Jedediah Smith
Encyclopedia : J : JE : JED : Jedediah Smith
Jedediah Strong Smith (born June 24, 1799 - presumed date of death May 27, 1831) was a hunter, trapper, fur trader and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, the American West Coast and the Southwest during the 19th century. Jedediah Smith's explorations were significant in opening the American West to expansion by white settlers, mostly from New England, Missouri and Europe. According to Maurice Sullivan, "Smith was the first white man to cross the future state of Nevada, the first to traverse Utah from north to south and from west to east; the first American to enter California by the overland route, and so herald its change of masters; the first white man to scale the High Sierras, and the first to explore the Pacific hinterland from San Diego to the banks of the Columbia [River]." Prospectors and settlers later poured in to the areas that 'Old Jed' Smith had trail-blazed as a trapper and fur trader, during the subsequent Gold Rush.
Birth and accomplishments
Smith was born in Bainbridge, New York, or, according to Sullivan, in Jericho, New York on January 6, 1799. Of Scottish, English and French ancestry, Smith is best-known for leading the party of explorers who re-discovered South Pass [1], which shortened the time needed to get to the west slope of the Rocky Mountains, from the 'jumping-off' point of St. Louis, Missouri. Smith also discovered what is now called the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park and River. Once again, according to Sullivan, "In brief, it was Smith, who, greatest of the trail breakers of his period, charted the way for the spread of the [American] Republic from the Missouri [River] to the Western Sea." [see references below] Smith, a committed Methodist Christian, carried a Bible wherever he went, 'worried about his soul', quoted the Bible and sang the Weslayan hymns, and asked his church to 'pray for' him. He was one of the few mountain men who regularly shaved.Pioneering the Shining Mountains (ill-fated first attempt)
In the spring of the year 1822, the young Jedediah Smith, "following a vision, strode into St. Louis." With very little money, a rifle and a pack, Jed Smith answered an advertisement which the businessman, soldier and politician, General William H. Ashley had placed in the St. Louis 'Republican', seeking 'enterprising young men' to follow the River Missouri 'to its source'. The proposed party of one hundred men was to be led by Major Andrew Henry. Subsequently, Smith was hired by the expedition as a hunter, to provide meat, animals and beaver pelts for the party. A crowd of revelers and merry-makers showed up to wave farewell to the departing party. Osage 'Indians' watched as the Canadian boatmen piloting the 'Enterprise' moved the ship up the river Missouri, past the Osage Nation and Boone's Settlement. But, "near the mouth of Sniabar Creek in the northwestern part of Missouri,... [the ship's] mast suddenly struck a branch hanging over the water. The boat wheeled broadside to the current, and was swept under in a moment." Thus, the first attempt of the Ashley-Henry partnership to break into the wilderness met with disaster, in the loss of the Enterprise and ten-thousand dollars worth of trade goods and other possessions. "Nothing was salvaged except a few articles that floated and were caught..." (The account does not mention whether anybody drowned or not. Apparently, 'life was cheap' out in the 'Old West').The following and successful attempt to break through
Three weeks later, General Ashley had out-fitted another boat, with a cargo and crew of forty-five men. This time, Ashley took personal command of the keelboat, and sailed to the camp of Jedediah Smith and the Missouri men. Smith foraged and hunted, bringing in fresh bear, elk, deer, raccoon and turkey-meat to supplement the party's rations of hard tack, corn and bacon. The story-tellers told of the 'wizard of Wizard's Island', and the 'mad white woman of the woods', who would either vanish into thin air, or would receive food and slink away without a word. Dis-pirited volunteers deserted at the formidable aspect of the dangers which the party now faced: besides the river itself, there were the 'American-hating' Blackfeet Indians, ferocious wild animals such as the grizzly bear, deprivation, hardship and hunger, and "hundreds of miles of enemy-infested forest". The party also rescued survivors in the wilderness, trappers who had been robbed of gun, horse, pack, knife and clothes, and were left to walk hundreds of miles naked if not for the expedition, and also picked up new recruits of veteran 'mountain men' in the wilderness, who quickly joined. The party passed Fort Atkinson and the "fixed villages" of the Omaha and Ponca Indians, who had been severely weakened by a plague of small-pox some years before, past the memorial mound to Chief Blackbird of the Omahas.The 'Petrified Forest' and the Sioux
On the Spring River, the party was excited to find along with "the supposed fortifications of ancient peoples", "the petrified figures of a youth, a maiden and a dog in what is now South Dakota", perhaps the most sensational of what later became the 'tall tales' of the expedition. Fortunately for historians, the young hunter Jedediah Strong Smith kept an extensive journal of his and his fellow-adventurers' travels. Next, the party encountered the 'roving' Sioux Indians, who impressed Smith with their "intelligence, superior morals, stature and manner of living". (Some of these 'mountain men' were sufficiently impressed with the Indian 'way of living' as to join them, to live among them, or at least, not to cause them any trouble. However, ever since a frontiersman named Alexander Carson had shot a Sioux warrior for 'target practice', the white men had needed to be on their guard around the outraged Sioux. Although the Ashley-Henry party was well-defended and sufficiently powerful enough for the Sioux to leave them alone and despite their animosity, "Jedediah felt that here, in the Sioux nation, aboriginal life was most attractive."The last adventure and death of Jedediah Strong Smith
Later, Smith became involved in the fur trade in Santa Fe. Smith was leading a trading party on the Santa Fe Trail in May, 1831 when he left the group to scout for water. He never returned to the group. The remainder of the party proceeded on to Santa Fe hoping Smith would meet them there, but he never arrived. A short time later members of the trading party discovered a Mexican merchant at the Santa Fe market offering several of Smith's personal belongings for sale. When questioned about the items, the merchant indicated that he had acquired them from a band of Comanche hunters. The Comanches told the merchant they had taken the items from a white man they had killed near the Cimarron River. Smith's body was never found.In his lifetime, Smith traveled more extensively in unknown territory than any other single mountain man. Most of the western slope of Wyoming's famous Teton Range is named the Jedediah Smith Wilderness after him. And the Jedediah Smith Memorial Trail runs between Folsom and Sacramento, California, through the former gold-dredging fields that are now the American River Parkway.
References
- Maurice S. Sullivan, The Travels of Jedediah Smith (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1992), 13.
- Maurice S. Sullivan, 'Jedediah Smith, Trader and Trail Breaker', New York Press of the Pioneers, 1936.
See also
- Huguenot, famous people of Huguenot descent
- List of Basques, famous people of Basque descent
External links
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