INDIAN DEPREDATIONS--WOLFINGER'S DISAPPEARANCE--STANTON RETURNS WITH
SUPPLIES FURNISHED BY CAPTAIN SUTTER--DONNER WAGONS SEPARATED FROM
TRAIN FOREVER--TERRIBLE PIECE OF NEWS--FORCED INTO SHELTER AT DONNER
LAKE--DONNER CAMP ON PROSSER CREEK.
All who managed to get beyond the sink of Ogden's River before midnight
of October 12, reached Geyser Springs without further molestation, but
the belated, who encamped at the sink were surprised at daylight by the
Indians, who, while the herders were hurriedly taking a cup of coffee,
swooped down and killed twenty-one head of cattle. Among the number
were all of Mr. Eddy's stock, except an ox and a cow that would not
work together. Maddened by his appalling situation, Eddy called for
vengeance on his despoilers, and would have rushed to certain death, if
the breaking of the lock of his rifle at the start had not stopped him.
Sullen and dejected, he cached the contents of his wagons, and with
a meagre supply of food in a pack on his back, he and his wife, each
carrying a child, set forth to finish the journey on foot. To add to
their discomfort, they saw Indians on adjacent hills dancing and
gesticulating in savage delight. In relating the above occurrence
after the journey was finished, Mr. Eddy declared that no language
could portray the desolation and heartsick feeling, nor the physical
and mental torture which he and his wife experienced while
travelling between the sink of Ogden's River and the Geyser
Springs.[3]
It was during that trying week that Mr. Wolfinger mysteriously
disappeared. At the time, he and Keseberg, with their wagons, were at
the rear of the train, and their wives were walking in advance with
other members of the company. When camp was made, those two wagons were
not in sight, and after dark the alarmed wives prevailed on friends to
go in search of their missing husbands. The searchers shortly found
Keseberg leisurely driving toward camp. He assured them that Wolfinger
was not far behind him, so they returned without further search.
All night the frantic wife listened for the sound of the coming of her
husband, and so poignant was her grief that at break of day, William
Graves, Jr., and two companions went again in search of Mr. Wolfinger.
Five or six miles from camp, they came upon his tenantless wagon, with
the oxen unhooked and feeding on the trail near-by. Nothing in the
wagon had been disturbed, nor did they find any sign of struggle, or of
Indians. After a diligent search for the missing man, his wagon and
team was brought to camp and restored to Mrs. Wolfinger, and she was
permitted to believe that her husband had been murdered by Indians and
his body carried off. Nevertheless, some suspected Keseberg of having
had a hand in his disappearance, as he knew that Mr. Wolfinger carried
a large sum of money on his person.
Three days later Rhinehart and Spitzer, who had not been missed, came
into camp, and Mrs. Wolfinger was startled to recognize her husband's
gun in their possession. They explained that they were in the wagon
with Mr. Wolfinger when the Indians rushed upon them, drove them off,
killed Wolfinger and burned the wagon. My father made a note of this
conflicting statement to help future investigation of the case.
At Geyser Springs, the company cached valuable goods, among them
several large cases of books and other heavy articles belonging to my
father. As will be seen later, the load in our family wagon thus
lightened through pity for our oxen, also lessened the severity of an
accident which otherwise might have been fatal to Georgia and me.
On the nineteenth of October, near the present site of Wadsworth,
Nevada, we met Mr. Stanton returning from Sutter's Fort with two Indian
herders driving seven mules, laden with flour and jerked beef. Their
arrival was hailed with great joy, and after a brief consultation with
my father, Stanton and his Indians continued toward the rear, in order
to distribute first to those most in need of provisions, also that the
pack animals might be the sooner set apart to the use of those whose
teams had given out, or had been destroyed by Indians.
[Illustration: MARCH OF THE CARAVAN]
[Illustration: UNITED STATES TROOPS CROSSING THE DESERT]
Mr. Stanton had left Mr. McCutchen sick at Sutter's Fort. He brought
information also concerning Messrs. Reed and Herron, whom he had met
in the Sacramento valley. At the time of meeting, they were quite a
distance from the settlement, had been without food three days, and Mr.
