Her disease wasn't contagious no one else caught it from her but the pioneers didn't know this at the time. Other causes of injury or death included attacks by emigrants on other emigrants, lightning, hailstorms, grass fires, gunpowder explosions, snakebite and suicide. Crossing rivers were probably the most dangerous thing pioneers did. The wagon train party is now known as the Donner Party or the Donner-Reed Party. The Donner Party Disaster - True West Magazine 10 Things You Should Know About the Donner Party - History I can not describe the unutterable repugnance with which I tasted that first mouthful of flesh. A few days later their last few cattle were slaughtered for food and party began eating boiled hides, twigs, bones and bark. The wagon train encountered riders urging emigrants on the road to travel down to Fort Bridger and take a shortcut called the "Hastings . White Wolf was killed later by Lieutenant David Bell, Second Dragoons, in a most dramatic manner, and almost on the exact spot where the murders had been perpetrated. Both children and adults could slip while getting out of a wagon and fall beneath the wheels. He was as cruel and heartless an Indian as ever ambushed a stagecoach or murdered helpless women. About the Author: Adventures and Tragedies on the Overland Trail was written by Randall Parrish as a chapter of his book, The Great Plains: The Romance of Western American Exploration, Warfare, and Settlement, 1527-1870; published by A.C. McClurg & Co. in Chicago, 1907. The real Oregon Trail was filled with about as many accidents and illnesses, and the National Oregon/California Trail Center says more than 300,000 Americans actually did travel along it at the end of the 19th century. Susannah succumbed to "milk sickness," and while we don't know how many babies died from it, we do know livestock were forced to forage some seriously overgrazed land. Twenty men stayed at Devil's Gate to guard the wagon-train goods for the rest of the winter. There were 1,100 people in those two companies alone (via WyoHistory), and they didn't set out until August. However, upon their arrival at Fort Bridger, of Lansford Hastings, there was no sign, only a note left with other emigrants resting at the fort. Of the 81. The two-day encounter resulted in the deaths of eleven emigrants by an estimated twenty-five to thirty Indians. In 1921, a rebellion against British colonial rule by Mappila Muslims broke out in the Malabar District of British India. The next day, they arrived at Alder Creek to find that the Donners had also resorted to cannibalism. It is easy to conceive the danger which night and day pursued those men who were then employed upon the Overland Trail. They were attacked on September 9, 1860, and 11 died in the two-day confrontation. Photo courtesy of Hansen Wheel & Wagon Shop https://www.hansenwheel.com . Newspapers printed letters and diaries and accused the travelers of bad conduct, cannibalism, and even murder. On October 31 the weary migrants approached what is now Donner Pass across the Sierra Nevada and found their progress blocked by deepening snow. Devil's Gate: Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy. He was pulling a gun from the back of his wagon muzzle first when it discharged and shot him in the chest. Bell was not hit, but four or five of his men were killed or wounded. Cholera was the main scourge of the trail. According to The Plains Across, Fort Laramie became a major trading post. From September 10ththrough the 25th, the party followed the trail intoNevadaaround the Ruby Mountains, finally reaching the Humboldt River on September 26th. Nice work, doc. [Colonel Henry Inman] describes what followed: Both lines by command fired, following the example of their superiors, the troopers, however, spurring forward over their enemies.