Captain Charles E. Davis Collection

Charles E. Davis was born into a wealthy Massachusetts family, but as a young man signed on as an ordinary seaman with an Atlantic fishing fleet. By the time he was eighteen, he had won the rank of captain, a title he kept until he died in 1933. In 1898, he joined the Alaska gold stampede and traveled to the Klondike, though did not see success as a miner. Afterward, he spent time as an amateur naturalist and explorer, collecting specimens and guiding explorations throughout the world. He had fished from Alaska to the Caribbean, explored unknown regions of Siberia, traveled up the Amazon, collected 3,000 specimens of sea life, captured elephant seals, and spent several years exploring the desert trails of America’s Southwest. At the time of the Overland Trail project, Davis was retired and living on Mullet Island on the Salton Sea about ten miles northwest of Calipatria, California. Davis spent his own money and time recreating the Donner-Reed Party’s route from Independence, Missouri to Sacramento, California, believing that Sutter’s Fort and the people who traveled there on the overland trails represented the indomitable spirit of the pioneer better than anything else in the world.

[Historical note adapted from the "Researcher’s Guide to Sutter’s Fort’s Collections of Donner Party Material" published by Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park, accessed November 7, 2022.]