C. F. McGlashan was the newspaper editor and publisher of the local daily in Truckee, California, the closest town to the Donner Pass. Over the course of an eighteen-month period, McGlashan interviewed the survivors of the Donner Party, gathered artifacts, and amassed an enormous amount of secondary information. He published his findings as serialized articles in his paper, which were later published in book form. Detailed and engaging, History of...

In powerful, vivid verse, the master behind The Watch That Ends the Night recounts one of history's most harrowing--and chilling--tales of survival. In 1846, a group of emigrants bound for California face a choice: continue on their planned route or take a shortcut into the wilderness. Eighty-nine of them opt for the untested trail, a decision that plunges them into danger and desperation and, finally, the unthinkable. From extraordinary poet and...

A compelling and beautifully told story of extreme events that resonates the terrible cost of the American Dream. A powerful work of fiction that recreates one of the most tragic events of pioneer America, as a wagon train crosses the country to the Promised Land of California, only to be halted in the final stages by an early winter in the high reaches of the mountains. the emigrants endure the bitterest of winters with only the most slender of supplies?d...

The story of the Donner Party is very much the story of James F. Reed's family, not simply because the Reeds were prominent members, but because they left much documentary evidence: diaries, memoirs, correspondence and letters written en route and interviews shortly after the disaster. The adopted daughter of Reed, Virginia Reed Murphy's memoir is a noteworthy recounting of the Donner party disaster and its gruesome end. Her writing is sprightly,...

Nora Kelly, a young but successful curator with a series of important excavations already under her belt, is approached by the handsome historian, Clive Benton, to lead an expedition unlike any other. Clive tells his story--one involving the ill-fated Donner Party, who became permanently lodged in the American consciousness in the winter of 1847, when the first skeletonized survivors of the party stumbled out of the California mountains, replete with...

"In the winter of 1846-47, a group of eighty-seven pioneers heading from the Midwest to California found themselves snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountain range with no way forward and no food or supplies. While forty-eight of the group members survived, the others perished due to extreme weather, starvation, and illness. To survive, the remaining people resorted to extreme measures...including cannibalism. Learn about the many miscalculations, bad...

"Drawing on fresh archaeological evidence, recent research on topics ranging from survival rates to snowfall totals, and heartbreaking letters and diaries made public by descendants a century and a half after the tragedy, Ethan Rarick offers an intimate portrait of the Donner Party and their unimaginable ordeal: a mother who must divide her family, a little girl who shines with courage, a devoted wife who refuses to abandon her husband, a man who...

La joven arqueóloga Nora Kelly recibe una extraordinaria propuesta: liderar un equipo en busca del llamado «Campamento perdido» de la expedición Donner. Su misterio se remonta a 1847, cuando un grupo de pioneros quedó atrapado en las montañas de California y se perdió su pista hasta que algunos famélicos supervivientes pudieron salir del desierto, delirando sobre hambre, asesinatos... y canibalismo. Ahora, el sorprendente hallazgo del diario...

In 1846, the eighty-seven members of the Donner Party left Illinois to begin a new life in California. Many pioneers made this journey, but the Donner Party faced delays and terrible misfortune. Trapped with few supplies in the snowy Sierra Nevada for the winter, what would the travelers do to survive? To understand the impact of a disaster, you must understand its causes. How did taking an untested shortcut affect the Donner Party's progress? How...