The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1876-04-13
The Rescue CT the ssDOnner Party.''

Readers of Bret Hartc's Gabriel Con-
roy' will remember the following foot
note which occurs in connection with the
authors description of scenes in Starva-
ton Camp:
II fear I must task the incredulous
readers further patience by calling atten-
ton to what may, perhaps, prove tho
most literal and thoroughly attesled fact
of this otherwise fanciful chronicle. The
condition and situation of the i'll famed
Donner Party'-then an unknown, uni,er-
aided cavalcade Of emf grants- starving in
an unfrequentcd pass Of the Sierras, was
first made known to Captain Yount, of
Napa, in dream The Spanish records
of California show that the relief party
which succored the survivors was pro-
jected upon this Spiritual information.
In the thorough scrutiny to which every
thing relating to the Heroic Age of Cali
fornia has been subjected, there are,
probably, few beyond the mountains who
are not familiar with the details of the
above expedition. There are many in the
East, however, who will be interested in
Captain Yount's own version of this
strange occurrence, as related by him to
the late Rev. Dr. Horace Bushnell. We
quote from mature and the Supcrnat-
ural," pages 475-6:
AS sat by the fire, one stormy No
vember night, in a hotel paror, in the
Napa Valley of California, there came in
most venerable ana benignant- looking
person, with his wife, taking their seats in
learned, was Capt Yount, a man who
more than forty years ago. Here he has
1ivnH anart from ho Craat world and itS
questions, acquiring an immense landed
estate and becoming kind of acknowl-
edged patriarch in the country. His tall,
manly person, and his gracious, paternal
look, as totally unsophisticated in the eX-
preston as if he had never heard of Il
philosophic doubt or question in his life,
marked him as the true patriarch. Tho
conversation turned, l know not how, on
Spiritism and the modern necromancy,
and he discovered degree of inclination
to believe in the reported mysteries. His
wife, much younger and apparently
Christian person, intmatcd that probably
he was predisposed to this kind of faith
by very peculiar experience of his own,
and evidently desired that he might be
drawn out by some intelligent discussion
of his queries.
Sat my request, he gave me his story.
| About six or seven years previous, in a
mid winters night he had dream, in
which he saw what appeared to be COM
pany of emigrants, arrested by the SHOWS
of the mountains, and perishing rapidly
by cold and hunger. He noted the very
cast of the scenery, marked by huge,
| perpendicular front of white rock clilf;
he saw men cutting off what appeared to
be tree-tops, rising out of deep CULTS Of
snow; he distinguished the very features
of the persons, and the look of their par
ticular distress. He woke, profoundly inn
pressed with the distinctn-s and appar-
ent reality of his dream At length he
fell asleep, and dreamed exactly the same
dream again. In the morning he could
not expel it from his mind. Falling in,
shortly, with an old hunter comrade, he
told him the story, and was only the more
deeply impressed by his recognizing.
without hesitation, the scenery OF the
the dream. This comrade came over the
Sierra, by the Carson Valley Pass, and
exactly to his description. BY this the
unsopi,isticated patriarch was decided
He Immediately collected a company of
men, with mules and blankets, and all
necessary provisions. The neighbors were
laughing, meantime, at his credulity. NO
matter said he, I am able to do this,
and will, for verify believe that the
fact is according to my dream The men
were sent into the mountains, $50 miles
distant, directly to the Carson Valley Pass.
And there they found the company, in ex-
actly the condition of the dream, and
brought in the remnant alive.
"a gentleman present said: You
need have no doubt of this, for we Cali
fornians all know the facts, and the names
of the families broughtin, who now look
upon our venerable friend as kind of
SAVIOR These names he gave. and the
places where they reside, and found aft
erward, that the California people were
ready, everywhere, to second his testi-
mony ."-Scrsbner for April