Jedediah Smith

Jedediah Strong Smith was born in Bainbridge, New York, one of ten children in a family that had moved through New England for four generations before landing there. His father's general store failed amid a counterfeiting scandal, and the family moved twice more chasing steadier ground, first to Pennsylvania, then to Ohio. Smith clerked on Lake Erie freight boats at 13, learning ledgers and the traders who worked the frontier's edge, and picked up enough Latin and English to write clearly for the rest of his life. Raised Methodist but no churchgoer, he read what geography he could find and, at 23, answered a Missouri newspaper advertisement asking for a hundred young men willing to ascend the Missouri River and trap fur.

Smith joined William Ashley's fur company in 1822 and within a year survived an Arikara ambush that killed twelve men, then a grizzly mauling that tore off part of his scalp and an ear, stitched back on by a companion. In 1824 his party rediscovered South Pass, the low crossing of the Continental Divide the Oregon Trail would later follow. In 1826 he led the first documented Americans overland into Mexican California across the Mojave Desert, then the following year led the first eastbound crossing of the Sierra Nevada and Great Basin. A second California party lost ten men to a Mojave attack in 1827, and a third, in Oregon in 1828, lost all but four men to an Umpqua ambush. He bought out Ashley's stake, ran the firm as Smith, Jackson and Sublette, and sold it in 1830.

Smith did not drink, chase women, or, by his companions' account, use profanity, a genuine oddity in the fur trade, and his letters home show real Christian conviction. But no account by him or anyone who rode with him supports the later legend that he carried a Bible into the wilderness — historians have found no basis for it, only a single recorded prayer at an Arikara burial. He was less careful with people than principle: after the Mojave and Umpqua attacks he ordered the killing of Native people who approached his camps, including at least seven Maidu men shot on suspicion alone, and in 1830, back in St. Louis, he bought two enslaved men to look after property he had just bought, a plain contradiction of the Methodist household that raised him.

Smith died at 32, shot while riding out to find water on the Cimarron — his brother later recovered his rifle and pistols from Comancheros who had bought them off the Comanche, but no grave or body was ever found. For 75 years he stayed a minor name in a trade full of them. Historians revived him in stages, from Harrison Dale's 1918 study through Maurice Sullivan's 1936 biography to Dale Morgan's 1953 life, using his own recovered journals and the map he drew with his partners. His name now covers a redwood state park, a national wilderness, and two rivers, a wider memorial than the record of who he shot to get there usually receives.

Jedediah Smith's life against the full span of the corpus.

• South Pass rediscovery discovery
  The low Continental Divide crossing the Oregon Trail later followed 1824
• Mojave Desert overland route to California discovery
  First documented US citizens to reach California overland 1826
• Sierra Nevada eastbound crossing discovery
  First Americans to cross the range and the Great Basin eastbound 1827
• Smith, Jackson and Sublette company
  Bought out Ashley's stake — ran the central Rocky Mountain fur trade 1826
• 1831 map of the American West other
  Drawn with partners Jackson and Sublette — the most accurate map of the Rockies and Great Basin of its time 1831

• January 6, 1799 aged 0 Born in Bainbridge, New York
• 1822 aged ~23 Joins William Ashley's fur company on the Missouri River
• 1823 aged ~24 Survives an Arikara ambush and a grizzly bear mauling The bear tore off part of his scalp and an ear.
• 1824 aged ~25 Rediscovers South Pass
• 1826 aged ~27 Leads the first documented American party overland into Mexican California Crossed the Mojave Desert to reach it.
• July 14, 1828 aged 29 Loses all but four men to an Umpqua ambush in Oregon
• 1830 aged ~31 Sells his fur company interest and buys two enslaved men in St. Louis
• May 27, 1831 aged 32 Killed by Comanche warriors on the Santa Fe Trail Scouting alone for water near the Cimarron River — his body was never recovered.

• Jim Bridger 1804–1881
  Mountain man and guide who explored the Rocky Mountains and founded Fort Bridger. fellow mountain man
• Kit Carson 1809–1868
  Frontiersman and scout who guided John C. Frémont and became a legend of the American West. walked the trails he opened
• John C. Frémont 1813–1890
  Explorer and military officer whose five expeditions mapped much of the American West. used the routes he mapped
• Meriwether Lewis 1774–1809
  Co-leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which mapped the American West to the Pacific Ocean. echoed the federal expedition he proposed