I'm feeling really down and vulnerable and feel I need a really uplifting, life affirming video with a laugh out loud, feel good ending. I've never heard about this but the title says "Party" so that means people gathering together and having fun, so I think this should be just what I need...
My grandfather had a Masonic Burial. Lamb skin apron, brothers seating and greeting folks. And very Methodist. All about networking. Nice Storytelling.👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Mr. Reed literally fought a war to convince the American navy that his family was worth saving and the newspaper was like "men these days are so feminine" Some things about human nature never change
... Whereas Mr. Reed's oh so sexy, 32 yo wife, is perhaps the most MASCULINE looking ogre of a woman I may have ever seen? I mean seriously... Yiiiikes. (Wish I jitted down the exact time that image comes up? Somewhere in first 10-15 minutes?) 🫣😱
There is something so human about the natives response to seeing the party first stumble out of the woods. The fear, then, the heartbreak is just so human after almost 30 minutes of talking about starvation and cannibalism. Like, we have been following the story of people who are so pushed by survival they must do inhuman things, so seeing a normal emotional response feels almost alien.
And look how the whites payed them back. Letting them intentionally starve and freeze to death in the winter, sending them blankets infected with small pox, sending them off to the Trail of Tears, where most of them perished. The USA are built on slavery and genocide.
@@ducksinarowpatience plenty of stories of native americans that were inconceivably kind and compassionate to people who would not show the same kindness to them, a common thread i've noticed
The Reed family not immediately smoking the family that tried to starve them to death is far more merciful than I could ever be. Id probably smoke them for doing it to somebody else, let alone my kids.
How did America get this land? Refresh us, cause I thought it was manipulation, ra!e, and force, whitewashed as a "sale", because we threw some money at them as we burned their homes and built over their ancestors. 🤷 Credit where it's due, man, or it makes us dumber than history. ❤❤
If Christian Bale turns it down I think Hugh Jackman would work too. If Christian Bale accepts then Hugh Jackman as Mr Eddy and Willem Defoe as Lewis Keseberg. Actually William Eddy looks a lot like Elon Musk🤷♂️
I never knew about John Stark's role in the rescue effort, that man is legitimately the biggest hero of the tragedy, a truly exceptional person, it takes an extraordinarily amount of character to behave as he did. *In Summit Valley the remaining rescuers discussed what to do and took a vote to save only two of the children in Starved Camp. That might have been all they could manage. The others would have to stay behind.* *John Stark could not abide that. That meant that nine people, mostly children, would die on the mountain, exposed to the elements down in a very deep hole in the snow. John Stark decided he would save all nine, “Already shouldering a backpack with provisions, blankets, and an axe, he picked up one or two of the smaller children, carried them a little ways, then went back for the others. Then he repeated the whole process again and again and again. To galvanize morale, he laughed and told the youngsters they were so light from months of mouse-sized rations that he could carry them all simultaneously, if only his back were broad enough.” Once they were out of the snow he would eat and rest he said, but not before. He saved all nine.* *Speaking of the incident years later, one of the survivors credited her rescue to:* "nobody but God and Stark and the Virgin Mary."
I can answer a few questions you had... I was a member of the Donner reenactment for several documentaries, helped the state of California dig and catalogue the Murphy Cabin, and am a descendant. 1) James/John were interchangeable names in the early 1800s (much like we give the nickname Jack to people named John, now). I don't remember which historian sourced that but there was a manifest in Independence, MO that referred to him as "John James" (which was a common pairing). 2) James Reed joined the US, in it's fight against Mexico, for several reasons. One, it wasn't entirely voluntary. Sutter knew, because Reed was very honest, about the fight in the desert...and a quid pro quo was struck: If James promised to fight, Sutter would insure supplies and a rescue party and that Reed wouldn't stand trial. James also never went terribly far south. Two, James was not well... he was starving, mad with worry, and had NOTHING. Joining gave him "two hots, a cot, and a purpose". Sutter wasn't dumb...he was calculated and he likely didn't believe the stranded would survive. In fact, when news that the Forelorn Hope party reached Sutter, he was astonished they came with tales of ANY survivors at the lake. Sutter never actually funded the relief effort that brought them out- that was "crowd sourced" from members of Reed's regiment (including Selim Woodworth...who was like a California Vanderbilt or Kennedy). 3. Keseberg is a wild ride. Even by 19th Century standards, knocking your wife around (who was 19 when you knocked her up...and you were 28) was kinda' sus. There's been tremendous argument that everyone hated him (which I believe) and scapegoated him because he was a German immigrant. The reality is that even his best friend said he was a violent, ill-tempered dude who was too smart for his own good. Today, we'd probably call him a sociopathic narcissist and there's a lot of suggestion that he manipulated and gamed everyone in the party at some point. I sort of find it telling that his wife took an infant over a snowed in pass, rather than spend any more time with Keseburg and his axe injured foot. I do find it kind of macabre and sensationalist that, prior to the 80's, people lumped most of the cannibalism charges at his doorstep and not at others. 4. Sac was probably not visible from that area of Sawtooth....but, it's a good story. Luis and Salvador are legends. 5. I think Margaret Reed could see the writing on the wall, with Keseberg. Her attempt to gtfo with her kids is full Mama Bear Mode.
We have our family reunion in Roseville and my uncle lives there, it’s originally a ranch in the 1800 and the original house is still there! Historically it’s where one of two people from the group were brought to recoup from the situation and they prepared the rescue party, but he didn’t want to return and they went by the directions he gave them and they missed the group. Had he returned as he promised to them, they would have saved more people than the saddest story we have. 👍🙏❤️🤔
One of the first accounts of the Donner Party that I read about decades ago, claimed that the last rescue party saw Keseburg run into a snow-covered cabin carrying a dead infant in one hand, where he had a pot of water boiling so he could make make soup. This video points to him having done many grisly things, but not the infant part. Not sure if the part about the baby was repressed in the news accounts, or just a fictional embellishment.
Well i do think Keseberg ignoring a whole frozen ox and going straight to eating people is much different from "we've eaten all we possibly can, its our last resort", which is how i feel the rest of the canibalism went down
For some reason my high school history teacher spent a whole week, maybe longer even, on the Donner party. He told the story in its entirety just as Aiden did here and I’m only just realizing that this wasn’t the case for most people… but boy was it interesting. Awesome video!
I live in Washington so I’m pretty sure every history class starting from middle school to the end of high school we covered the entire story of this every year!
I remember learning about this in 5th grade and thought it was in all school curriculums until I moved out of state and realized my school was just really weird
That's when you know you have a teacher who enjoys teaching. And you know it's a subject they really like to talk about when they spend an unusual amount of time on it. I did that with Napoleon.
Have you heard of Rabbit Starvation? Deer meat is incredibly lean. It is possible that the Forlorn Hope party could have still died of 'starvation', even with a belly full of deer meat.
I saw something about that on an Ask A Mortician video about the Essex. The sailors were eating their dead brethren, but you need the fat to help digest it, and the men had died of starvation/dehydration.
That's why, if you eat rabbit in the wild, you eat the liver, eyes, and heart as well. You even crack open the bones and suck out the marrow. You do the same with any lean animal if you don't have supplemental nutrients & fats to go with it. I'm sure they knew that if they had travel guides early on.
This is the first telling of The Donner Party where I've heard in depth of all the kindness given to the Forlorn Hope party and all the help given to those still at the lake. It's so touching
I work at Donner Memorial State Park in Truckee, CA. You did a great job on this video. I definitely learned a lot...and was corrected on what I thought I knew. Two quick notes. There are two alternate passes that were available to the Donner Party that they did not know about: Coldstream and Roller. Both were significantly more easy to traverse than Fremont (Donner) Pass. Also, that Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Cabin was built for Moses Schallenberger. At 17 years old, he spent a winter alone in the Sierras, watching three wagons that the party left behind. He survived by trapping whatever he could, and the ridge on the south side of Donner Lake is now named after him.
Since you work there you might be uniquely qualified to answer this. Wasn't Truckee Lake now Donner lake full of trout and non-migratory salmon even back then? Why didn't they fish? Surely the Native American guides knew how to fish even with ice on the lake.
It had cutthroat trout only, which is one of the few trout species that migrate. Any salmon that is in there now is stocked by Fish and Wildlife. Also, even today, shorefishing is hit and miss. The lake is about 230 feet deep, so you have a lot more luck on a boat than on the rocks. I think building a boat would have been too herculean of a task for them. Add onto this that the Murphy Cabin and Breen Cabin were the closest at half a mile away -the Graves Cabin a mile, the Donner Lean-To 6 miles- from the lakeshore, with snow drifts 22 feet high...I think that is a lot of energy and heat expended for probably having nothing to show for it.
Tobacco is a sign of respect, it's native to North America and the Iroquois people still grow it today. When two 'friends' meet for the first time, an exchange of tobacco is given as a sign of respect. If you want to pass over our land, where our ancestors are buried, you need to give them tobacco, it's the only way to prevent a war back then... Hope this helps
Lived in an old house in California, me and my sister where convinced were haunted. Even thought we saw a mummy and a ghost fighting in the attic once. We were pretty young, and stupid. I don't even think I was school at the time.
