Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1876-04-13


Readers of Bret Harte's Gabriel
Conroy" will remember the follow
ing foot-note which occurs in con-
nection with the authors descrip-
ton of Starvation Camp:
81 fear / must task the incredu-
lous readers further patience by
calling attention to what may, per-
haps, prove the most literal and
thoroughly attested fact of this
otherwise fanciful chronicle. The
condition and situation of the i'll
fated Donner Party'-then an un-
known, nnheralded cavalcade of
emigrants-starving in an unfre-
quented pass Of the Sierras, was
first made known to Captain
Yount, of Napa,in a dream.
The Spanish records of California
show that the relief party which
suocored the survivors was pro-
jected upon this Spiritual informa-
tion."
In the thorough scrutiny to
which everything relating to the
Heroic Age of California 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.
DIR. Horace Bushnell. We quote
from 'Nature and the Supernatu-
ral," pages 1856:
GAS | sat by the fire one stormy
November night, in a hotel parlor,
in the Napa Valley of California,
there came in a most venerable and
benignant-looking person, with his
wife, taking their seats in the circle.
The stranger, as l afterwards
learned, was Captain Yount, a man
who came over into California as a
trapper more than forty years ago.
Here he has lived, apart from the
great world and its questions, ac-
quiring an immense landed estate,
and becoming a kind of acknowl-
edged patriarch in the country. His
tall, manly person, and his gracious,
paternal look, as totally unsophisti-
Gated in the expression as if he had
never heard of a philosophic doubt
or question in his life, marked him
as the true patriarch. The CONVEX
sation turned, l know not how, on
LSpiritism and the modern NEGRO
NANCY, and he discovered a degree
of inclination to believe in the re-
ported mysteries. His wife, a much
younger and apparently Christian
person, intimated that probably he
was predisposed to this kind of faith
by a very peculiar experience of his
own, and evidently desired that he
might be drawn out by some intel
ligent discussion Of his queries.
cat my request, he gave me his
story. About six or seven years
previous, in a mid-winter's night
he had a dream, in which he saw
what appeared to be a company Of
emigrants, arrested by the SHOWS Of
the mountains, and perishing rapid
ly by cold and hunger. He noted
the very cast Of the scenery, marked
by huge, perpendicular front Of
white rock cliff; he saw men cut.
ting 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 particular distress
He woke profoundly impressed with
the distinctness and apparent
reality of bis 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 hin
the story, and was only the more
deeply impressed by his recogniz'
ing, without hesitation, ,Ithe scenery
of the dream. This comrade came
over the Sierra, by the Carson Val
ley Pass, and declared that a spo
in the pass answered exactly to hi
description. BY this the unsophis
ticated patriarch was decided. HI
i Immediately collected a company o