![]() ![]() Spurred by her zeal, others also were soon on their knees, scratching among the grasses and sifting the loose soil through their fingers. Her daughter, Eliza, later wrote: "Presently my mother knelt before it and began searching for fragments of paper, which she believed crows had wantonly pecked off and dropped to the ground. But Tamsen Donner (wife of George Donner) patiently picked up the scattered fragments of paper and put it back together like a jigsaw puzzle. Unfortunately, birds had pecked at the paper and torn it to pieces, rendering it unreadable. James Reed later recounted the situation: "We arrived at the springs where we were to provide water and as much grass as we could for the purpose of crossing the Hastings desert, which was represented as 40 or 45 miles in length (but we found it at least 70 miles)."Īt the springs the Donner group of pioneers found the remains of another note from Lansford Hastings. The party spent a couple of days resting and recuperating for the next phase of its journey, crossing the vast Utah Desert from east to west. The party was now out of the mountains and just south of the Great Salt Lake in the valley of "Twenty Wells" where there was fresh, cold spring water and plenty of grass for exhausted livestock. This installment is #9 in a series tracing the experiences of the Donner Party as it worked its way into American history. (Utah) and finally reached the eastern edge of the Great Salt Lake Party had just fought their way through the rugged Wasatch Mountains One hundred and sixty-plus years ago this week, members of the Donner ![]()
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