My dad watched some documentary on a wooly mammoth preserved in a glacier when I was little, and I became fully convinced that it was going to thaw out, come back to life, and stampede through our house and trample me to death in my sleep. Yeah. Kid logic is really something else
I remember going on a camping trip when I was in the Cubs (a thing in the UK where kids learn basic woodcraft skills), and my friend admitted that he was scared we were going to get attacked by a vampire in the middle of the night. I thought he was an idiot. Why would he be afraid of vampires when the real threat was OBVIOUSLY werewolves?
I was looking through a book about volcanoes with a couple of my classmates when we were too young to understand what any of it meant. From the pictures and what my friends told me, I came to believe that "bad people" controlled a satellite that could create volcanoes anywhere on the Earth's surface to use as a weapon. The world sure was a scary place back then 😢
If I remember there was a situation of one of the children talking about watching an adult cutting up a "skinned bear without it's head or paws" and feeding it to them. I don't know if you've ever seen a skinned bear, but they look very human like, and in cases of survival cannibalism (example the Franklin expedition) often the first thing we do is remove the human-ness by getting rid of the head, hands, and feet. Some experts suspect those kids actually were seeing human remains being butchered and fed to them.
My dad almost ran into trubble bear hunting this one time, after he had gotten the skin and head off for the taxidermy guy he was told ‘ off the bridge up the road’….. dumped it and looked and saw a scared as piss fisherman 😂… so ya… they really look like peaple
Thank you. Another Sweet, heartwarming story... in a veritable Sea of them, which i have Collected, and plan to use as Bedtime reading for... Tired, hopeless adults.
Fun fact back in the day PTSD used to be called Nostalgia. The meaning of that word has changed a lot. It was certainly acknowledged as an issue though mainly related to combat. It was pretty well documented in earlier history symptoms are written about in epic poems and later noted by various military physicians.
Yes ive read several civil war diaries that mention “morose soldiers” who wouldnt talk or socialize with anyone, would wander the edges of camp by themselves, wouldnt speak or write letters, but could still be counted on to fight fiercely shoulder to shoulder in any upcoming battles. PTSD was definitely observed and noticed, but didnt have an actual diagnosis yet.
Wow that’s interesting you guys I gotta keep an eye out for the word nostalgic and morose now when listening to older history this will add more depth thanks to you both
So im actually a direct descendant of the donner party, my grandma even had some journal pages and pictures saved! I dont know where they are though, she showed me them when I was little and I havent seen em in ages. I love seeing stuff on my ancestors lol. Excited to watch the rest of the video.
Hey, this is crazy, but I'm actually a descendant of the Reed family. Unfortunately, we don't have much in the way of pictures or anything though. Least not available to me, I'm not that close with that side of my family.
A schooner is a sailing ship. The wagons sailed over the prairie. I've studied the Donner party for over 40 years and want to say you did a good job with this video.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the palace wagon that the Donner family were forced to abandon while crossing the salt flats south of Salt Lake. It was very awkward terrain, as it was sandy, but water bogged, so the wagon wheels ended up sinking very deep into it and getting stuck. The Donner family had a unusually large wagon, and they ended up being forced to abandon it in the salt flats. Well, the wagon stayed where it was abandoned, and were discovered and photographed in the 1930s, and excavated by archeologists in 1996. There are still sections of the Donner party's wagon trail that are visible today out on the salt flats.
That's amazing!! I've known a bit about the salt flats and the wagon however, I had NO idea it was excavated or that you can still see a part or parts of it today. Thanks for the extra, well written info!
@@atmywhitson If you Google "The Hastings Trail* from Grantsville, Utah to Donner Spring, Utah", you can check out a lot of great pictures that show the remains of the Hastings trail through the salt flats, and some of the remains of the wagons that were abandoned.
these long videos are literally PERFECT for my super long crochet or knitting sessions. LIFESAVING!!! my brain needs something interesting during the repeating patterns!! tysm
You know, im starting to think all these videos on missing people and paranormal creatures are really just history lessons in disguise. You cant make me learn things, damn it! I refuse!
@@TheLoreLodgethat’s what I love about your videos! I love history, and the paranormal, and how much you go into detail. You are officially my favorite TH-cam channel, and that will not change!
Thank you for hiding all this history in something as menial as stories about missing people and paranormal. XD It's giving me so much more history than I ever learned with my school.@@TheLoreLodge
I got bad grades in History in school and college, but it was the way they taught it back then that turned me off. We were forced to memorize dates and events like accountants. As I got older, studying history became my major pursuit in life. "Truth is stranger than fiction" as I always say.
The donner-reed party story is so interesting and we just skip over it in high school. There are so many stories in world history that we just have to skip over because we dont have the time. Imagine a miniseries of the adventure focusing on the forlorn hope.
Wow, that is so cool, I have no knowledge of my ancestors just that I know I'm 100% Mayan because of my eyes and the very smooth skin I have all over my body and that I was born in El Salvador, Centro America, I regret not asking my father and mother and grandparents about our history and now I'm dying to know more about my history. Wow, you have such an amazing history
The fact that one of them got "The Hunger" is terrifying. And then being beaten and threatened is fantastic. That was an actual hero moment and I was rooting for Eddie the whole time. I think it has some depth that's both psychological and harkens to the legends. In *all* of those moments, Eddie's *true* character was on display, how he viewed those around him. He viewed living human beings as *human beings,* and ones with a lot of value by virtue of being alive. On the other hand, at the other guy's psychological center, stripped of all dignity and all hope, openly and viscerally demonstrated that he viewed humans around him as disposable; not able to overcome the part of our primate brain that gives us the "We really need food *now* man" signal. The gluttony. Eddie *knew* there was non-human food, and at his core, was able to resist that evolutionary trait. And also had reverence for those around him despite it all. I don't think eating flesh was the catalyst. I think it's correlation, not causation. Who are we when we're pushed into corners and pressure applied more and more? None of us really know until the chips are down. When we know there's no other option, and the end is likely near, most of us are going to show our 100% true colors. And I doubt they're all very pretty... Edit: To elaborate: There was *instant* gratification that crosses wires in the brain. A man is annoyed at someone who he doesn't view as human anymore, but food. So... two birds, one stone; right? Smart. And insane. But it associates our brain's reward system with humans in both a mental and physical way. We *need* to eat, but we *want* to hurt. What happens when you're between the two? It's a rock in a hard place, *or* it's a chance to fix two problems.
@@kattatonic8010 I deleted my last post, I realized I misunderstood what OP was saying. I pray to God I never have to be tested on it. But I would rather die than resort to such.l means . I am not saying I am morally superior, I do think I would be less of a human being if I did though. It is a terrible, terrifying, and unimaginable position to be in to be that desperate.
So there's actually a portion of your brain called the hypothalamus that prevents you from eating other people. Literally that's what does it, it's why we view it as so gross when we're appropriately fed. There is a biological point where you have starved enough it basically quits working in that capacity and it can happen at what are basically different tolerances per person. There's not really anything hyper philosophical about it it's just how we function and it's a part of every human being it's tied directly to your own nutrition and has nothing to do with you being able to see the food and more to do with have you consumed enough food.
A not so fun fact is that while the Donner Party was trapped in the Sierra Nevada, the Franklin Expedition was icebound in the Canadian Arctic at the exact same time. The winter of 1846 was absolutely brutal.
I spent my early childhood growing up in Donner lake in Truckee and went to elementary school right down the street from the park with the Donner party monument with the hand marking the depth of the snow. Even growing up around this story, I did not know the complete history. The snow would get so deep my dad would throw me off the balcony into the snow from the very top. Thank you for the amount of work you put into this!
I had no idea there was anywhere near this much detail on individual movements and actions within that party. All you usually hear is they got stuck in the snow and ate each other. Your ability to research in depth and really bring the people to life, so to speak, is what makes your content so very enjoyable. Thank you so much for this!
THANK YOU for doing this story justice!!! I live close to Truckee and grew up learning about the Donner Party in school. It always saddens me when people don't know the whole story. I have seen many videos that skip over half of their story and paint them as complete morons, as well as videos that just read off the wikipedia page. This video is absolutely incredible and is truly special.
The way you tell a story keeps me engaged and entertained. It’s packed full of information and the occasional joke thrown in is much appreciated. Not sure how I came across your channel but I love your videos man. I’ve been watching for about a month and I have loads of content to check out! Keep up the good work and I wish you success bro!
I wonder if Elizabeth Graves was suffering some sort of psychotic episode. She could have just been an evil, sadist, but the circumstances seem like the kind to trigger a psychotic episode and her sudden hatred of the Reeds could have been driven by some type of paranoia. This purely speculation on part of course.
Accounts of Elizabeth from before the family left for the journey report has being an unusually generous woman, going out of her way to help people in need in her hometown. So my guess is leaning less towards her being evil
@@brianalambert1192 The true test of any virtue is when it costs you the most. Or as C.S. Lewis put it, courage is every other virtue at the breaking point.
Omggggg, I’m literally the “Oregon Trail generation” (1978-1981, because we played it at school first, lolol) and I’m SO hyped that I caught the premiere of this video-I’ve been looking forward to it! Thank you guys for covering this!!
PBS put out a two part episode of American Experience in 1992 about the Donner Party, directed by Ken Burns. It has an eerie atmosphere, appropriately despondent background music with shots of the snow falling, always falling through the trees. Made me appreciate for the first time what they went through.
