The greatest adventure never told ... until now! In the year of 1844, a
party of fifty men, women and children set out for California from
Council Bluffs, Iowa. The men and women of this party are looking for
different things by undertaking this long journey: Dr. John Townsend
looks to find a place where his invalid wife Elizabeth may recover her
health. Isabella Patterson with her six children is hoping to be
reunited with her husband, gone ahead to establish a new home for them
all in California. The devoutly Catholic and Irish patriarch Martin
Murphy, Sr. is seeking a degree of religious freedom for his extended
family. Just-married gunsmith Allen Montgomery is looking for adventure.
And no one knows what the taciturn blacksmith Elisha Stephens is
looking for, all along the California-Oregon emigrant trail - but they
elect him as their leader and trust him with their lives.
They
form a company, hire a former mountain man, Caleb Greenwood to guide
them as far as the Rockies, and set off into the trackless west with
their eleven ox-drawn wagons. They walk two thousand miles, across plain
and desert, fording rivers, climbing mountains and hoisting their
wagons to the top of a sheer cliff. They blaze a new trail through the
desert beyond Nevada's Humboldt Sink and up the valley of the Truckee
River into the heart of the Sierra Nevada mountains - the first party to
bring their wagons all the way to California.
But they are
caught by winter, while still in the high Sierras. Like the Donner-Reed
emigrant party of two years later - marooned in the same place at the
same time of year - the Townsend, Murphy, Patterson and Armstrong
families also face faced starvation and death. But unlike the Donner
Party, this company has an advantage - their courage, faith, and trust
in each other and in their leaders. Would it be enough to ensure their
survival?
party of fifty men, women and children set out for California from
Council Bluffs, Iowa. The men and women of this party are looking for
different things by undertaking this long journey: Dr. John Townsend
looks to find a place where his invalid wife Elizabeth may recover her
health. Isabella Patterson with her six children is hoping to be
reunited with her husband, gone ahead to establish a new home for them
all in California. The devoutly Catholic and Irish patriarch Martin
Murphy, Sr. is seeking a degree of religious freedom for his extended
family. Just-married gunsmith Allen Montgomery is looking for adventure.
And no one knows what the taciturn blacksmith Elisha Stephens is
looking for, all along the California-Oregon emigrant trail - but they
elect him as their leader and trust him with their lives.
They
form a company, hire a former mountain man, Caleb Greenwood to guide
them as far as the Rockies, and set off into the trackless west with
their eleven ox-drawn wagons. They walk two thousand miles, across plain
and desert, fording rivers, climbing mountains and hoisting their
wagons to the top of a sheer cliff. They blaze a new trail through the
desert beyond Nevada's Humboldt Sink and up the valley of the Truckee
River into the heart of the Sierra Nevada mountains - the first party to
bring their wagons all the way to California.
But they are
caught by winter, while still in the high Sierras. Like the Donner-Reed
emigrant party of two years later - marooned in the same place at the
same time of year - the Townsend, Murphy, Patterson and Armstrong
families also face faced starvation and death. But unlike the Donner
Party, this company has an advantage - their courage, faith, and trust
in each other and in their leaders. Would it be enough to ensure their
survival?
