and over again, “I must see my children!”
The story told by Mrs. Farnham and others about finding your mother’s remains, and that of Thornton concerning the pail of blood, are unquestionably false. She had been dead weeks, and Keseberg confessed to me that no part of her body was found by the relief (Fallon) party.
My friend, I have attempted to comply with your request. More than once during this evening I have burst into tears. I am sorry almost that I attempted so mournful a task, but you will pardon the pain I have caused.
Keseberg is a powerful man, six feet in height, with full bushy beard, thin brown locks, and high forehead. He has blue eyes that look squarely at you while he talks. He is sometimes absent-minded and at times seems almost carried away with the intensity of his misery and desolation.
He speaks and writes German, French, Spanish, and English; and his selection of words proves him a scholar. When I first asked him to make a statement which I could reduce to writing he urged: “What is the use of making a statement? People incline to believe the most horrible reports concerning a man; they will not credit what I say in my own defence. My conscience is clear. I am an old man, and am calmly awaiting my death. God is my judge, and it long ago ceased to trouble me that people shunned and slandered me.”
He finally consented to make the desired statement, and in speaking of your family he continued: “Some time after Mrs. George Donner’s death, I thought I had gained sufficient strength to redeem the pledge I had made her before her death. I went to Alder Creek Camp to get the money. I had a difficult journey. The wagons of the Donners were loaded with tobacco, powder, caps, school-books, shoes, and dry goods. This stock was very valuable. I spent the night there, searched carefully among the bales and bundles of goods, and found five hundred and thirty-one dollars. Part of this sum was gold, part silver. The silver I buried at the foot of a pine tree, a little way from camp. One of the lower branches of another tree reached down close to the ground, and appeared to point to the spot. I put the gold in my pocket, and started back to my cabin; got lost, and in crossing a little flat the snow suddenly gave way, and I sank down almost to my arm-pits. After great exertion I raised myself out of a snow-covered stream, and went round on a hillside and continued my journey. At dark, and completely exhausted, and almost dead, I came in sight of the Graves’s cabin, and sometime after dark staggered into my own. My clothes were wet, and the night was so cold that my garments were frozen stiff. I did not build a fire nor get anything to eat, just rolled myself up in the bed-clothes, and shivered; finally fell asleep, and did not waken until late in the morning. Then I saw my camp was in most inexplicable confusion; everything about the cabin was torn up and scattered about, trunks broken open; and my wife’s jewellery, my cloak, my pistol and ammunition was missing. I thought Indians had been there. Suddenly I heard human voices. I hurried up to the surface of the snow, and saw white men approaching. I was overwhelmed with joy and gratitude. I had suffered so much and so long, that I could scarcely believe my senses. Imagine my astonishment upon their arrival to be greeted, not with a ‘Good-morning’ or a kind word, but with a gruff, insolent demand, ‘Where is Donner’s money?’
“I told them they ought to give me something to eat, and that I would talk with them afterwards; but no, they insisted that I should tell them about Donner’s money. I asked who they were, and where they came from, but they replied by threatening to kill me if I did not give up the money. They threatened to hang or shoot me. At last I told them that I had promised Mrs. Donner that I would carry her money to her children, and I proposed to do so, unless shown some authority by which they had a better claim. This so exasperated them that they acted as though they were going to kill me. I offered to let them bind me as a prisoner, and take me before Alcalde Sinclair at Sutter’s Fort, and I promised that I would then tell all I knew about the money. They would listen to nothing, however, and finally I told them where they would find the silver, and gave them the gold. After I had done this they showed me a document from Alcalde Sinclair, by which they were to receive a certain proportion of all moneys and properties which they rescued. Those men treated me with great unkindness. Mr. Tucker was the only one who took my part or befriended me. When they started over the mountains, each man carried two bales of goods. They had silks, calicoes, and delaines from the Donners, and other articles of great value. Each man would carry one bundle a little way, lay it down, and come back and get the other bundle. In this way they passed over the snow three times. I could not keep up with them, because I was so weak, but managed to come up to their camp every night.”
Upon receipt of this communication I wrote Mr. McGlashan from San Jose that I was nerved for the ordeal, but that he should not permit me to start on that momentous journey if his proposed arrangements were at all doubtful, and that he should telegraph me at once.
Alas! my note miscarried; and, believing that his proposal had not met my approval, Mr. and Mrs. McGlashan returned to Truckee a day earlier than expected. Two weeks later he returned the envelope, its postmarks showing what had happened.
