is years and
his many afflictions. He has clear blue eyes, regular features, light
hair and beard, a distinct, rapid mode of enunciation, a loud voice, and
a somewhat excited manner of speech. In conversing he looks one squarely
and steadily in the eye, and appears like an honest, intelligent German.
He speaks and writes German, French, Spanish, and English, and his
selection of words proves him a scholar. His face generally wears a
determined, almost fierce expression, but one is impressed with the
thought that this appearance is caused by his habitually standing on the
defensive as against his fellow-men. Since he has never before had an
opportunity of speaking in his own defense, it is perhaps fitting that
his statement should be given in his own language:

"My name is Lewis Keseberg. I was born in the city of Berleburg,
Province of Westphalia, in the Kingdom of Prussia, on the twenty-second
of May, 1814. I am therefore almost sixty-three years of age. I was
married June 22, 1842, came to the United States May 22, 1844, and
emigrated to California in 1846 with the Donner Party. I never have
made a statement concerning my connection with that Party to any one
connected with the press. It is with the utmost horror that I revert
to the scenes of suffering and unutterable misery endured during that
journey. I have always endeavored to put away from me all thoughts or
recollections of those terrible events. Time is the best physician, and
would, I trusted, heal the wounds produced by those days of torture; yet
my mind to-day recoils with undiminished horror as I endeavor to speak
of this dreadful subject. Heretofore I have never attempted to refute
the villainous slanders which have been circulated and published about
me. I feel it my duty to make this statement, however, because I am
convinced of your willingness to do justice to all who were concerned
in that dreadful affair, and heretofore I have been treated with gross
injustice.

"If I believe in God Almighty having anything to do with the affairs of
men, I believe that the misfortune which overtook the Donner Party, and
the terrible part I was compelled to take in the great tragedy, were
predestined. On the Hastings Cut-off we were twenty-eight days in going
twenty-one miles. Difficulty and disaster hovered about us from the time
we entered upon this cut-off."

"One day, while we were traveling on Goose Creek, we saw so many wild
geese that I took my shotgun and