Donner Party timeline provides an almost day-to-day basic description of events directly associated with the
Donner Party, covering the journey from Illinois to California—2,500
miles (4,023
kilometers), over the Great Plains, two mountain ranges, and the deserts of the Great Basin.The timeline is based on
The chronology at New Light on the Donner Party website, which is based on the
Miller-Reed diary; Patrick Breen's diary (see below); the
First,
Second, and
Fourth Relief diaries,
What I Saw in California; and other primary documents
The diary kept during the period
November 20,
1846 –
March 1,
1847, by Patrick Breen, one of the travelers, which is available in
hypertext as well as color
scans of the pages, at
Online Archive of California, and quotations from which are edited here for readability and significanceHistory of the Donner Party: A Tragedy of the Sierra, by C. F. McGlashan, first published in
1879; a facsimile reprint of the
1880 edition, edited by George H. and Bliss M. Hinkle, is available from
Stanford University Press.The Expedition of the Donner Party and Its Tragic Fate by Eliza P. Donner Houghton (Chicago: A.C. McClurg,
1911); facsimile reprint
1997 by the
University of Nebraska Press.
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