Snowstorm Leads To Cannibalism

Ghouls and Zombies are a Halloween staple. Cannibals too. The first two don’t really exist -as far as we know-  but the third, the cannibal, history tells us they’re out there. Sometimes it’s criminal and occasionally its survival.

On this day in history in 1846: It snowed. A lot!  What’s the big deal about that? Ask any surviving descendant of the Donner Party. Here’s a quote from an article of the Donner Party from the History Channel on-line.

“The Donner party finally made it through the Wasatch Mountains and arrived at the Great Salt Lake….their difficulties were only beginning. The “shortcut” to California had cost them many wasted days, and the Donner party crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains late in the season. On October 28, a heavy snowfall blocked the high mountain passes, trapping the emigrants in a frozen wilderness.”

The rest is grisly American History. The Donner Party of covered wagons left Springfield, IL, in the spring of 1846 on their way West to California. This was the trip where after Indian attacks, and terrible weather left them stranded, they ultimately resorted to cannibalism to survive. By April, the number of people in the group went from 90 people to 48.

Halloween was NOT happy.