Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/402

 392 PETER H. BURNETT. Newell of Oregon, who could narrate events as well as she. She was not more accurate and full in her- narra- tive, but a better talker, than Newell. For hour after hour, I would listen in silence to her sad narrative. Her husband was then in good circumstances, and they had no worldly matter to give them pain but their recollec- tions of the past. Foster was a man of excellent common sense, and his intellect had not been affected, like those of many others. His statement *was clear, consistent, and intelligible. In the fall of 1849 I became intimately ac- quainted with William H. Eddy, another member of the party. From these four persons I mainly obtained my information on this melancholy subject. I can not state all the minute circumstances and incidents, but can only give the substance as I remember it; for I write from memory alone. The Donner party consisted of about eighty immigrants, including men, women, and children. They were so called because the men who bore that name were the leading persons of the party. They decided for themselves to cross the Sierra Nevada by a new road. L. W. Hastings, then residing at Sutter's Fort, went out to meet the incom- ing immigration of that fall, and advised the Donner party not to attempt to open a new route, but his advice was disregarded. He returned to the fort and reported the fact to Captain Sutter, who sent out two Indians with five mules packed with provisions to .meet the party. The party had arrived at a small lake, since called Don- ner Lake, situated a short distance from the present site of Truckee City, and some fifteen miles from Lake Tahoe, and had erected two log cabins upon the margin of Don- ner Lake, when the Indians arrived with the mules and provisions. This was in the month of November, 1846. Up to this time there had been several comparatively light falls of snow. Foster said he proposed to slaughter