Talk:Donner Party/Archive 1

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Cannibalism

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/12/donner.party.ap/index.html This article suggests cannibalism did not happen on the trip.

I'd vote that the new studies ( the CNN link doesn't work, http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060109/donnerparty_his.html does) should be noted on the front page, given they are scientific studies and at the very least seem to note legitimate disagreement. -Nate

There is ample evidence that cannibalism occurred. The fact that the study did not find evidence of it is not evidence that cannibalism didn't occur. The only evidence they were looking for were cooked bones. If the cannibals simply sliced meat from a body there would be no lasting evidence. While we should mention the study, we shouldn't overplay it. -Will Beback 21:51, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
Further comment: The Alder Creek digs of 2003-2004 do not "cast doubt" on Donner Party cannibalism. The archaeologists did not find evidence of cannibalism at Alder Creek, but this is easily explainable. Further, the Alder Creek digs say nothing about other incidents of cannibalism by Donner Party members at the lake camp, among the "Forlorn Hope" snowshoers, or at Starved Camp. Survivors said they ate human flesh and rescuers saw the evidence. Donner Party cannibalism is not in doubt among anyone who is familiar with the incident; it's the general public who have misinterpreted the archaeological evidence as "casting doubt" on cannibalism. DPL, 6/28/2007

Cannibalism in the Donner Party is not in question. Ten survivors said they ate human flesh. At the Donner family camp at Alder Creek, the Donners told the First Relief that they were going to start eating the bodies of the dead; when the Second Relief arrived at Alder Creek they saw children eating human flesh and mutilated corpses. Three Alder Creek survivors (Georgia Donner, Mary Donner, and Jean-Baptiste Trudeau) said that cannibalism had occurred at the Donner camp. This is not a legend, but a matter of record. People who are unfamiliar with the historical sources are not competent to dismiss them as "legends." Kristin Johnson, author Unfortunate Emigrants: Narratives of the Donner Party (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1996).

As a little footnote I'd like to add that cannibalism WAS a big part of the story. The website that is footnoted on that sentence shows about 6 episodes of eating people. Some of them ate human flesh for a month! And even the site admits it's a "brief" section of their crazy feeding habits! Donner is forever known for eating others and the fact that it wasn't just 1 or 2 bodies, but like approx. 7-8+? really shows that these people had an appetite for homoerectus! 72.219.137.83 (talk) 08:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

As a little footnote, I'd like to add that you don't know what you're talking about. A year elapsed between the time the emigrants left home and the day the last survivor was rescued. With one exception, those who ate human flesh did so for about 2 weeks, some for as little as 2-3 days. Two weeks, out of 52 weeks in a year, IS minor. They did NOT "develop an appetite for homo erectus" or a "crazy eating habit" -- they put off eating human flesh for as long as they could, until finally there was absolutely nothing else left to eat. The reason why "Donner is known forever for eating others" is because the general public, like the commentator above, exults in its own ignorance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.35.8.13 (talk) 22:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I would like to point out they weren't eating homo erectus, but homo sapien. lol. Promontoriumispromontorium (talk) 18:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

In all fairness, I would like to further point out that they were actually eating Homo Sapien's erectus. To my knowledge, this is the only story in American history where a group resorts to eating other members of the group to survive. Supposedly the first to die were murdered for their meat. That makes the cannibalism portion of their journey understandably popular. I would have eaten maybe a shouldercock, but that's it. aupusher (talk) 16:06, 9 Feb 2010 (Pacific) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.23.168.177 (talk)

Numbers

interesting article, although kind of gruesome

Is it just me or do these numbers not add up?

In mid-December fifteen of the trapped emigrants set out on snowshoes for the fort, about 100 miles (160 km) away. Soon they were lost and their rations ran out. Caught without shelter in a raging blizzard, four of the company died. In desperation, the others resorted to cannibalism. Three more died and were cannibalized before finally, nearly naked and close to death, seven of the fifteen snowshoers reached safety on the western side of the mountains on January 19, 1847.

i believe that the missing members are presumed to have been cannibalized by their companions... --jonasaurus 23:54, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

The point is four dead + three cannibalized + seven survivors = fourteen total. -Willmcw 00:25, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
Oh, I think I get it. First, you can't add the four dead + three cannibalized, because some of them are the same people. Also, the snowshoers were some of the stronger men, who went for help, not the entire group including women and children.--Bcrowell 16:05, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

You're assuming that all those who died were cannibalized, which was not the case-- the first person to die, Charles Stanton, had to be left behind when he gave out. The original statement was correct: 15 people = 7 survivors + 8 dead (one not cannibalized). --Kristin Johnson

you also have to take into account that the person telling the story is the leader of the group. in a crisis type situation, where such things as cannabalism is paramount, group sizes and numbers will sometimes not be absolutely accurate. thus, the numbers not adding up could very possibly be a human error. and yes. i realize i sound stupid, but thats my 2 cents worth. 

                                                                                       -John "Azzie" Hayes  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.117.95.74 (talk) 23:34, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The numbers DO add up; the account of the showshoers' journey is based on the statements of multiple survivors, not just one person, and they do not conflict. There is no discrepancy.

Cannibalism not proven

The article states the cannibalism as a fact in several places, but IIRC the evidence is not that clear. Some of the witnesses' accounts are clearly false, e.g., there was a statement by a rescuer that he saw a kettle of blood, but it would have been coagulated.--Bcrowell 15:56, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I've done some editing to try to make it more NPOV on this point. E.g., on the statement that half of the survivors had resorted to cannibalism, I'm convinced this can't possibly be known with certainty and accuracy; many of the survivors didn't want to talk much about what happened, and if cannibalism did take place, those who did it had a strong motivation not to admit it. (They were huddled in small groups in the deep snow, I believe, so it's not as though everybody would have known whether a particular person ate human flesh or not.)--Bcrowell 16:05, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

(Arrgh!) The historical record makes it abundantly clear that cannibalism occurred in the Donner Party. The evidence for cannibalism among the Forlorn Hope snowshoers and at the Donner Lake camp cannot reasonably be doubted; the evidence of it at the Alder Creek camp is not as good, but still strong. There is far too much for me to take the time here and now to rebut the foregoing comments, so it looks like I'll have to set the evidence out on my website. Check New Light on the Donner Party (http://www.utahcrossroads.org), in about a month or so, I should have it up by then. In the meantime, the previous author is heartily enjoined to refrain from "correcting" anyone else's work on the Donner Party. --Kristin Johnson, author, Unfortunate Emigrants: Narratives of the Donner Party (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1996).

the donner party means that = people who got stuck in the snow on the way to California there were about 70 odd people 30 odd got eaten they wouldn't eat there own families they would label them to make sure

No, they did NOT label "there own familys" -- this is a prime example of why Ric Burns is not to be trusted.

There has been bones found in that area with knife and teeth marks in them. The teeth marks are definatly human, but no one is quite sure about the bones. They are most likly human, but it has not been completely proven. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.129.185.230 (talk) 03:39, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

The forgoing comment is an egregious lie. No bones with human toothmarks have been found at Donner Party sites, and no bones have been identified as human. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.228.152.241 (talk) 01:48, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

More to the point

We all have a psychological aversion to cannibalism, though structurally human flesh is not that much different from other large mammals. I expect some who fed their families this meat probably told them they had got a bear or moose.

The moral of this tale has to be to think twice before taking others along on an unproven venture. In this case a shortcut that set them back three weeks.

The 'shortcut' was lengthy because of the diffculty corssing the wasatch range, and particularly getting down the last canyon (Emigration canyon) into the Salt lake Valley. The strain on the draft animals was significant. That the Mormons took advantage of the road cut a year before is significant to the Momon pioneer story, but is also worthy of at least a trivia mention in the Donner party article.Rockford1963 00:32, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, the fact that the path cleared by the Donner party was used for 10 more years by others (mostly Mormons) coming into the SLV, should be included. Perhaps this infomration could be included in a new subsection on legacy of the Donner Party? In any case it does appear that the reference supplied is applicable, so I don't know why it was stated to be otherwiseRockford1963 13:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Response to Rockford1963's revisions:

  • The problem is not the reference to Mormon use of the Emigration Canyon route, which is legitimate. The problem is the comparative emphasis put on Mormon use of the route.
  • The interjected sentences are not in keeping with the concise tone of the rest of the article. For instance, the reference to crossing the Salt Desert doesn't dwell on the terrain, so emphasizing the terrain in the Wasatch is out of place.
  • That the Mormon pioneers came through "almost a year later" is an unnecessary detail.
  • There are three errors of fact in the interjected sentences: the DP spent 12 days, not "weeks," roadbuilding in the Wasatch; they entered the valley on Aug. 22, not 12; and the route they pioneered was in use for at least 15 years, not 10.
  • Dale Beecher's article contains many errors and is unworthy of citation. It makes no mention of the Mormon pioneer company following the Donners' route and the statement that the route was in use for 10 years is inaccurate.
  • The cumulative effect of the sentences is to inject Mormon bias into the article.

Response to Rockford1963's comments above:

  • Getting down "the last canyon" was not especially gruelling, contrary to a myth popular in Utah.
  • The historical legacy of the Donner Party is limited; most of its legacy is cultural, and there's already a "popular culture" section.

204.228.152.241 14:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

10 or 15 years aside, the fact that the trail was used for years should be mentioned. As to the acuracy of the article cited, please find a better one, but the article does reference the use of the trail by later groups. As for Mormon bias, I see none. It is simply historical cross referencing, thus my suggestion to create a spearate subsection in this article, maybe entitled 'lessons learned', or 'legacy for groups following'. I think the 'last grueling part' includes the entire time cutting through the Wasatch range (12 days), which put a cumuilitve strain on the draft animals and the people, and their equipment - this would have a ripple effect later on (slowing them down, making them even arrive even later in the Sierra Nevada range. This may be part specualtion, but is till worthy of a mention. Dates will be corrected,per your previous posting.Rockford1963 15:07, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Response:

  • It is not my responsibility to find a citation for your statements.
  • FYI, the authoritative work on emigrant trails through Utah is Korns & Mogan, West From Fort Bridger, rev. ed. by Will Bagley & Hal Schindler, USU Press, 1994.
  • It is the comparative emphasis that creates bias.

