It’s Halloween, and here at the Press we’re reminded that there’s nothing scarier than people.  Case in point:  The Donner Party.  It was on October 31, 1846, that the 87 people and 23 ox carts that made up the Donner Party got stuck in an unexpected snowstorm way up in the Sierra Nevadas, just across the Nevada state line into California on I-80, a short distance from Reno.  Only I-80 wasn’t there in 1846.  Neither was Reno, as far as that goes.  There really wasn’t much of a road, either.  And the trail could be a bit... rough.  At times the wagons had be be winched up hills.

The families of George and Jacob Donner, along with a few others for a total of around 34 people, started their journey in Springfield, Illinois, in April of 1846.  From there they traveled to Independence, Missouri, my home town, and the start of the California Trail.  They left Independence on May 12.  By now their party had grown to 87 people.  Typically, it took 4 to 6 months to travel the 2000 or so miles, averaging 12 to 15 miles a day.  Timing was everything.  If they left too early in the spring there wouldn’t be enough grass for their livestock.  Too late and they wouldn’t beat the snow in the mountains, which could be expected anytime from mid November on.  Six months from May was mid-November. 

Had nothing gone wrong, they probably would’ve made it fine.  Unfortunately, they really didn’t have a guide, but were relying on a guidebook:  The Emigrant’s Guide to California and Oregon.  The author of the guide, Langford Hastings, was traveling ahead of them leaving notes on a trail that had never been tested.  Basically, Hastings was a charlatan, making money off of immigrants traveling west. 

It was July by the time the Party got to Fort Bridger in southwest Wyoming.  The smart thing would’ve been to stay there for the winter, or to take the Oregon Trail north and eventually work their way back down to California.  The really dumb thing to do was to take the Hastings Cutoff, which went south and wound around for 850 miles of really awful terrain before rejoining the California Trail.  As the name implies, it was supposed to cutoff a good hunk of the trail.  It didn’t.  Heck, Hastings (whom the trail was named after) didn’t even take the trail.  He’d never been on it.  By that time Hastings had gone back, leaving a guy named James F. Reed to take over as the guide, but he knew even less.  Even at that, the Donner Party still could’ve made it had they not run into an unexpected snowstorm on October 31 deep in the Sierra Nevadas... and there they stayed until Spring.  Cold... and hungry. 

The Donner Party was divided up into four separate groups.  Three of those groups turned to cannibalism independently of each other.  The fourth group probably didn’t... probably.  There’s anecdotal evidence that some of those in the Donner Party didn’t wait until the person was dead.  But that has never been substantiated.  Of those 87 people who were in the Party, 42 died, either from starvation or the elements or... well... let’s not think about that.  The survivors of the Donner Party finally made it out of the mountains in four separate groups, the first getting out in February of 1865, and the last in April.

Just an observation:  If people are starving, they will eat each other.  Granted, they will probably wait for you to die first, but then you’re an entrée.  I base my hypothesis on five separate incidents, starting with the Sea-Flower, a ship carrying immigrants to the New World in 1741 that ran out of food on the crossing and the survivors turned to eating the dead.  In 1820 the whaling ship Essex was sunk by a very pissed sperm whale, leaving the survivors in small boats with a lot of ocean to cross and nothing to eat... but each other.  They drew straws.  In the winter of 1874 Alfred Packer, along with four other guys, were stranded in the Colorado Mountains.  Only Packer made it out alive, surprisingly very well fed.  They didn’t draw straws.  Then there’s the Uruguayan Air Force plane that crashed in the Andes in 1972 – you know, the one with the rugby team.  And there’s the Donner Party.  True, that’s a limited sample, but I believe it warrants more study.  I have no idea why you might ever need to know something like that, but it just seems like a good thing to know.

And, if you’re wondering, the difference between “immigrant” and “emigrant” is all a question of perspective.  An “emigrant” is someone leaving a country, from the perspective of the country they are leaving.  Think of “E” for exit.  An immigrant is someone arriving, from the perspective of the country where they are going.  Think of “I” for intro.  If, for instance, you are leaving England and traveling to America, then to everybody back in England you are an emigrant, but to everybody in America you are an immigrant.  “Immigration” and “Emigration” both work the same way.  “Emigration” is the act of leaving your home country to go somewhere else.  “Immigration” is the act of entering into a new country to settle there.  Ditto for the verbs “Immigrate” and “Emigrate.”

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