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In: Biographies·History - American
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #11146.
Eliza Poor Donner Houghton’s work is a first‑person memoir that intertwines personal recollection with a detailed chronicle of the Donner Party’s westward trek. The narrative opens with a vivid recollection of the author’s four‑year‑old self watching the desperate struggle of a snow‑bound camp, then expands to a sweeping account of the expedition’s origins, the hardships on the trail, and the rescue efforts that followed. The book’s table of contents reveals a methodical progression from the 1845 Pacific Coast speeches that sparked the migration, through each stage of the journey, Kansas prairies, the Sierra Nevada storms, the infamous “Forlorn Hope,” and the multiple relief parties, culminating in post‑war life and reflections on the tragedy’s legacy. Houghton grounds her story in family ties to George Donner, offers a corrective to sensationalist histories, and incorporates correspondence with notable contemporaries such as Generals Sherman and Sutter.
Written in the earnest, descriptive style of early‑20th‑century memoirs, the text blends intimate family anecdotes with the broader sweep of American pioneer history. Its language is formal yet emotionally resonant, reflecting the author’s intent to preserve an accurate record for future generations. Readers who appreciate detailed historical narratives, primary‑source perspectives on the California migration, and the blend of personal testimony with documentary rigor will find this volume both informative and moving.
The opening · free to read
Not so, however, the "Donner Party," of which my father was captain. Like fated trains of other epochs whose privations, sufferings, and self-sacrifices have added renown to colonization movements and served as danger signals to later wayfarers, that party began its journey with song of hope, and within the first milestone of the promised land ended it with a prayer for help. "Help for the helpless in the storms of the Sierra Nevada Mountains!"
And I, a child then, scarcely four years of age, was too young to do more than watch and suffer with other children the lesser privations of our snow-beleaguered camp; and with them survive, because the fathers and mothers hungered in order that the children might live.
Scenes of loving care and tenderness were emblazoned on my mind. Scenes of anguish, pain, and dire distress were branded on my brain during days, weeks, and months of famine,--famine which reduced the party from eighty-one souls to forty-five survivors, before the heroic relief men from the settlements could accomplish their mission of humanity.
Who better than survivors knew the heart-rending circumstances of life and death in those mountain camps? Yet who can wonder that tenderest recollections and keenest heartaches silenced their quivering lips for many years; and left opportunities for false and sensational details to be spread by morbid collectors of food for excitable brains, and for prolific historians who too readily accepted exaggerated and unauthentic versions as true statements?
Who can wonder at my indignation and grief in little girlhood, when I was told of acts of brutality, inhumanity, and cannibalism, attributed to those starved parents, who in life had shared their last morsels of food with helpless companions?
Who can wonder that I then resolved that, "When I grow to be a woman I shall tell the story of my party so clearly that no one can doubt its truth"? Who can doubt that my resolve has been ever kept fresh in mind, by eager research for verification and by diligent communication with older survivors, and rescuers sent to our relief, who answered my many questions and cleared my obscure points?
And now, when blessed with the sunshine of peace and happiness, I am finishing my work of filial love and duty to my party and the State of my adoption, who can wonder that I find on my chain of remembrance countless names marked, "forget me not"? Among the many to whom I became greatly indebted in my young womanhood for valuable data and gracious encouragement in my researches are General William Tecumseh Sherman, General John A. Sutter, Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, Mrs. Jessie Benton Frémont, Honorable Allen Francis, and C.F. McGlashan, author of the "History of the Donner Party."
My fondest affection must ever cling to the dear, quaint old pioneer men and women, whose hand-clasps were warmth and cheer, and whose givings were like milk and honey to my desolate childhood. For each and all of them I have full measure of gratitude, often pressed down, and now overflowing to their sons and daughters, for, with keenest appreciation I learned that, on June 10, 1910, the order of Native Sons of the Golden West laid the corner stone of "Donner Monument," on the old emigrant trail near the beautiful lake which bears the party's name. There the Native Sons of the Golden West, aided by the Native Daughters of the Golden West, propose to erect a memorial to all overland California pioneers.
In a letter to me from Dr. C.W. Chapman, chairman of that monument committee, is the following forceful paragraph:
"The Donner Party has been selected by us as the most typical and as the most varied and comprehensive in its experiences of all the trains that made these wonderful journeys of thousands of miles, so unique in their daring, so brave, so worthy of the admiration of man."
ELIZA P. DONNER HOUGHTON.
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