The Indifferent Stars Above (36 page)

“had minds & wills of their own”: Patty Reed to McGlashan, April 15, 1879 [McGlashan Papers, folder 38].

ox that had already starved to death: Franklin Graves's sale of the ox to Eddy was reported by Thornton in terms that did not flatter Graves: “He refused to save it for meat, but upon Mr. Eddy's applying to him for it, he would not let him have it for less than $25.” It's worth pointing out that Eddy's veracity in many things was questioned by some of his fellow survivors. That said, it is also true that a number of survivors felt that once the harsh realities of the impending disaster began to become clear, the Graveses grew less generous than their neighbors back in Illinois remembered.

“very good dog”: McGlashan, 123. Reed and McCutchen later engaged in a very pubic argument with Frances H. McDougall, writing on behalf of Mrs. Curtis, about what exactly had happened during and following the dog dinner. This exchange, published in a series of articles in 1871 in the pages of the
Pacific Rural Press,
can be found in Kristin Johnson's
Unfortunate Emigrants,
181–208.

the profile of just such a leader: For more on the qualities that make for good leadership in survival situations, see Leach, 140.

and every ounce of them is lethal: “Grizzly Bear Recovery.”

“on the 31st of last month”: Breen, 5. Patrick Breen's diary is probably the single most compelling document to come out of the Donner Party tragedy. Working in the cold and dark of his cabin at the lake camp, Breen
wrote the original on eight sheets of paper folded and trimmed to make thirty-two small pages. I have used a facsimile edition of the version produced by Frederick J. Teggart in 1910.

“returned after an unsuccessful attempt”: Ibid.

“the eve of a snow storm”: Ibid.

processes then begin to kick in: For a good overview of the physiological effects of hunger, see chapters 2–5 of Russell.

greater amounts of salt and other seasonings: For much more about the hunger experiment at the University of Minnesota, see Tucker.

“no hopes of finding them alive”: Breen, 6.

apparent permanent harm to themselves: See Russell, 3–8, for more on “starvation artists” and other survivors of long-term fasts.

it looks like this for women: For more about the Harris-Benedict equation and a handy online calculator, “Basal Energy Expenditure: Harris-Benedict Equation,” see Cornell University's Web site www-users.med.cornell.edu/~spon/picu/calc/beecalc.htm.

simply to maintain her weight: The nutritional value of a Big Mac
^®
can be found on McDonald's Web site at www.mcdonalds.com.

2,679 calories per day: “Dietary Quality and Food Consumption: Dietary Trends from Food and Nutrient Availability Data.”

2,158 calories in 1970: Ibid.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT—
D
ESPERATION

“Yours Very Respectfully C.T. Stanton”: Charles Stanton to the Donners, December 9, 1846, reprinted in Morgan, 450.

“It is our only choice”: Mary Murphy quoted in Steed, 15.

for Elizabeth Graves to care for: Mary Ann Graves, in a letter to McGlashan dated April 16, 1879, said it was she who convinced Amanda McCutchen to go with the snowshoe party [McGlashan Papers, folder 14].

“8 feet deep on the level”: Breen, 7.

dried beef for each of them: Both Sarah and Mary Ann, in letters written in May 1847, said the snowshoe party carried eight pounds of dried beef each. Sarah's letter first appeared in the
Western Republican
(Lawrenceburg, Indiana) on November 25, 1847.

stiff body of Baylis Williams: W. C. (Billy) Graves describes shaving and washing Baylis Williams's body in a letter to McGlashan dated April 1, 1879. However, he incorrectly says Baylis died “about the first of January” [McGlashan Papers, folder 16]. Patrick Breen had by then already noted Bay
lis's death on December 17, saying, “Bealis died night before last,” which would be the night before the snowshoe party left.

precious calories at a furious rate: Mary Ann Graves describes the difficulty the snowshoe party had learning to walk in snowshoes in her letter of April 15, 1879 [McGlashan Papers, folder 14].

the sun's unrelenting rays: My information about snow blindness is taken from a variety of online sources, most notably from www.emedicine. com/EMERG/topic759.htm and related pages.

if we are to remain alive: The information about hypothermia and hyperthermia comes from the Mayo Clinic's Web site at www.mayoclinic.com/health/hypothermia/DS00333.

into a kind of death spiral: A discussion of Dr. Hackett's experiments on Denali can be found at the PBS Web site at www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/denali.

