William H. Eddy (1816-1859) was a carriage maker from Belleville, Illinois, a suburb of St. Louis, who became known as one of the heroes of the Donner Party because he led the Forlorn Hope group of 15 over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a journey of 80 miles, in mid-December 1846. Unfortunately, only he and six others survived. Having left his wife, Eleanor, and his two small children behind at Truckee Lake, Margaret and Jimmy, the 29-year-old Eddy was desperate to get back to his family after barely surviving his journey west. He was still too weak to complete the First Relief rescue back east and was also not able to make the Second Relief, led by James Reed, his friend and the Donner Party’s co-leader. Finally, he and fellow Forlorn Hopian, William Foster, co-led the six-man Third Relief. Two of the men, John Stark and Howard Oakley, stayed to help the Breens at Starved Camp, so that meant Eddy, Foster, Hiram Miller, and John Thompson comprised the Third Relief that reached Truckee Lake mid-morning on March 13, 1847. They left two hours later.

Perhaps even more a hero than William Eddy, John Stark singlehandedly saved the 10-member Breen family and is notable for saying this:

“No, gentlemen, I will not abandon these people. I am here on a mission of mercy, and I will not half do the work. You can all go if you want to, but I shall stay by these people while they and I live.”  John Stark

By this time, Eddy had learned the sad news from the other rescue parties that Eleanor and his daughter had perished, but there was still hope that Jimmy was alive.

Unfortunately, the Third Relief arrived too late to save Jimmy or George, William Foster’s son; Lewis Keseberg had already consumed them both. Yet, Eddy could still save the lives of four children: the three Donner daughters: Frances (age 6); Georgia (age 4); Eliza (age 3) and Simon Murphy, age 8. Tamsen Donner, the girls’ mother, implored Eddy to save her children and said she would pay him handsomely for the task. He refused her silver saying that he’d lead the kids out over the trail or die trying. Each man carried a child out and Eddy carried young Georgia on his back for 46.7 miles. Georgia later stated, “I have been told that Mr. Eddy was not a truthful man, but he certainly was a kind-hearted man, and to his tender care I owe my life.”

When I started my Donner Party education/obsession two years ago I couldn’t help but notice that William Eddy was mentioned everywhere. At the beginning of the journey across the Plains he was helping journalist/author Edwin Bryant with his broken axle; then he shot geese, owls, coyotes, to feed the group; then he begged Patrick Breen to go back and find Hardcoop because he had a horse and Breen refused; and then he killed a 900-pound grizzly bear after dodging the bear around a tree and smashing his rifle stock into the bear’s face after he shot the second bullet. While on the Forlorn Hope march (which was later named “Forlorn Hope” by Charles McGlashan thirty-four years after the event—in fact, McGlashan was born four months after the last survivor was rescued) —Eddy Macgyvered solutions from making fire with nothing more than flint and cotton, to keeping everyone alive by “tenting” everyone’s heads around the fire, to being the chief motivator to keep everyone up and moving so they wouldn’t die, to killing a deer at the last desperate hour with Mary Anne Graves’s help.  Why was Eddy so ubiquitous? For one thing, he was someone who thrived being in the middle of the action. He needed to be needed—don’t we all know someone like that? He also made sure that he told his story to his reporter friends like Edwin Bryant and Jessy Quinn Thornton. His story might not have been the most accurate story, but his was the loudest and he was determined to shape the narrative before someone else did. Smart guy.

Right away, I was fascinated with Eddy and felt so sorry for him that he lost his wife, son, and daughter. I imagined what it must have been like to keep going and live for his family who perished before reaching their destination, their singular dream. How does one work through unspeakable horrors that includes cannibalism, and return to fight another day? The truth is that you never get over the trauma—you only manage it and it was this aspect that attracted me and attached me to William Eddy’s story. I feel like he’s my alter ego now—a very good thing since he’s my protagonist in my upcoming novel, The Reluctant Cannibal. Thanks to William Eddy, I’m a voting member of the Santa Clara County Historical and Genealogical Society, and have made a few friends from across the U.S. who are either family of his or who are connected to his story.

I recently discovered an episode of Death Valley Days all about William Eddy after he reaches San Francisco and his desire for revenge against Lansford Hastings, the man who wrote the guidebook with the untried shortcut, the Hastings Cutoff, that sealed the Donners’ fate. The episode is called “The Hastings Cut-off” (1964) and it stars Joe Maross (TV character actor who starred in two Twilight Zone episodes among other shows) and Ellen Burstyn (she’s still acting at 87-years-young!). It’s really good and it was the ultimate thrill for me to see William Eddy portrayed so accurately on the screen.

Through the help of his Donner Party friends, especially James Reed, and his in-laws, the Ingersolls, Eddy became a prosperous rancher, miner, and farmer in San Jose. He married Flavilla Ingersoll in May 1848 and they had three children: Eleanor (Nellie), born 1849; James, born 1851, and Alonzo (1853), who may or may not be his biological son since he was traveling back east at the time of Alonzo’s conception while Flavilla had already met her future husband, Englishman Winwright Willis, whom she married in 1854. Eddy married his third wife, Ann Purdy, April 13, 1854 in St. Louis.  Flavilla left California with her new family in 1853, not to return to reunite with Alonzo and Nellie until 1900—it was such a big deal that it was reported in the papers. Yes, I’m sure her kids with William Eddy didn’t feel she was “Mother of the Year.” She died at almost 100 years old in 1920.

All right, let’s look at my original song, “William Eddy”    Here’s the link to my video of the song.

William Eddy,

do you remember me? I am Georgia,   [this is Georgia Donner speaking when she’s 18 after visiting William Eddy when he is close to death in 1859]  

and to your tender care I owe my life.  [these are Georgia’s actual words]

William Eddy,  

what was your destiny?  [I chose “destiny” since it rhymes so well with “Eddy”]

Why did you come so far?  [he came from Illinois and before that South Caorlina]

Staring at indifferent stars.  [“indifferent stars” is an homage to Daniel James Brown’s incredible book, The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride]

William Eddy,

in the hour of desperation,

you stole and killed.  [Eddy shot game, stole water from the Breens, and killed several Pauite Indians who stole and killed his cattle]

And left behind all you knew…  [Eddy left his wife and children behind as well as his “known” world]

Chorus

I was five when you saved my life.   [Georgia was four, but I needed the rhyme]

But you couldn’t save your sons and wife.  [Eddy had one son and one daughter, but I had to make the writing concise by writing “sons” instead]

Was it worth it to be so kind?  [Eddy was known for going above and beyond for others, with the exception of the Breens, but that’s another story for another blog]

Was it worth the sacrifice?

Through the what-ifs and the cries,   [I’m referencing the cannibalism on the part of the Donner family and the “cries” represent Georgia witnessing the wasting away of her father, uncle, aunt, and cousins]

my sisters and I survived.

You told our mother

you’d save us or die.   [What Eddy told Tamsen Donner at the time when he left with her children–she never saw her children again]

William Eddy,

you led us through the pass.   [Eddy leads the small rescue party over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, through Donner Pass with Georgia on his back]

Always patient, [he is the most patient of the rescuers—Eliza was very strong-willed and Walter Herron did slap her, but Eddy intervened].

only could go so fast.     [these were small kids with short legs, after all]

Was it worth it to be so kind?

What it worth the sacrifice?

It took everyone you loved away…

William Eddy,

do you remember me?