Houghton, Eliza Poor Donner

Biographical Note

Eliza Poor Donner Houghton (1843-1922), the youngest daughter of George and Tamsen Donner, was three years old when her family left their home in Illinois to head out west to California. This group of travelers, who became trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1846, ultimately became known as the ill-fated Donner Party. In March 1847, after several months of entrapment, Eliza and her sisters were rescued by the third relief party to reach the camps. George and Tamsen Donner both died in the mountains, and Eliza and her sister Georgia were taken in by Christian and Mary Brunner, elderly immigrants from Switzerland. In 1854, Eliza moved to Sacramento to live with her oldest half-sister, Elitha Donner Wilder, also a survivor of the Donner Party.

In 1861, Eliza married Sherman Otis Houghton (1828-1914), the widower of Mary Donner, Eliza's cousin and fellow Donner Party survivor. Sherman Houghton was a prominent lawyer in San Jose who served in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1871-1875. Eliza's experience with the Donner Party was the defining event of her life; she kept in contact with fellow survivors and documented their stories. Eliza wanted to tell the true account of the Donner Party, and while doing her research for her book, she became very interested in the history of California and the pioneers who came to this new land. In 1911 she published her book, The Expedition of the Donner Party and Its Tragic Fate . The first half of this book gives Eliza's account of the events in the winter of 1846-47. In the second half of the book, Eliza tells of her life growing up in Sonoma and Sacramento in the 1850s, and her memories of "gold fever." The book ends with her marriage in 1861. Eliza attended the dedication ceremony of the Pioneer (Donner) Monument, near Truckee, California, in 1918 with fellow survivors Francis Donner Wilder and Patty Reed Lewis. Eliza died in Los Angeles in 1922.

From the guide to the Eliza Poor Donner Houghton Papers, 1820-1978, (The Huntington Library)