The Gazette Davenport, Scott, Iowa Nov 25, 1850 NEWS FROM THE PLAINS Twenty thousand Men Beyond the Desert--Cholera! Starvation!! Indian Hostilities!!! The Sacramento Transcript of the 20th September, contains a letter dated at the Great Meadows Humboldt River, September 12th from Capt. Waldo, the philanthropic and energetic friend of the emigrants. He states that he met many who had given up to die; others without food, save the worn-out horses which had borne them thus far on the way to California. Some were living on dead and putrid horse-flesh- some had died from starvation. He sayd he has met very few who have any provisions, and nearly all were traveling on foot, their horses and mules having given out. No one now thinks of gold-the cry is for bread. The Indians have stolen a great number of the emigrant stock, thereby many families have been left from four to six hundred miles from the settlements, without teams or means of conveyance, and the Indians are daily growing more hostile and daring. There is scarcely a day passes, that there are not more or less skirmishes between them and the whites. "Many women are on the road with families of children, who have lost their husbands by cholera, and who never will cross the mountain without aid. I have met intelligent packers who left the Missouri river on the 1st of July; they concur in the statement, that there are yet twenty thousand back of the Desert. Fifteen thousand of this number are now destitute of all kinds of provisions; yet the period of the greatest suffering has not yet arrived, if the supposition is to be correct, that twenty-five thousand are yet back of the Sink. It will be morally impossible for ten thousand of this number to reach the mountains before the commencement of winter; and the probability is, that they will then find these mountains covered with snow from five to twenty feet deep. All remember the fate of the Donner party." In another letter, dated Truckee River, September 15th, 1850, he states other facts in relation to the prevalence of the cholera, deaths among the immigrants, and the hostility of the Indians towards them. He closes his letter with an earnest appeal for help to those unfortunate people. We sincerely hope his appeal will not be in vain. Movements for the relief of the suffering people are made in many quarters. The benefit given by the managers of the Tehama theatre afforded over $1,100 and Col Grant of Sacramento City, collected $350.50 for the same purpose. Capt. Waldo has shown a most generous and praiseworthy disposition. He gave $1,000 in cash, besides one hundred head of beef cattle, and his services for the relief of the poor sufferers on the Plains, and is still engaged on his errand of mercy. He is in active service, is an eye-witness to the scenes of suffering and death from starvation, Indians, thirst, and cholera, which are even now daily transpiring there.- What he says can be believed; it comes from the scene itself. From Boiling Springs to this place (Great Meadow) I have met with but few who have any provisions at all, except the poor exhausted animals which have worked from the States. Footmen, who comprise nearly one-fourth of the number now on the road, not blessed even with such food as this, but are reduced to the necessity of subsisting on the putrified flesh of such dead animals as so abundantly line the road.- This has produced the most fatal consequences. Disease and death are now mowing them down by hundreds. Those emigrants that are yet back several hundred miles must receive relief, or die by starvation; and to whom can they look but to the citizens of California for their salvation. The land of their homes is too far distant to render them aid in this hour of distress and danger. When I left your city, the scarcity of money was plead as an excuse for not contributing for the relief of the emigrants. If dust is scarce, finger-rings and breastpins are not. There are enough of them in California to send bread to every starving emigrant between Green river and the Sierra Nevada mountains. And I would ask, is it possible for an American to wear a ring without blushing with shame every time his eye falls upon it, when he knows that so many of his countrymen-yes, in many instances his school mates, neighbors, kindred- and once brother in Christ, are dying for bread? Cathy Joynt Labath Scott Co, IA USGenWeb Project http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/index.htm