Eliza Poor Donner Houghton Papers

The collection contains correspondence, notebooks, manuscripts, land tracts, scrapbooks, cartes-de-visites and ephemera. Although the majority of the material in the collection deals with the Donner Party, several items written by Eliza Poor Donner Houghton deal with California history. These items are chiefly about the discovery of gold in California in 1849 and its effect on American history and the development of California as a state. In addition to Eliza, nine other Donner Party members are represented in this collection, both in correspondence and photographs. The collection contains 89 cataloged items, including 49 pieces of correspondence and three oversize items. The collection spans the period 1820-1978, but the bulk of the material is from 1900-1920.

About half of the 49 pieces of correspondence (1910-1918) deal with the planning, building and dedication of the Pioneer (Donner) Monument; most of this correspondence consists of letters between Eliza Poor Donner Houghton and C. W. Chapman, the Chairman of the Donner Monument Committee. There are also seven letters (1820-1842) by Tamsen Donner to her sister Elizabeth Eustis Poor, of which six were written before Tamsen's marriage to George Donner. The letter from Eliza to "My Children" was written immediately after her visit in 1884 with John Baptiste Trudeau, during which he gave his account of events at the mountain camps, his relationship with the Donners, his last words with George and Tamsen Donner, and his rescue by the third relief party. This letter contains material that Eliza did not publish in her book.

The notebooks and manuscripts, all written by Eliza, deal either with the Donner Party or the history of California. There is an incomplete handwritten draft of The Expedition of the Donner Party and Its Tragic Fate. Although this draft is missing sections of the published book, it contains material that does not appear in the published version.

The scrapbooks (1860-1920) contain mostly news clippings concerning Sherman Houghton's political career in California, although there are some clippings concerning the Donner Party.