The information is worthy of inclusion, but to try to meet halfway I created the subsection. The article is still concise, and is not overly longRockford1963 19:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Thank you for creating the subsection; the information is more appropriate there. You could also add a link to the Wikipedia Mormon Trail entry.
  • The sentence starting "The difficulties experienced by the Donner Party" makes absolutely no sense. Later travelers were dissuaded from following "similar routes"? What "similar routes"? What are you talking about?
I will for the time defer to your apparent greater knowledge on the matter, but I was under the impression that the experience of the Donner Party was noted by other groups traveling to California, and that most of these would not take the same route, specifically because the delay would get them to the Sierra Nevadas too late in the season. I'm not sure about those that did take the same route, there were some weren't there?, but there were other groups, traveling to different routes altogether who aparently did not learn from the DP lesson that a group should get past the mountains before snow.Rockford1963 01:48, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Response:

  • The DP cuts a road through the Wasatch with great difficulty. That road becomes part of the Mormon Trail. Thousands of people use it. Frequent use makes it more passable over time. So how can taking this route slow people down and make them too late to get over the Sierra before winter? Yes, many California-bound emigrants were aware of the Donner disaster, but this didn't prevent them from taking the route via Salt Lake.
  • The Donner route over the Sierra wasn't abandoned, either. There are dozens of diaries by emigrants who took the Truckee Route.
  • Hate to mention it, but the only emigrant groups I know of who got stuck in the snow were the handcart companies of 1856...
  • If you're "under the impression" that something happened but don't know for sure, it would be best to leave it out of Wikipedia.

Survivor amount

47 people survived not 46. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.26.107.174 (talk) 23:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC).

Actually, there were 48 survivors. I've corrected the entry.

I'm pretty sure in my history class that 47 survived,but I could be wrong? The Donner Party was a group of California-bound American settlers caught up in the "westering fever" of the 1840s. After becoming snowbound in the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1846–1847, some of the emigrants resorted to cannibalism.

More on numbers

OK, time to clear things up. The number of people "in the Donner Party" depends on whether you include Luis and Salvador, two Indians who helped bring provisions from Sutter's Fort and were trapped with the emigrants.


There were 87 emigrants, 89 people total if you include the two Indians.

  • 87 emigrants: 39 died, 48 survived
  • 89 people: 41 died, 48 survived


Of the 87 emigrants, 79 were trapped in the mountains, plus Luis and Salvador, for a total of 81 people.

  • 79 emigrants trapped: 34 died, 45 survived
  • 81 people trapped: 36 died, 45 survived


Please, no more tinkering with the numbers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TammyZ (talk • contribs) 14:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

According to the timeline, they were killing each other long before they started to starve. Do the numbers reflect that? A John Snyder was stabbed to death, a Mr. Hardkoop is abandoned along the side of the road, a German named Wolfinger is then murdered, and a William Pike is shot to death by his own brother-in-law. It's like they couldn't wait for the death to start... 70.20.149.174 (talk) 02:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
The second set of numbers (81 people trapped) reflects 1. the departure of three individuals from the wagon train, and 2. five deaths that occurred before the Donner Party reached the mountains. "They couldn't wait for the death to start" is untrue; only one of these deaths was caused intentionally. Halloran died of tuberculosis. Reed killed Snyder in self-defense; it was not murder. The abandoning of Hardcoop was a tragic oversight and certainly not deliberate. Wolfinger disappeared under suspicious circumstances, but only afterward did Reinhardt admit he'd had anything to do with his death. Foster did not shoot Pike -- the gun discharged accidentally. TammyZ (talk) 06:06, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

There were 4 relief parties. It would be helpful to understand how many died between relief parties. The 4th relief party found "Only 1 man left", out of how many that the 3rd relief left?

There were no deaths between the First and Second Reliefs, 4 or 5 deaths between the Second and Third, 3 or 4 between with Third and Fourth. We don't know exactly how many the Third Relief left alive because the sources conflict as to whether or not Samuel Donner was still alive.

Was there consolidation between the Alder Creek group and the Donner Lake group as the numbers dwindled or did they continue to struggle seperate? Number-wise this is all a bit fuzzy.

1. No, but yes, sort of. The camps didn't combine, but members of the Second Relief, left to care for the emigrants, took the three youngest Donner girls from Alder Creek to the lake camp and abandoned them there. 2. It's all "fuzzy" because after the Second Relief left, the events themselves are fuzzy: of the 14 emigrants left alive by the Second Relief, 8 died; 4 of the 6 survivors were young children. There is little source material, and much of what *is* available consists of reminiscent accounts dating 30 years and more after the events.

pronunciation

/dɒnə(ɹ)/ or /dəʊnə(ɹ)/? --81.158.148.64 (talk) 15:58, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

/dɒnə(ɹ)/, /dɑnə(ɹ)/, or /dɔnə(ɹ)/, but certainly not /dəʊnə(ɹ)/ ! 204.228.152.241 (talk) 06:22, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Is the opening paragraph supposed to be hilarious?

"...some of the emigrants resorted to cannibalism. Although this aspect of the tragedy has become synonymous with the Donner Party in the popular imagination, it was actually a minor part of the episode."

Whilst I may not be totally au fait with the concept of morals, I would think that any occurrence of a human being devouring another (irrespective of timeframe, motive or any other influences to reasoning) is terribly reprehensible and therefore not, in any meaning of the word, minor.

Might I suggest...

"...some of the emigrants resorted to cannibalism. This aspect of the tragedy has become synonymous with the Donner Party in the popular imagination."

No, it is not supposed to be hilarious. It is supposed to alert readers to the fact that there is much more to the story than just cannibalism and to pique their interest. The belief that any cannibalism whatsoever is "terribly reprehensible" is the result of cultural conditioning; the act itself is not inherently immoral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.228.152.241 (talk) 22:00, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems funny to me - if not for the cannabalism, none of us would likely have heard of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.6.171.10 (talk) 16:47, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking to change that last line. Breaking one of the biggest social taboo's is not just a minor part Wardenusa (talk) 18:06, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Louis vs. Lewis

The full name of the person in question was Johann Ludwig Christian Keseberg. He went by his second name, Ludwig, which in English is rendered "Louis." The early German king Ludwig der Fromme, for instance, appears in English as "Louis the Pious," and Louis XIV of France is called in German "Ludwig XIV." Many similar examples can be found. For the past couple of centuries, educated speakers of English have not used "Lewis" as the equivalent of "Ludwig."

As regards the present case: The earliest historian(s) of the Donner Party spelled Keseberg's first name as "Lewis"; the reason that spelling predominates is because generations of later writers have repeated the practice, not because the practice is appropriate. Various other documents from Keseberg's lifetime do use "Louis." There are, unfortunately, few examples of Keseberg's handwriting, and in the two known instances of his signature, his name appears only as "L. Keseberg." Since Keseberg himself was a person of some education, it seems more likely that he himself would have used "Louis." The fact that "Louis Keseberg" appears in California's Great Register of Voters (various years) provides some evidence that he may have signed his name that way when he registered to vote, while there is no evidence whatsoever that he spelled it "Lewis." --Kristin Johnson. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.35.8.13 (talk) 01:17, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

A tally of 19th-century documents other than Donner Party sources strongly favor "Louis" (28 instances) over "Lewis" (6 instances). Documents include newspaper articles (6:4), indices to court records (1:1), Great Register of Voters (3:1), federal census (3:0), tax lists (14:0), hospital death record (1:0). An additional 13 documents give simply "L. Keseberg." --Kristin Johnson. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.35.8.13 (talk) 00:39, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

California Indians/Native Americans

I'm opposed to unnecessary verbiage, and "California Indians" is a succinct way to describe Luis and Salvador. However, "Indian" is falling out of favor so I'm not going to make a fuss about changing to "Native American." However, "two Native Americans from a California tribe" is undesirable because

1. It's cumbersome. The whole point of the sentence is to clarify the number problem that has plagued the Donner Party entry for ages (see discussions above!), so please let's not dilute its impact with unnecessary words.

2. It's unnecessary. The entry states that they came from Sutter's Fort. Well, Sutter employed California Indians, not Iroquois or Arapahoes or Hopis, so "California" is already implicit in the entry.

3. It's inaccurate, or at least misleading. To say that Luis and Salvador were members of "a California tribe" implies that they were from the same tribe, which is not a given. Although both men were most likely what white folks call Miwoks, "Miwok" is a broad term. I suspect that Luis and Salvador would probably have identified themselves as members of a particular subgroup or band, and they might very well have come from different bands. Just because "we" would say they're from the same tribe doesn't mean that they would have considered themselves members of the same tribe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.35.8.13 (talk) 02:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Why the insistence on detailing the deaths of Luis and Salvador?

This entry presents a brief description of the Donner Party, with references to outside sources for further information. It is not an exhaustive account with all the details about every single event and every single member of the party. Luis and Salvador were relatively insignificant members, they joined the group late, and almost nothing is known about them. Why should their fate be detailed when so much other information about so many other people and events is excluded? Why not the fate of Tamzene Donner? Franklin Ward Graves? Charles Stanton? More details, including the deaths of Luis and Salvador, are given in the Donner Party timeline, so why insist on putting it here? 204.228.152.241 (talk) 14:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Slight problem

I have a slight problem with this, from the lead: "The episode has endured in U.S. history as a tragic event requiring the pioneers to resort to cannibalism."

My problem is that nobody is required to resort to cannibalism, it's a choice that some may make. --Malleus Fatuorum 00:24, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

What are the other choices in wording? I see that you reworded a sentence above to eventually the group decided to eat some of its members, which somehow makes it seem casual. I understand what you're saying, but we need to find the right wording for both. They would not have survived unless they cannibalized. Yes, they made a decision, but they had no alternative except suicide. --Moni3 (talk) 00:41, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps: ... a tragic event that led the pioneers to resort to cannibalism. Ucucha 00:43, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
It's obviously difficult to recount the events dispassionately, but I wanted to remove any emotional overtones. It's a simple statement of fact that the group ate some of its members, nothing more. To say anything more is to make a moral judgement, something that none of us have the right to do without having been there and shared their desperation. --Malleus Fatuorum 00:53, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Ucucha's wording is ok with me. What if the lead sentence above it simply read eventually the group ate some of its members? We might just have to take force, compulsion, and decision out of the equation. --Moni3 (talk) 01:08, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Both suggestions fine by me. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:12, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Cannibalism as a survival mechanism? See also Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571. Mjroots (talk) 07:45, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Another small thing; The article says that Eddy managed to shoot a bear when he was out hunting, but Downey says it was a deer. Surely a deer is more likely, as bears hibernate during the winter don't they? --Malleus Fatuorum 22:49, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Eddy shot a bear at Truckee Lake before he went on the snowshoe party. He shot a deer while with the showshoe party. --Moni3 (talk) 23:35, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
You're right, my mistake. --Malleus Fatuorum 23:41, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
On the subject of the snowshoe party, I'm not following this: "Eddy decided to leave the group with the rifle to hunt, although the other members were sure it would cause them all to die." Why did they think it would cause them all to die? --Malleus Fatuorum 00:11, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
According to George Stewart, Eddy was a motivating force in the showshoe party who was very energetic and mindful of survival. He was the best hunter and when everyone else seemed to want to stop and fail, Eddy kept them going. Stewart says that when Eddy decided to take the gun and go hunting, the other members, already emotionally weakened by starvation, thought he might get lost and they would never find their way anywhere. With Eddy gone, they would all die. Stewart was very impressed with Eddy overall, basing his account on J. Quinn Thornton's account, which was based on interviews with Eddy and Reed. King, in Winter of Entrapment, attempted to counter Stewart's book because it was flawed in some areas (which I agree it is). King asserts that Stewart gave undue weight to Eddy's role in the snowshoe party, but King does not seem to cover the snowshoe party himself to give an alternate view of the events that took place. King's book is heavily slanted towards the Breens and rather amateurishly written.
If it's too confusing to make sense, I suppose I added it in there because I was trying to portray the sense of panic and loosening grip on reality that the people on the snowshoe party had from prolonged starvation. I went back in a few days later and added more detail about that, particularly that they fell down a lot, were unable to navigate through the snow anymore, the women cried without provocation and the men fought. So if you think that point has been made adequately, feel free to remove the thing about the party thinking they would die without Eddy. --Moni3 (talk) 00:28, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Malleus, did you accidentally remove the Grayson 1990 article by giving it a ref name tag and citing Waggoner instead? Or did you ditch the Grayson article? Not sure why the Waggoner cite has the Grayson 1990 ref tag. --Moni3 (talk) 00:55, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Just a cock up on my part Moni, I'll fix it. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Slightly bigger problem