It was not easy to gain the consent of my husband to a meeting with Keseberg. He dreaded its effect on me. He feared the outcome of the interview.
However, on May 16, 1879, he and I, by invitation, joined Mr. and Mrs. McGlashan at the Golden Eagle Hotel in Sacramento. The former then announced that although Keseberg had agreed by letter to meet us there, he had that morning begged to be spared the mortification of coming to the city hotel, where some one might recognize him, and as of old, point the finger of scorn at him. After some deliberation as to how I would accept the change, Mr. McGlashan had aceeded to the old man’s wish, that we drive to the neat little boarding house at Brighton next morning, where we could have the use of the parlor for a private interview. In compliance with this arrangement we four were at the Brighton hotel at the appointed time.
Mr. McGlashan and my husband went in search of Keseberg, and after some delay returned, saying:
“Keseberg cannot overcome his strong feeling against a meeting in a public house. He has tidied up a vacant room in the brewery adjoining the house where he lives with his afflicted children. It being Sunday, he knows that no one will be about to disturb us. Will you go there?”
I could only reply, “I am ready.”
My husband, seeing my lips tremble and knowing the intensity of my suppressed emotion, hastened to assure me that he had talked with the man, and been impressed by his straightforward answers, and that I need have no dread of meeting or talking with him.
When we met at his door, Mr. McGlashan introduced us. We bowed, not as strangers, not as friends, nor did we shake hands. Our thoughts were fixed solely on the purpose that had brought us together. He invited us to enter, led the way to that room which I had been told he had swept and furnished for the occasion with seats for five. His first sentence made us both forget that others were present. It opened the way at once.
“Mr. McGlashan has told me that you have questions you wish to ask me yourself about what happened in the mountain cabin.”
Still standing, and looking up into his face, I replied: “Yes, for the eye of God and your eyes witnessed my mother’s last hours, and I have come to ask you, in the presence of that other Witness, when, where, and how she died. I want you to tell me all, and so truly that there shall be no disappointment for me, nor remorse and denials for you in your last hour. Tell it now, so that you will not need to send for me to hear a different story then.”
I took the chair he proffered, and he placed his own opposite and having gently reminded me of the love and respect the members of the Donner Party bore their captain and his wife, earnestly and feelingly, he told me the story as he had related it to Mr. McGlashan.
Then, before I understood his movement, he had sunk upon his knees, saying solemnly,
“On my knees before you, and in the sight of God, I want to assert my innocence.”
I could not have it thus. I bade him rise, and stand with me in the presence of the all-seeing Father. Extending my upturned hand, I bade him lay his own right hand upon it, then covering it with my left, I bade him speak. Slowly, but unhesitatingly, he spoke:
“Mrs. Houghton, if I had murdered your mother, would I stand here with my hand between your hands, look into your pale face, see the tear-marks on your cheeks, and the quiver of your lips as you ask the question? No, God Almighty is my witness, I am innocent of your mother’s death! I have given you the facts as I gave them to the Fallon Party, as I told them at Sutter’s Fort, and as I repeated them to Mr. McGlashan. You will hear no change from my death-bed, for what I have told you is true.”
There, with a man’s honor and soul to uncover, I had scarcely breathed while he spoke. I watched the expression of his face, his words, his hands. His eyes did not turn from my face; his hand between mine lay as untrembling as that of a child in peaceful sleep; and so, unflinchingly Lewis Keseberg passed the ordeal which would have made a guilty man quake.
I felt the truth of his assertion, and told him that if it would be any comfort to him at that late day to know that Tamsen Donner’s daughter believed him innocent of her murder, he had that assurance in my words, and that I would maintain that belief so long as my lips retained their power of speech.
Tears glistened in his eyes as he uttered a heartfelt “Thank you!” and spoke of the comfort the recollection of this meeting would be to him during the remaining years of his life.
Before our departure, Mr. McGlashan asked Keseberg to step aside and show my husband the scars left by the wound which had prevented his going to the settlement with the earlier refugees. There was a mark of a fearful gash which had almost severed the heel from the foot and left a troublesome deformity. One could easily realize how slow and tedious its healing must have been, and Keseberg assured us that walking caused excruciating pain even at the time the Third Relief Corps left camp.
His clothing was threadbare, but neat and clean. One could not but feel that he was poor, yet he courteously but positively declined the assistance which, privately, I offered him. In bidding him good-bye, I remarked that we might not see one another again on earth, and he replied pathetically, “Don’t say that, for I hope this may not be our last meeting.”
