Daniel James Brown

And this was an incredible moment of reunion.

They had last seen each other when Reed had been exiled from the Donner Party back in the deserts of Nevada.

And Margaret Reed had no particular reason to think her husband was alive.

and vice versa.

So it was an incredibly moving moment, but it only lasted for a brief time because Reed had to continue on up into the mountains while his wife was being brought back down out of the mountains, traveling west.

But an incredibly moving moment.

But Reed and his expedition got to the lake camp and brought a number of people, mostly children, started back out

And then they got caught in yet another horrific snowstorm right up on the top of Donner Pass.

And they got stuck there.

They built a fire on a sort of raft of pine logs.

And over several days, that fire just melted this pit deeper and deeper into the snow.

And so all these children and other people that Breed had brought out

Ran out of food while living in this sort of pit in the snow.

And and and again began to die.

And some of those bodies were eventually cannibalized as well.

Yeah.

So things are particularly grim at the Donner camp, which they say is at Alder Creek, about five and a half miles east of the lake camp.

The Donners were living there with a number of young men who had been teamsters and drovers for them.

And these were young men who had no resources at all.

And so they began to die.