Reed's horse was completely worn out. Mr. Stanton had furnished Mr.
Reed with a fresh mount, and provisions enough to carry both men to
Sutter's Fort.
In camp that night, Mr. Stanton outlined our course to the settlement,
and in compliance with my father's earnest wish, consented to lead the
train across the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Frost in the air and snow on
the distant peaks warned us against delays; yet, notwithstanding the
need of haste, we were obliged to rest our jaded teams. Three yoke of
oxen had died from exhaustion within a week, and several of those
remaining were not in condition to ascend the heavy grades before them.
On the twentieth, Mr. Pike met death in his own tent by the accidental
discharge of a six-shooter in the hands of Mr. Foster, his
brother-in-law. He left a young wife, and two small children, Naomi,
three years of age, and Catherine, a babe in arms. His loss was keenly
felt by the company, for he was highly esteemed.
We broke camp on the twenty-second, and my father and uncle took our
wagons to the rear of the train in order to favor our cattle, and also
to be near families whose teams might need help in getting up the
mountains. That day we crossed the Truckee River for the forty-ninth
and last time in eighty miles, and encamped for the night at the top
of a high hill, where we received our last experience of Indian
cruelty. The perpetrator was concealed behind a willow, and with savage
vim and well trained hand, sent nineteen arrows whizzing through the
air, and each arrow struck a different ox. Mr. Eddy caught him in the
act; and as he turned to flee, the white man's rifle ball struck him
between the shoulders and pierced his body. With a spring into the air
and an agonizing shriek, he dropped lifeless into the bushes below.
Strange, but true, not an ox was seriously hurt!
The train took the trail early next morning, expecting to cross the
summit of the Sierras and reach California in less than two weeks.
The following circumstances, which parted us forever from the train
which father had led through so many difficulties, were told me by my
sister, Mrs. Elitha C. Wilder, now of Bruceville, California:
Our five Donner wagons, and Mrs. Wolfinger's wagon, were a day or
more behind the train, and between twelve and sixteen miles from the
spot where we later made our winter camp, when an accident happened
which nearly cost us your life, and indirectly prevented our
rejoining the train. Your mother and Frances were walking on ahead;
you and Georgia were asleep in the wagon; and father was walking
beside it, down a steep hill. It had almost reached the base of the
incline when the axle to the fore wheels broke, and the wagon tipped
over on the side, tumbling its contents upon you two children.
Father and uncle, in great alarm, rushed to your rescue. Georgia was
soon hauled out safely through the opening in the back of the wagon
sheets, but you were nowhere in sight, and father was sure you were
smothering because you did not answer his call. They worked
breathlessly getting things out, and finally uncle came to your limp
form. You could not have lasted much longer, they said. How
thankful we all were that our heaviest boxes had been cached at
Geyser Springs!
Much as we felt the shock, there was little time for
self-indulgence. Never were moments of greater importance; for while
father and uncle were hewing a new axle, two men came from the head
of the company to tell about the snow. It was a terrible piece of
news!
Those men reported that on the twenty-eighth of that month the larger
part of the train had reached a deserted cabin near Truckee Lake (the
sheet of water now known as Donner Lake) at the foot of Frémont's Pass
in the main chain of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The following morning
they had proceeded to within three miles of the summit; but finding
snow there five feet in depth, the trail obliterated, and no place for
making camp, they were obliged to return to the spot they had left
early in the day. There, they said, the company had assembled to
discuss the next move, and great confusion prevailed as the excited
members gave voice to their bitterest fears. Some proposed to abandon
the wagons and make the oxen carry out the children and provisions;
some wanted to take the children and rations and start out on foot; and
some sat brooding in dazed silence through the long night.
The messengers further stated that on the thirtieth, with Stanton as
leader, and despite the falling sleet and snow, the forward section of
the party united in another desperate effort to cross the summit, but
encountered deeper drifts and greater difficulties. As darkness crept
over the whitened waste, wagons became separated and lodged in the
snow; and all had to cling to the mountain-side until break of day,
when the train again returned to its twice abandoned camp, having been
compelled, however, to leave several of the wagons where they had
become stalled. The report concluded with the statement that the men at
once began log-cutting for cabins in which the company might have to
pass the winter.
