rable in view
of succeeding chapters. Thanks to Mr. Allen Francis, the present United
States Consul at Victoria, British Columbia, very complete, authentic,
and interesting information upon this subject has been furnished. Mr.
Francis was publisher of the Springfield (Illinois) Journal in 1846, and
a warm personal friend of the family.

The Donners were among the first settlers of Sangamon County, Ill. They
were North Carolinians, immigrants to Kentucky in 1818, subsequently to
the State of Indiana, and from thence to what was known as the Sangamon
Country, in the year 1828.

George Donner, at the time of leaving Springfield, Ill., was a large,
fine-looking man, fully six feet in height, with merry black eyes,
and the blackest of hair, lined with an occasional silver thread.
He possessed a cheerful disposition, an easy temperament, industrious
habits, sound judgment, and much general information. By his associates
and neighbors he was called "Uncle George." To him they went for
instructions relating to the management of their farms, and usually
they returned feeling they had been properly advised. Twice had death
bequeathed him a group of motherless children, and Tamsen was his third
wife.

Her parents, William and Tamsen Eustis, were respected and well to do
residents of Newburyport, Mass., where she was born in November, 1801.
Her love of books made her a student at an early age; almost as soon
as the baby-dimples left her cheeks, she sought the school-room, which
afforded her great enjoyment. Her mother's death occurred before she
attained her seventh year, and for a time her childish hopes and desires
were overshadowed with sadness by this, her first real sorrow. But the
sympathy of friends soothed her grief, and her thirst for knowledge led
her back to the schoolroom, where she pursued her studies with greater
eagerness than before.

Her father married again, and little Tamsen's life was rendered happier
by this event; for in her step-mother she found a friend who tenderly
directed her thoughts and encouraged her work. At fifteen years of age
she finished the course of study, and her proficiency in mathematics,
geometry, philosophy, etc., called forth the highest praise of her
teachers and learned friends. She, like many daughters of New England,
felt that talents are intrusted to be used, and that each life is
created for some definite purpose. She therefore resolved to devote
herself to the instruction of th