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.