After the messengers left, and as father and Uncle Jacob were hastening
preparations for our own departure, new troubles beset us. Uncle was
giving the finishing touches to the axle, when the chisel he was using
slipped from his grasp, and its keen edge struck and made a serious
wound across the back of father's right hand which was steadying the
timber. The crippled hand was carefully dressed, and to quiet uncle's
fears and discomfort, father made light of the accident, declaring that
they had weightier matters for consideration than cuts and bruises. The
consequences of that accident, however, were far more wide-reaching
than could have been anticipated.
Up and up we toiled until we reached an altitude of six thousand feet,
and were within about ten miles of our companions at the lake, when the
intense cold drove us into camp on Prosser Creek in Alder Creek Valley,
a picturesque and sheltered nook two and a half miles in length and
three-quarters of a mile in width. But no one observed the picturesque
grandeur of the forest-covered mountains which hem it in on the north
and west; nor that eastward and southward it looks out across plateaus
to the Washoe Mountains twenty miles away.
A piercing wind was driving storm-clouds toward us, and those who
understood their threatening aspect realized that twenty-one persons,
eight of them helpless children, were there at the mercy of the
pitiless storm-king.
The teams were hurriedly unhooked, the tents pitched, and the men and
the women began collecting material for more suitable quarters. Some
felled trees, some lopped off the branches, and some, with oxen,
dragged the logs into position. There was enough building material on
the ground for a good sized foundation four logs deep, when night
stopped the work. The moon and stars came out before we went to bed,
yet the following morning the ground was covered with snow two or three
feet in depth, which had to be shovelled from the exposed beds before
their occupants could rise.
I remember well that new day. All plans for log cabins had to be
abandoned. There was no sheltered nook for shivering children, so
father lifted Georgia and me on to a log, and mother tucked a buffalo
robe around us, saying, "Sit here until we have a better place for
you." There we sat snug and dry, chatting and twisting our heads about,
watching the hurrying, anxious workers. Those not busy at the wagons
were helping the builders to construct a permanent camp.
They cleared a space under a tall pine tree and reset the tent a few
feet south of its trunk, facing the sunrise. Then, following the
Indian method as described by John Baptiste, a rude semi-circular hut
of poles was added to the tent, the tree-trunk forming part of its
north wall, and its needled boughs, the rafters and cross-pieces to the
roof. The structure was overlaid so far as possible with pieces of
cloth, old quilts, and buffalo robes, then with boughs and branches of
pine and tamarack. A hollow was scooped in the ground near the tree for
a fireplace, and an opening in the top served as chimney and
ventilator. One opening led into the tent and another served as an
outer door.
To keep the beds off the wet earth, two rows of short posts were driven
along the sides in the tent, and poles were laid across the tops, thus
forming racks to support the pine boughs upon which the beds should be
made. While this was being done, Elitha, Leanna, and Mrs. Wolfinger
were bringing poles and brush with which to strengthen and sheath the
tent walls against wind and weather. Even Sister Frances looked tall
and helpful as she trudged by with her little loads.
The combination of tent and hut was designed for my father and family
and Mrs. Wolfinger. The teamsters, Samuel Shoemaker, Joseph Rhinehart,
James Smith, and John Baptiste, built their hut in Indian wigwam
fashion. Not far from us, across the stream, braced against a log, was
reared a mixed structure of brush and tent for use of Uncle Jacob, Aunt
Betsy, and William and Solomon Hook (Aunt Betsy's sons by a former
husband), and their five small children, George, Mary, Isaac, Lewis,
and Samuel Donner.
Before we two could leave our perch, the snow was falling faster and in
larger flakes. It made pictures for Georgia and me upon the branches of
big and little trees; it gathered in a ridge beside us upon the log; it
nestled in piles upon our buffalo robe; and by the time our quarters
were finished, it was veiling Uncle Jacob's from view. Everything
within was cold, damp, and dreary, until our tired mother and elder
sisters built the fire, prepared our supper, and sent us to bed, each
with a lump of loaf sugar as comforter.
[Footnote 3: Thornton.]