I'm having difficulty reconciling what Waggoner says in his 1931 paper – "The Donner Party was a portion of a great train of emigrants who headed for the Pacific Coast in the spring of 1846. While crossing the plains it was comprised of five hundred and eighteen wagons" – with the account given in the article, which makes it appear that Reed and Donner organised the wagon train themselves. --Malleus Fatuorum 03:44, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

When they began, Reed and Donner were part of a larger train. I don't know how much larger. Right about the time they arrived at the Little Sandy River, they decided to split off to head to Ft. Bridger and take see about taking the Hastings Cutoff. If you want to add more information about the train before they split off, feel free. User:Tex already asked about the train captains of the larger group in the sandbox talk page. If it's confusing or otherwise inaccurate, fix it. If you want me to take a look at my sources to see what I can add, I can do that too. --Moni3 (talk) 03:49, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I can't quite make sense of this, from the snowshoe party section:

The next morning, Christmas Day. Patrick Dolan began mumbling incoherently, stripped off his clothes, and ran into the woods. He returned shortly, quieter, and died a few hours later. Finally, facing the death of 13-year-old Lemuel Murphy, some of the group cut into Patrick Dolan's body, turned away from each other, cried, and ate his flesh. Eddy held out and refused. So did Salvador and Luís, who built a fire apart from the others and watched. The next morning they were able to strip the remaining muscle and organs from the the bodies and dried the tissue to store for the days ahead, taking care to ensure that no family member had to eat his or her relatives.

"Facing the death of" makes it seem like Lemuel was dying, not dead, and that his poor condition was what encouraged the others to eat Patrick Dolan. It's further confusing when it goes on to say "the next morning they were able to strip the remaining muscle and organs from the the bodies", as until then only Dolan had died and been eaten, so "remaining muscle and organs from the bodies" doesn't seem quite right. --Malleus Fatuorum 16:13, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Lemuel Murphy was not dead when they began cannibalizing Dolan. His sister, Sarah Foster, put some of the...meat...in his mouth, but it did not revive him and he died shortly after. I had difficulty in what to call ... that... food... I dislike calling it meat and none of the sources did. Some of them used more antiquated terms like "repast". So they cut apart some parts of Dolan, ate it, and revived somewhat. Then removed the flesh and organs from Antonio, Uncle Billy Graves, then Lemuel Murphy, who was dead by this time to dry it. --Moni3 (talk) 16:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm also a bit thrown that there were 15 members of the party, but only 14 pairs of snowshoes. --Malleus Fatuorum 16:14, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I just rechecked my source and it says 14 pairs of snowshoes were made. Originally, 17 set out on the snowshoe party. Two turned back the first night. Their plan was to have the lighter ones step in the footprints of heavier ones, so they did not have to work so hard. It does not say which of the 15 was without snowshoes. --Moni3 (talk) 16:22, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I think this is sorted now. It was Lemuel Murphy who didn't have snowshoes, but they made him a pair on the first evening according to McGlashan, out of an aparajos, which I understand to mean a packsaddle. --Malleus Fatuorum 21:01, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Keeping track of people

I mentioned to a couple folks that I was writing the article, and although they--like most everyone--knew the general story of the Donner Party: wagon train gets stuck in mountains and eats people, they didn't know the details of how it all occurred. I've been told that the people in the article are a little difficult to keep track of. I'm concerned that adding too much detail about them will bog down the article, so I'd like to hear from others. There is information on almost everyone in the party, but not all of it should be added. I constructed the article in a way that makes sense to me, but if stuff needs to be added, removed, or changed to make some of the issues, events, and players clearer, then I'd like to discuss it. --Moni3 (talk) 17:54, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Since no one has answered this question, and I fall into the category you describe, I'll, ah...bite. (I know, I know--such bad taste, ugh, but it's hard to not use these kinds of metaphors when talking about the subject.) I can understand the concern, but let me tell you my experience about reading this marvelous article. Moni, you really are courageous for taking this article on. I stopped reading it as an editor, and couldn't stop. It felt like I was reading a story, one that captivated me, and as is often the case when I'm reading a story with a lot of players in it, I did forget who everyone was. However, I was okay with that because that's often my experience when dealing with a large cast of characters. I forget the details, like who did what and when and to whom, but I either go back and fill in what I've missed or forgotten about, or I was go with the flow and trust that the players are important. The latter is what happened as I read this article.

So this is my long-winded way of saying that perhaps forgetting the cast is part and parcel of the fact that so many people are involved. Everyone's story is important, and you had to pick and choose what to include here. I don't think it's something you should concern yourself about, since I'm not sure there's much you could do to remedy the situation, anyway. And I'm so sure that you should. Hope this helps. --Christine (talk) 04:44, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments Christine. As my talk page may attest, it was a very difficult article to research, for all of us. You've provided a consideration, however. Too much detail directed at keeping track of who is who may detract from the narrative. If others have comments about this, I'm happy to read them. --Moni3 (talk) 13:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
You're very welcome. I have the upmost respect for you and your choices of articles to improve. It's just so brave! When this article gets to FA (and it will), it may just replace Stonewall Riots, another Moni-work, as my favorite WP article. --Christine (talk) 04:53, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Illustration

In Chapter 1 of Eliza P. Donner Houghton's account she states that her father George Donner studied a topographical map submitted to congress per Captain Frémont's report. [1] I have located a high resolution scan of the historic 1846 map and on page 5 it indicates a forking route southward to the Great Salt Lake off the main trail.[2] Since the decision to leave the main trail was disastrous for the Donner Party, it seems like a good idea to provide the readers with an image of the same reference source the Donners were using. Let's move the modern summary route map to the top of the "Families and progress" section and add the historic 1846 map near the bottom of the section where the text talks about the Hastings Cutoff. Durova412 22:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

The 5th page is the route from Blacks Fork to Fort Hall, the route they did not take. Can you explain why the reader would need to see a map of the route they forsook for the Hastings Cutoff? --Moni3 (talk) 22:41, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Slightly left of center and off the main Oregon Trail, the map indicates another route southward toward the Great Salt Lake. The Donner Party left the main trail at or near that location. Durova412 23:21, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Other illustrations coming. Durova412 00:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

View of Donner Lake from the Sierra Nevada, 1868. Albumen print, digitally restored.
Tree stumps felled by the Donner Party, photographed 1866. Digitally restored.

Although it probably can't be said within article space per WP:NOR, the height of the tree stumps appears suggest the depth of the snow. Durova412 00:30, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

It does; I've come across a source saying exactly that. --Malleus Fatuorum 00:53, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. Used at "The forlorn hope". Was thinking of using the view from the mountain in place of File:Donner Memorial State Park.jpg: the 1868 photograph shows the lake before the river was dammed. Durova412 01:42, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
The image is in the Third relief section. I don't think it belongs in the Forlorn Hope section because the image does not illustrate the snowshoe party. --Moni3 (talk) 01:46, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Fair enough. It seemed to provide a visual context for events of the snowshoe party: the lost axe head, the party sinking into a hole of snow at one point, the need for snowshoes. Your choice. Durova412 01:57, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

By the way, can't guarantee that File:Wagon train.jpg is a nineteenth century wagon train. The image has no date and the source isn't the best (Spartacus.schoolnet.UK). Found a couple of substitutes that are definitely mid nineteenth century.[3][4] Durova412 02:14, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Slightly confused about the wagon train

My understanding is that the Donner Party initially travelled in a much larger wagon train led by William H. Russell, from which they split at Fort Bridger to follow the Hastings' cutoff. What puzzles me therefore is this: "When the party reached the Little Sandy River in Wyoming on July 21, they stopped to elect a leader of the train." At that point though they hadn't yet reached Fort Bridger, and were presumably still with the main wagon train, so why did they feel they needed a leader? Or am I misunderstanding something? --Malleus Fatuorum 02:29, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Russell and Lilburn Boggs were in charge of the much larger train that went on to Fort Hall. The Little Sandy River is where they split with the Donner Party. Well, it's where the group of folks who became the Donner Party decided to start heading south to take the Hastings Cutoff, elected Donner the leader, making themselves the Donner Party. Tamsen wanted to travel with the larger group taking the more northerly route. (p. 21-22 of Johnson, lest I forget where I can cite that.) Do you want me to add a couple sentences to explain this? --Moni3 (talk) 02:40, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I think that would be a good idea, because a lot of what I've come across seems to suggest that the Donner party split off at Fort Bridger. --Malleus Fatuorum 02:48, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
In fact, one of the papers you sent me goes so far as to lay much of the blame for the Donners choosing the cutoff on Jim Bridger, suggesting that he deliberately lied to them about the extent of the desert they would have to cross. --Malleus Fatuorum 02:58, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Reading up on it today, it appears that Fort Bridger had been marginalized a couple of years before when most emigrant traffic switched and took a shorter northerly route through a short section. Hint: this is one of the things that Part Five of the 1846 topographical map illustrates. ;) Durova412 04:37, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I made some adjustments to the section.
From this passage, now in the article: Jim Bridger, whose trading post fared substantially better when people used the Hastings Cutoff, told the party that the shortcut was a smooth trip devoid of rugged country which would remove 350 miles (560 km) from their journey, and that the group would not encounter any hostile Indians. Water would be easy to find along the way, although a short distance of about 30–40 miles (48–64 km) over a dry lake bed would be necessary, but easily crossed in a couple of days. Reed was very impressed with this information and when the men in the party discussed what to do, he argued to take the Hastings Cutoff. Neither Reed, nor anyone in the Donner Party, ever received Bryant's letters warning them to avoid Hastings' route at all costs. is it not clear that Bridger fared better when people took the cutoff? Does the prose not convey that Hastings and Bridger may have had a vested interest in sending people along the cutoff? If that's not clear already, I can make it clearer. Again, Durova, I understand the value of the 5th page image to the Emigrant, California, and Oregon Trail articles, but the caption for that image in this article would read "The Trail The Donners Did Not Take", or convey some similar idea. There are other images that will be uploaded to this article, including ones of James and Margaret Reed and some of the grown survivors at the pedestal of the monument. I simply cannot understand how the 5th page image can be justified in this article when the route to Fort Hall is already included in the image with the Hastings Cutoff and not a direct part of the story. --Moni3 (talk) 12:42, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
If I read the sources correctly, there were two different cutoffs that affected Jim Bridger's business. His trading post was built on the main Oregon Trail route, but an Oregon Trail cutoff that came into widespread use left him several days off the route that most westerly traffic was taking. That Oregon Trail cutoff is different from the Hastings Cutoff. The latter was something that Bridger promoted in order to bring people to his trading post and keep his business from failing. Durova412 15:45, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Source discrepancies

