If I could blame one man for the deaths of 41 people in the Donner Party it would be Lansford Hastings, the creator, founder, director of the Hastings Cutoff disaster, circa 1846.
Lansford was born in Ohio to wealthy parents who could trace their American origins back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He trained as a lawyer, but he had bigger dreams than staying in the Midwest and practicing his trade. Lansford wanted to rule the world—starting with California. At age 23, and only four years before he met up with James Reed of the Donner Party in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains, which are east of Salt Lake City. Lansford traveled the Oregon Trail, and firmed up his plans for the U.S. to take over California from Mexico, feeling that he could easily hold political office in this new country. To his dying day in the Virgin Islands at age 51, Lansford never gave up his dreams of ruling the world, as he set his sights on Brazil, the proposed future home for all of his disgruntled Confederate friends.
A good-looking, charismatic young fellow and a decent writer, Lansford wrote the Emigrant’s Guide to Oregon and California in 1845 as a way to get nice Midwestern folks over to California so he could build his empire. The Hastings Cutoff is only a line in the book and he DID NOT promote his Cutoff through this book (a common misconception), BUT he should have at least traveled the route once before he wrote about it with confidence. “The most direct path would be leave the Oregon route, about two hundred miles east of Fort Hall; thence bearing west-south west, to the Salt Lake; and thence continuing down to the bay of San Francisco.” (Hastings, pp. 137–138). The only time Lansford traveled the route was with the wagon train that came through right before the Donner Party did in the summer of 1846, and they had an extremely hard go of it through Weber Canyon (which the Donner Party didn’t take).
The Donner brothers (George and Jacob), as well as James Reed fell in love with Lansford’s book and soaked up every word as they prepared to set off with their wagons in 1846 from Springfield, Illinois. They were determined to take the Cutoff even after an experienced mountain man and fellow Black Hawk war buddy, Jim Clyman, warned Reed not to. Reed didn’t want to listen to any good advice. He wanted to believe that the Cutoff would save time and get them all to California before all of the land there was sold to other folks. Reed also was sick and tired of being around his Donner Party frenemies and couldn’t wait for the journey to end. Many shared his sentiments. On a map, it DOES look like it’ll be shorter because it’s a straight line, but there was a reason the wagons did loop-de-loops. Wagons were driven by oxen, and oxen had to follow water and grass, so you followed the waterways, which don’t line up straight on a map.
Jim Bridger of Fort Bridger (he was portrayed as a squirrely individual in The Revenant (2015) film) loved Lansford’s book because he needed these wagon trains to come through his fort and buy his supplies instead of using the Greenwood Cut-off on the way to Fort Hall, the regular and proven route. Fort Bridger had become a ghost town because as wagon trains veered off north to Fort Hall, and so they bypassed his supply depot. Were there pay-offs? Probably, although nothing has ever been proven. But we know one thing: Edwin Bryant, a smart and curious journalist, who traveled ahead of the Donners with others on mules left letters imploring his former Donner Party traveling buddies NOT to take the Hastings Cutoff. Unfortunately, Bridger and his partner, Louis Vasquez, purloined these letters so the Donners were left in the dark. There’s a good reason no one ever traveled the Hastings Cutoff twice. The poor Donners had to a blaze a trail without dynamite and ride through craters and brush on bulky wagons. The “short cut” added extra thirty days of slogging through the mountains, cliffs, and desert costing them food, water, energy, and later their lives when they failed to reach the Sierra Nevadas before the snows covered their one accessible path.
Lansford’s advice wasn’t all that bad. He did warn them. “Unless you pass over the mountains early in the fall, you are very liable to be detained, be impassable mountains of snow, until the next spring, or, perhaps, forever.”
And thanks to the Donners, the Mormons had less of a hard time blazing their trail when they traveled through the Hastings Cutoff the next summer. So there’s that.
Virginia Reed, James Reed’s oldest daughter who was 13 at the time, was probably thinking her dad was the biggest idiot, and Lansford Hastings her mortal enemy. If Virginia had a kill list like Arya from Game of Thrones, he’d surely be at the top. I love Virginia Reed’s quote in a letter she sent to her cousin back East: “Remember, never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can.”
Historical sci-fi! It’s a genre now. Best of luck with this.
Cool, Mike–I’m on trend, which is very rare for me! I love that “Weird Western” is also a real genre! ~Alice
Alice, Have you read the short story “The Outcasts of Poker Flat?” There was a movie made from it back in the 1950’s. Never been able to forget the story, although it is not of the significant as the story of the Donner Party, which I became aware of in the early’50’s.
Jeff H.
The Wasatch Mountains are in Utah Just East Of Salt Lake City, not Nevada.