Yep, they were called the American Cheetah, though they were actually Cougars that evolved to be faster. Also, Pronghorns belong to the same clade as Goats, Sheep, and Muskox
@@ozzywalker609 Pumas and American cheetahs are sister species so American cheetahs were the ancestors of modern cougars that adapted to be faster, not cougars that adapted to be faster. And African cheetahs and cougars are in the same lineage, from when the continents hadn’t split yet, so they’re all cousins. Don’t make it seem like the name American cheetah is a complete misnomer and they aren’t related to African cheetahs, because they actually are fairly closely related.
This is potentially as Epic and a complete telling of this tale as you hoped, during the drunk podcast. So far, fantastic. I have no reason to believe this shall not continue. The backstories to the baxkstories are a key to your effective storytelling
It's amazing hearing about the Donner Party in such detail. Like, I knew about it from the general gist most people know about, people get lost in the snow and starve until resorting to cannibalism. But hearing about the people, the conditions, and just general misfortune, makes it real in a way it wasn't before. These were not unprepared people, they were not going about this endeavor willy nilly, they were people who were misled, made mistakes, and had a great deal of misfortune befall them. Really enjoyed this video, thanks for doing a lot of hard work to get it to us!
2:20:59 I agree. I’ve been obsessed with this story for many years for the same reasons you outline. I would absolutely love to see a mini-series made about it exploring all the amazing narratives and characters. There has been a movie made but it really didn’t honor the story as it deserves to be told.
Can't say enough about your HARD WORK!...A#1 PROFESSIONAL JOB. You are to be commended...i'm 69& its so refreshing to see young men taking life seriously. Thank u
As someone who lives in SLC, I could not imagine going up and down the Wasatch with wagons, draft animals, and no trail. They are extremely steep and rugged, great for skiing though.
There is a book called The Hunger that is a similar style with a super natural element to it similar to the terror. It's very good but yah I also wish there was a show haha
This was supposed to be my cleaning background audio but i am CAPTIVATED. I thought I knew the story in depth but apparently not! Love the native history, I have learned more from you about the different tribes than any other source. It feels nice to see a content creator actually care about the ENTIRE history of the land and not just post-colonialism, european descendents-centered history.
Fact: The highest and lowest points of elevation in the contiguous 48 states of the US are both in California. When I shared this fact with a fellow Marine back in the 1990s he told me I was wrong, and pointed out the fact that Denver, CO is the "Mile High City" with an elevation of 5,280 feet. I didn't have the elevation in my mind at the time to point out that Donner Pass is at an elevation of just under 9,000 feet and snowfall is often measured in feet, not inches. Also I grew up in Sacramento, CA and learned about the Donner Party, but not to this extent back when I was a kid. I've been to Sutter's Fort, Sutter's Mill (where gold was discovered and set off the CA gold rush of 1849), and many of the CA locations mentioned in this story. So hearing about it all from someone else who's done the research was awesome. Love the videos, keep up the good work.
not only did i watch the full 2 and a half hours of this with rapt attention, but i went to work the next day and told all my coworkers about it. i LOVE your longform video storytelling. these are so fucking fantastic and get me hooked on topics i truly never expected to care about. bless you for these, and pls continue this trend of longer and longer videos
I recently read a book on this, so it's fresh on my mind. The impression I got on Elizabeth Graves was not one of evilness, but one of desperation and psychological destruction. The debt was from her husband giving the Reeds 4-8 oxen with the express promise they would be paid back at the end of the journey; so the ox hides were in effect her family's oxen, and she was also feeding her children the ox hide glue in the same cabin as the Reeds which the Graves had mostly built. And though she had a lot of money stockpiled, none of that was going to feed her children right now. The Graves had more or less taken the Reeds in after the father was exiled and were sharing resources with them. So I'm less inclined to believe that Elizabeth's decision was out of malice or cruelty and more along the lines of desperation for her own children to survive and possibly a growing resentment towards the Reeds. That's not to say that I think the Reeds were ungrateful or unkind to the Graves, but I can easily see how Elizabeth Graves could rationalize this action given how much help the Graves gave the Reeds before hand. "My family has given them all this, we brought them into our cabin, we gave them our oxen, and my children are going to starve because of it." That is what I imagine was going through her head. Was it admirable that she did this in this situation when the Reeds had nothing else? Hell no. But I also think this is a representation of just how desperate the situation made them. Elizabeth was described in accounts as an abnormally generous woman in her home town, going out of her way to help others. So the fact that her desire to keep her own children alive at the expense of the Reed family's survival drove her to this is very telling. In the same way that James Reeds is the hero of the story, down to a big emotional reunion with his family and Keensburg is an irredeemable villain just falling to the depths of depravity, I see Elizabeth as somewhere in the middle. She's not a hero, but she was a good person who fell into darkness
I would never have though to give this the significance its probably due because this is an entire case study on everything from sociology to psychology to even diplomacy. I always envisioned it as far more cut and dry or far more stationary than the tale ever was and the conflicts within it spread for far longer than I expected, some even to the discomfort with Keysburg at the beginning. I think we disagree a lot on the way we approach the mythical or mysterious but here we are alike because this was amazing, illuminating, and interesting.
I have never in my life laughed at a video within the first 10 minutes more 😂 Aiden coming through blessing us all with that dry humor we know and love
I once jumped on a train in Roseville, California. That goes over Donners' pass. It was June, and there was a foot of snow or more.... that run ended up being the coolest run I've ever been on. It comes out of the mountains in sparks nevada.... when I was coming down the mountain... it looked like I had a birds eye view of lake Tahoe..... I'm amazed that any of the donner party made it.
We went to visit lake tahoe and went ro visit the Donner state park museum. We listened to this on the drive home and it added a whole different dimension of awe and wonder at what they went through. There's a statue that shows how high the snow level was so you get a real sense of the magnitude. Also what an interesting thing that as bad as it was they could appreciate the beauty of the wilderness around them, it really is beautiful out there
Amazing work. I grew up part-time in Southern California , so of course, this was part of my school curriculum, but of course it was also really glossed over, because nobody tells kids the grisly stuff. Also I think most accounts I've heard only focus on the part in the pass, and the fact that they had taken a route that wasn't proven. You covered everything beforehand that contributed to the problems, such as that they were probably already not in the highest level of nutrition when they got there, which probably played a lot into how long some of them lasted.This is the most thorough account i've ever heard, well done.
As a Utahn I, 1) thank you Aiden for finally pronouncing Wasatch right. 2) can confirm as a that as an early pioneer traveling through the territory now known as Utah and Nevada would be about that absolute worst decision anyone could make.
I’m up early this morning. Remembering my teacher showing my class films based on the donner party back when I was in elementary. Turn the lights off, sit with your friends in class while we watched the movies. Those were the good ol days 🙌🏾
Someone seriously needs to make a James Reed movie/series. He got streets named after him, became a orchard worker, sheriff, active community member, participated in two gold rush.
I cannot imagine the amount of research that went into this video! Thank you so much for all the hard work!! And I loved your way of story-telling. To tell the truth, I am not necessarily always interested in the story as such; I just love some narration playing in the background, while I'm doing some housework, playing a computer game, and suchlike. But every time I still learn something new, and some stories stay imprinted in my memory forever. Today's story definitely falls in this category. You have a new subscriber :)
Wow, my friend. Wow. I hike long distance, like LONG distance and can appreciate the horror of this story. I couldn't imagine winter bearing down and having to eat my friends. I go to great lengths to research my sections like you research stories and accounts. You are mad appreciated for this massive effort. Thank you for this especially ❤️
On the half of everyone thank you for this video, I'm scared to think how much editing and reshoots and resources, plus the hours it took to create this. Thanks again for the amazing content.
I loved the deep dive into this piece of history, and find it funny that one of my friends was able to watch an entire movie within the time I listened to this video.
37:08 Joseph Walker was my great-great-grandfather's younger brother. He has minor fame as a pathfinder and furtrapper. His older brother had already traveled the Oregon Trail with his wife and children (including my great-great-grandfather) and had settled in Sonoma County.
I’m from Sacramento, Ca and have known about the Donnor party my whole life, living only 1.5 hours from where it happened. I moved to Omaha, Ne and no one here has heard of it! Even So-Cal ppl I met had never. So crazy!
In fifth grade we learned about the Donner Party by having our classroom reading for a couple weeks being a book that was supposed to be the perspective of one the Reed daughter’s dolls
At 9 years old I was enjoying it I got sick and missed a couple days of school so I missed the part between shortly after the cache in the desert was left to the middle of when people were dying. It’s Called Patty Reed’s Doll. The doll in question was an actual doll that Patty, the eight year old, actually hid on her the her mother had told her to leave with their cached belongings. The doll is currently kept by the Sutter fort museum
Something to remember about Elizabeth Grave's silver cache was that the money was the only thing her family would have to build any life if they survived. Her husband along with her son-in-law, Jay Fosdick, were dead. All their goods would likely be lost in the mountains and the only survivors ended up being children, with Sarah Graves-Fosdick being the eldest at 20 to take care of her 4 siblings. Also the Forlorn Hope party made sure that they kept the flesh from each person separate to make sure no one had to eat their loved ones. So that's nice.
