Overland in 1846
Diaries and Letters of the California-Oregon Trail Volume I
Edited by Dale Morgan  1963   457 pages

This book is a collection of diaries, letters, and other writings which Mr. Morgan says should serve as a “source book for overland emigration in 1846… it invites us to share the experiences o specific overland travelers…”

Before the collection there is a long introduction of 117 pages which puts the book and its contents in context including interesting little facts some of which I didn’t know. For example, Chief Truckee had two sons and he and his sons were part of the Fremont expedition. John Sutter didn’t like Lansford Hastings.  People weren’t just going to the west coast; there were many people heading back east from California and Oregon. There were many people traveling west even before the mass of travelers following the discovery of gold in 1848.  To tell all that there are lots of quotes and letters of the people involved.  The reader hears the voices of early emigrants about what emigration was like and it’s all put into some context, such as the Mexican War. 

“To day we met all most one continual stream of Emigrants wending their long and Tedious march to oregon & california…  they came to us with Pails full of good new milk which to us was a treat of greate rarity after so many long tiresome days travel… We passed several small Brooks and met 117 teams in six different squads all bound for oregon and california…” [sic] (James Clyman heading east from California in 1845 with Lansford Hastings.)

Some descriptions are very colorful, for example the description of Peg Leg Smith,  “He had fought Apaches in Mexico, had ‘captured’ the horses of the Spanish Dons in California, lived among the Sioux and Crows and had a Snake Indian wife, and was as notorious for his lawlessness as for his success in all walks of a trapper’s life. He had been compelled by misfortune to part with one of his legs just below the knee in order to save his life ; and had long been known by the name of ‘Peg Leg Smith.’”

Another description bears including describing a traveling companion of Lansford Hastings named Hedspeth.  “…he was about as repulsive in manner as Hastings was attractive. He was a coarse, profane creature, who seemed t feel that loud swearing was the best title to public favor.” In contrast Lansford Hastings is described as, “a tall, fine-looking man, with light brown hair and beard, dressed in a suit of elegant pattern made of buckskin, handsomely embroidered and trimmed at the collar and opening, with plucked beaver fur… an ideal representative of the mountaineer.”

After the introduction comes almost a dozen diaries, along with more parts of letters and newspaper articles covering the emigrant experience in 1846. Each diary is preceded by its own introduction putting it in context and giving a short biography of the author.  If you like primary source material this is for you.  Once the book moves to the diaries, etc. the notes move to the end of the book and there are 88 pages of notes that elaborate on diary entries or match main text diary entries to other writings and diaries.  The introduction sets the stage for the diaries.

Reading the diaries bring the cross-country trek to life: miles per day, small incidents, and hardships.  Indians kill or run off stock leaving a wagon with no food.  A cow is killed by the cold.  Hungry emigrants are helped by Native Americans who share venison and salmon. There are good camps and bad camps, lots of feed for animals and none. There is death and accident and almost impassable roads as well as remarkably good roads.  Having read all those things we can appreciate the emigrant saying, we travelled down the valley and camped on the Willamette, “the handsomest valley I have ever beheld. All charmed with the prospects and think they will be well paid for their sufferings.”

The end of the book includes Donner Party related material some of which is the most interesting, particularly the diaries of the relief parties.  The second Virginia Reed letter is particularly poignant when she relates her mother having to send two children back to Donner Lake and continue on with the other two.  There was the danger in sending two back that they would “starve to Death Martha said well ma if you never see me again to do the best you can the men said thay could hadly stand it maid them all cry they said it was better for all of us to go on for if we was to go back we would eat that much more from them…”  [sic]

The relief parties are an inspiring part of the Donner Party story.  Here are people presumably comfortably set for the winter in California giving up their comfort and risking their lives to save people trapped by winter more than a hundred miles away.  The diaries tell some of the heroism,

“Our road was in a very bad condition and at frequent intervals we had to unpack the mules and drag them out of the mire. In about five or six miles a day we reached the snow which we found three feet deep. Through this we worried along some five miles when it became too deep for mules to go any further it being eight feet deep and falling all the time; a regular storm having set in.  Our encountering the snow so deep and so much sooner than we had been led to anticipate utterly disheartened some of the party and six men turned back.

“we made a camp and left the mules in charge of one of Sutter’s men a German who went by the soubriquet of ‘Greasy Jim’ … Our party now consisted of seven… Each man made a pair of snowshoes…. About two feet long and 1 wide… On these we had to travel continuously…

“Each man also took a single blanket a tin cup, a hatchet and as near as the captains could estimate 75 pounds of dried meat. … Of course we had no guide and most of our journey was through a dense pine forest…  we set fire to every dead pine tree on and near our trail …  At Sunset we made camp’ by felling pine saplings 6 inches in diameter and cutting them off about 12 feet long, & placing them on the snow making a platform 6 or 8 feet wide. On this platform we kindled our fire, roasted some meat for supper and then throwing our blankets over our shoulders sat, close together, around the fire and dozed through the night the best way we could… In this manner we passed every night of our journey…  The snow increased as we proceeded until it amounted to a depth of eighteen feet…

“We travelled in Indian file. At each step taken by the man in front he would sink in the snow to his knees and of course had to lift his foot correspondingly high for his next step. Each succeeding man would follow in the tracks of the leader.—The latter soon became tired fell to the rear and the second mand took the head of the file…”

Then as the relief party approached the encampment at Donner Lake and saw a woman emerge from the snow, “As we approached her several other made their appearance in like manner coming out of the snow. They were gaunt with famine and I never can forget the horrible, ghastly sight they presented. The first woman spoke in a hollow voice very much agitated & said ‘are you men from California or do you come from heaven?’”

The diaries also expose the negative aspects of human nature. “Notes kept by M.D. Ritchie” relate an incident when Mr. Ritchie went to Mr. Kerns, from Sutter’s Fort,  asking him for some pork for “emigrants that I had under my Charge” just rescued from Donner Lake.  The good people of Yerba Buena (San Francisco) had contributed money for what Mr. Kerns had control of.  Mr. Kerns’ answer “was that there was none for them…” meanwhile Ritchie saw Mr. Kerns and his group “faring sumtiously on Pork and superfine flour.”  When Ritchie asked for more Kerns “told me he would give the none they might eat hard Tack old dry sea bread which was broke to Crumbs…” [sic]

An excerpt from The Expedition of the Donner Party and Its Tragic Fate, by Eliza P. Donner Houghton relates the poignant incident when her mother sent three of her children off with a couple of the rescuers, who would later leave the children at Donner Lake rather than keep their word to take the children out of the Sierra for $500.

“The agreement was made, and we collected a few keepsakes and other light articles, which she wished us to have, and which the men seemed more than willing to carry out of the mountains. Then, lovingly, she combed our hair and helped us to dress quickly  for the journey.  When we were ready, except cloak and hood, she led us to the bedside and we took leave of father. The men helped us up the steps and stood up on the snow. She came, put on our cloaks and hoods, saying, as if talking to herself, ‘I may never see you again, but God will take care of you.’  The three children were six, five, and four.  How does a mother do that  - giving up her children for strangers? How does she feel when she later discovers she’s been betrayed?

The many quotes and diary entries by the emigrants really do tell their remarkable stories.

The climate is never so cold as to freeze- and an instance of death on the coast by a fever has never been known. The soil produces the fruit and vegetation of every climate in the world. Its commercial advantage and natural resources are the greatest in the known world.”
Lansford Hastings
Lecturing upon the advantages of emigrating to California, 1845