The Wild West of Yester-Year
Jedediah Smith
By Rachel Kovaciny
Jedediah Smith survived three massacres, got mauled by a bear, and led the first party of U. S. citizens cross the Mojave Desert. He was probably the first white American to reach California from the east, overland, rather than sailing around South America to get there. Smith and his companions were also the first U. S. citizens to travel overland from California to Oregon. He accompanied the first party that explored the Sierra Nevada from the west. His journals and maps helped settlers find the best spot to cross the Continental Divide while following the Oregon Trail. Oh, and Jedediah Smith accomplished all of that in just nine years, before dying at thirty-two.
Born in Jericho (now Bainbridge), New York, in 1799, Jedediah Strong Smith and
family moved to Pennsylvania and Ohio in his youth. He learned to hunt and trap
and felt keen to explore more widely. He also learned to read and write, skills
that enabled him to record his later experiences and travels.
In 1822, he journeyed to St. Louis, Missouri, where he joined an expedition
bound for the Rocky Mountains. Smith fell in love with the wilderness. In fact,
he never really rejoined civilization again. He spent the next year with fur
trappers along the Yellowstone River, learning how to survive in the wild.
In 1823, while exploring the Black Hills of South Dakota, a grizzly bear burst
out from the other side of a dense thicket and surprised him. The bear attacked,
smashing his ribs and mauling him. It took his head in its mouth and ripped off
his scalp and one ear, but Smith played dead, and the bear lost interest and
left instead of killing him. His friends found him and assumed he would die from
his wounds, but he convinced them to sew his scalp and ear back on. After ten
days of recovery, he resumed trapping and traveling. He wore his hair long for
the rest of his life to cover his damaged ear and scars as well as he could.
The following winter, Smith led a party to explore Wyoming, where a friendly
Crow tribe told them about a pass suitable for wagons through the Rocky
Mountains. He made maps of what came to be known as South Pass, the gap the
Oregon, California, and Mormon Trail all passed through. Thanks to his
descriptions and maps, later settlers easily found the pass.
The next spring, Smith became part owner of the fur trapping organization that
had hired him as a scout and trapper. He did not stay in any towns or forts to
run the business. Instead, he took a group west and found an overland route west
to California, which was part of Mexico. The Mexican government did not want U.
S. citizens entering their land that way, so they ordered Smith to leave, which
he did. Instead of going back the way he had come, he went north, exploring more
and more. Wherever he went, he made maps and wrote detailed descriptions of his
findings in his journals.
Smith spent the next few years all over the west. In 1830, he returned to St.
Louis and sold his share of the fur trapping business. His younger brothers,
Peter and Austin Smith, joined him there, and they set out on the Santa Fe Trail
with a wagon train of trade goods. The train left in April 1831, an unusually
dry year. They encountered drought conditions and began losing animals and men
in the desert when their water ran out. After three days with no water, he and
several others rode off to find it, each going a different direction. None of
them ever saw Smith again.
It wasn’t until his brothers found his pistols and rifle up for sale in Santa Fe
that they learned what had happened to him. Unfriendly Comanche warriors had
surrounded him and killed him in battle. They never recovered his body.
Although he did not live to see his journals and maps published, they proved
invaluable for later explorers. Many official maps simply copied him for large
sections of the West. His records fueled the emerging interest in settling
Oregon, and his maps helped make such a journey possible. Though the time he
spent in the West was short, it made an immeasurable difference.