Yuma lawyer held some blame for Donner Party fate

Editor’s Note: The Yuma Sun is reprinting articles from past newspapers honoring Yuma’s unique history. This column is one in a series written by local historian Frank Love that appeared periodically in the newspaper.

The 1860 census for Yuma – then known as Arizona City – listed as a resident Lanceford W. Hastings, a 42-year-old lawyer from Ohio. It reported he was married to Charlotte from Venezuela and was the father of five children living here. The document reports that Hastings was the only attorney in the small settlement.

Why a family man with a profession which could earn him a good income in California was living in Yuma must have caused some to wonder why he was here. The village only had 84 residents in 1860. There were twice as many civilians living across the river below Fort Yuma than in the little village on the Arizona side. With such a small population, it appears there would have been very few opportunities for a lawyer to earn a decent living.

But there was a good reason why Hastings was practicing law in Yuma rather than in one of the California cities. He was quite unpopular in the Golden State because he was blamed by many as being indirectly responsible for the Donner disaster, a tragedy 14 years earlier which cost the lives of 39 travelers bound for California.

The Donner Party was a group of 87 persons who set out for California in 1846. They took the written advice of Hastings who suggested they take a shortcut to California instead of following the usual California trail.

Believing Hastings knew the best route, they took his advice and got caught in a blizzard in the mountains. After taking refuge from the storm, their food ran out and some began to die. Others turned cannibal, eating parts of the bodies of their dead companions. A rescue party finally found 48 and took them to safety on the coast.

The fate of the Donner Party made Hastings so unpopular in California that he left to settle in Yuma. If he had remained there, he might have been killed by one of the Donner survivors or someone sympathetic to them.

The first indication that Lanceford Hastings was living in Yuma after the Donner tragedy appeared in a letter written to a Sacramento newspaper, The Statesman, on April 30, 1858. The paper published a privately written letter from Yuma. It contained the following:

“Emigration is setting this way since my arrival. We have Judge Hastings and family; he has built a row of houses and is keeping hotel.”

At some time during the next year, Hastings became Yuma’s postmaster. The description of him as “Judge” Hastings also suggests he may have been serving the town as its local justice.

It was while he was living here that Lanceford became involved in the drafting of a letter of protest to the administration in Washington. Essentially, it was a complaint that the federal government wasn’t providing enough protection to Arizona and Yuma residents.

It concluded with the announcement that the people of Arizona were going to hold a meeting and create their own territorial government since the government in Washington wasn’t providing them with protection they needed.

It appears that Hastings was probably one of the people responsible for organizing the protest meeting because he was named to a committee of three “to draft a preamble and resolutions expressive of the sense of the meeting.” A list of complaints which Hastings and the committee wrote included the following:

“There are no courts, no civil offices, no law, and crime stalks abroad in our midst in open day. We have shown that armed Mexicans have invaded our territory, and stained our soil with American blood: that Mexican ‘cutthroats’ and outlaws, under the cover of night, have barbarously murdered and mangled the bodies of our citizens in charge of our mail stations; and that marauding parties of ruthless savages and barbarous Mexicans infest our territory, deluging the country in blood, driving off our herds, inducing constant dread and alarm in our midst, preventing immigration, and depopulating our country. Notwithstanding this, the doors to Congress have been closed ...”

It is obvious from the reaction of the editorial staff at the San Diego Herald that they didn’t believe there was much truth to the complaint from Yuma. In an editorial following the Yuma protest meeting, the newspaper claimed that the Yuma protest meeting only had an attendance of nine persons. Those present, the Herald reported, included the “Old Blow Hard Hastings and the barkeeper of this rum mill.”

With Civil War looming, the government in Washington had more serious problems than curbing Indian raids and Mexican bandits invading Yuma. As far as can be determined, they ignored the Yuma protest.

Before another 18 months passed, Yuma’s postmaster had joined the Confederate Army. He was commissioned a major in the rebel forces and began urging an invasion of Arizona and California. While serving in the Confederate Army, he wrote a letter to President Jefferson Davis containing a plan for seizing New Mexico Territory and Sonora. It was ignored because the Confederacy was too hard-pressed by then to seriously consider it.

When the Civil War ended, Hastings fled to Brazil rather than face humiliation and possible arrest. What became of him afterward is unknown.