I am going to try to go over the article in detail today from Rarick, and I'll list discrepancies here. Karanacs (talk) 15:01, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

  1. Name of Mr. Graves. Rarick calls him Franklin Sr, but in the article he's referenced as William "Uncle Billy" Graves.
    Yes, I can't account for the discrepancies of the names for Graves, Sr. They call him Uncle Billy, but he is listed as Franklin Ward. I don't understand that. Any tips to keep from confusing readers but still going for accuracy? --Moni3 (talk) 15:04, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    I understood his name to be William Franklin Graves. --Malleus Fatuorum 16:07, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    Do we need to say what they called him? I'd just name him Franklin Graves the first time and thereafter refer to him as Mr. Graves. Karanacs (talk) 21:42, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
  2. This was cited to Rarick, but I couldn't find that in my notes: The west of North America had been settled by the Spanish and Mexicans, but fewer than 20,000 white Americans lived there in the middle of the 19th century. I put a fact tag on it. Karanacs (talk) 16:19, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    You wouldn't think this sort of thing would be difficult to find, right? I got it from the American Experience video. Now I can't find anything that says this. I bet someone can click on one thing and find it. I just read through 4 books and 5 papers, the US Census and can find nothing. Help. --Moni3 (talk) 17:06, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    Downey says that in 1845, when President Polk announced his plan to annex California, it was "feebly held by 500 Mexican soldiers and populated with a mere sprinkling of Mexican ranchers, Mission monks, and Yankee fur traders", which makes the claim of 20,000 white Americans at the time of the Donner Party look a little odd. --Malleus Fatuorum 17:53, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    Depends on what we're counting as the West. There may have been about that many in Texas by then, and that was an area still considered "the West" by most (and another area with just a sprinkling of Mexicans). Karanacs (talk) 18:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    True. I guess I interpreted the statement to be specifically about California, and perhaps Oregon.
    I did see a general population west of the Continental Divide at 97,000, but cannot find any info on how many of those were whites. I removed the phrase anyway. Not sure how ultimately important it is to the article. --Moni3 (talk) 18:12, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
  3. They embarked after 36 hours, but were dismayed to find it necessary to traverse a 1,000-foot (300 m) mountain. When they got to the top and looked down, they saw a dry, barren plain, perfectly flat and covered with white salt, larger than the one they had just crossed. - cited to Rarick, but not there. Could this be part of the Stewart cite just below that one? Karanacs (talk) 18:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    This is Stewart, but per your notes, Rarick is cited to their arrival at the Great Salt Lake Desert, what it looked like, and his comment about it being inhospitable. --Moni3 (talk) 18:10, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    I'll fix that in the refs then. Karanacs (talk) 18:16, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    Info about the McCutcheons is in the paragraph right after the one where you added it, btw. --Moni3 (talk) 18:18, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    Seriously? Maybe I need to give my eyes a rest. I'll fix that. Karanacs (talk) 18:33, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
  4. Timeline issue - Rarick says that Pike was shot while preparing to go get supplies, since no one knew whether Stanton and McCutcheon had made it or not. In the article, we mention Stanton getting back and then talk about Pike's death. Karanacs (talk) 18:36, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    Stewart lists Stanton returning to the group on October 19 and Pike's death on October 20. Johnson simply states his death in late October. --Moni3 (talk) 18:44, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
  5. Forlorn Hope - Rarick says "the exact moment and manner of the decision [for the Forlorn Hope to eat their dead] remain a mystery"; in the article we provide a reason - Lemuel Murphy's imminent death. It looks like this comes from Stewart, and I wonder if he says where he got this info? Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    Stewart follows closely to Thornton, whose primary source was an interview with Eddy. However, Johnson has printed Thornton's entire account in her book with annotations. According to Johnson, Eddy gave three separate accounts of his experiences. Stewart took into account all three of them, concluding that Thornton's was the least reliable. --Moni3 (talk) 19:27, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    Per this edit, which I assume was an edit conflict...and I'm with it...you overturned a couple of copy edits I had just implemented, changing Patrick Dolan's name to Nolan. I removed the "off" in Eddy decided to go off with Mary Graves, and Stewart does not say when Stanton died, so I took out December 21. If Rarick says it's December 21 for sure, then I'm ok with it. Stewart does say that Dolan died on Christmas Day, however, and that was removed. --Moni3 (talk) 19:41, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    I reinstated the first two of those. Rarick says Dec 21, so I left that alone. I took out the Christmas Day note because Rarick says that Antonio and Franklin Graves both died on Christmas, but implies that Dolan died on the 26th or later. Karanacs (talk) 20:39, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    Ok. I'm cool with it. --Moni3 (talk) 20:43, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
  6. Sam Brannan info doens't come from Rarick. Is that from Unruh - the next citation? Karanacs (talk) 20:39, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    Sam Brannan comes from Stewart. --Moni3 (talk) 20:43, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    Since you have the page number, can you fix that? Thanks! Karanacs (talk) 21:08, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    Yah, will do. --Moni3 (talk) 21:27, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
  7. I've just got my copy of McGlashan from the library, and he says on page 67 that William Murphy was 11 when he set out on the snowshoe party, not 10 as the collapsible table says. --Malleus Fatuorum 20:58, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    Rarick, p 134 says 10. Do we need to add a note that there is an age discrepancy? Karanacs (talk) 21:08, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    I'm not sure, perhaps. I've just checked Grayson's paper on the Donner Party mortalities, and he also says that William Murphy was 11. Oh, wouldn't it be so much easier if the sources all agreed with one another! --Malleus Fatuorum 21:24, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    Johnson says William Murphy was 10. Not an estimated age as half the other members of the party are on her chart. --Moni3 (talk) 21:27, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    It's a bit strange, because Grayson also says that Lemuel Murphy was 12, not 13. I guess we ought to go with the more recent sources though, like Rarick. BTW, I think we need to cite the info in those collapsible tables. --Malleus Fatuorum 21:42, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    I can cite that. Johnson cites Lemuel Murphy as 12. Stewart cites him as 13. I think we should go with 12. --Moni3 (talk) 21:48, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
    Common sense seems to suggest that 10 and 12 or 11 and 13 are the most likely ages for the two lads. --Malleus Fatuorum 21:56, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Background section

I'm going through my Rarick notes and comparing against the article. I found more information about the main trail that I thought was useful, and combined this with some of the other trail information (previously in the Families section) into a new paragraph in background. It then made more sense to me to put the info about the Donners and Reeds in the Families... section. (If this doesn't make sense to anyone else, we can discuss that here, of course). With these changes, I think that the initial information about the Hastings Cut-off might also belong in the background section. What do you think? Karanacs (talk) 17:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea. --Malleus Fatuorum 17:25, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't know what this will look like, but I won't know until I see it. --Moni3 (talk) 17:27, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Here's the diff [5]; current article now shows this. I'll be working on other sections right now, so feel free to revert if either of you don't think that this works well. Karanacs (talk) 17:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

"Gotten"

I'm never quite sure, but "gotten" seems like rather strange archaism to me, as in "gotten lost". Is it widespread and generally considered to be sufficiently formal language for an encyclopedia article? --Malleus Fatuorum 12:34, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

From Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage:

The past participle of get is either got or gotten. Strang 1970 says that both forms were in free variation in 17th-century English. In British English got has come to predominate, while in North America gotten predominates in some constructions and got in others.

Further comments suggest that gotten is under some prescriptivist attack, got is more common in the context you are asking about in the US (not entirely sure about that!), but that both forms are acceptable. Hans Adler 12:44, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. It's certainly a word you'd be very unlikely to hear in Br English. --Malleus Fatuorum 12:56, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Random drive-by, but "gotten" is one of those Americanisms that makes me sad. (Kind of like "efforting", which I heard on Fox News the other day. STOP. IT.) "Became lost" sounds far more refined, especially in an article of this caliber, and it means the same gosh darned thing. María (habla conmigo) 17:03, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
That's it, Maria. No more milkshakes for you. --Moni3 (talk) 17:12, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Moni, you cut me to the bone! I'm going to go sulk in my corner now... María (habla conmigo) 17:34, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

It's totally off-topic here, but if I had my way we would have clear rules to use gotten only in American English and only where in AE it's considered more correct than got. And to use use Oxford spelling for British English. That way we would minimise (that's not Oxford spelling, but this isn't article space) the irritation caused by grammar and spellings people aren't used to. Hans Adler 18:39, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Ignorant Yank comment: never realized this bit of commonplace American English sounded like an archaism overseas. Since this article is on a US subject, though, might as well use it. Durova412 03:58, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm not even happy with "got", never mind "gotten", in this context, so I've adopted María's suggestion above, "become lost". "Gotten" to my ear sounds just as archaic as "thou", and "got" is a word I was taught at school to avoid anyway. --Malleus Fatuorum 05:10, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Another drive-by: All this discussion reminds me of Superman: "You've got me? Who's got you?!" --Christine (talk) 17:20, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

GA Inquiry

Is this article of a stable enough nature that it can undergo a GA review now; i.e. has the majority of work been completed (I notice some more images and content added in the past few days)? If yes, would the major contributors prefer me to review this article for GA, or to participate in the peer review instead? Jappalang (talk) 14:35, 25 March 2010 (UTC) Forgive my sloth and carelessness... looks like the GAN and peer review were withdrawn in favour for FAC. Jappalang (talk) 14:37, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Our fault, we just did that! I've got one or two more images to add, but it is essentially done. Karanacs (talk) 14:49, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
If the article gets a hammering at FAC, then we might well take you up on your offer Jappalang. Malleus Fatuorum 14:51, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Well, I joined in the FAC instead (heh). Jappalang (talk) 03:48, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
Bar steward! :lol: Malleus Fatuorum 04:31, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Images

There are b&w drawings of some of the major players like Reed, Eddy, Keseburg and so on in McGlashan's book, first published in 1880, so well out of copyright. Worth adding any of them? --Malleus Fatuorum 21:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I have a daguerreotype of James and Margaret Reed that I was going to upload. Do you think we'll have room for individual images? One of my books also has the images of Virgina Reed, Mary Graves, and some others, all grown up. --Moni3 (talk) 11:57, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I think we've got room for the main players, at least. --Malleus Fatuorum 12:24, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

These are probably duplicates of what you have. Note that I suck at image manipulation, so these may need a bit of reworking.

