Age: 83
Auxiliary

Mountain man. He was trapping with John Turner and others near Clear Lake when they met Edwin Bryant on November 2, 1846:

Mr. Greenwood, or “Old Greenwood,” as he is familiarly called, according to his own statement, is 83 years of age, and has been a mountain trapper between 40 and 50 years. He lived among the Crow Indians, where he married his wife, between thirty and forty years. He is about six feet in height, raw-boned and spare in flesh, but muscular, and, notwithstanding his old age, walks with all the erectness and elasticity of youth. His dress was of tanned buckskin, and from its appearance one would suppose its antiquity to be nearly equal to the age of its wearer. It had probably never been off his body since he first put it on.

From Edwin Bryant’s What I Saw in California: “He lived among the Crow Indians, where he married his wife, between thirty and forty years. He is about six feet in height, raw-boned and spare in flesh, but muscular, and, notwithstanding his old age, walks with all the erectness and elasticity of youth. His dress was of tanned buckskin, and from its appearance one would suppose its antiquity to be nearly equal to the age of its wearer. It had probably never been off his body since he first put it on. “I am,” said he, “an old man–eighty-three years–it is a long time to live;–eighty-three years last–. I have seen all the Injun varmints of the Rocky Mountains,–have fout them–lived with them. I have many children–I don’t know how many, they are scattered; but my wife was a Crow.”

“Old Greenwood” helped round up assistance but did not go up to the camps. For more information about Greenwood and his remarkable career, see Charles Kelly and Dale L. Morgan, Old Greenwood: The Story of Caleb Greenwood, Trapper, Pathfinder, and Early Pioneer (Georgetown, CA: Talisman, 1965).

Sources:

New Light on the Donner Party, Kristin Johnson

Ordeal By Hunger, George Stewart

What I Saw In California, Edwin Bryant