Background
Patrick Breen was born in Ireland in about 1806. He came to the United States and settled in Iowa in 1828. Of his early life nothing appears to be recorded.
Patrick Breen was born in Ireland in about 1806. He came to the United States and settled in Iowa in 1828. Of his early life nothing appears to be recorded.
Breen was of little formal education, but was able to read and write – abilities which were considered a mark of distinction for an Irishman of his time in this country.
On April 5, 1846 he moved with his wife Margaret and seven children from Keokuk, Iowa to set out for the emigrants' rendezvous at Independence, Missouri, bound for California. Here he joined the party of George and Jacob Donner, which had come from Springfield, Illinois, and which with several other parties left for the West early in May.
On July 20, at the Little Sandy, in Wyoming, where more emigrants were found, the Donner party was separately organized and George Donner was elected captain. At Fort Bridger, which was reached five days later, decision was made to try the new Hastings cut-off around the south shore of Salt Lake. Instead, however, of reaching the lake by the known route through Weber Canyon, a roundabout course was taken through the mountains, which caused great delay.
Other delays with great loss of live-stock followed, in traversing the Nevada desert, and when the party reached Truckee Lake (since called Donner Lake), snow was falling. Several attempts to proceed were frustrated by the increasing snowfall, and by the middle of November the leaders of the party realized that they were hemmed in, with small chance of rescue. Of the tragedy that followed, in which thirty-six out of a company of eighty-one perished, many of the survivors have left accounts.
The narrative that furnishes the most vivid realization of the scene, however, is the diary kept from November 20 to March 1 by Breen. Its bare, scant sentences record divided counsels, quarrels, the sending out of the relief-seekers in mid-December, the exhaustion of the food supply until nothing but hides were left, the increasing weakness and illness of the people, the succession of deaths, the arrival of the first rescue party and the departure of the first contingent of survivors; and it closes with the statement that in two or three days the remainder will start.
All of the Breens lived throught the terrible ordeal, though the youngest was a nursing baby. After some shifting about, the family settled, in February 1848, at San Juan Bautista, in San Benito County. Breen died at the San Juan home on December 21, 1868.
Breen was a devout Catholic who had prayers read regularly every day, and his piety converted one of the other members of the party to his creed.
Breen kept his diary rather brief--so brief that it omits much the reader would wish to know. Its quality is that of stark literalness unrelieved by any note other than one of patient endurance based on a serene faith in ultimate rescue.
He was in no way distinguished among his companions. Indeed, though the women of the party--particularly Tamsen Donner, Margaret Breen and Olvina Murphy--revealed outstanding qualities of greatness, all the men except Stanton seem to have been weak and uncertain, without foresight or any other of the capacities that should have enabled them to prevent an appalling disaster.
Quotes from others about the person
Breen's title to fame rests on his sole literary production, the diary--"one of the most highly prized treasures, " says Bancroft, "of my Library. "
From Keokuk, Iowa, April 5, 1846, with his wife Margaret and seven children, he set out for the emigrants' rendezvous at Independence, Missouri, bound for California. The children all lived to maturity, and five of them outlived their parents. The father died at the San Juan home, and six years later his wife followed him.