Explorers, Pioneers, and Frontiersmen
Jedediah Smith
1799-1831

Born in Bainbridge, New York, young Jedediah Strong Smith moved with his family as they pressed westward in an effort to remain at the frontier. Smith supposedly read of the Lewis and Clark expedition as a small boy and was inspired by that great adventure.

Smith became a fur trapper and later worked primarily as a guide and explorer. In 1824, he escorted the first white group through South Pass, explored the areas north to the Canadian border, and then headed south to the Great Salt Lake. In 1825, his group moved from Salt Lake, across Ute and Paiute lands, down the Colorado River, through the Mojave Desert, over the High Sierras and on to Mission San Gabriel in California. He later pushed southward into Mexico, but was encouraged to leave by suspicious authorities.

Following his mother's death, Smith returned to St. Louis and resumed a more normal existence. He had, however, promised to make one last trek to the Southwest. He left Missouri in 1831 and followed the Santa Fe Trail. On May 27, Smith was encircled and killed by Comanche warriors at a watering hole near the Cimarron River in New Mexico. His remains were never found.

Smith’s explorations did much to bring fur trappers into the American West. His life was short, but eventful; on one occasion he survived a grizzly bear attack from which his scalp was left dangling off the side of his head. Classic mountain man experiences aside, Smith was a strikingly atypical denizen of the Rockies — no liquor, no tobacco, little sense of humor, and a strong religious faith.

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