John Stark Saves Donner Children
During the winter of 1846 to 1847, the Donner Party, a wagon train of emigrants bound for California, became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada and descended into starvation at what rescuers later called Starved Camp. In March 1847, during the third relief, an unpaid rescuer named John Stark reached the camp and found 11 survivors, including nine children who were too weak to walk, while two paid rescuers each took one child and left.
Already burdened with provisions, blankets, and an axe, Stark refused to abandon the others and instead carried two children at a time for short stretches down the mountain, set them down, and went back for more, repeating the exhausting relay again and again through deep snow. His effort brought all nine children and Stark himself out alive, and one survivor later said their rescue came from “nobody but God and Stark and the Virgin Mary.”