He even ate the remains of his infant son who died, I feel even if a normal person was absolutely desperate there’s no way they’d resort to eating their baby
Honestly i think the native American had a point about eating human flesh. Clearly that man had been tainted by something. I know there is a God and keesburg surely had quite the interesting conversation with our lord when he passed.@thebutterytoster5721
Margaret Reed was the niece of my 6th great grandfather. I moved to California a couple of years ago and discovered my next door neighbor was the descendant of Leanna Donner. Our families had been through a horrific ordeal and we decided to befriend each other with an agreement: No killing and eating each other. It is dark humor but it allowed us to laugh in light of such a horrific family tragedy.
*Edit for spelling and clarity The Tuckers of the rescue party are my ancestors and one is my namesake. Reason P. Tucker helped organize and lead the initial rescue efforts. From a memorial in Napa County, CA: "Born in Virginia in 1806, Reason moved West in successive leaps and arrived in California in 1846 escaping by one day the Sierra snow that trapped the Donner Party. "Captain" Tucker led the first, and participated in, later rescue efforts."
Wow! What an incredible video, bravo guys. I've lived on the NV side of the Sierras basically my whole life and the story of the Donner party is one I've heard more times than I can count. Hearing it in it's shortened form, it sounds almost too sensational and gruesome to be true. More akin to a local legend than an actual historical event. But hearing it laid out in this format, with the entire timeline from start to finish and the journal entries, makes it very real. These people did everything in their power to survive and did so until their last breath. Truly heartbreaking but also a great example of the human instinct to do everything we can to survive. Forever cemented in Californian and American history, the Donner party is one of those stories you can hardly believe is true. But it was very, very real for those who experienced it some 150+ years ago
Thank you. I finally know why it's called the Teamsters' Union--because you refer to the guys who were in charge of the teams of critters who pulled the supply wagons cross country in the wagon trains as "teamsters".
I grew up outside Reno on the way up to Truckee and learned today my little town was on the Donner emigrate trail. It is so interesting to hear all the places I have not seen in 30 years being talked about and have so many memories come back. While Lovelock reminds me of middle school Donner will always mean elementary school to me. I never had as great of appreciation until now that even though it was the 80's the story was toned down to less nightmare inducing. I remember the many pictures our family had of items and wagons just left on the side of the trail. I am pretty sure one of the stoves we had were from a wagon in the desert. I remember seeing the ruts from the trail still in the dirt even after 100 years had passed. I had literally forgotten about all of this history so thank you for reminding me.
I was so excited for this video and you did not disappoint! I’m a huge fan of how strangely poetic this story is, and I’m glad there are others out there willing to make informed and accurate content about it. Loved the video, keep up the great work:)
As a resident of Reno, Nevada - born and raised - I forget that people across the country don't know about the donner party. Its taught to us in school for like, a week. It's fascinating!!
Great work. I have heard the story before, and even saw an old movie once, when I was around 12, but I never knew the detail of it you provided here. I have found I have to be careful with what I watch, as certain things provide too much "detail" and it messes with my head for a long time after. Thank you for your providing of this info, as any show would have messed up my brain for months. It's a tragic story.
The memories of this game are so vivid. The beige AppleII computer. The school room with no air conditioning. The teacher's assistant loading up the floppies. The stress and excitement of making different choices. So glad I grew up when I did.
This New Subscriber says, "The Donner Party had MORE than enough bones to pick with (or from) each other." Is this a jolly, 'humerus' story? No! But is it stellar storytelling at it's best? Absolutely YES!!! 🐎🐄🐂
I was today years old when I learned that an ox is just a castrated bull. I always thought it was some kind of hybrid cattle or another animal related to cattle or a cross (something like a mule.) This is really embarrassing to admit, being a sixth generation Texan. Thanks, Aiden! I learn something from you every video.
Grew up near donnor pass, there is a pillar built to the height of the snow at the pass that stopped the party. A small but fun museum is also on the site.
Man, this video was great, I hope we get more stuff like this in the future, even if it takes 2 months to research and write haha. Thanks so much, Aidan for all the effort you put in, the result was definitely worth it.
You did an awesome job on this!! Thank You!! I’m from Oklahoma and had never heard this. My Husband was in the Air Force and in 1993 we got order to Edwards AFB out in the Mojave Desert. We were 30 years old with a 7 and a 2 yo. We were supposed to be there fur 2 years, it turned out we lived in California for 23 years. So we got very familiar with California. I remember as we were driving to Edwards from Oklahoma for the first time, as we started going through all the mountains, we talked about the Pioneers, what it must of been like, coming from all over the Country, to get Rick on hold. How did they make it through the terrain…then living in California and learning about the Donner party. Visiting these places, seeing the kind of weather they have!! I just can’t imagine what these poor people went through!! California terrain is crazy!! My. Whitney, the highest point in California and Death Valley, the lowest point in California, are only 13 miles apart. When you listen to the stories of the nightmare these poor people went through, and hear about the slightest wrong turn they took, knowing that the could have been out of that terrible weather, if they had just went another direction. Again, TY very much!! You did a great job!
I'm a ravenous consumer of this kind of content. Seen a lot of Donner Party stuff, but the amount of time and research you put into this made it the most interesting I've seen on the subject! Thank you!
I am absolutely addicted to this channel. Everything you guys put out is of the highest quality, and I recommend your channel to all of my schizo friends!
ive been binging your videos for a few weeks now, and have been loving the breakup of the videos into two categories, pre-american history and missing people. The history segments are even more appreciated cause it all feels like info i really should have been taught earlier
I'm feeling really down and vulnerable and feel I need a really uplifting, life affirming video with a laugh out loud, feel good ending. I've never heard about this but the title says "Party" so that means people gathering together and having fun, so I think this should be just what I need...
oh sweet disappointment .
My grandfather had a Masonic Burial. Lamb skin apron, brothers seating and greeting folks. And very Methodist. All about networking. Nice Storytelling.👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Oh you sweet summer child…
@@TheLoreLodge 😂🤣🤣
Ummm..........I don't know how to break this to you but...... never mind, enjoy the story. 😂😂😂😂😂
Mr. Reed literally fought a war to convince the American navy that his family was worth saving and the newspaper was like "men these days are so feminine"
Some things about human nature never change
damn….
a true man would make a new family.
... Whereas Mr. Reed's oh so sexy, 32 yo wife, is perhaps the most MASCULINE looking ogre of a woman I may have ever seen?
I mean seriously... Yiiiikes. (Wish I jitted down the exact time that image comes up? Somewhere in first 10-15 minutes?)
🫣😱
Any recommendations on a biography for him? I can’t find one
don't assume that means you aren't feminine, pokemon boy.
There is something so human about the natives response to seeing the party first stumble out of the woods. The fear, then, the heartbreak is just so human after almost 30 minutes of talking about starvation and cannibalism. Like, we have been following the story of people who are so pushed by survival they must do inhuman things, so seeing a normal emotional response feels almost alien.
And look how the whites payed them back. Letting them intentionally starve and freeze to death in the winter, sending them blankets infected with small pox, sending them off to the Trail of Tears, where most of them perished.
The USA are built on slavery and genocide.
That was very moving emotionally. Considering how the Indians were treated by and large yet they showed such compassion.
Contrary to popular belief, we are not animals.
@@ducksinarowpatience plenty of stories of native americans that were inconceivably kind and compassionate to people who would not show the same kindness to them, a common thread i've noticed
The Reed family not immediately smoking the family that tried to starve them to death is far more merciful than I could ever be. Id probably smoke them for doing it to somebody else, let alone my kids.
I feel that way about marijuana.
@@frandorfbi watchlist speedrun 💀
@@EnvisionedBlindness if this is an original comment, im late af yeah, but still, super underappreciated- good job lol
@@spingleboygleright…. this won’t get you on a watchlist buddy.
How did America get this land?
Refresh us, cause I thought it was manipulation, ra!e, and force, whitewashed as a "sale", because we threw some money at them as we burned their homes and built over their ancestors.
🤷
Credit where it's due, man, or it makes us dumber than history. ❤❤
James Reed needs his own dramatic biopic pick where he's played by Christian Bale.
I’m working on it, I think this story deserves to be told, and from his perspective
If Christian Bale turns it down I think Hugh Jackman would work too. If Christian Bale accepts then Hugh Jackman as Mr Eddy and Willem Defoe as Lewis Keseberg.
Actually William Eddy looks a lot like Elon Musk🤷♂️
@@bubbadunnam3944Too bad Elon Musk can barely convince me he's Elon Musk.. Let alone anyone else.
@@UltraTaka1 are any of the “famous” people even real?
I blame Last Podcast on the Left for this. But I can't imagine anyone other than Richard Dreyfuss playing Reed
I never knew about John Stark's role in the rescue effort, that man is legitimately the biggest hero of the tragedy, a truly exceptional person, it takes an extraordinarily amount of character to behave as he did.
*In Summit Valley the remaining rescuers discussed what to do and took a vote to save only two of the children in Starved Camp. That might have been all they could manage. The others would have to stay behind.*
*John Stark could not abide that. That meant that nine people, mostly children, would die on the mountain, exposed to the elements down in a very deep hole in the snow. John Stark decided he would save all nine, “Already shouldering a backpack with provisions, blankets, and an axe, he picked up one or two of the smaller children, carried them a little ways, then went back for the others. Then he repeated the whole process again and again and again. To galvanize morale, he laughed and told the youngsters they were so light from months of mouse-sized rations that he could carry them all simultaneously, if only his back were broad enough.” Once they were out of the snow he would eat and rest he said, but not before. He saved all nine.*
*Speaking of the incident years later, one of the survivors credited her rescue to:* "nobody but God and Stark and the Virgin Mary."
