Daniel James Brown

When you get to Fort Bridger, take the South Road, and I've got a cutoff to take 300 miles off the trip for you.

And so at that point, some of those who had been thinking about going to Oregon revised their thinking and decided to head for California instead.

Yes.

Well, it's actually when they get, they arrive at Fort Laramie on July the 4th with a large party.

As you say, they were at various times part of a party called the Boggs Party and different times they were part of a party called the Russell Party.

These families were joining and leaving different groups as they moved across the country.

the core of the Donner Party got to Fort Laramie on 4th of July and then moved on towards Fort Bridger in Wyoming.

And that's when they encountered Wales Bonney and his letter from Lansford Hastings.

So it wasn't really until they got to Fort Bridger that people had to make a decision.

And that's the point at which they decided to follow Lansford Hastings' alleged shortcut.

It's very understandable.

And you mentioned Clyman.

Clyman was a sort of mountain man who knew the inner mountain west very well.

And he advised the Donner Party, James Reed in particular, not to take that road, that there was no road through what Hastings had claimed was his shortcut.

And it should be probably pointed out at this point that Lansford Hastings himself up to this point had never traveled his shortcut.

And he was...

As they were heading west, he was heading east, and he was discovering that his shortcut was almost entirely impossible.

It is a scheme.

As I say, it's a real estate scheme when it comes right down to it.

Hastings stands to make a great deal of money if he can get enough people to take this shortcut, get to California in time for him to sell land.