Karanacs (talk) 01:53, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I also have an imageof Virginia and Patty Reed and Frances Donner taken in 1918, but I'm not sure what the copyright status is, so don't know where to upload it. Karanacs (talk) 02:36, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
There are more images here that I suspect are PD, but this will take a little more research. Karanacs (talk) 02:56, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately there isn't much I could do to help with these. They're all either low resolution or halftoned. Durova412 03:56, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Moni, I saw that you took down the wagon train pic and mentioned replacing it. Might I suggest File:Homesteader NE 1866.png from commons? Its not a train, but it is a covered wagon with a family heading through Nebraska. Or I can look for others. Tex (talk) 15:13, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I added a few of the pictures above into the article - feel free to take them out if you want. Karanacs (talk) 15:15, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Tex, that's a good idea. I'm searching images in state archives (Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, California) right now to try to find a replacement. If I can't find anything I may end up using that image. I'd like to find a train that uses oxen, if possible. Whatever is closest to what the Donner Party looked like. FYI, File:DonnerParty_article_Feb_13_1837.jpg is a massive file and should be resized if we consider using it. I can do that, but I'll have to do it at home in a few hours. --Moni3 (talk) 15:20, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
There are a few at the Library of Congress, such as this one. It's not really a wagon train, but one family in a wagon being pulled by yoked oxen. Surely Durova can download it and fix it up for you. Tex (talk) 15:50, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Or how about File:The Mormon pioneers coming off Big Mountain into Mountain dell.png. Didn't Mormons later take the Hastings cuttoff into the Great Salt Lake desert?
I would advise holding off the Mormon photo since the image was re-enacted in 1912 and it was not clear if it was published pre- or post-1923. The LoC advises to check up on the rights even if they claim "no known restrictions".
Would either of the following two images suffice? Jappalang (talk) 03:18, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

If no one objects the wagon train image I'd like to work on is here.[6] It's from the right period (1859), it's in California, and it's probably the only available image appropriate for this article that could become a featured picture candidate. Durova412 02:57, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Refer to caption
Done. Would someone take care of the alt text, please? Durova412 05:22, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Sum of all knowledge on the Donner party

67kb of readable prose? Brevity is the soul of wit. And other stuff. :) Awadewit (talk) 21:44, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Is there a suggestion to do something with the article in there?
This article does not represent the sum of everything written about the Donner Party. There is actually more information in more obscure sources that is, incredibly, called "Donnerama". This is unnecessary to say, but there's nothing witty about this story. It was a harrowing disaster that has been turned into a joke about cannibalism. The detail in this article I hope invalidates the punchline. These were real people. Jokes dehumanize them and make their awful choices simple enough for people to comprehend what occurred. What actually happened still grips people's imaginations. I'm justifying the length of the article obviously. If you disagree, please state why. --Moni3 (talk) 22:00, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm certain Awadewit wasn't making a joke about this horror Moni, just offering some advice. We should listen. Malleus Fatuorum 22:14, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
It's 11,727 words now ... I was engrossed when I read it, and didn't notice the length, but getting it under 10,000 might be good and doable. The only thing I'm concerned about now is the original research image ... a digitally altered, cleaned up image that has been used, when the original is available. Looks good! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:33, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
No, I'm certain she wasn't making a joke either, and if I came across as if I was assuming you were, Awadewit, that's not what I intended and I apologize. I was making a general statement about why detail is necessary in the article. I am open to suggestions about what might be cut. It has been the end of a long week where, again, my apologies, I have had to pull information out of people unrelated to Wikipedia about what they want me to do, like at work and stuff. My comment was infused with the frustration of dealing with people who want me to figure out from passive nuanced statements what I should do with very specific matters that, if done incorrectly, can have serious consequences. I've already railed a couple times about why people just aren't clear with what they want done in real life. I came across quite strongly here in the same vein of frustration. If anyone has suggestions about how to improve the article, I'm interested in discussing them. --Moni3 (talk) 23:28, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
With three such fabulous editors, I had hoped that some trimming could be done independently, but I am happy to provide suggestions myself. I feel that the article needs to be shortened for two major reasons: 1) It is an encyclopedia article and, as such, is meant to be a summary that readers can consult in a single sitting; 2) No matter how gripping a tale, readers will tire after reading after so long. I see it every day in my classes - college students cannot sit still and read for longer than ten minutes. This article asks people to read for about an hour, if they read closely. I think it is important that readers have a real chance of reaching the end of an article. I have noticed a trend of longer and longer FAs - this, to me, signals that we are moving away from summary style. I'm sorry if I frustrated you, Moni3 - please believe that I had no intention of doing so. Awadewit (talk) 03:29, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
As a more-or-less passive watcher of this article—I know nothing about the topic other than the basic "there were some pioneers who ate each other" that every kid learns in school, and have nothing to add to the article—I agree that this is a topic where the article ought to be long. It's a complex topic with multiple people, acting from multiple motivations, set against a very complex historic background which needs to be explained in some detail in order to provide a context. (If anything, I think it could probably do with more historic context, to clarify to those unfamiliar with US history why the US military and civil authorities were involved in an incident that took place on Mexican territory, why there were so many Mormons in the area, why people were willing to risk a hazardous land journey instead of travelling by ship, why Americans in this period didn't consider it unusual that relatively prosperous people would risk their livelihoods, their families and their own lives to colonize the West…)
The lead serves as an executive summary of the article for those who don't want to read the whole thing, but the lengthy body text is necessary if it's to provide a reasonable summary of events. If you consider that it took 63kb to summarize the history of a disused graveyard smaller than many American back-gardens, 160kb for a single battle or 150kb for an industrial accident in the US Navy, 94kb for one of the defining events in the history of the westward expansion of the United States doesn't seem unreasonable. WP:SS is a vague guideline, not a set-in-stone rule, and the intention was to prevent sprawling standalone History of Poland style articles, not to insist that every article ruthlessly be split into subpages. – iridescent 11:08, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Malleus and I have been doing some copyediting and have cut off about 500 words. We're not done, and can probably get rid of another 200-500, but that still leaves this at about 11,000 words. I think that the three of us may be too close to the material to identify details that may be unnecessary - it was already a huge challenge to get the article down to this length while still leaving enough background for people to truly understand what happened. Part of the problem is that there are a lot of people involved, doing a lot of parallel activites, and we are duplicating information in some parts of the article so that readers don't get lost. I don't think it would be feasible to create subarticles for any of this content, so to get the article shorter we'll have to more ruthlessly summarize. At this point, we would defnitely appreciate advice on how to do that. Karanacs (talk) 15:57, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

This is why I would have appreciated some direction in what material to cut. I don't agree with removing most of this, or some of the edits here. But that's me. I think some of the most compelling information is being sacrificed, but traded for what I don't know. If I need to back out of this process I will. --Moni3 (talk) 16:07, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
None of my edits should be set in stone - if you disagree, we can either add back in a bit of info or at least discuss. That's the joy of a collaboration :) I removed some of what I thought were "gory details" - tidbits of information that are designed to shock just about everyone who reads them, and which I didn't think were necessary to get the message across. The reader has been told that bodies were mutilated, that children were eating the flesh of their parent. To me, that's enough to stir pity in everyone, perhaps we don't need to give them the nightmares we're having too? But again, that's just my opinion, and I won't have my feelings hurt at all if you wish to reinstate those details. Karanacs (talk) 16:17, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
In particular, I think the mental states of the emigrants should be included. They babbled about religion when first found. Starvation affects one's ability to make decisions and this is connected to the Breens' and Graves' decision to stay in the snow pit and wait for Woodworth. The living conditions in the Murphy cabin. Keseberg being bathed by Reed. The reactions of the relief party. I feel like these are strings representing facets of humanity that tie into multiple connections for readers. Removing them simplifies the story, but the connections to the reader are cut. I'm not arguing for including the grotesque for the sake of inclusion. I've already stated that I declined to include some horrific details that I just couldn't force myself to type. But I'm concerned the material will be simplified too much. --Moni3 (talk) 16:32, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
I thought from the first time I read it that the Keseberg bathing story was overly detailed (it's not in Rarick, which may be why it jumped out at me). The other details I removed seemed redundant - of course the cabins would be dark, they didn't have windows, bugs tend to follow when people and surroundings are unclean, people who suddenly encounter cannibalism and filth like this would be overcome. We've already been told that they seem mentally unstable, do we need the details? To me, all of this (with the Keseberg bath exception) are just stating the obvious, which in a long article is perhaps not necessary. Malleus, do you have an opinion? Karanacs (talk) 16:43, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
I do, and it's the same as yours. Malleus Fatuorum 01:40, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
This was "tightened up", but it removes the information about the compromised thought processes of those on the snowshoe party. Foster now seems like a total murderous dick who killed Luis and Salvador because he felt like it, and suggested killing Amanda McCutcheon out of dickishness, not because all of them were enfeebled by starvation and hypothermia. The fact about the hatchet head flying off into the snow and the fire creating a hole was removed. I didn't find where. These edits are removing what I feel are integral parts of the story, that bit by bit, explain the one more thing they had to endure that led up to making the awful decision to have to eat their friends and family. If we're cutting material for room, why is it necessary to state that 17 started in the snowshoe party and two turned back, and how they intended to travel? Could this be placed in a footnote? --Moni3 (talk) 14:19, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Foster clearly shot the Indians to eat them, however you dress it up. Apart from the unproven allegations against Keseburg, Foster was the only one who killed to eat wasn't he? All the others ate those who had died naturally, of which there seems to have been no shortage. Malleus Fatuorum 21:23, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
One of the cuts that jumped out at me was the fact that Jean Baptiste was carrying around a human leg and when he saw the relief party, he threw the leg away. To me, that gets to the human nature part of this story. He knew he would die if he didn't eat human flesh, but when he saw the relief party, he was ashamed of what he was doing. While I agree that not all of the "gory details" need to be included, losing that part of the narrative makes me feel less of his pain. Tex (talk) 17:14, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
Agreeing with Tex about that episode. Durova412 01:16, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
That definitely needs to go back in, I agree. Malleus Fatuorum 17:11, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
It's back now. Malleus Fatuorum 21:05, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
The article is now 63kB of readable prose, and 10,980 words. I'm not sure there's much more fat to be cut, and in light of Moni3's evidently strong feelings expressed above I'm not even going to try. Malleus Fatuorum 21:10, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
I've added some suggestions at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Donner Party/archive1. As I said there, I'm not particularly interested in debating each one, but you can see the kinds of things I would remove or reorganize and the reasons for those suggestions. Awadewit (talk) 00:01, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

More trimming

Partially in response to Awadewit's comments on the tone being used in the Forlorn Hope section, I've copyedited and trimmed quite a bit that I thought was not necessary. [7] This is of course my opinion, and if anyone disagrees with the cuts you are welcome to restore some of the text. Karanacs (talk) 16:00, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

More trimming, this time in the Rescue section [8]. Karanacs (talk) 16:27, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the note about Sarah Keyes's age, and removed reference to her age altogther. I don't see how important it is to know whether she is 70, 75, or even 55. I've also moved a few of the other notes in the body of the article. I would like to remove current Note 12, which discusses Woodworth's role. We don't actually discuss Woodworth much in the article anymore, so the note doesn't really make sense right now. I also think we might want to remove note 13, which has Mrs. Murphy accusing Keseberg of murder. Thoughts? Karanacs (talk) 16:42, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you about note 12, which I've now removed. Malleus Fatuorum 20:53, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Agree with you about note 13 as well, which I've also removed. Malleus Fatuorum 20:59, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Rewriting intro

Thanks for inviting me to play with y'all. I worked on the introduction; here are my comments on what I did and why.