He was quite literally the biggest hero at 240 lbs
@@strawberrypuddin8919Truly an absolute unit of a man
I can answer a few questions you had... I was a member of the Donner reenactment for several documentaries, helped the state of California dig and catalogue the Murphy Cabin, and am a descendant.
1) James/John were interchangeable names in the early 1800s (much like we give the nickname Jack to people named John, now). I don't remember which historian sourced that but there was a manifest in Independence, MO that referred to him as "John James" (which was a common pairing).
2) James Reed joined the US, in it's fight against Mexico, for several reasons. One, it wasn't entirely voluntary. Sutter knew, because Reed was very honest, about the fight in the desert...and a quid pro quo was struck: If James promised to fight, Sutter would insure supplies and a rescue party and that Reed wouldn't stand trial. James also never went terribly far south. Two, James was not well... he was starving, mad with worry, and had NOTHING. Joining gave him "two hots, a cot, and a purpose". Sutter wasn't dumb...he was calculated and he likely didn't believe the stranded would survive. In fact, when news that the Forelorn Hope party reached Sutter, he was astonished they came with tales of ANY survivors at the lake. Sutter never actually funded the relief effort that brought them out- that was "crowd sourced" from members of Reed's regiment (including Selim Woodworth...who was like a California Vanderbilt or Kennedy).
3. Keseberg is a wild ride. Even by 19th Century standards, knocking your wife around (who was 19 when you knocked her up...and you were 28) was kinda' sus. There's been tremendous argument that everyone hated him (which I believe) and scapegoated him because he was a German immigrant. The reality is that even his best friend said he was a violent, ill-tempered dude who was too smart for his own good. Today, we'd probably call him a sociopathic narcissist and there's a lot of suggestion that he manipulated and gamed everyone in the party at some point. I sort of find it telling that his wife took an infant over a snowed in pass, rather than spend any more time with Keseburg and his axe injured foot. I do find it kind of macabre and sensationalist that, prior to the 80's, people lumped most of the cannibalism charges at his doorstep and not at others.
4. Sac was probably not visible from that area of Sawtooth....but, it's a good story. Luis and Salvador are legends.
5. I think Margaret Reed could see the writing on the wall, with Keseberg. Her attempt to gtfo with her kids is full Mama Bear Mode.
reenactment!?! they made you eat people !?! you did it several times !?!
I thought you were going to say "I was part of the Donner party" 😂
We have our family reunion in Roseville and my uncle lives there, it’s originally a ranch in the 1800 and the original house is still there! Historically it’s where one of two people from the group were brought to recoup from the situation and they prepared the rescue party, but he didn’t want to return and they went by the directions he gave them and they missed the group. Had he returned as he promised to them, they would have saved more people than the saddest story we have. 👍🙏❤️🤔
One of the first accounts of the Donner Party that I read about decades ago, claimed that the last rescue party saw Keseburg run into a snow-covered cabin carrying a dead infant in one hand, where he had a pot of water boiling so he could make make soup. This video points to him having done many grisly things, but not the infant part. Not sure if the part about the baby was repressed in the news accounts, or just a fictional embellishment.
Well i do think Keseberg ignoring a whole frozen ox and going straight to eating people is much different from "we've eaten all we possibly can, its our last resort", which is how i feel the rest of the canibalism went down
For some reason my high school history teacher spent a whole week, maybe longer even, on the Donner party. He told the story in its entirety just as Aiden did here and I’m only just realizing that this wasn’t the case for most people… but boy was it interesting. Awesome video!
You were quite lucky
I live in Washington so I’m pretty sure every history class starting from middle school to the end of high school we covered the entire story of this every year!
I remember learning about this in 5th grade and thought it was in all school curriculums until I moved out of state and realized my school was just really weird
that was a good teacher.
That's when you know you have a teacher who enjoys teaching. And you know it's a subject they really like to talk about when they spend an unusual amount of time on it. I did that with Napoleon.
Have you heard of Rabbit Starvation? Deer meat is incredibly lean. It is possible that the Forlorn Hope party could have still died of 'starvation', even with a belly full of deer meat.
I saw something about that on an Ask A Mortician video about the Essex. The sailors were eating their dead brethren, but you need the fat to help digest it, and the men had died of starvation/dehydration.
That's why, if you eat rabbit in the wild, you eat the liver, eyes, and heart as well. You even crack open the bones and suck out the marrow. You do the same with any lean animal if you don't have supplemental nutrients & fats to go with it. I'm sure they knew that if they had travel guides early on.
They'd be eating the deer's organs too, making that less likely than you'd think
@@LWolf12 This. I wanna add: *Do not eat the brain.*
@@XXMatt0040XXalso if they did have to kill oxen, they should have a hearty amount of fat to supplement.
This is the first telling of The Donner Party where I've heard in depth of all the kindness given to the Forlorn Hope party and all the help given to those still at the lake. It's so touching
I work at Donner Memorial State Park in Truckee, CA. You did a great job on this video. I definitely learned a lot...and was corrected on what I thought I knew.
Two quick notes. There are two alternate passes that were available to the Donner Party that they did not know about: Coldstream and Roller. Both were significantly more easy to traverse than Fremont (Donner) Pass.
Also, that Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Cabin was built for Moses Schallenberger. At 17 years old, he spent a winter alone in the Sierras, watching three wagons that the party left behind. He survived by trapping whatever he could, and the ridge on the south side of Donner Lake is now named after him.
Since you work there you might be uniquely qualified to answer this. Wasn't Truckee Lake now Donner lake full of trout and non-migratory salmon even back then? Why didn't they fish? Surely the Native American guides knew how to fish even with ice on the lake.
It had cutthroat trout only, which is one of the few trout species that migrate. Any salmon that is in there now is stocked by Fish and Wildlife.
Also, even today, shorefishing is hit and miss. The lake is about 230 feet deep, so you have a lot more luck on a boat than on the rocks. I think building a boat would have been too herculean of a task for them.
Add onto this that the Murphy Cabin and Breen Cabin were the closest at half a mile away -the Graves Cabin a mile, the Donner Lean-To 6 miles- from the lakeshore, with snow drifts 22 feet high...I think that is a lot of energy and heat expended for probably having nothing to show for it.
@tristanwilliams3044 that makes sense. Thanks for answering I always wondered about that since I have fished there and Lake Tahoe which is nearby.
Did they ever figure out what happened to that Kiley Rodney girl? Didn't she end up being found in the lake?
Have you ever had a paranormal experience there? Just curious.
"He offered them tobacco and they went on their way" Dude got mugged by some local teenagers for smokes
Tobacco is a sign of respect, it's native to North America and the Iroquois people still grow it today.
When two 'friends' meet for the first time, an exchange of tobacco is given as a sign of respect.
If you want to pass over our land, where our ancestors are buried, you need to give them tobacco, it's the only way to prevent a war back then...
Hope this helps
Reminds me of when I gave an aggressive homeless guy a cigarette to leave me and my friends alone 😭😭
Damn . …. That homeless guy end up eating your friends too?
@@ViktorReznov1945facts in college I carried a pack of smokes because homeless took that just as much as money 😂
@@c.a.greene8395 and people ask why im always offering a cigarette
Do not feel bad, Aidan, about the Titanic fear. My sister convinced me there was an Indian graveyard... in our attic. We are really dumb as kids.
Lived in an old house in California, me and my sister where convinced were haunted. Even thought we saw a mummy and a ghost fighting in the attic once. We were pretty young, and stupid. I don't even think I was school at the time.
Lol my toys use to spin when i was younger always had to sleep facing the wall with the blanket over my head
My dad watched some documentary on a wooly mammoth preserved in a glacier when I was little, and I became fully convinced that it was going to thaw out, come back to life, and stampede through our house and trample me to death in my sleep. Yeah. Kid logic is really something else
I remember going on a camping trip when I was in the Cubs (a thing in the UK where kids learn basic woodcraft skills), and my friend admitted that he was scared we were going to get attacked by a vampire in the middle of the night. I thought he was an idiot. Why would he be afraid of vampires when the real threat was OBVIOUSLY werewolves?
I was looking through a book about volcanoes with a couple of my classmates when we were too young to understand what any of it meant. From the pictures and what my friends told me, I came to believe that "bad people" controlled a satellite that could create volcanoes anywhere on the Earth's surface to use as a weapon. The world sure was a scary place back then 😢
If I remember there was a situation of one of the children talking about watching an adult cutting up a "skinned bear without it's head or paws" and feeding it to them. I don't know if you've ever seen a skinned bear, but they look very human like, and in cases of survival cannibalism (example the Franklin expedition) often the first thing we do is remove the human-ness by getting rid of the head, hands, and feet.
Some experts suspect those kids actually were seeing human remains being butchered and fed to them.
That's horrifying, but really interesting and the specific description makes that seem likely
My dad almost ran into trubble bear hunting this one time, after he had gotten the skin and head off for the taxidermy guy he was told ‘ off the bridge up the road’….. dumped it and looked and saw a scared as piss fisherman 😂… so ya… they really look like peaple
Yep that is definitely survival cannibalism. I wonder which person it was.
Thank you. Another Sweet, heartwarming story... in a veritable Sea of them, which i have Collected, and plan to use as Bedtime reading for... Tired, hopeless adults.