I did not see Keseberg again. Years later, I learned that he had passed away; and in answer to inquiries I received the following personal note from Dr. G.A. White, Medical Superintendent of the Sacramento County Hospital:
Lewis Keseberg died here on September 3, 1895; aged 81 years. He left no special message to any one. His death was peaceful.
THE END
INDEX
Academy of Pacific Coast History
Altemera, Padre
American Fur Company
American Tract Society
Arguello, Dona Concepcion
Bartlett, Washington A.
Benton, Rev. J.A.
Benton, Thomas H.
Boggs, ex-Governor of Missouri
Bond, Frances
Boone, Alphonso
Breen, Patrick
diary of
Brenheim, Adolph
Brunner, Christian
Brunner, “Grandma”
and Napoleon
Bryant, Edwin
Cady, Charles
_California Star_
Camp of Death
Chamberlain, Charlotte (Mrs. Wm. E.) Chamberlain, William E.
Church, Mission service
Civil War
Clark, Nicholas,
Cody, Bill
Coffemeir, Edward
Coon, William
Curtis, James
Del, John
Denison, Eliza
“Diary of Patrick Breen, One of the Donner Party” Dofar, Matthew
Dolan, Patrick
Donner, Elitha
Donner, Frances
Donner, George
Donner, Mrs. George
letters
Donner, Georgia
Donner, Jacob
Donner, Leanna
Donner, Mary
Donner Party
Dozier, Tamsen Eustis
_see_ Donner, Mrs. George.
Eddy, William
Fallon, Thomas
diary
Fitch, Capt.
“Forlorn Hope” Party
Fortune, Padre
Fosdick, Jay
Foster, John
Foster, William
Francis, Allen
Fremont, John C.
Frisbie, Capt.
marriage of
Fuller, John
Glover, Aguilla
Gold, discovery
early minings
seekers
Graves, W.F.
Grayson, Mrs. Andrew J.
Great Overland Caravan
Greenwood, “Old Trapper”
Halloran, Luke
Hardcoop, —-
Hastings, Lansford W.
Herron, Walter
Hook, Solomon
Hooker, Capt. Joe
Houghton, S.O.
Independence, Mo.
Indians
as guides
Sioux
on raids
as saviours
at “grub-feast”
James, Noah
Jondro, Joseph
Josephine, Empress
Kerns, Capt.
Keseberg, Lewis
Land-grants, Mexican
Leese, Jacob
“Life and Days of General John A. Sutter”
Maps of territory
Maury, William L.
McCoon, Perry
McCutchen, William
McGlashan, C.F.
McKinstrey, Col. George
Mervine, Capt.
Mexican War
Miller, Hiram
Moutrey, R.S.
Murphy, Mrs. Lavina
Murphy, William G.
Napoleon
Oakley, Howard
Oatman, Eugene
“Oregon and California”
Packwood, Mr. and Mrs.
Pike, William
Pony Express, first
Poor, Elizabeth
letter to
Prudon, Major
Reed, James F.
Relief Party, First
Relief Party, Fourth
Relief Party, Second
Relief Party, Third
Rhinehart, Joseph
Rhodes, Daniel
Rhodes, John
Richardson, —-
Richey, D.
Richer, Col. M.D.
Robinson, Kate
Robinson, Judge Robert
Robinson, Hon. Tod
Russell, Col.
Sacramento
_Sacramento Union_
School,
first in California
Miss Doty’s
St. Mary’s Hall
Miss Hutchinson’s
St. Catherine’s
Jefferson Grammar
Schoonover, T.J.
Sherman, Gen. Wm. T.
Shoemaker, Samuel
Sinclair, John
Sloat, Commodore
Smallpox
Smith, General
Smith, James
Snyder, John
Sonoma,
last visit to,
_Springfield Journal_
Stanton, Charles
Stark, John
Starved Camp
Stone, Charles
Sutter, Captain John A.
Sutter’s Fort
Swift, Margaret
Thanksgiving celebration
Thornton, J.Q.,
extracts from journal
“Thrilling Events in California History” Toll, Agnes
“Topographical Report, with Maps Attached” “Travels Among the Rocky Mountains, Through Oregon and California” Trubode, John Baptiste
Tucker, Daniel
Tucker, George
Tucker, Racine
Turner, John
Upton, Nellie
Vallejo, Mariano G.
Webster, Daniel
“What I Saw in California”
White, Dr. G.A.
White, Henry A.
Wolfinger, —-
Woodworth, Midshipman
Yost, Daniel
Yount, George
Zabriskie, Annie