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James Reed was an actual person from U.S. history.

Biography[]

James Reed was the partner of George Donner the leader of the ill-fated group known as The Donner Party who would take the advice of Lansford W. Hastings and set off on the Hastings Trail to their doom in the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Truckee California. Because of a squabble between the members of the party James Reed was banished and was forced to walk to California alone to find John Sutter so they could get supplies for the Donner Party who were starving by the time they reached the Sierra foothills. When the Young Expedition arrived they were the last over and Reed became concerned and begged Sutter for supplies and to mount a rescue party.

Reed tried to go back that winter but his men deserted on him and stole his horses to go look for gold and Reed had to cover the last mile to Donner Pass on foot. When he reached Emergent Gap he found it blocked by snow and had to turn back to Sacramento and try again in March when the war was over.

When Reed and Peter Ingalls returned he found his wife and two children frozen with frostbite after walking out on snowshoes with the rescue party and all the members of the Donner Party dead inside their cabin. When he went back east with the Mormon Battalion they stopped at Donner Pass and cremated the remains of the Donner Party along with their cabin.

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