Collection: Newspapers > Nevada County Nugget

About This Item:

Title: August 12, 1970 Collection Type: Newspapers Collection Name: Nevada County Nugget Published: August 12, 1970 Copyright: In the public domain or published before 1925 Physical Format: Newspaper # of Pages: 12 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Printed or handwritten: All printed text Date Scanned: 2023-04-11 13:44:48 Scanning Equipment: Professionally Scanned OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: JPGs First Created: 2025-03-17 04:09:40 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 04:09:40

Original Held At: Doris Foley Library Location: 211 North Pine Street, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 12  

VER ad ta 28 Se is Ga en agreed ae us a A THE NORTHERN Mines story in the future will cover phases of hydraulic mining, which caused much concern with farmers in the valley. Hydraulic mining moved mountainsides down rivers into the valley. This photo shows the Malakoff Diggings.Nie Ne ane LE ear naund Kinyon omally conducted tour. The citoff route oute) from the Big Sandy to Great Salt d by the Stevens Party two years prenwood serving as guide. That circuminfluence upon the emigrants of 1846, of the Donner train was divided and no ched, Thus, at the point where the trails ude his own decision. The greater numfollow the established routes to Oregon ento Valley. A minority (twenty wagons) proceed along the overtouted Hastings te to California, it had been urged, by Vhat they actually did by this decision ble strength against an almost insuperm of the rugged Wasatch Range in Utah. lake and the Donner train moved west; waterless desert, finally to that dread nboldt. There it was to suffer the most kperienced, In an altercation between strongest leader, and John Snyder, a fatally stabbed. Hotheads of the train r the hanging of Reed. Objections were ym the train urged instead. Such council owed his riding horse, and for several yf the train and in communication with ished on to cross the Sierra, reached ted a heroic, though delayed, role in ‘such as the two Indian youths detailed by Captain Sutter to accompany Stanton, who likewise had preceded the train on a mission of food relief for the emigrants. Despite the rigors of hunger and cold, more than half of those immured at Alder Creek and Donner Lake survived, McGlashan placed the number at forty-eight. . Omitting for. the present reference to the dire scenes enacted in the Sierra and likewise the roster of the survivors, has been advanced by virtually all of the historians of thetragedy. That much validity attaches thereto is beyond question, but other factors entered, It is apparent that the emigrants for two weeks held the belief that the barricade was only temporary, that the storms would cease and the snow melt, Moreover, almost fo the last, with true mid-western thrift, they clung to the hope of saving their possessions. A third factor there was: The view and prospect from the summit westward in winter is chaotic and desolate beyond description, That the majority of those who reached the summit and surveyed the forbidding passage which stretched ahead recoiled from it is indicated. The preferred the wretched shelter of the black holes of Donner Lake to the terrors of an advance, : The urge for escape, however, prompted several attempts followed up Cold Stream, and so crossed the divide. some wagons never returned to the lake, but were left imbedded in the snow, These efforts to cross the Sierra were quite desultory and irregular, and there was great lack of harmony and system, Each family or little group of emigrants actedindependently. . "At last, one day, a systematic attempt was made. Nearly the entire train was engaged. The road, of course, was entirely obliterated by snow. All day the men and animals floundered. through the snow and attempted to break and trample 2 road, Just before nightfall they reached the abrupt precipice where the present wagon road intercepts the snowsheds of the Central Pacific. (Now changed by realignments and tunnels.) At that -point the typical dissentions reasserted themselves, Some wished to push on at any hazard, others to return to the lake, The defeatists won, That night, or very soon thereafter, an agreement was finally reached, The cattle were to be slaughtered and the meat preserved in the snow for food, Later, when the snow crust had hardened an attempt was to be made to take the entire company on foot over the summit and trust to. chance that they find their way through the maze of ' But the time was about November 20, almost midwinter in that area. Increasing snowfalls apparently frustrated any concerted efforts at escape. The emigrants, . finally recognizing the immutability of the stark fortune which was theirs, set to the task of digging in for a long winter. So the emigrants excavated the frozen carcasses of their stock and ate them to the last morsel, including the hides, ~ As that dread winter dragged on and their extremity increased wagons sons to the summit. Of such efforts, ocean . gcc rr prs re contig re Ele recourse was had by some to the ultimate of the instinct to ween the Big Sandy and the Sierran “Several times during the days which succeeded (the snowlive — cannibalism. “i “was reduced by deaths and detaching-in) parties attempted to cross the mountain barrier, W.C. eighty. Some replacements there were, Graves (one of the survivors) says the old emigrant road oe Company Reserves All Rights. (CONTINUED NEXT WEEK.) ee =. ——— a nae ~~ Ce ee ee eee EE ce. Ae 8 Sh at wheel gate tee wie cia