The Donner People — Lee Davis Willoughby

ON THEIR JOURNEY INTO DESTINY THERE WERE HEROES, HEROINES -- AND BREAKERS OF THE LAST TABOO...

From the moment in 1846 when the Donner-Reed wagon train set out from Springfield, Illinois, the men, women and children of the party suffered from a plague of bad luck. There was illness, inept leadership and bitter feuding.

By the time they reached a certain storm-battered mountain pass in the high Sierras, all the ingredients of horrifying tragedy were in place. There were heroes, such as the patriarch, George Donner, and the bold young mountainman, Thornbird. There were heroines, such as tiny, spirited Tamsen Donner and the bewitching Liza Williams. But there was also among them a madman, a murderer--and those accursed ones who, when disaster, starvation and death struck, would break the last human taboo.