By 1852, the fate of the Donner Party would have been well known to anyone traveling the various emigrant trails. The site of the cabins quickly became a sort of tourist attraction, and so it’s no surprise that anyone going over the same road would take note of it in their diary.
Monday, September 13th [1852]
Very cold this morning, but became quite pleasant when the sun got above the mountain tops. Had very good road this forenoon and nooned in a little valley with excellent grass and water. This afternoon we passed Starvation Camp, which took its name from a party of emigrants, who, in 1846 attempted to reach Oregon by a southern route, but getting belated in the mountains, the snow came on and buried up their cattle. Here they were forced to remain several weeks, and were, it is said, reduced to the terrible extremity of cannibilism, and but six were living when relief came to them. It is the most desolate, gloomy looking place I ever saw. There were the ruins of two or three cabins down in a deep dark canyon, surrounded by stumps ten to fifteen feet high, where they were cut off above the snow.
Donner Lake, a beautiful sheet of water, not far from here, was named in remembrance of the party.
We camped in a small valley, about three miles west of this place.
Egbert, Eliza Ann McAuley, 1835-1919, Diary of Eliza Ann McAuley Egbert, September, 1852, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, vol. 4: 1952: The California Trail. Holmes, Kenneth L., ed. & comp. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.
So many of the diaries of the covered wagon women are filled with passages about how difficult and exhausting the journey was. Stories upon stories of days upon days spent searching for food and water for their livestock, of fording the same dangerous river five, six, or seven times to avoid treacherous landscapes, and of sickness, starvation, and death among their companions and animals. Some of the diarists show a fair bit of good humor in their writings, but so far none has equaled the following passage in its expression of pure, lighthearted joy over what surely could have been a tragic event. And to think that it happened so near to where others had suffered through one of the worst experiences imaginable.
Tuesday, September 14th, 1852
While the teams were toiling slowly up to the summit, Father, Mr. Buck, Margaret and I climbed one of the highest peaks near the road, and were well repaid for our trouble by the splendid view. On one side the snow-capped peaks rise in majestic grandeur, on the other they are covered to their summits with tall pine and fir, while before us in the top of the mountains, apparently an old crater, lies a beautiful lake in which the Truckee takes its rise. Turning our eyes from this, we saw the American flag floating from the summit of one of the tallest peaks. We vented our patriotism by singing “The Star Spangled Banner” and afterward enjoyed a merry game of snow ball. Turning to descend, the mountain side looked very steep and slippery, and Margaret and I were afraid to venture it. Father, who is a very active man for his age (about sixty) volunteered to show us how to descend a mountain. “Just plant your heels firmly in the snow, this way,” he said, but just then, his feet flew from under him and he went sailing down the mountain side with feet and hands in the air. After a minute of horrified silence we saw him land and begin to pick himself up, when we gave way to peals of laughter. We found an easier way down and rejoined the train, and tonight we camp in Summit Valley on the western slope of the Sierra Nevadas, and are really in California.
Egbert, Eliza Ann McAuley, 1835-1919, Diary of Eliza Ann McAuley Egbert, September, 1852, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, vol. 4: 1952: The California Trail. Holmes, Kenneth L., ed. & comp. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.
red paper boat 