ves upon
the spot just in time to reap a rich harvest. It was in this year, and the year previous, that the Mor- mons, having been previously expelled from Nauvoo, Illinois, made their way out of the accursed land, and found an encampment at Council Bluff on the Mis- souri river, which was the rendezvous, or place of preparation for a further westward journey, a journey which should place the Rocky Mountains a barrier between them and the hated gentiles.
The third sfreat overland emigration was in the spring and summer of 1849, when Gold! was the watchword along the line, and Ho for the diggings! was painted on the canvas wagon-covers ; when ava- rice warmed the heart, and fired the brain, and steeled the sinews; when in the dreams of the ox-drivers wagon loads of yellow nuggets rolled out of rocky canons into pastures green as Arcadian vales, wherein the cattle might graze, and drink from the Pactolean streams that watered it.
It was during the middle one of these great migra- tions that the Donner tragedy occurred. It was in 1846 when a party attempted a new route from Fort Bridger, round the southern end of Great Salt Lake, and through the Truckee pass of the Sierra Nevada. The company was composed of George Donner, wife, and five children ; Jacob Donner, wife, and seven chil- dren; J. F. Beed, wife, and four children; W. H. Eddy, Breen, Pike, Foster, and others, with women and children; in all about eighty souls.
The journey across the plains under favorable con- ditions was by no means an unpleasant one. Though somewhat monotonous, it was capable of being made both healthful and pleasurable. Many a one who, reduced by disease, had set out upon this journey with little hope of ever reaching the end, arrived in California well and strong, like a man newly made; many a one, alas! set out well and strong who met death ere his journey was completed. In company