I will stop at horrifying
Fun fact back in the day PTSD used to be called Nostalgia. The meaning of that word has changed a lot. It was certainly acknowledged as an issue though mainly related to combat. It was pretty well documented in earlier history symptoms are written about in epic poems and later noted by various military physicians.
Yes ive read several civil war diaries that mention “morose soldiers” who wouldnt talk or socialize with anyone, would wander the edges of camp by themselves, wouldnt speak or write letters, but could still be counted on to fight fiercely shoulder to shoulder in any upcoming battles.
PTSD was definitely observed and noticed, but didnt have an actual diagnosis yet.
Wow that’s interesting you guys I gotta keep an eye out for the word nostalgic and morose now when listening to older history this will add more depth thanks to you both
@@sterlingwilkes3240lpi
@@sterlingwilkes3240Those were Sigmas
PTSD was called shell shocked.
So im actually a direct descendant of the donner party, my grandma even had some journal pages and pictures saved! I dont know where they are though, she showed me them when I was little and I havent seen em in ages. I love seeing stuff on my ancestors lol. Excited to watch the rest of the video.
Woah! That's really interesting :o Must be nice to know where your family comes from (though not really a story you can tell at a Winter party lol)
As long as you aren't a Graves
thats so cool! Well like, sorry you ancestors cannibalized people but that must make for some good stories
Hey, this is crazy, but I'm actually a descendant of the Reed family. Unfortunately, we don't have much in the way of pictures or anything though. Least not available to me, I'm not that close with that side of my family.
lying morons really bug me ugh woa is me.
A schooner is a sailing ship. The wagons sailed over the prairie. I've studied the Donner party for over 40 years and want to say you did a good job with this video.
Also is pronounced skooner not shooner
my brother in Christ im calling your bull shit. You have not studied this little insignificant event for 40 fucking years
I'm surprised you didn't mention the palace wagon that the Donner family were forced to abandon while crossing the salt flats south of Salt Lake. It was very awkward terrain, as it was sandy, but water bogged, so the wagon wheels ended up sinking very deep into it and getting stuck. The Donner family had a unusually large wagon, and they ended up being forced to abandon it in the salt flats. Well, the wagon stayed where it was abandoned, and were discovered and photographed in the 1930s, and excavated by archeologists in 1996. There are still sections of the Donner party's wagon trail that are visible today out on the salt flats.
That's amazing!! I've known a bit about the salt flats and the wagon however, I had NO idea it was excavated or that you can still see a part or parts of it today.
Thanks for the extra, well written info!
@@atmywhitson If you Google "The Hastings Trail* from Grantsville, Utah to Donner Spring, Utah", you can check out a lot of great pictures that show the remains of the Hastings trail through the salt flats, and some of the remains of the wagons that were abandoned.
Yeah if your traveling through an area with the same properties as the moon when it comes to foot prints your going to have a bad time.
these long videos are literally PERFECT for my super long crochet or knitting sessions. LIFESAVING!!! my brain needs something interesting during the repeating patterns!! tysm
Haha same, fellow fibre friend!
Yes!! I listen to these videos while drawing or painting
Same here!
his deadpanned stare as he makes the jokes never fails to make me giggle
SAME
When I was a kid, I was convinced quicksand would be a major obstacle in life. I was lied to
I actually went on a couple dates with a woman who got stuck in quicksand
Once again, you’ve outdone yourselves. 2 1/2 hours packed full of information. Beautiful video
You know, im starting to think all these videos on missing people and paranormal creatures are really just history lessons in disguise. You cant make me learn things, damn it! I refuse!
Hehehehe
@@TheLoreLodgethat’s what I love about your videos! I love history, and the paranormal, and how much you go into detail. You are officially my favorite TH-cam channel, and that will not change!
Thank you for hiding all this history in something as menial as stories about missing people and paranormal. XD It's giving me so much more history than I ever learned with my school.@@TheLoreLodge
I got bad grades in History in school and college, but it was the way they taught it back then that turned me off. We were forced to memorize dates and events like accountants. As I got older, studying history became my major pursuit in life. "Truth is stranger than fiction" as I always say.
The donner-reed party story is so interesting and we just skip over it in high school. There are so many stories in world history that we just have to skip over because we dont have the time.
Imagine a miniseries of the adventure focusing on the forlorn hope.
Yeah, I kept saying why hasn't someone made a miniseries out of this!
Hey man, what would you do if they hadnt retaught you the american revolution every single year? Do you even really need to know anything else?
I’m actually directly related to the group of the Donner family that stayed in the Dakotas so I always love learning more about this story!
You should read the indifferent stars above
Wow, that is so cool, I have no knowledge of my ancestors just that I know I'm 100% Mayan because of my eyes and the very smooth skin I have all over my body and that I was born in El Salvador, Centro America, I regret not asking my father and mother and grandparents about our history and now I'm dying to know more about my history. Wow, you have such an amazing history
The fact that one of them got "The Hunger" is terrifying. And then being beaten and threatened is fantastic. That was an actual hero moment and I was rooting for Eddie the whole time. I think it has some depth that's both psychological and harkens to the legends. In *all* of those moments, Eddie's *true* character was on display, how he viewed those around him. He viewed living human beings as *human beings,* and ones with a lot of value by virtue of being alive.
On the other hand, at the other guy's psychological center, stripped of all dignity and all hope, openly and viscerally demonstrated that he viewed humans around him as disposable; not able to overcome the part of our primate brain that gives us the "We really need food *now* man" signal. The gluttony.
Eddie *knew* there was non-human food, and at his core, was able to resist that evolutionary trait. And also had reverence for those around him despite it all. I don't think eating flesh was the catalyst. I think it's correlation, not causation. Who are we when we're pushed into corners and pressure applied more and more? None of us really know until the chips are down.
When we know there's no other option, and the end is likely near, most of us are going to show our 100% true colors. And I doubt they're all very pretty...
Edit: To elaborate: There was *instant* gratification that crosses wires in the brain. A man is annoyed at someone who he doesn't view as human anymore, but food. So... two birds, one stone; right? Smart. And insane. But it associates our brain's reward system with humans in both a mental and physical way. We *need* to eat, but we *want* to hurt. What happens when you're between the two? It's a rock in a hard place, *or* it's a chance to fix two problems.
@@LostArchivistseriously…. No amount of philosophy is going to save you to the elements of the wild.
@@kattatonic8010 I deleted my last post, I realized I misunderstood what OP was saying.
I pray to God I never have to be tested on it. But I would rather die than resort to such.l means . I am not saying I am morally superior, I do think I would be less of a human being if I did though. It is a terrible, terrifying, and unimaginable position to be in to be that desperate.
So there's actually a portion of your brain called the hypothalamus that prevents you from eating other people. Literally that's what does it, it's why we view it as so gross when we're appropriately fed. There is a biological point where you have starved enough it basically quits working in that capacity and it can happen at what are basically different tolerances per person. There's not really anything hyper philosophical about it it's just how we function and it's a part of every human being it's tied directly to your own nutrition and has nothing to do with you being able to see the food and more to do with have you consumed enough food.
I have been anxiously checking this channel every day for the update. It is finally here.
He uploads every Friday! 😊
A not so fun fact is that while the Donner Party was trapped in the Sierra Nevada, the Franklin Expedition was icebound in the Canadian Arctic at the exact same time. The winter of 1846 was absolutely brutal.
This is my personal most anticipated video of the year.
I hope it was up to your expectations!
@@TheLoreLodge Expectations exceeded!
I spent my early childhood growing up in Donner lake in Truckee and went to elementary school right down the street from the park with the Donner party monument with the hand marking the depth of the snow. Even growing up around this story, I did not know the complete history. The snow would get so deep my dad would throw me off the balcony into the snow from the very top. Thank you for the amount of work you put into this!
I had no idea there was anywhere near this much detail on individual movements and actions within that party. All you usually hear is they got stuck in the snow and ate each other. Your ability to research in depth and really bring the people to life, so to speak, is what makes your content so very enjoyable. Thank you so much for this!
Ordeal By Hunger is an amazing book about the series using many of the members journals
@feliformia7048 Thank you. I added to my future reading list, and I have never heard of this book. You are amazing ❤❤
THANK YOU for doing this story justice!!! I live close to Truckee and grew up learning about the Donner Party in school. It always saddens me when people don't know the whole story. I have seen many videos that skip over half of their story and paint them as complete morons, as well as videos that just read off the wikipedia page. This video is absolutely incredible and is truly special.
The way you tell a story keeps me engaged and entertained. It’s packed full of information and the occasional joke thrown in is much appreciated. Not sure how I came across your channel but I love your videos man. I’ve been watching for about a month and I have loads of content to check out! Keep up the good work and I wish you success bro!
I wonder if Elizabeth Graves was suffering some sort of psychotic episode. She could have just been an evil, sadist, but the circumstances seem like the kind to trigger a psychotic episode and her sudden hatred of the Reeds could have been driven by some type of paranoia. This purely speculation on part of course.
Maybe, but it was repeated behavior over several months, so either she was completely over the edge and never fame back or...just evil.