“Norwegian fur company among the icebergs”: McGlashan, 71–72.

who began to fall the farthest behind: My chronology for the snowshoe expedition is based on a variety of sources, including Mary Ann Graves Clarke's account in the
Truckee Republican
of May 17, 1879; additional elements of Mary Ann's account as published in McGlashan; a statement authored by John Sinclair in 1847 and reprinted in Morgan, 294–95, based on William Eddy's notes and discussions with other survivors; James Reed's account, based again on Eddy and used in J. H. Merryman's “Of a Company of Emigrants in the Mountains of California,” in the
Illinois Journal
on December 9, 1847; J. Quinn Thornton's account in
Camp of Death,
24–39, again based mostly on Eddy; and Patrick Breen's diary, which I have used to correlate weather events observed at the lake camp with those observed by the snowshoe party.

My chronology differs slightly from some others, beginning in particular with December 20. In examining Mary Ann Graves's chronology published in the
Truckee Republican,
I note that she has compressed the events of three days under the heading of a single day, her “Third day.” For this one day, in fact, she refers to the passage of the day of December 18, the evening of the eighteenth, the morning of the nineteenth, the evening of the nineteenth, and the morning and day of the twentieth. Therefore, I take her “Fourth day” to be in fact the sixth day, December 21. If so, and if her recollection is otherwise accurate, Stanton was left behind on the Yuba on the morning of December 20. This date is also borne out by Eliza Farnham's account based on interviews with Mary Ann sometime before 1856, and it is also stated explicitly by John Sinclair in his statement of 1847, based on his
discussions with survivors not long after the disaster. Mary Ann's chronology grows more confusing as she recounts the subsequent days, when she again compresses multiple days under the headings for single days. Nevertheless, by carefully correlating the survivors' recollections of weather conditions with those recorded contemporaneously by Patrick Breen, it is possible to parse her narrative and arrive at the chronology that I have used. Although it was written some thirty-two years after the events recorded, it is important to note that Mary Ann's is the only detailed, surviving account actually written by a member of the snowshoe party and therefore merits considerable respect despite its obvious deficiencies.

hollow stump near the same spot: W. C. (Billy) Graves describes finding Stanton's remains in a hollow stump “about 15 miles along Dutch Flat [Donner Lake Road]” in his March 30, 1879, letter to McGlashan [McGlashan Papers, folder 16]. Assuming that Graves was measuring the distance from the cabins at Donner Lake, this reinforces the notion that Stanton died along the Yuba River before the snowshoe party turned southwest away from the river.

his brain would have died: The Mayo Clinic's Web site at www.mayoclinic.com/health/hypothermia/DS00333.

“through no organic cause”: Leach, 168.

life the exception: Parrado, 200.

epic blizzards in the high Sierra: For more on the Madden-Julian oscillation, see “Monitoring Intra-seasonal Oscillations” at the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Web site, www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal.

tempers began to flare: For a good summary of the “City of San Francisco” incident, see Rasmussen, B-2.

sat motionless until he died: The description of Jacob Donner's death is drawn from McGlashan, 95.

C
HAPTER
N
INE—
C
HRISTMAS
F
EASTS

sisters starve at the lake: Mary Ann Graves's account in the
Truckee Republican
of May 17, 1879.

“Your own dear Eleanor”: Thornton, 25.

were all failing them: For more about the short-term physical and psychological effects of starvation, see Russell, 29–51, and Tucker, 96–127.

in Oregon's Coast Range: My information about the James Kim tragedy is drawn from a number of contemporaneous news accounts, all of them online. See Katz, Simon, Yardley, and “Kim Family Search: A Timeline.”

