The Donner Party Rescue Site: Johnson's Ranch on Bear River

By Richard Steed and Jack Steed

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0962939625
• ISBN13: 9780962939624
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Steed Jack & Richard
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

History re-written.

This volume has lots of black-and-white photos and illustrations of maps, portraits and artifacts recovered, many of which are thought to have belonged to members of the Donner Party. "THE DONNER PARTY RESCUE SITE: Johnson's Ranch on Bear River" is a very detailed account of how the author and his son re-discovered the location of Johnson's Ranch, the end of the line for the thousands of emigrants who traveled overland to California from the American midwest during the mid-1800s. It was the first populated point in California that the pioneers would reach after crossing two thousand miles of plains, deserts and mountains. It was here that the Donner Party survivors were brought following their starved, snowbound winter in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the winter of 1846-47. Over the years, old maps were misplaced and forgotten and newer maps drew parts of the Emigrant Trail in different locations in the area of Johnson's Ranch. Jack and Richard Steed, through over six years of painstaking research through historical documents, interviews with trail experts, and extensive field work, finally discovered the actual location of the buildings that constituted Johnson's Ranch.Also of interest, included is a section about Camp Far West, a square-mile army post near Johnson's Ranch set up in 1849 for quartering soldiers who were to defend local white citizens under attack by Indians in the area (who were protecting their own interests). Camp Far West was so isolated and so poorly provisioned that scurvy, illness and desertion reduced the number of troops there so as to render the army post ineffective. The commanding officer, complaining that he was in command of "less than a platoon" in number, left Camp Far West in 1860.Steed reprints very interesting and colorful excerpts from letters and journals written by western emigrants of the mid-1800s. It's well worth reading. You'll have to agree with the Steeds' conclusions: history, for a time, was wrong and has now been corrected as to the location of the famous early California "settlement" called Johnson's Ranch.

The Johnson Ranch - Scene of much of the pioneer drama

This book by Jack Steed is a careful examination of the stories of the emigrant trail and the historical significance of the Johnson Rancho - the end point of the California pioneer trail. Mr. Steed discusses his and his son's personal re-discovery of the Johnson Ranch house and, through exhaustive diary quotations from pioneers, its impact on the effort of the earliest settlers to California.Fantastic research, excellent maps and wonderful pictures of artifacts recovered from the site.