  • "The Donner Party (also called the Reed–Donner Party)" -- Actually, it's rarely called the "Reed-Donner Party." My bibliography of 6100+ citations contains 24 instances of "Reed-Donner," of which half are by or about members of the Reed family (I do not regard this as a coincidence). "Donner-Reed" is more common -- 87 instances.
  • "pioneers" -- Suggest "emigrants." This is the standard term used in both the 1840s and in modern trail literature for "wagon train travelers." "Pioneers" generally refers to the first Americans in an area, but the Donner Party members were not the first Americans to go to California.
  • "Poor planning." -- The Donner Party planned just as well as anybody else on the plains that year. Their planning would have been just fine if the other mishaps hadn't happened.
  • "Some resorted to cannibalism to survive, eating those who had succumbed to starvation and sickness." -- Italicized words are redundant; if a reader doesn’t know what cannibalism is, the word is hyperlinked to the Wikipedia entry.
  • The italicised words aren't describing what cannibalism is, they're describing what the victims were. Parrot of Doom 11:53, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
  • "Eating those who had died" is implicit in the reference to cannibalism; I mean, what else would they eat if they were cannibalizing? DPL 14:50, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
The relevant quoted part was "those who had succumbed to starvation and sickness" which made it clear that they didn't just draw lots or randomly select victims. Adding "eating" avoids the need to use the ugly "cannibalizing". Yomanganitalk 15:25, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
  • "The journey west usually took about four months." -- Not so. Lightly equipped parties and mule packers might take only four months, but they were the exception. Families in wagons generally took 5-6 months.
    • Do you have a source for that? Rarick says 4 months, but I'm certain it varied quite a bit. I've compromised in the lead by saying "at least four months". Malleus Fatuorum 12:38, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
  • Bagley (So Rugged and Mountainous, p. 130) says 4-6 months. I haven't checked Unruh. The problem is, where do you consider the journey to start? Was it when the emigrants left home or when they "jumped off" at Independence/Westport/St. Joe? If the latter, Rarick's 4 months isn't so unreasonable; if the former, 5-6 months.
  • "the Donner Party was delayed as a consequence of choosing to follow an untried shortcut" -- Verbose.
  • "It wound through the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake Desert, resulting in the loss of many of the party's cattle and wagons, and fragmentation of the group into bitter factions." -- No. The shortcut caused only a part of their losses; Indian attacks along the Humboldt and the harsh Nevada desert were at least as significant, if not more so. FYI, trail historian Don Buck has demonstrated that *many* wagon trains fell apart along the Humboldt, and very few of those wagons had taken Hastings Cutoff! That stretch of the trail was a killer.
  • "Bitter factions" -- Really? Some of them might have been bitter, but others were not. Nobody has accused the Murphys or the Donners of being bitter, for instance.
  • "The pioneers were a month and a half behind schedule" -- Only if reckoned from the false [edit: "deceptive"] statement that they were supposed to get there in four months. The majority of the emigration of 1846 reached California in October, and some of them were only a few days ahead of the Donner Party.
  • "Sierra Nevadas" and "Sierra Nevada mountains" -- These phrases are considered bad form. "Sierra Nevada" means "snowy mountain range," so it doesn’t need an –s; adding "mountains" makes it "snowy mountain range mountains," which is redundant. Not a problem in informal speech, but should be avoided here. IMO, of course.
    • I've fixed that later in the article as well. Malleus Fatuorum 12:38, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
  • "unusually heavy snowfall." -- It was the earliness of the snowfall as much as the heaviness that did them in. Hastings crossed the Sierra in mid-December 1845, but in 1846 the pass closed six weeks earlier.
  • "Family members in California made several rescue attempts." -- Reed and McCutchen made only one rescue attempt. Yes, Reed tried to get another rescue party going, but he made only one attempt to go.
    • I've changed that to "rescuers from California ...". Malleus Fatuorum 12:38, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
  • "45 survived" -- 48 survived.
  • "men aged between blah blah..." -- Look, ya got this terrific flow: "87 emigrants, 48 survived, spectacular tragedy!" It's a real grabber, a boffo ending, so why spoil it with boring statistics?

DPL 06:32, 31 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TammyZ (talk • contribs)

Numbers

There seems to be some difficulty in resolving the numbers of survivors in the article.

  • We say there are 87 in the party who entered the mountains.
  • The lead did say 45 survived, this was then changed to 48
  • The main body said 45 survived and 42 died (agreeing with the original lead), but later in the Mortality section it said 41 died in total (6 before reaching Truckee Lake and 35 more up to April). Removing Sara Keyes (as we don't count her) that means 40 died, giving a total of 47 survivors. I changed the lead and the body to agree with this, so at least it is consistent until a figure can be agreed.
  • If we remove Stanton (who perhaps left before the 87 total was calculated but then returned and died) from the total of 35 we get 39 deaths up to April which allows the 48 survivors figure to stand, but I don't know whether Stanton is included in either the 87 or 35 figures.
  • Adding the figures from the article it looks like it gives us these numbers for the survivors: McCutcheon, who left with Stanton but did not return (1), Reed and Herron, who rode to Sutters (2), Forlorn Hope (7), First Relief (20), Second Relief (14), Third Relief (5), Keseberg (1), giving a total of 50. If McCutcheon is removed from the 87 total (presuming like Stanton that he isn't counted as he left early on) it can be knocked down to 49, but unless the details of the survivors are wrong or you don't count Reed and Herron either (which would result in a figure of 47) I don't see how you can get it lower.
  • ...?

Apologies if I've misadded anywhere, but it certainly isn't immediately clear where the numbers come from. Yomanganitalk 13:11, 31 March 2010 (UTC) Totting up the numbers from Rarick's Dramatis personae gives 88 excluding Sarah Keyes. Yomanganitalk 13:25, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Yoman, it may help to try to reconcile some of the numbers with the info footnoted at Donner Party timeline? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:48, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
It does. James Smith is listed there as a fatality whereas here we have him rescued in the first relief. Solomon Hook is listed as rescued in both the first relief and the second relief (though his age goes up) Yomanganitalk 14:20, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
Rarick includes Hiram Miller, who was never a member of the Donner Party. Miller left Springfield with the Donners but left them on July 2, before the Donner Party was created on July 19/20. Kristin Johnson (hereafter DPL, if I remember to sign in) DPL 14:33, 31 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TammyZ (talk • contribs)
Rarick includes Hiram Miller in his list, so removing him gives the 87. If Solomon Hook is put in the correct relief and Smith removed then the 48 survivor number agrees with everything but the figures quoted in the mortality section, which needs looking at (I don't have access to the cited document). Yomanganitalk 14:35, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
I've removed Smith and moved Solomon Hook to the second relief, but that is per Stewart. Perhaps somebody could check with another source. I also changed the first relief number to 21 to take into account the adjustments, but I don't know whether that alters the totals for those remaining behind. Depends whether they were calculated or taken from a source. Yomanganitalk 15:13, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
There's certainly some confusion over the numbers, and it depends who's counting. First of all, there weren't 87 in the group who got stuck in camp, that was the maximum size of the group in the Wasatch Mountains. By they time they reached the Sierra Nevada Reed had been banished, Herron had gone ahead with Reed, and Snyder had been killed. Some discrepancies arise depending on whether or not the two Indians and Sarah Keyes are counted as members of the party, and whether the baby who died shortly after being rescued is counted as a survivor or not. Malleus Fatuorum 14:37, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
I think it is mostly worked out by adjusting the first relief numbers (to remove Smith and move Solomon). The mortality study seems to be one off; possibly they missed somebody and added the Indians. Yomanganitalk 15:13, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm still not sure what's happening here. I've checked Grayson's mortality paper again (his list of survivors and non-survivors comes from Stewart), and he quite explicitly says "By the time the last survivor was removed, on April 21, 1847, 40 of the 87 members of the Donner Party had died. He's excluded Sarah Keyes and the Indians, so who the Hell is this mysterious 48th survivor? Malleus Fatuorum 17:33, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
I can't reconcile Stewart's totals - he says 5 died before reaching the mountain camps, 34 either at the camps or on the mountain and 1 in the valley, yet with the numbers we have now, we only reach 39 dead. He does exclude Luis and Salvador from that total, but doesn't mention Sara Keyes (though the 5 makes it hard to imagine he included her there). A simple miscount by Stewart copied verbatim by Grayson sounds unlikely in a study of the mortality. Yomanganitalk 18:26, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
No baby died "shortly" after being rescued. The baby in question, Elizabeth Graves, and her brother Jonathan both died of fever after their rescue, but the exact date is unknown. They were still alive on May 22, 1847, when their sister Mary wrote that the family consisted of eight (letter reprinted in Unfortunate Emigrants). William C. Graves wrote they died in the summer of 1847.
(Off-topic query: How do you guys manage to find so much time to work on this? I can only check in now and again...) DPL 16:12, 31 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TammyZ (talk • contribs)
Well, that's only a couple of months later, but I take your point, and they did survive to reach California anyway, so they obviously ought to be counted as survivors. Malleus Fatuorum 17:33, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
Back for a minute. Here are the numbers: 87 emigrants OR 89 people, if you include Luis & Salvador; 79 emigrants trapped in the mts OR 81 people trapped if you include L & S. Counting *just the emigrants*:

Survived

  • 3 survived by going ahead to California (not counting Stanton, who left but came back)
  • 7 survived the Forlorn Hope
  • 18 were rescued by the 1st Relief (23 refugees started, -2 Reed kids taken back to lake camp, -3 died enroute = 18)
  • 14 were rescued by the 2nd Relief (17 refugees started, -3 died at Starved Camp = 14)
  • 4 were rescued by the 3rd Relief (3 little Donners & Simon Murphy)
  • 1 vamoosed and caught up with the 3rd Relief (Baptiste)
  • 1 was rescued by the 4th Relief (Keseberg)
  • 48 = total survivors.