“What
can
we do?”: Mary Ann Graves's account in the
Truckee Republican
of May 17, 1879.

beginning to eat at their minds: For more on the psychology of getting lost, see Gonzales, 162–70.

had become permanently deranged: Philbrick, 171–75.

he did not care: Thornton, 27.

they, too, must eat human flesh: Mary Ann Graves's account in the
Truckee Republican
of May 17, 1879.

with his daughters at his side: My chronology asserts that Antonio and Franklin Graves died on the day and the night of December 24, respectively. Some published accounts and some primary sources place these events on December 25. Mary Ann Graves, in a letter dated May 22, 1847, states that “Father died on Christmas night at 11 o'clock.” I believe that Mary Ann either meant Christmas Eve or was understandably mistaken as to the date. James Reed (based on Eddy's notes) also places these deaths on December 25. Thornton also places them on “Christmas night,” but the date he meant by this term seems to be December 24 according to the logic of his narrative. John Sinclair, who talked to Eddy and other survivors after the tragedy, on the other hand, places the deaths, as I do, on December 24. For me, here as in many places, Patrick Breen's meticulous weather observations carry particular weight in reconciling the discrepancies. Most of the accounts mention in one way or another that Franklin Graves died late at night just as the weather suddenly turned colder and stormier and the rain turned to snow—“in the commencement of the snow storm,” as Mary Ann put it herself; “in the beginning of the storm, of cold,” as Sarah put it; or as “a most dreadful storm of wind, snow, and hail, began to pour down,” as Thornton, based on Eddy, put it.

Patrick Breen's diary entries make it clear that at Donner Lake, just thirty miles to the east and at approximately the same elevation as where Antonio and Franklin Graves died, the precipitation continued to fall as rain through at least midday on December 24. It then turned to snow, either at noon on Christmas Eve or at midnight, depending on whether you take Breen's “about 12 o'clock” to mean
A.M
. or
P.M
. Either way, it was on December 24 that colder air arrived at the lake, and by dawn on Christmas Day, according to Breen, it had been snowing “all night and snows yet rapidly.” The next day, however, he notes that it ceased snowing on the night of December 25 (Christmas night) and was clear on December 26. So if Franklin Graves died just as colder weather arrived and it began to snow on the ridges above the North Fork of the American River, it does not seem that he
could have died as late as midnight on December 25, Christmas night, when in fact the skies were just beginning to clear.

experience it before they die: For more on the “hide-and-die” and “terminal burrowing” syndromes associated with the final stages of hypothermia, see Dolinak, 249, and “Hypothermia and Paradoxical Undressing.”

skipping school on Christmas Day: For this and more about the history of Christmas in New England, see both Frum and Larkin, “Christmas in New England Before 1860.”

Christmas cards were printed: University of Minnesota Media History Project Timeline.

plum puddings, and the singing of carols: See Bodenhamer, 419, for more about the evolution of modern Christmas rituals in the Midwest.

“you will want for nothing”: “Christmas at Arlington House.”

“appalling but hope in God Amen”: Breen, 8.

“you can have all you wish”: Virginia Reed Murphy,
Across the Plains in the Donner Party;
and Kristin Johnson's
Unfortunate Emigrants,
280.

never known—fingernail polish: For more about ketosis and other physiological effects of long-term starvation, see Russell, 37–40.

“Give me my bone!”: Mary Ann Graves's account in the
Truckee Republican
of May 17, 1879. Some accounts have Lemuel Murphy dying after he was offered food, which could only have been human flesh. Mary Ann's account, however, asserts that only the mouse that Lemuel had eaten alive kept him from dying earlier.

above the rim of the canyon: Sarah Foster's recollection of Lemuel's death, in McGlashan, 85, emphasizes clear skies and a bright moon that night, which is corroborated for the night of December 26 by Patrick Breen's diary and by lunar data on the U.S. Naval Observatory's Web site.

C
HAPTER
T
EN—
T
HE
H
EART ON THE
M
OUNTAIN

a bit less human: See Philbrick, 165–66.

rather than resort to cannibalism: Russell, 25.

E
ATING DEAD CHILDREN IS BARBARISM
: Ibid., 149.

butchering their victims for meat: Ibid. See also “September 8, 1941: Siege of Leningrad Begins.”

among his apparent victims: Tucker, 8.

made soup out of them: Russell, 149–51.

hunger-induced psychosis: Tucker, 102.

by the time he died: Philbrick, 166.