The Donner Party Turns Deadly

HISTORY This Week

The HISTORY® Channel

History, Education, Society & Culture

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 2023

⏱️ 30 minutes

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Summary

August 4, 1846. A few months into their journey from Illinois to California, a group of pioneers finds bad trouble. They’re in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah and they’ve just found a note from their guide. It essentially says, “That shortcut I told you take – don’t.” The setback disastrously delays their trip. Weeks later, when they Sierra Nevada, it’s dangerously late in the season. Soon, an early winter snow traps them in the mountains. What did they have to do to survive? And what’s the truth behind the legendary Donner Party?

Special thanks to our guest: Daniel James Brown, author of The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The History Channel, original podcast.
0:05.0	History this week, August 4, 1846.
0:13.2	I'm Sally Helm.
0:16.3	Landsford Hastings feels like he should probably leave a note.
0:22.4	After all, he is the guy who has published a book called The Immigrants Guide to Oregon
0:28.2	and California, promising to guide immigrants to Oregon and California.
0:34.9	He spoke of green fields, fantastic farming and easy living.
0:39.8	He wrote about unexhausted and inexhaustible resources.
0:44.6	And whole families in places like Missouri and Illinois have picked up their lives
0:50.1	and packed up their wagons and followed his advice.
0:54.4	Hastings in his book describes a shortcut, a quicker way to California.
1:02.8	You can cut hundreds of miles by going through parts of what is now Utah.
1:07.7	But, although he points people towards the shortcut in his book,
1:11.8	and although it looks clear enough on a map, this is his first time actually testing it.
1:19.3	And what Landsford Hastings has found is not good.
1:25.8	The road through the canyon ahead of him is terrible.
1:29.3	There are boulders and ledges and dead ends.
1:32.2	The wagons can barely make any headway.
1:34.9	So he loops back to issue a warning to anyone following behind.
1:40.0	He scribbles down a note.
1:43.3	Actually, don't go this way.
1:45.9	Send a messenger forward to meet me and I'll show you something better.
	...

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