Nancy HermanAug 15, 20211 minFollowing the Donner Party“I have not wrote you half the trouble we have had but I have wrote enough to let you know you don’t know what trouble is.” With these...
Nancy HermanAug 14, 20211 minInto the frontier: April 1846In 1846, Independence, Missouri was a westernmost city of the United States, as well as the crossroads for the Santa Fe and Oregon...
Nancy HermanAug 13, 20211 minA dangerous crossing: May 18461800s photo of a Caw boatman poling a raft that carried pioneer wagons across the Kansas River. After following Virginia Reed’s route via...
Nancy HermanAug 12, 20212 minAlcove Spring: May 1846Once on the other side of the Kansas River, the Donner and Reed families joined up with the much larger Russell Company, which was made...
Nancy HermanAug 11, 20211 minThe first death: May 1846The Big Blue River camp is an important landmark because it’s where Virginia Reed’s grandmother died of consumption. It was the first...
Nancy HermanAug 10, 20212 minAcross the Great Plains: June 1846Explorers, trappers and eventually, all west-bound emigrants followed the winding Platte River four hundred miles across the Great Plains...
Nancy HermanAug 8, 20212 minA Warning from fort Laramie: June 1846Fort Laramie, in what is now Wyoming, was the only real community pioneers saw on their long trek across the frontier. In 1846 it was...
Nancy HermanAug 7, 20211 minHalfway to California: July 1846(1800s illustration of wagon train parked beneath Independence Rock.) Independence Rock was the halfway mark to California. Some claimed...
Nancy HermanAug 6, 20211 minA parting of the ways: July 1846(Above: The newly named Donner Party took this left hand turn near the Little Sandy River, in what is now Wyoming. They hoped to save...
Nancy HermanAug 5, 20211 minBetrayed at Fort Bridger: July 1846Fort Bridger was so small and unpopulated compared to Fort Laramie that Virginia Reed must have felt quite disappointed as she rode...
Nancy HermanAug 4, 20211 minHacking through the Wasatch: August 1846It didn’t take long for Virginia Reed and others to realize that her father’s friend back at Fort Laramie, Jim Clyman, had been right...
Nancy HermanAug 3, 20211 minThe Salt Desert: August 1846The Donner Party expected the Salt Desert to be forty miles wide, a journey of two days and one night. They loaded their wagons with as...
Nancy HermanAug 2, 20211 minKilling and banishment: September 1846A major turning point in the Donner Party’s story–and the definitive turning point for Virginia Reed and her family–was the killing of...
Nancy HermanAug 1, 20212 minThe Great Basin: September 1846The two areas of the dry, arid Great Basin that pioneers on the California Trail most dreaded were the Humboldt Sink and the waterless...
Nancy HermanJul 31, 20211 minClimbing the Sierra: October 1846(The eastern slope of the Sierra from Reno, Nevada. When the Donner Party camped here, it was called Truckee Meadows, and the nervous...
Nancy HermanJul 30, 20211 minSnowbound: November 1846 – February 1847This familiar drawing of the mid-1800s shows those already trapped at the lake camp hastily building shelter to brave out more storms...
Nancy HermanJul 29, 20212 minThe rescue: February 1847Virginia Reed, her mother, and her siblings were in danger of dying very soon. They had been subsisting on boiled ox hide, a thick,...
Nancy HermanJul 28, 20211 minSutter’s Fort: March 1847Sutter’s Fort in the mid-1800s. All pioneers on the California Trail eventually made it here to Sacramento. Once within the safe walls of...