Jedediah Smith
| Jedediah Smith | |
|---|---|
Jedediah Smith, life portrait, said to have been drawn by a friend, from memory, after the 1831 death of Smith.
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| Born |
Jedediah Strong Smith January 6, 1799 Jericho, Tioga County, New York, present-day Bainbridge, Chenango County, New York |
| Died |
May 27, 1831 (aged 32) Northern Mexico Territory, south of present-day Ulysses, Grant County, Kansas |
| Cause of death | Attacked by native Americans |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Diah, Old Jed, and Jed. |
| Occupation | clerk, frontiersman, hunter, trapper, author, cartographer, explorer |
| Employer | Ashley-Henry Fur Company, partner in the Ashley Smith Fur Company and Smith, Jackson and Sublette |
| Known for | Being a mountain man and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, American West Coast, American Southwest, first west-east crossing of the Great Basin Desert and naming of Cache Valley, Utah |
| Parent(s) | Jedediah Smith, 1st and Sally Strong |
| Relatives | Austin Smith (brother) Ira Smith (brother) Peter Smith (brother) |
Jedediah Strong Smith (June 24, 1798 – May 27, 1831), was a clerk, frontiersman, hunter, trapper, author, cartographer, and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, the North American West, and the Southwest during the early 19th century. After 75 years of obscurity following his death, Smith was rediscovered as the American whose explorations led to the use of the 20-mile (32 km)-wide South Pass as the dominant point of crossing the Continental Divide for pioneers on the Oregon Trail.
Coming from a modest family background, Smith traveled to St. Louis and joined William H. Ashley and Andrew Henry's fur trading company in 1822. Smith led the first documented exploration from the Salt Lake frontier to the Colorado River. From there, Smith's party became the first white Americans to cross the Mojave Desert into California. On the return journey, Smith and his companions were the first United States citizens to explore and eastwardly cross the Sierra Nevada and the treacherous Great Basin Desert. Smith and his companions were also the first white Americans to travel up the California coast (on land) to reach the Oregon Country. Surviving three Indian massacres and one bear mauling, Jedediah Smith's explorations and documented travels were important resources to later American westward expansion.
In March 1831, while in St. Louis, Smith requested of Secretary of War John H. Eaton a federally funded exploration of the West, but to no avail. Smith informed Eaton that he was completing a map of the West derived from his own journeys. In May, Smith and his partners launched a planned para-military trading party to Santa Fe. On May 27, while searching for water in present-day southwest Kansas, Smith disappeared. It was learned some weeks later that he had been killed during an encounter with the Comanche.
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Wikipedia