Accounts of Elizabeth from before the family left for the journey report has being an unusually generous woman, going out of her way to help people in need in her hometown. So my guess is leaning less towards her being evil
She wanted more human cattle and a "natural" death was viewed as more morally capable to be eaten
Oddly enough, she developed a Yiddish accent throughout the trip
@@brianalambert1192 The true test of any virtue is when it costs you the most. Or as C.S. Lewis put it, courage is every other virtue at the breaking point.
Omggggg, I’m literally the “Oregon Trail generation” (1978-1981, because we played it at school first, lolol) and I’m SO hyped that I caught the premiere of this video-I’ve been looking forward to it! Thank you guys for covering this!!
I use the play that in school, never did make it to Oregan in that game.
We all died many times in 1981, usually of dysentery.
PBS put out a two part episode of American Experience in 1992 about the Donner Party, directed by Ken Burns. It has an eerie atmosphere, appropriately despondent background music with shots of the snow falling, always falling through the trees. Made me appreciate for the first time what they went through.
Yea. That documentary was on TH-cam but got taken down. Took me months to find a copy. Finally did though and I have a copy of it
Ric burns made it. it's back on youtube.
Pronghorns are also cool because they have evolutionary features left over from when they were hunted by the North American equivalent of a cheetah
Yep, they were called the American Cheetah, though they were actually Cougars that evolved to be faster. Also, Pronghorns belong to the same clade as Goats, Sheep, and Muskox
Just so people know the Cheetahs clostest living relative is the Cougar, aka mountain Lion. So the American Cheetah were cousins of the mountain lions
@@ozzywalker609 Pumas and American cheetahs are sister species so American cheetahs were the ancestors of modern cougars that adapted to be faster, not cougars that adapted to be faster. And African cheetahs and cougars are in the same lineage, from when the continents hadn’t split yet, so they’re all cousins. Don’t make it seem like the name American cheetah is a complete misnomer and they aren’t related to African cheetahs, because they actually are fairly closely related.
@@ozzywalker609, they’re closer to giraffes
This is potentially as Epic and a complete telling of this tale as you hoped, during the drunk podcast.
So far, fantastic. I have no reason to believe this shall not continue.
The backstories to the baxkstories are a key to your effective storytelling
It's amazing hearing about the Donner Party in such detail. Like, I knew about it from the general gist most people know about, people get lost in the snow and starve until resorting to cannibalism. But hearing about the people, the conditions, and just general misfortune, makes it real in a way it wasn't before. These were not unprepared people, they were not going about this endeavor willy nilly, they were people who were misled, made mistakes, and had a great deal of misfortune befall them. Really enjoyed this video, thanks for doing a lot of hard work to get it to us!
2:20:59 I agree. I’ve been obsessed with this story for many years for the same reasons you outline. I would absolutely love to see a mini-series made about it exploring all the amazing narratives and characters. There has been a movie made but it really didn’t honor the story as it deserves to be told.
I can't believe that there was a guy named Chuck Burger in the Donner cannibal party
I think he was the first to be cannibalized. The only body that was not cannibalized was that of Stu Gristle.
Can't say enough about your HARD WORK!...A#1 PROFESSIONAL JOB. You are to be commended...i'm 69& its so refreshing to see young men taking life seriously. Thank u
I am a long distant relative to the Donners and I know a lot about this story and I still learned so much from this video!!
Damn what a terrible fucking family legacy lmao those family reunions barbecues or?
The Teamsters got their names not from 'driving wagons' but from the teams of horses they managed.
As someone who lives in SLC, I could not imagine going up and down the Wasatch with wagons, draft animals, and no trail. They are extremely steep and rugged, great for skiing though.
Gosh I'd love to see a fictionalized version of this amazing story, "The Terror" Style
There is a book called The Hunger that is a similar style with a super natural element to it similar to the terror. It's very good but yah I also wish there was a show haha
This was supposed to be my cleaning background audio but i am CAPTIVATED. I thought I knew the story in depth but apparently not! Love the native history, I have learned more from you about the different tribes than any other source. It feels nice to see a content creator actually care about the ENTIRE history of the land and not just post-colonialism, european descendents-centered history.
Feels like the lodge has been closed forever! Stoked for a new video!!
Fact: The highest and lowest points of elevation in the contiguous 48 states of the US are both in California.
When I shared this fact with a fellow Marine back in the 1990s he told me I was wrong, and pointed out the fact that Denver, CO is the "Mile High City" with an elevation of 5,280 feet. I didn't have the elevation in my mind at the time to point out that Donner Pass is at an elevation of just under 9,000 feet and snowfall is often measured in feet, not inches.
Also I grew up in Sacramento, CA and learned about the Donner Party, but not to this extent back when I was a kid. I've been to Sutter's Fort, Sutter's Mill (where gold was discovered and set off the CA gold rush of 1849), and many of the CA locations mentioned in this story. So hearing about it all from someone else who's done the research was awesome. Love the videos, keep up the good work.
As someone whos watched every Lore Lodge video i can't lie Aiden this is y'all's Magnum opus so far! Keep up the great work and God bless you fellas!
not only did i watch the full 2 and a half hours of this with rapt attention, but i went to work the next day and told all my coworkers about it. i LOVE your longform video storytelling. these are so fucking fantastic and get me hooked on topics i truly never expected to care about. bless you for these, and pls continue this trend of longer and longer videos
I recently read a book on this, so it's fresh on my mind. The impression I got on Elizabeth Graves was not one of evilness, but one of desperation and psychological destruction. The debt was from her husband giving the Reeds 4-8 oxen with the express promise they would be paid back at the end of the journey; so the ox hides were in effect her family's oxen, and she was also feeding her children the ox hide glue in the same cabin as the Reeds which the Graves had mostly built. And though she had a lot of money stockpiled, none of that was going to feed her children right now. The Graves had more or less taken the Reeds in after the father was exiled and were sharing resources with them. So I'm less inclined to believe that Elizabeth's decision was out of malice or cruelty and more along the lines of desperation for her own children to survive and possibly a growing resentment towards the Reeds.
That's not to say that I think the Reeds were ungrateful or unkind to the Graves, but I can easily see how Elizabeth Graves could rationalize this action given how much help the Graves gave the Reeds before hand. "My family has given them all this, we brought them into our cabin, we gave them our oxen, and my children are going to starve because of it." That is what I imagine was going through her head. Was it admirable that she did this in this situation when the Reeds had nothing else? Hell no. But I also think this is a representation of just how desperate the situation made them. Elizabeth was described in accounts as an abnormally generous woman in her home town, going out of her way to help others. So the fact that her desire to keep her own children alive at the expense of the Reed family's survival drove her to this is very telling.
In the same way that James Reeds is the hero of the story, down to a big emotional reunion with his family and Keensburg is an irredeemable villain just falling to the depths of depravity, I see Elizabeth as somewhere in the middle. She's not a hero, but she was a good person who fell into darkness
I would never have though to give this the significance its probably due because this is an entire case study on everything from sociology to psychology to even diplomacy. I always envisioned it as far more cut and dry or far more stationary than the tale ever was and the conflicts within it spread for far longer than I expected, some even to the discomfort with Keysburg at the beginning. I think we disagree a lot on the way we approach the mythical or mysterious but here we are alike because this was amazing, illuminating, and interesting.
I have never in my life laughed at a video within the first 10 minutes more 😂 Aiden coming through blessing us all with that dry humor we know and love
I once jumped on a train in Roseville, California. That goes over Donners' pass. It was June, and there was a foot of snow or more.... that run ended up being the coolest run I've ever been on. It comes out of the mountains in sparks nevada.... when I was coming down the mountain... it looked like I had a birds eye view of lake Tahoe..... I'm amazed that any of the donner party made it.
We went to visit lake tahoe and went ro visit the Donner state park museum. We listened to this on the drive home and it added a whole different dimension of awe and wonder at what they went through. There's a statue that shows how high the snow level was so you get a real sense of the magnitude. Also what an interesting thing that as bad as it was they could appreciate the beauty of the wilderness around them, it really is beautiful out there
My brother and I backpacked on the PCT about 5 miles from Donner Lake, we've also driven past it a couple times over the years.
Amazing work.
I grew up part-time in Southern California , so of course, this was part of my school curriculum, but of course it was also really glossed over, because nobody tells kids the grisly stuff. Also I think most accounts I've heard only focus on the part in the pass, and the fact that they had taken a route that wasn't proven. You covered everything beforehand that contributed to the problems, such as that they were probably already not in the highest level of nutrition when they got there, which probably played a lot into how long some of them lasted.This is the most thorough account i've ever heard, well done.
As a Utahn I, 1) thank you Aiden for finally pronouncing Wasatch right. 2) can confirm as a that as an early pioneer traveling through the territory now known as Utah and Nevada would be about that absolute worst decision anyone could make.
I swear I do take the feedback to heart regarding pronunciation haha
But he mispronounced schooner.
I’m up early this morning. Remembering my teacher showing my class films based on the donner party back when I was in elementary. Turn the lights off, sit with your friends in class while we watched the movies. Those were the good ol days 🙌🏾
Someone seriously needs to make a James Reed movie/series. He got streets named after him, became a orchard worker, sheriff, active community member, participated in two gold rush.
I like this story because I live like two miles from the camp, so whenever I hear it I recognise all the lakes and rivers.
I cannot imagine the amount of research that went into this video! Thank you so much for all the hard work!! And I loved your way of story-telling. To tell the truth, I am not necessarily always interested in the story as such; I just love some narration playing in the background, while I'm doing some housework, playing a computer game, and suchlike. But every time I still learn something new, and some stories stay imprinted in my memory forever. Today's story definitely falls in this category. You have a new subscriber :)
Thank you!