Died

  • 5 died before they reached the Sierra (not including Sarah Keyes, who died before the DP was created)
  • 6 died with the Forlorn Hope (not including L & S)
  • 3 died with the 1st Relief
  • 3 died with the 2nd Relief
  • 14 died at the lake camp
  • 8 died at Alder Creek
  • 39 = total deaths (not including L & S)

Hope this helps -- sorry I can't stay. Kristin DPL 23:04, 31 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TammyZ (talk • contribs)

I am so confused: is TammyZ actually Kristin Johnson, and who is DPL? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:07, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
Nobody is real on the Internet, Sandy. Amelia Earhart 23:33, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
Beg to differ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:36, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
TammyZ was an ID I created ages ago and wanted to replace with DPL, but it didn't work, so now I'm JohnsoKr. JohnsoKr (talk) 04:45, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
I think we have the numbers mostly right now Kristin, what we are trying to work out is who is the 40th fatality according to Stewart (and by extension Grayson) given that he excludes L & S and lists only 5 dying before the mountains. Yomanganitalk 23:33, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
  • OK, I think I've tracked down this discrepancy. There were two Elizabeth Graves, one in her forties and a child aged one. Grayson lists them both as fatalities, but the younger Elizabeth Graves was rescued by the second relief. It seems that Grayson has made an error, although Elizabeth Graves did die a few months later, as noted above. So, we now have 39 casualties from the party of 87, giving us that magic number of 48 survivors. I'm thinking the best way to deal with this might be to report the correct number and add a note pointing out Grayson's error? Many thanks to Kristin and Yomangani for forcing us to look at this a bit more thoroughly. Malleus Fatuorum 00:15, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Rewriting First Relief section and other observations

I've made a lot of changes in the First Relief section; sorry if I've stepped on anybody's toes in doing so. I mean well. Some points:

  • I took out a lot of modifiers, because that's where bias and interpretation sneak in. For instance, "Patty Reed told her [mother] resolutely..." But who says she was "resolute"? Sure, it's possible, but she could also have said it "resignedly," or "forlornly," or "choking back tears." We really don't know. OTOH, I did leave in "the Breens reluctantly took the children in" because we do have a source describing their reluctance.
  • And speaking of the Breen episode: It's an example of the "kitchen sink" problem -- wanting to put in all the details. The previous version of the entry said, "Upon their return to the lake, the Breens flatly refused them entry to their cabin, but after Glover left more food the children were grudgingly admitted." I just don't see why all this is necessary and have replaced it with "Back at the lake, the Breens reluctantly took the children in." I don't claim that mine is the perfect solution, but do think it's better.
  • Periphrastic genitive: There seem to be a lot of phrases like "the fate of the snowshoers" instead of "the snowshoers' fate" or "a stepson of Jacob Donner" instead of "Jacob Donner's stepson" throughout the Donner Party entry. It's not ungrammatical, just unnecessarily wordy, IMO, and a little of it goes a long way.
  • Topography: There seems to be some unfamiliarity with the terrain. For instance, the First Relief didn't "scale" the pass heading east to Donner Lake -- Summit Valley, on the western side, is relatively level. It's the other (eastern) side that's so hard to climb -- "as steep as stair steps," Virginia Reed wrote.
  • "After struggling on the walk over the pass John Denton slipped into a coma and died" -- This gives an inaccurate impression of what really happened: he climbed the pass, walked 1-2 miles the next day, gave out, had to be left behind, and died alone. He may have slipped into a coma before he died, but since there was no one there to witness it, it shouldn't be stated as a fact.JohnsoKr (talk) 06:13, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
I took a look at some of the changes, and the article is now being partially sourced to original documents (linked to wikisource). This is a form of original research. We are supposed to be using independent, third-party sources to get all of the information, which is one of the reasons that the article was rewritten. I know that you are an expert, Ms. Johnson, but the article still needs to use a variety of third-party sources and not be citing primary sources. I'll go through and try to fix this today. Karanacs (talk) 14:08, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
This is a major gripe I have with Wikipedia. Wikipedia editors may know the rules of Wikipedia editing, but some of the ones working on this entry know little about the topic or were in a big hurry, because they've come up with egregious errors all by themselves. E.g., the statement that Spitzer was the first to die, then Baylis Williams. I don't know of any secondary historian who says so, and even if one did it's easily refuted: Patrick Breen's diary says Baylis died December 14 and Spitzer February 8. But how do I convince you if you won't accept primary sources? Do I have to publish an article refuting it before you'll allow it to be taken out? Is someone going to go falsify the Donner Party Timeline because it doesn't agree with this lie in the main article?
Another example: does any secondary source actually say that the First Relief "scaled" Donner Pass from the east, or is this the wording of a wiki-editor? But suppose somebody, say, Stewart, did use the word "scale"; does his exact wording have to be repeated? If I find a secondary historian who doesn't use the word "scale," does that trump Stewart? Does the fact that Stewart screwed up ~75 years ago mean that his error is "true" and must be repeated until I write an article full of citations, topo maps, and photographs to prove him wrong? That's a lot for one word; why not just allow the change?
If you need secondary sources for some of my edits: I don't know where the heck anybody came up with "McCutcheon," because McGlashan, Stewart, and Brown use "McCutchen"; Rarick, as I recall, uses "McCutchan." (This shouldn't even be an issue.) I believe all the main authors -- Stewart, Rarick, Brown -- mention Baylis Williams's death before Spitzer's, from which an intelligent reader could infer that Baylis died first.
Sigh. Sorry for the rant. I'll try to go along with these absurdities. JohnsoKr (talk) 18:49, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
I can understand your frustration, and working up an article for Wikipedia is obviously considerably different from more traditional forms of publishing, but I think your input and contributions are definitely valued here given your specialized knowledge. The policy prohibiting original research creates dilemmas at times. For example, as seems to be the case here, a person may have expert knowledge, due to their own research, which would actually add depth to an article and/or make it more accurate. However we cannot in essence take that person's word for it if they say, "this is correct, I'll be publishing a paper on it later." Basically we have to wait until the paper is published before including the information. Since Wikipedia is a tertiary source, it's very difficult if not impossible for our articles to be as up to date and accurate as a manuscript from an expert in the field. I know there are issues here which go beyond this point, but it's worth bearing in mind the limits to what an encyclopedia article can do.
Having said that, per WP:PRIMARY the use of primary sources is not completely verboten, they just have to be used very carefully. The primary source you were quoting which was removed (a statement from Daniel Rhoads) was found on Wikisource, which in turn took it from a (now defunct) Geocities page. That does not work as far as sourcing for our purposes. From what I can gather the letter was originally published in a 2002 collection called The Rhoads-Esrey letters: 1846-1873 (perhaps elsewhere too). I cannot really figure out if there are actually physical copies of this available (the publisher is supposedly Kings River Press), but this gives the basic background, this lists some of the letters that were printed, and this is the letter you cited (all the same web site). It's possible that would be accepted as a site that had "reliably published" the letter per WP:PRIMARY but I'm not sure.
The people working to get this article to "featured" status (and I'm just passing by and have commented on the featured article candidate page, I did not work on the article) are definitely interested in your feedback and improvements, but at the same time there are certain rules which the English Wikipedia does follow, even if they may at times seem absurd. The editors who have put time into this have a lot of experience crafting high quality (or at least what the Wikipedia community takes to be high quality—you can feel free to disagree!) Wikipedia articles, and you, Ms. Johnson, have a great deal of expertise on this subject. Hopefully you can all work together to iron out kinks in the article. What I'd recommend to Ms. Johnson is that she write up a list of any outstanding concerns (particularly about matters of basic fact as we really don't want to get those wrong) and put them here on the talk page (or possibly at the featured article candidate page, I'm not sure which is better). I think others will be very amenable to working through these, and it might be a bit easier to work together off of a list. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:46, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for you thoughtful response. FYI, regarding the Daniel Rhoads quote, the original document is a holograph of 15 leaves, archived at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, BANC MSS C-D 144; I assumed that citing the original would not be acceptable.
If someone has a chance, I hope they'll address the other concerns I mentioned above, such as who trumps whom.
I disagree with your assessment of this article. It's not a high-quality entry. For starters, it seems unbalanced in the selection of what details to include; the tone is frequently overly emotional; there are factual errors and misrepresentations; and the problem with relying on secondary sources is rampant. (See below)
I'm distressed that the Donner Party entry seems to have been commandeered by a group that does not appear to be adept at comprehending, correlating, and accurately summarizing the sources they quote. They're nice people, they've been kind and polite to me, which I appreciate, they're dedicated and sincere, but they have not produced a quality page despite the blizzard of activity on the article which started about ~March 20 -- about two weeks ago. They can be resistant to change -- see remarks on tallow, below, for example. However, I'm unfamiliar with Wikipedia's the behind-the-scenes activities and protocols, and if I have not edited the entry in an appropriate manner, I apologize.
Examples
  • Problem with relying on secondary sources: Stewart writes that the emigrants were dismayed to find that they had to cross a 1,000 foot mountain. This is arrant nonsense. First of all, I defy Stewart -- no, wait, he's dead -- I defy anyone to quote me one single source that says that the emigrants were dismayed to see the ridge. They can't, because it didn't happen, because Stewart made it up. Second, in that open country you can see the ridges, believe me, and the Donner Party had the wheel tracks of Hastings' wagons showing the way -- no surprises. Third, the last place to get water before tackling the dry drive is at Redlum Spring, which is at the base of the Cedar Mountains. Now how, pray tell, can you spend 36 hours stocking up on water at the base of a ridge, then suddenly look up and be dismayed to see that you have something to climb? The fact is, Stewart was wrong. He assumed that the Donners stocked up back in the Tooele Valley, rounded Timpie Point, and saw the tracks go up the Cedars after they crossed Skull Valley. His mistake in 1934 is excusable, because he wrote before the discovery of the Miller-Reed diary, which makes it clear that they watered at Redlum. But even after the diary became available, Stewart couldn't be bothered to revise the text in the second (1960) "edition" of Ordeal and simply repeated his error. (I'm not a huge Stewart fan.) But according to Wikipedia rules, Stewart said so, so it's "true." Addendum: YOW!! I abase my self; I committed a major howler. My third point above was wrong and internally inconsistent. They stocked up on water at Iosepa, which is across Skull Valley from Redlum. My blushes. JohnsoKr (talk) 21:31, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is not concerned with "truth", however you choose to define that term, but with verifiability. Stewart verifiably claimed that the emigrants were dismayed. If you can provide a different secondary source who says that the emigrants were undismayed, then fine. Malleus Fatuorum 16:41, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
  • No, no, no! Please switch your shoe immediately, it's on the wrong foot. You can't prove a negative, you have to prove a positive, and Stewart made a positive assertion: "they were dismayed." The verifiability of Stewart's statement is the issue. I've outlined my case above and can document it. I can also make a case that inventing historical figures' emotional states in the absence of any evidence is poor historianship; that relying on an outdated secondary history which has been seriously challenged is evidence of poor judgment on the part of those using it; and I can provide examples from more recent historians who do not echo Stewart's claim: Ethan Rarick, Desperate Passage, pp. 70-71; Daniel James Brown, The Indifferent Stars Above, pp. 96-97. (I'm not going to touch the question of whether Hastings Pass over the Cedars is actually 1,000 feet high!) JohnsoKr (talk) 17:46, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Please don't presume to lecture me. It is verifiable that Stewart claims the emigrants were "dismayed". You may believe that he is mistaken, or that he made it up, but that is quite frankly immaterial. You may well be right, but it doesn't matter because, as I've tried to explain, wikipedia is about verifiability, not "truth". Your logic is also deeply flawed; it is impossible to prove anything to be true; the whole scientific method is based on attempting to disprove, not to prove. Malleus Fatuorum 18:02, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
  • You're right, I don't get it. Seventy-five years ago George R. Stewart wrote that "the emigrants were dismayed" at the Cedar Mountains. There is no evidence in any primary source for the emigrants' feelings, negative or positive, at that point. Yet because Stewart's statement appeared in a secondary history, it can be used in Wikipedia, regardless of any arguments I adduce against it, because there is no direct statement in another secondary history that the emigrants felt differently, because other historians are more careful and don't just make things up with no evidence, so the historian who does make things up with no evidence trumps those who don't, if they don't specifically challenge every word he wrote?! This is utterly nuts...
  • Larger questions are, "Must Stewart's statement be used? Must all of it be used? Have Wikipedia editors no choice, no discretion as to how they summarize a source?" (After writing this I discovered that someone has exercised his/her powers of discretion and removed the word "dismayed," thus answering this question. Thanks! JohnsoKr (talk) 21:31, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Lack of correlating skills: Take, for instance, the statement that "George Donner's hand had become infected, which left four men to work at the Donner camp," citing Stewart. Now, I have an edition of Ordeal by Hunger whose pagination does not match the citation, but I dutifully combed the book and found the section containing the information referenced. Stewart does not say that only four men were left. What he actually says is that George's injury "left them with only Noah James to do the man's work about the camp with Uncle Jake's young stepsons and Jean Baptiste." I quite fail to see how this adds up to "four men." "Uncle Jake's young stepsons" were only 14 and 12 years old. How, exactly, came they to be considered "men"? Second, Noah James and Baptiste were both only about 16 years old, and I don't believe that any reasonable definition of "men" would include males of that age. The real (though approximate) ages of Baptiste and Noah James have been published in my own Unfortunate Emigrants (1996, 2nd prtg), Ethan Rarick's Desperate Passage (2008), and Daniel James Brown's The Indifferent Stars Above (2009). However, the author of the sentence didn't check the facts against other sources -- correlate his/her work -- before writing it.
  • More fact checking: I am provoked that somebody insists on using the word "tallow" in conjunction with oxhides. I've known since, oh, junior high? that tallow is a hard fat, rendered from deposits found around the internal organs of animals. The word "tallow" is hyperlinked to the Wikipedia entry, which nobody appears to have read. It describes quite clearly what tallow is and where it comes from. (Hint: it ain't hides.) My edit referred to the word "glue." It's most unfortunate that I can't quote primary sources, like Virginia Reed Murphy, who wrote (1891) "We now had nothing to eat but raw hides... when prepared for cooking and boiled they were simply a pot of glue." (Not tallow.) The Wikipedia entry for glue directs to animal glue, which quite clearly states that a major source of animal glue is -- drumroll, please! -- hides. JohnsoKr (talk) 11:23, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
  • The issue here is once again verifiability vs. "truth". This section is sourced to McGlashan, who is quoting from Virginia Reed's account, and is thus an acceptable secondary source. He doesn't say "glue", he says the boiling produced a jelly that "exactly resembled glue", so I've changed the sentence accordingly. Hopefully we can now put this "egregious error" to bed. Malleus Fatuorum 16:36, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
  • FYI, McGlashan didn't use Virginia's account, which came out 12 years after his book; I didn't use the words "truth" or "egregious" in reference to tallow. But, come to think of it, it is pretty egregious to cite a reference that contradicts doesn't support what you're saying. ;-) JohnsoKr (talk) 21:31, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
  • It would be if that's actually what I'd done, but let me quote what McGlashan says, on page 90 of my edition. "The narration by Mrs. J. M. Murphy (Virginia E. Reed), of San Jose, is among the most vivid. She says the green rawhides were cut into strips and laid upon the coals, or held in the flames until the hair was completely singed off ...". How is this to be reconciled with what you're claiming? Malleus Fatuorum 22:30, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
  • ??? Two apparent misunderstandings: There are two quotes from Virginia Reed; you were thinking of one and I was thinking of another. And my last use of "egregious" referred whoever didn't click the hyperlinked word "tallow," which would have taken them to a Wikipedia entry that doesn't support their claim; it did not refer to you personally. (I can see how you might have gotten that impression, however.) But yes, let's put this to bed. Thx. JohnsoKr (talk) 02:25, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is not a reliable source: we don't reference articles to other Wiki articles, we reference them to reliable sources. This is a rather silly discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:30, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Necessary revisions all in one place?

