Season 1 Episode 21 The Donner Party Part 1: The Hastings Cutoff

Description

In 1846, one year before the Mormons, the Donner\Reed Party struggled to blaze a new trail in 1846. Bound for California, they became trapped in deep snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Nearly half of 81 men women and children died of exposure and starvation, and some among the survivors resorted to cannibalism. Theirs is one of the most enduring stories of the West. In this episode of History of the Saints we tell their story and of the four instances when the experiences of the Donner Party impacted the Latter-day Saints. This episode features the scholarship of William Hartley, Jay Buckley, and Fred Gowans