Hi David, Thanks so much for catching that in my post. It’s now corrected. Are you a Donner Party aficionado? Thanks for reading my blog. ~Alice
The Donner/Reed party left from SPringfield Illinois, not Springfield, Missouri.
Thanks so much for catching that oversight in my post–you rock! And please stay tuned for more Donner Party-related posts from me! ~Alice
Great read, really informative!
Hi Anon, thank you so much for reading my blog about the Donner Party and your kind words–have an awesome day! ~Alice
Isn’t that what was written in the article?
Mrs. Reed did not help with her “had-to-have” double decker extra wide wagon.
Also very mean to each other, bad karma visited.
Thank you, Mike, for your comment! Actually, the “Palace Wagon” was her husband James’s idea so that Margaret’s mother could ride to CA in comfort, but it was such an embarrassment to the family and of course made the richest family of the train into the poorest when the Reeds lost almost everything in the Great Salt Lake desert crossing. Reed was a pretty good leader, but not well liked–perhaps they would have been a more cohesive unit if he hadn’t been banished. In a way, it’s very much like Captain Bligh’s story. Thanks again!
bischut
This was really good! And thanks for not being too formal, it seemed like it was in your voice!
I’ll make sure to use your writing again soon!
Hi, if you’re interested I’d be glad to send you some information that will help clarify parts of your article.
Lots of spelling and Grammer issues, but overall nice job
The spelling threw me off but it’s good though
6 Reasons you can’t blame Lansford Hastings for the Donner Party disaster…
1. The Donner party left too late in the season, allowing them very little margin for error. They left almost a month after all the other wagon trains. This put them in the Sierra Nevada far too close to the winter snows.
2. Hastings’ guidebook never said there was a bona fide route for anyone to take. It only said that if there were such a route, it would get them there in less time. The Donner-Reed leadership should have never trusted their lives and those of their families to one single line in the book that only speculated a benefit if such a route existed (it didn’t).
3. Noted outdoorsman, James Clyman, met the Donner Party at Fort Bridger, and definitively warned them that the cutoff they were considering was unfit for covered wagons. Yet, they ignored the experienced Clyman’s warning and proceeded anyway.
4. When they found Hastings’ 2nd note at Echo Canyon informing them that the route they were on was impassable, they still could have turned back, returned to their homes, and waited until the following Spring next year to try the trip again. Instead, they decided to cut down massive trees, move heavy boulders, and blaze a brand new trail, which added weeks to their trip–weeks they couldn’t afford.
5. They should have realized that taking an untested route might risk attack from bandits or Indians. In October, Paiute Indians shot and stole over 100 head of their cattle. Had they brought enough weapons, ammo, and men to deter native Americans, they either make it over the Sierra Nevada before the first snow. Even if the snow arrived before they did, 100 head of cattle would have easily been have enough food to survive the winter.
6. The first snow fell on the Sierra Nevada early in 1846. If the winter snows wait even one more week to fall, the Donner Party makes it through what is now Donner Pass with no problem. It’s unfortunate that the snows came early, but you can’t blame Lansford Hastings for it.
Thank you. Someone with a brain. I am a member of the Hastings Family. I know this story.
Hi Alice: I agree with 5 of your arguments, but not the first one. The Donner/Reed group didn’t leave late in the season. Once they crossed the Missouri May 12 they joined what was probably the largest pioneer train of the year (Russell Party) and when they reached the Big Blue River they had to wait days for it to recede from flood stage. So even if they left a week or more earlier, they still would not have been able to cross the Big Blue until the end of May. They did move slowly thereafter, but so did all the large groups on the trail that had to wait for families to feed the kids, care for the livestock, chain up and get moving (that’s why the impatient Edwin Bryant and other single men chose to leave the wagon train at Ft. Laramie and go ahead on mules.) Had the Donners taken the regular route, no one today would have heard of them (how many other wagon trains of 1846 can people name?). Once they committed to crossing the Wasatch, though, the die was cast. When they got back to the main trail in September (at what is now Carlin, NV), they found notes in the sagebrush from people who had planned to leave Independence many days after the Donners jumped off into the wilderness. Those folks did leave late, but even traveling via Ft, Hall they were now ahead of the Donner/Reed group. It was the decision to take the shortcut — and the plodding, road-building delay on the ‘longcut-to-the-shortcut’ in Utah — that doomed the Donners, along with the early snow storms in the Sierra. It was not any one thing — as you point out — but a cascade of unfortunate events that sealed their fate. (Also, BTW, that Independence Rock by the 4th of July cliche I often hear also is a myth.) Keep singing — and writing!
I want to know your sorcues
Unfortunately there is only one Sierra Nevada. It is never plural. Thank you.