits, with the prospect of better and nearer road to the country of their destination. [Mrs. George Donner], however, was an exception. She was gloomy, sad, and dispirited in view of the fact that her husband and others could think of leaving the old road, and confide in the statement of a man of whom they knew nothing, but was probably some selfish adventurer.
Five days later the [Donner Party] reached Fort Bridger, and were informed by Hastings's agent that he had gone forward as pilot to a large emigrant train, but had left instructions that all later arrivals should follow his trail. Further, that they would find "an abundant supply of wood, water, and pasturage along the whole line of road, except one dry drive of thirty miles, or forty at most; that they would have no difficult cañons to pass; and that the road was generally smooth, level, and hard."
At Fort Bridger, my father took as driver for one of his wagons, [John Baptiste Trubode], a sturdy young mountaineer, the offspring of a French father—a trapper—and a Mexican mother. John claimed to have a knowledge of the languages and customs of various Indian tribes through whose country we should have to pass, and urged that this knowledge might prove helpful to the company.
The trail from the fort was all that could be desired, and on the third of August, we reached the crossing of Webber River, where it breaks through the mountains into the cañon. There we found a letter from Hastings stuck in the cleft of a projecting stick near the roadside. It advised all parties to encamp and await his return for the purpose of showing them a better way than through the cañon of Webber River, stating that he had found the road over which he was then piloting a train very bad, and feared other parties might not be able to get their wagons through the cañon leading to the valley of the Great Salt Lake.