Ah, quicksand, piranhas and the Titanic - the fears of every kid addicted to Choose Your Own Adventure books.
This was the best documentary of the Donner Party I've ever seen. Well done.
"A man named Bridger" what a way to glance over one of the most famous mountain men ever.
Wow, my friend. Wow. I hike long distance, like LONG distance and can appreciate the horror of this story. I couldn't imagine winter bearing down and having to eat my friends. I go to great lengths to research my sections like you research stories and accounts. You are mad appreciated for this massive effort. Thank you for this especially ❤️
Family is on vacation out west and they left me at home in Missouri to do farmwork. Sent this nice uplifting video to them. Good luck!!!
The Donner Party's probably my all time favorite story in history. It's just comedic levels of how tragic it was.
On the half of everyone thank you for this video, I'm scared to think how much editing and reshoots and resources, plus the hours it took to create this. Thanks again for the amazing content.
I loved the deep dive into this piece of history, and find it funny that one of my friends was able to watch an entire movie within the time I listened to this video.
Keseburg seems like a serial killer, not just a man desperate for food and out to rob the dead.
37:08 Joseph Walker was my great-great-grandfather's younger brother. He has minor fame as a pathfinder and furtrapper.
His older brother had already traveled the Oregon Trail with his wife and children (including my great-great-grandfather) and had settled in Sonoma County.
I’m from Sacramento, Ca and have known about the Donnor party my whole life, living only 1.5 hours from where it happened. I moved to Omaha, Ne and no one here has heard of it! Even So-Cal ppl I met had never. So crazy!
In fifth grade we learned about the Donner Party by having our classroom reading for a couple weeks being a book that was supposed to be the perspective of one the Reed daughter’s dolls
😂 was it good? Cuz my first thought is wtf
At 9 years old I was enjoying it I got sick and missed a couple days of school so I missed the part between shortly after the cache in the desert was left to the middle of when people were dying. It’s Called Patty Reed’s Doll. The doll in question was an actual doll that Patty, the eight year old, actually hid on her the her mother had told her to leave with their cached belongings. The doll is currently kept by the Sutter fort museum
Something to remember about Elizabeth Grave's silver cache was that the money was the only thing her family would have to build any life if they survived. Her husband along with her son-in-law, Jay Fosdick, were dead. All their goods would likely be lost in the mountains and the only survivors ended up being children, with Sarah Graves-Fosdick being the eldest at 20 to take care of her 4 siblings.
Also the Forlorn Hope party made sure that they kept the flesh from each person separate to make sure no one had to eat their loved ones. So that's nice.
This was the greatest ad for Nord VPN I've ever heard
I believe that Keesburg just stayed behind so he could commit to cannibalism. He seemed to have no issues carving up the bodies.
He even ate the remains of his infant son who died, I feel even if a normal person was absolutely desperate there’s no way they’d resort to eating their baby
Honestly i think the native American had a point about eating human flesh. Clearly that man had been tainted by something. I know there is a God and keesburg surely had quite the interesting conversation with our lord when he passed.@thebutterytoster5721
Fun fact: the band American Murder Song created a whole concept album about the Donner Party in 2017. Worth a listen if you get a chance.
Margaret Reed was the niece of my 6th great grandfather. I moved to California a couple of years ago and discovered my next door neighbor was the descendant of Leanna Donner. Our families had been through a horrific ordeal and we decided to befriend each other with an agreement: No killing and eating each other. It is dark humor but it allowed us to laugh in light of such a horrific family tragedy.
*Edit for spelling and clarity
The Tuckers of the rescue party are my ancestors and one is my namesake. Reason P. Tucker helped organize and lead the initial rescue efforts.
From a memorial in Napa County, CA:
"Born in Virginia in 1806, Reason moved West in successive leaps and arrived in California in 1846 escaping by one day the Sierra snow that trapped the Donner Party. "Captain" Tucker led the first, and participated in, later rescue efforts."
Wow! What an incredible video, bravo guys. I've lived on the NV side of the Sierras basically my whole life and the story of the Donner party is one I've heard more times than I can count. Hearing it in it's shortened form, it sounds almost too sensational and gruesome to be true. More akin to a local legend than an actual historical event. But hearing it laid out in this format, with the entire timeline from start to finish and the journal entries, makes it very real. These people did everything in their power to survive and did so until their last breath. Truly heartbreaking but also a great example of the human instinct to do everything we can to survive. Forever cemented in Californian and American history, the Donner party is one of those stories you can hardly believe is true. But it was very, very real for those who experienced it some 150+ years ago
This was a RIDE! I remember you saying you were going to do more long form, but this was next level. Thank you for your dedication.
Thank you. I finally know why it's called the Teamsters' Union--because you refer to the guys who were in charge of the teams of critters who pulled the supply wagons cross country in the wagon trains as "teamsters".
Be honest, how many hours did you put in reading these old journals? 20? 50? This is so detailed
Had a lot of help from Daniel Rosen over at the Donner Party Diary website. He distilled these journal entries into a coherent timeline.
I grew up outside Reno on the way up to Truckee and learned today my little town was on the Donner emigrate trail. It is so interesting to hear all the places I have not seen in 30 years being talked about and have so many memories come back. While Lovelock reminds me of middle school Donner will always mean elementary school to me. I never had as great of appreciation until now that even though it was the 80's the story was toned down to less nightmare inducing. I remember the many pictures our family had of items and wagons just left on the side of the trail. I am pretty sure one of the stoves we had were from a wagon in the desert. I remember seeing the ruts from the trail still in the dirt even after 100 years had passed. I had literally forgotten about all of this history so thank you for reminding me.
I was so excited for this video and you did not disappoint! I’m a huge fan of how strangely poetic this story is, and I’m glad there are others out there willing to make informed and accurate content about it. Loved the video, keep up the great work:)
As a resident of Reno, Nevada - born and raised - I forget that people across the country don't know about the donner party. Its taught to us in school for like, a week. It's fascinating!!
Great work. I have heard the story before, and even saw an old movie once, when I was around 12, but I never knew the detail of it you provided here. I have found I have to be careful with what I watch, as certain things provide too much "detail" and it messes with my head for a long time after. Thank you for your providing of this info, as any show would have messed up my brain for months. It's a tragic story.
The memories of this game are so vivid. The beige AppleII computer. The school room with no air conditioning. The teacher's assistant loading up the floppies. The stress and excitement of making different choices. So glad I grew up when I did.
This reminds me of road trips I've been on where the driver was obsessed with making good time with no consideration for the other people in the car
This New Subscriber says, "The Donner Party had MORE than enough bones to pick with (or from) each other."
Is this a jolly, 'humerus' story? No! But is it stellar storytelling at it's best? Absolutely YES!!! 🐎🐄🐂
I was today years old when I learned that an ox is just a castrated bull. I always thought it was some kind of hybrid cattle or another animal related to cattle or a cross (something like a mule.) This is really embarrassing to admit, being a sixth generation Texan. Thanks, Aiden! I learn something from you every video.
But I did know all about pronghorns!
@Kerryjotx it's not just a castrated bull (aka a steer), it's one that has been trained to work.
@@LordCandyDish Yes, I should have added that. Thanks 😊
Grew up near donnor pass, there is a pillar built to the height of the snow at the pass that stopped the party. A small but fun museum is also on the site.
Man, this video was great, I hope we get more stuff like this in the future, even if it takes 2 months to research and write haha. Thanks so much, Aidan for all the effort you put in, the result was definitely worth it.
You did an awesome job on this!! Thank You!! I’m from Oklahoma and had never heard this. My Husband was in the Air Force and in 1993 we got order to Edwards AFB out in the Mojave Desert. We were 30 years old with a 7 and a 2 yo. We were supposed to be there fur 2 years, it turned out we lived in California for 23 years. So we got very familiar with California. I remember as we were driving to Edwards from Oklahoma for the first time, as we started going through all the mountains, we talked about the Pioneers, what it must of been like, coming from all over the Country, to get Rick on hold. How did they make it through the terrain…then living in California and learning about the Donner party. Visiting these places, seeing the kind of weather they have!! I just can’t imagine what these poor people went through!! California terrain is crazy!! My. Whitney, the highest point in California and Death Valley, the lowest point in California, are only 13 miles apart. When you listen to the stories of the nightmare these poor people went through, and hear about the slightest wrong turn they took, knowing that the could have been out of that terrible weather, if they had just went another direction. Again, TY very much!! You did a great job!
Coming home after work to a 2.5 hour video was a happy surprise. I'll be going to bed late tonight
I'm a ravenous consumer of this kind of content. Seen a lot of Donner Party stuff, but the amount of time and research you put into this made it the most interesting I've seen on the subject! Thank you!
I am absolutely addicted to this channel. Everything you guys put out is of the highest quality, and I recommend your channel to all of my schizo friends!
ive been binging your videos for a few weeks now, and have been loving the breakup of the videos into two categories, pre-american history and missing people. The history segments are even more appreciated cause it all feels like info i really should have been taught earlier
I like the idea of hating Illinois so much that a 240 acre farm isn't good enough to stay.
As someone who lives in Illinois and i would also leave a 240 acre farm for literally anything else