Donner Party Survivor, Youngest child that walked over the Sierra Nevada. "Jimmy" was 5 years old when his parents, James Frazier Reed and Margret Wilson Keyes left Springfield, Illinois as members of the ill-fated Donner Party. His father was banished from the train on October 5, 1846. His mother, half sister Virginia and him left with the First Relief on February 21, 1847 but they left Martha Jane "Patty" and Thomas Keyes "Tommie" behind because they were too weak to make it. Jimmy found it hard to struggle through the snow but his mother enticed him with promises that when he reached California he would have his own horse and would never have to walk anymore. Later Virginia would recount, "we went over great hye mountain as steap as stair steps in snow up to our knees litle James walk the hole way over all the mountain in snow up to his waist, he said every step he took he was a gitting nigher Pa and somthing to eat." James Jr. joined his father and brother in mining and real estate ventures and spent most of his life in San Jose, California. He died at the home of his sister Patty in Capitola.
Donner Party Survivor, Youngest child that walked over the Sierra Nevada. "Jimmy" was 5 years old when his parents, James Frazier Reed and Margret Wilson Keyes left Springfield, Illinois as members of the ill-fated Donner Party. His father was banished from the train on October 5, 1846. His mother, half sister Virginia and him left with the First Relief on February 21, 1847 but they left Martha Jane "Patty" and Thomas Keyes "Tommie" behind because they were too weak to make it. Jimmy found it hard to struggle through the snow but his mother enticed him with promises that when he reached California he would have his own horse and would never have to walk anymore. Later Virginia would recount, "we went over great hye mountain as steap as stair steps in snow up to our knees litle James walk the hole way over all the mountain in snow up to his waist, he said every step he took he was a gitting nigher Pa and somthing to eat." James Jr. joined his father and brother in mining and real estate ventures and spent most of his life in San Jose, California. He died at the home of his sister Patty in Capitola.
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