Quoting Kristin Johnson :

> I have a question for you. Stephen W. Kearny and crew were the first
> over the Sierra in 1847; his escort buried human remains at Donner Lake,
> but the mass grave was evidently disturbed at some later point. On
> August 8, 1849, Alexander Love wrote, "The grave that the bones was
> buired in by Karney is opend" and many '49ers reported seeing grisly
> sights. I've been trying to figure out if Kearny's men simply did a less
> than thorough job or if scavengers (animal or human) dug up the grave,
> and if so, when. Stockton's party seeing "human bones still unburied" is
> very intriguing -- can you steer me to your sources? I'd be very
> interested to read any early descriptions of the Donner camps.

Abner Blackburn passed through in September 1847 after meeting Stockton's party:

At Goose Creek [we] met Comodore Stockton and suite, Captain Gelespie, Peterson, and J. Parker Norris with fifty two marenes with them to keep them from harm. They were orderd to Washington to settle the quarrel between Kerney, Fremont, and Stockton. They said the Trucky [Truckee] Indians attackted them at night killing some of their horses and wounding some of their men. Stockton was wounded in his [k]nee with an arrow. They cautioned us to be on our guard all the time. Our pilot said he knew dem ingen and he could slip us true.

[Commodore Robert Field Stockton began his naval career before the War of 1812. In 1846 he assumed command of the Pacific squadron and served as military governor of California until General Kearny replaced him in January 1847. J. Parker Norris was Stockton's secretary. Marine lieutenant Archibald H. Gillespie served in the California Battalion as Frémont's adjutant, was wounded in the battles of San Pascual and San Gabriel, and provoked a revolt in Los Angeles. William H. Peterson was an assistant to General Kearny. Bancroft wrote that Stockton's company "is said to have numbered forty-nine, 'a heterogeneous collection of all nations almost, and professions and pursuits.'"]

We come to the Donner camp whear the most of them perrished the winter before. They had trim[m]ed the pines of their limbs for fuel. Their camp was in a thick forrest of pines not far from Donner Lake. The snow was verry deep. We found bones and sculls scatterd about. It was a most horrible sight. They had mashed the bones to get the marrow.

Some wild Indians come in[to] our camp in the evening to take observations, the wildest looking savages we had seen. They had never seen a white man before according to their actions. By and by their leader said, "Wedy, wedy, hoddy-hoddy," and dissipeard in the dark forrest.

I stood guard in the latter part of the night and thought of all the ghosts and hobgoblins I could think of or ever heard of. Besides the sculls, bones, and the dark forrest, it was a most dismal place.

Day come and drove all the specters away. Next morning crossed over the sumit of the great ridge. The road was verry rough [with] rocks [and] trees fallen across the road.

-30-

We have VERY few 1847 California Trail journals.

Chester Ingersoll was with a party of twenty wagons that met Stockton's escort on 19 August on the road to "Hot Spring valley" (present Thousand Spring Valley), only a few days ahead of Abner Blackburn. "On the dead waters of Marey's river" Ingersoll encountered Indians he called the "Shawshawnees. They have no horses, and are almost naked. This tribe will steal and kill your cattle-they will come as friends, but you must treat them as enemies, and keep them out of your camp. We treated them as friends until they stole 4 oxen, 1 cow and one horse; we followed them 20 miles into the mountain and found one ox killed, the others we could not find. After that we shot at every Indian we saw-this soon cleared the way, so that we did not see any Indians for 200 miles." Ingersoll's company arrived at Johnson's Ranch on 20 October. See McMurtrie, Overland, 37-39.

I can't find my copy of Ingersoll, so I can't remember what he says about the Donner camps, but Blackburn indicates not all the bones were buried or the graves had been disturbed. My guess is wolves and coyotes got to them during the summer.

Will Bagley