The Donner Party Essay Research Paper DAVID — страница 4

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BUCK, Historian: Why Reed didn’t take the advice he got at Fort Laramie is I don’t know if there’s an answer to that question. He was an intelligent man, decisive. I don’t know. It’s always, I guess, our insatiable desire to take a shortcut in life, thinking it’ll get us there, and invariably it doesn’t. NARRATOR: The next day Clyman bid Reed good-bye and continued east, moving fast down the Platte. On July 15th, he crossed the Big Blue River and came to the grave of Margaret Reed’s mother. For a long time he stood looking down at the inscription, wondering what drove his countrymen west. JAMES CLYMAN: ”This stone shows us that all ages and all sects are found to undertake this long, tedious and even dangerous journey for some unknown object never to be

realized, even by those the most fortunate. And why? Because the human mind can never be satisfied, never at rest, always on the stretch for something new, some strange novelty.” NARRATOR: Sarah Keyes had been a member of what would soon be called the Donner Party. She was the first to die. Summer On July 17th, as the Reeds and the Donners toiled slowly up towards the Continental Divide, a lone horseman came riding down from South Pass, bearing an open letter from Lansford Hastings addressed to ”All emigrants now on the road.” It urged them to press on in one group to Fort Bridger, where Hastings himself would be waiting to escort them over the new trail. On July 18th they crossed the Continental Divide. They were in what the mountain men called ”Oregon country” now,

1,000 miles from Independence with more than 1,000 miles still to go. They moved on, spellbound by the altitude and the landscape and the endless sea of sage. Mr. BUCK: Once you got beyond Fort Laramie, there was no turning back. A lot of emigrants turned back by the time they got to Fort Laramie, realizing they were into something that they didn’t want. But after that, you’re pretty much committed all the way. Even though you might like to be able to, there was hardly a chance or opportunity. It just wouldn’t work. NARRATOR: On July 20th, the wagon train reached the Little Sandy River. It was the parting of the ways. Most of the emigrants heeded James Clyman’s warning and turned right, but 20 wagons, including the nine belonging to the Donners and the Reeds, turned left

towards Fort Bridger and the entrance to Hastings’s cutoff. The next day the new party met to elect a captain. James Reed was the obvious choice, but his aristocratic manner and his wealth had rubbed too many families the wrong way. They chose George Donner instead. One week later the Donner Party rolled into Fort Bridger, two log cabins and a corral run as a trading post by a celebrated mountain man named Jim Bridger. Lansford Hastings wasn’t there. The promoter had started west a week earlier at the head of another group of wagons, leaving instructions for any emigrants who wished to follow along behind. They spent four days resting their oxen and making repairs. JAMES REED: ”July 31st, 1846. Hastings’s cutoff is said to be a saving of 350 or 400 miles and a better

route. The rest of the Californians went the long route, feeling afraid of Hastings’s cutoff. But Mr. Bridger informs me that it is a fine, level road with plenty of water and grass. It is estimated that 700 miles will take us to Captain Sutter’s fort, which we hope to make in seven weeks from this day.” NARRATOR: On July 31st, the nine families and 16 single men of the Donner Party left Fort Bridger and entered Hastings’s cutoff. For a week they made good time, 10 sometimes 12 miles a day, working their way deeper into the rugged mountains, following the track of Hastings’s wagons. Then on August 6th, at the bottom of Echo Canyon, the party came to a halt. Stuck in the top of some sage near the trail was a note. It was from Lansford Hastings. It stated that the road

ahead was virtually impassable and advised them to wait until he could show them a better way. It took James Reed five days to find Hastings. When he did, the promoter refused to come back to lead the company himself, pointing out what he thought might be a more manageable route from a high peak, instead. The next day, with James Reed as their pilot, the party turned off the track into the tangled wilderness. Mr. SCHINDLER: When they committed themselves to cross the Wasatch, when they decided legitimately to enter the great basin, to tackle Emigration Canyon, as we know it, and Echo Canyon, as we know it, they were eating up days that were vital to them and they had no way of knowing it. NARRATOR: They crawled along, making scarcely two miles a day, fighting their way through a