Hindsight: 164 Years Ago

by Thomas L. Libby

On February 19, 1847, the snowbound survivors of the ill-fated Donner Party were rescued in the Sierra Nevada Mountains near present-day Truckee. Of the original 89 pioneers in the wagon train, only 45 were rescued after enduring deplorable travel conditions brought on by poor planning and extreme weather that forced them to resort to human cannibalism and, allegedly, murder for food.

The most infamous Donner Party survivor was the German immigrant Lewis Keseberg. It was rumored that Keseberg had killed fellow emigrants—including George Donner and his wife, Tamsen—in order to eat them, and he was charged with six murders soon after his rescue. His case went before a Sacramento–based alcalde, an office combining judicial and executive functions inherited from the Spanish and Mexican legal systems, and Keseberg was eventually acquitted for lack of evidence. (He admitted to cannibalism, but denied eating more bodies than the winter's ravages naturally provided.)

But Keseberg's legal battles continued. One of his rescuers, Edward Coffeemeyer, told horrific stories about Keseberg's cannibalism, some of which were published in the California Star newspaper, and Keseberg summarily sued for slander under the mish-mash of Mexican jurisprudence, U.S. common law, and biblical teachings that was the authority of the day. That case went before the same alcalde. Little is known of the May 5, 1847, trial, but records establish that it was a defamation action seeking $1,000 in damages. The court found for Keseberg, but inexplicably awarded him only $1, and ordered him to pay costs.

The unreported Keseberg v. Coffeemeyer preceded California's statehood by three years and the state's slander statute (Civil Code § 46) by more than two decades, but the suit remains among the first defamation cases to be tried on state soil.

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