The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1875-04-29
The Horrible Story of Bonner Lake.

The tamcncSs and samcncsS of the OBJ
jccts by the way render portions of the Pa
citic Railroad ride mOnOtOnOus enough
Other portions are so crowded with inter
esting features that-cven with the slow
rate of these trains-thc traveller has not
| time to see all or anything so well as he
could wish This rapid succession of
| beautiful curious and grand objects, with
| lack of adequate time to see them, is eX-
pGrienccd in crossing the Sierra Nevada
Mountains. In the last miles of the as
cent, going west, the pine forests, the bold
cscarpments, the deep gttifs, the granite
ridges, spurs and peaks, and the train
| slowly winding up the sharp curves of
nearly 100 feet grade per mile, may SO
claim the attention that the lakelct to the
right, far below some parts of the road
| from which it is visible, may escape no.
ticc. But it ought not. Fail to see some
thing else well worth seeing rather than
fail to get this lakelct and its surroundings
| fixed in the mind. Its dimensions are
only about one by three and a half miles.
1t is clear, cold, deep" girdled
with narrow margin of pebbly
beach, encirclcd by dark and stately for
csts, and ovcrshadowcd by towering noun
tains." Its beauty has gained for it the
appcllation, Gem of the Sierra" 1t is
Donncr Lake, and the name commcm-
crates an event whose details impress the
| bchOlder more than the beauty of the
Gem itself or the grandeur of its set
| ting. The event is one of the most hor
rid in the history of Western pioneering
Here the gaunt specter, Famine, an un
hidden and unwelcome guest, sat at the
camp-fires of four-score belated, snow
bound emigrants till, ieshless and hollow
eyed as himself, nearly half of their num-
Der miserably perished. 1t is the site of
Starvation Camp" and for weeks these
mountain slopes looked down upon human
beings turned ghouls; bchcld their horrid
feasts of human flesh, and echoed the
prayers and cries of anguish, the moans
and hideous shrieks of the despairing and
crazed wretches as, one by one, they
starred to deah and became the loath-
some food of those who yet survived.
In 1916 an emlgrant party of some
eighty persons-men, women and children
mostly Illinoisans, and headed by Mr..
George Donner, of Sangamon County, ILL.,,
by exploring new route through a por-
ton of the Great Basin were so delayed
that they did not reach the Sierra till late
in October, and found the mountains
already white with snow. Some years
there is no difficulty in crossing three or
four weeks later than this, but there is
danger of deep snow after the middle of
October They encamped at the foot of
this lake October 81, and allowed the
stock to wander in search of grass-a fatal
mistake A snow storm came on, and the
next day they built rude cabins for shell
ter. The animals were lost, and the snow
soon got SO deep they could not go on if
they had them; but being short of provis
ions they would have furnished food for
their support till spring. Day by day the
snow came down till it was many
feet deep, as the trees, cut for
fuel at height of fifteen and twen-
ty feet above the ground, show. At
tempts were frequently made by small
parties to advance on foot, but the snow
as often forced them back. BY the mid
die of December their food was about
gone, and the terrible alternatives were
just before them of starving or of sustain
ing life by feeding on the flesh of those
who might die or be dispatched. Know
ing that to remain was to perish, and that
they could but perish by the way, eight
men and five women, with two Indian
guides, set out on the 18th on snow-shoes,
determined to get to the settlements be-
vond the mountains if possible. They
crossed the summit the first day, but ow-
ing to the great labor of travelling on snow
shoes in the very soft snow got
only twenty miles beyond their cab
ins by the goth. This day they
made eight miles, but one man,
Mr. Stanton, gave out and was left behind
to perish. This locality was doubtless
near what is now Cisco Station. A snow
storm detained them till the Esd, when
they travelled eight miles, though it was
still showing, and encamped in deep
valley. The valley most probably was
the Bear Valley of to-day, just to the right
of Emigrant Gap Station, going west,
through which the emigrant road wound
in ante-railroad days. BY morning the
snow had so deepened and was so light
they could not go on. 1t put out their
fire, which they were unable to rekindle
until the afternoon of the 26th, keeping
themselves from perishing meantime by
huddling together with blankets under