So, I'm getting a tad confused over what all needs to be done here. I was wondering if we could assemble a general list (perhaps it is not nearly as much as I think). Also, that would allow us to explain some of Wikipedia's rules to User:JohnsoKr, which we all know are overwhelming to newcomers! Awadewit (talk) 16:07, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

new study

This study may be useful. Griffinofwales (talk) 01:11, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

The brief news report of a yet-to-be-published journal report says "maybe"; I don't think this info should be added until the full journal report is printed and can be thoroughly examined and reviewed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:25, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Quite. I've removed it. The article hedges bets all round anyway (and picking out a named dog as being eaten is just sensationalism - did they find its collar and name tag in the hearth?) Yomanganitalk 09:54, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
The news blurb figures prominently on Yahoo.com, so others are likely to continue adding it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:59, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Also, it seems they've only examined the bones found at one of the camps. I'm not sure this really adds anything very much to the article anyway, which already says "Archeological findings at the Alder Creek camp proved inconclusive for evidence of cannibalism". Malleus Fatuorum 11:17, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Rarick gives a detailed explanation of why the lack of archealogical evidence cannot disprove cannibalism. From page 193: "it would have been astonishing to find archaeological evidence of cannibalism at Alder Creek. In the acidic soil of the conifer forests of the high Sierra, uncooked bone disintegrated quickly. The only bones found by the archaeologists - the only ones still there to find - were cooked. But the likelihood is small that the families at Alder Creek would have cooked any human bones. In typical cases of survival cannibalism, the desparate sufferers slice flesh form the cadavers and cook only this gruesome 'meat'. Not until after the supply of flesh is exhausted are the bones boiled, so they too can be eaten." Rarick goes on to say that it is unlikely they would have run out of human flesh and resorted to cooking the bones in the time frame from when the First Relief left and when most were rescued, especially if, as Georgia Donner later said, it was primarily the children who were eating that 'meat'. Karanacs (talk) 17:10, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Appalachian State University link: http://www.news.appstate.edu/2010/04/15/cannibalism-donner/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.108.58.7 (talk) 19:11, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I inserted the news report that briefs the new study because it is not only highly-pertinent but also reliable. I think it helps the article considerably. I don't believe the Reliable Sources guideline makes a distinction between journals and News Articles stating that if a News Article mentions a future journal article that will expand on the material, the news article is therefore not to be used. In particular, WP:V states that Verifiability, not truth, is the threshold for inclusion. So far, all dismissal of the source above seems to amount to Original Research. Burpelson AFB (talk) 23:41, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I think you've got it just about exactly the wrong way round. Malleus Fatuorum 23:46, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Yup. FAs use the highest quality sources-- not news reports about journal articles that haven't yet been printed or subjected to review by independent experts. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:48, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand... so News Articles are now not reliable sources? Burpelson AFB (talk) 00:59, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
It is a news article reporting on an yet-to-be-published journal report, and the content is already covered in the article, from high quality sources. Once the journal report is published, it can be compared to the already known facts about Alder Creek-- the media is infamous for not fully and correctly reporting on journal studies. What's the rush? The issue is already covered in the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
No rush. Is there a policy or guideline here that specifies what constitutes a "quality source"? I'm only here since last December or so, so maybe there's something I'm not aware of. Burpelson AFB (talk) 01:24, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
I guess it's sort of alluded to here Wikipedia:RS#News_organizations. Burpelson AFB (talk) 01:35, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
That covers some of it; basically, we shouldn't use news reports to refute scholarly sources, as you have done with this edit, which gives undue weight to one news report over all of the scholarly sources used in the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Ok, thank you for politely explaining. Burpelson AFB (talk) 02:19, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Dunno what it means, but I've just seen some scholarly confirmation of this article in a brief spot on CNN. Look further into it? 69.21.24.133 (talk) 22:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Cleared of cannibalism

See also Talk:Donner Party#new study.

[9]http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=115529 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.215.67 (talk) 09:36, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Can someone please edit the article and remove the cannibalism references? See above and also http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20100419/hl_hsn/analysisfinallyclearsdonnerpartyofrumoredcannibalism —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.143.135.84 (talk) 19:49, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I have tacked on a couple of sentences at the end of the article. HowardMorland (talk) 15:17, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Please stop doing this. The study will not be published until July, other sources have refuted this info in the past, and this info can be incorporated once the study is published and examined relative to other scholarly sources which already refute this info. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree it is premature to announce a new conclusion about cannibalism. However, this story is getting enough attention that readers who are attracted to the Wikipedia article by the recent news will probably be disappointed not to see any mention of it. It makes the article look out of date. At least that was my impression. HowardMorland (talk) 18:26, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
How can it be "out of date" when the paper hasn't been published yet? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. Similar research by the same investigator at Alder Creek similarly failed to find any archaeological evidence for cannibalism, as reported in the article, along with some explanation of why any such evidence may not have survived. Malleus Fatuorum 21:59, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
The external link to the New York Times article is probably sufficient for now. It is true that the absence of human bones at the campsites doesn't prove much of anything one way or another. HowardMorland (talk) 03:31, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
I added a couple of inline references noting that the charges of cannibalism are now disupted by forensic evidence.DLLHell (talk) 23:47, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
I've just reverted, though I don't doubt it is a good faith edit; current consensus of editors on this page is that the study should not be mentioned till it is published and there is scholarly discussion. Mike Christie (talk) 23:50, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Lincoln and Reed

Per CNN. I don't think this is notable enough to go in the article, other than at the most a mention of Reed's military background. But it's on the main page of CNN so the article will get some traffic. --Moni3 (talk) 21:56, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I saw that article and agree with you - not important enough to go in this article. It's already mentioned in the article on James F. Reed that he served with Lincoln. Karanacs (talk) 13:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
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