author
Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
A survivor of the Donner Party, she later turned one of the most haunting stories in American westward migration into a firsthand memoir. Her writing brings a child's memory, a historian's care, and a survivor's perspective to an event that still fascinates readers.
1 Audiobook
The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate
by Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
About the author
Born in 1843, Eliza Poor Donner Houghton was the youngest child of George and Tamsen Donner. As a small child she traveled west with her family in 1846 on the journey that became known as the Donner Party disaster, and she was among the children who survived.
In adulthood, she became an American memoirist and is best known for The Expedition of the Donner Party and Its Tragic Fate, published in 1911. The book helped preserve a detailed survivor's account of the journey and its aftermath, and it remains one of the best-known firsthand narratives connected to the tragedy.
Later in life, Houghton also wrote and spoke about California history more broadly. Her work is valued not only because she lived through a defining episode of western migration, but because she tried to record it carefully and personally for future generations.