Jedediah Smith Research Paper

California’s Mountain Man: Jedediah Smith
Michelle Barnett
June 30, 2013

Jedediah Strong Smith was born in New York in 1799. His New England ancestors came to America in 1634. Growing up Smith’s close family friend, a pioneer physician, mentored his love of nature and adventure. Smith was raised hunting and trapping in the forests of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. He had also learned to read and write, skills that not many had learned on the American frontier. Aside from his Bible, which he usually carried wherever he went, Smith had also read and got inspiration from the Lewis and Clark Expedition. By age 22 Smith was an accomplished, ambitious outdoorsman, hunter and trapper. Smith desired to
They then headed north for Fort Vancouver, owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company, and located on the Columbia River, near today’s Portland, Oregon. Unfortunately after more than six months of effort, and just a few days short of safe travel, his party was attacked in central Oregon. Just four men escaped, Smith included by diving into a river and swimming to safety. This was second Indian attack in just 11 months. The attack was provoked by unfriendly Indians. After a winter’s stay at Fort Vancouver, Smith traveled up the Columbia River eventually re-united with his business partners and surviving friends in Southern
According to Morgan (1964) he led the first overland party from the east to California and was the first to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains going east. He discovered South Pass from the east and was the first to bring wagons through it to the west encouraging the Oregon Trail wagons to follow his exploit. [pic] Smith covered southern route and a central route to the west coast and the Snake River from Oregon to the Great Salt Lake and Western Wyoming north to Montana had been journeyed by his pen and viewed by his eyes. His maps and oral stories were shared with many people but he did not live long enough to have his journals and maps published. Jed helped a new expedition leading a wagon train taking goods to California down the Santa Fe Trail in May of 1831. A couple weeks into the trip they were caught in a fifty-mile stretch of sandy hills and desert. The wagons became stuck in the sand and the animals were dying because of lack of water. Smith rode to the southwest in search of water and that was the last that his friends saw of him. Mexican traders in Santa Fe later told the tragic story of Smith 's death falling at the hand of Comanche Indians. While he was scooping water from a small water hole, the unfriendly Comanche Indians came upon him. It is said he shot the chief with his pistol after trying to make friends thinking that would