October 20, 2025 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Jedediah Smith’s story reads like the birth of the American West itself: bold, unforgiving, and full of faith. In an age when few dared to leave the safety of the frontier, he ventured across mountains and deserts no American had ever seen. He charted new routes to the Pacific, endured attacks and near starvation, and still pressed forward. His journals and maps became blueprints for westward expansion, turning one man’s determination into a nation’s destiny. Here to tell the story is Roger McGrath.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Just decades following the signing of the US Constitution in
seventeen eighty seven, trailblazers called mountain Men headed west. Here
to tell the story is Roger McGrath, author of Gunfighters,
Hwomen and Vigilantes, Violence on the Frontier, Take It Away, McGrath.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
By eighteen twenty one, twenty four US states have been established.
The population is something around nine point six million. The
country's border expands to the Missouri River, and beyond that
border liys a fast western territory of brutal wilderness shrouded
in myth Reconquering it requires extraordinary men. One of the
(01:01):
greatest of these is Jedediah Smith.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
He was the first to come overland into California.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
He's the first known person to cross the Sierra.
Speaker 5 (01:12):
Nevada, the first man to recognize the significance of the
South past.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Smith's discoveries beyond the Missouri surpassed those of even Lewis
and Clark. Here's Jim Hardy, director of the Fur Trade
Research Center.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Without men like Jededi Smith and particularly his trails. We
wouldn't have had an Oregon trail. We wouldn't have had
a gold rush because the route to California and Oregon
wouldn't have been there yet.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Smith embodies the character of America frontier, grit, organ individualism, survival.
Jedediah Strong Smith is born the fourth of twelve children
on January sixth, seventeen ninety nine, in south central New
York State, to parents who descend from the Puritan settlers
(02:07):
of Massachusetts. Following the expanding Frontier, the family moves westward
in eighteen ten to Erie, Pennsylvania, and two years later Jedediah,
now thirteen years old, goes to work as a clerk
on a freighter that sails the waters of Lake Erie.
The young teenager becomes familiar with not only shipping and trading,
(02:31):
but also the adventurous life of those who live farther
to the west than In eighteen fourteen, a family friend
gives Jedediah a copy of the Journals of Lewis and Clark,
and he devours the book. Here's an astronaut buzz alderin
(02:51):
Lewis and Clark, who want to see what's on the
other side.
Speaker 6 (02:57):
Given a mountain.
Speaker 7 (02:59):
We want to climate.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
We hold those venturers of the past in great admiration. Then,
in the spring of eighteen twenty two, the twenty three
year old is off on his own to the edge
of Western civilization in Saint Louis, Missouri. The city is
the center of America's fastest scoring industry, the fur trade.
(03:26):
Here's Martin Barber, author of Jedediah Smith, no ordinary mountain man.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
Jedediah's primary reason for going to Saint Louis and then
into the far West as a beaver hunter was motivated
by his ambition a word that he uses often, his
ambition to make good at a time when the nation
was in terrible economic condition after the Panic of eighteen
nineteen inclosures of banks and rural mortgage failures. So he's
(03:56):
driven by the urge to make good. That means he
wants to make money.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
A scope for writer. Smith details his life in his journal.
Speaker 8 (04:05):
I intend to follow my strong inclination to visit this
unexplored country and unfold those hidden resources of wealth and
bring to light those wonders which I readily imagine a
country so extensive might contain.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Jedediah Smith becomes a regular reader of the Missouri Gazette
and Public Advertiser, the town's leading newspaper. One day, an
advertisement on page three catches his eye.
Speaker 8 (04:33):
Wednesday morning, February thirteenth, eighteen twenty two to enterprising young men,
the subscriber wishes to engage one hundred men to ascend
the River Missouri to its source. There to be employed
for one, two or three years for particulars. Inquire of
Major Andrew Henry near the lead mines or the subscriber
(04:56):
at Saint Louis, signed by one General William H. Ashley.
Speaker 6 (05:02):
It was almost as if his life was lined up
for that particular moment to be able to read that article.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Next, Smith gets the William Ashley as fast as he can.
Speaker 9 (05:13):
Thomas Mitchell.
Speaker 7 (05:15):
Next, what do you do?
Speaker 8 (05:19):
The trapper name Jedediah Smith.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Welcome mister Smith to the Ashley Henry for a company.
Speaker 7 (05:33):
Yahya, thanks man, let's go.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
It is from these beaver trapping expeditions that the new
mountain Man emerges. But there's something about Smith's character that
sets him apart from these other young adventurers. Smith is
a devout Christian, doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't chase women.
He is long, encourage and clear thinking in a tight spot.
(05:56):
His Bible and gun are his closest companions. As phil
Ann shoots Rites of Smith in Out Where the West Begins,
Volume two. Smith was hardly a stereotypical mountain man, yet
few mountain men earned greater respect from their peers. Here's
(06:17):
for a trade historian Rex Norman and Jim Hardy.
Speaker 6 (06:22):
There was something about his nature that seemed to exude
to people confidence, trustworthiness, and boldness.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
He had read Lewis and Clark's journals. Lewis and Clark
takes this expedition all the way out to the Pacific
Ocean and back over a period of little more than
two and a half years. And you read that, and
you can get caught up in the romance. You can
get caught up in the wonder.
Speaker 7 (06:50):
Of what's out there.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
And I think jed was suffering from a little wanderlust.
Speaker 8 (06:59):
I want to be the first to view a country
on which the eyes of a white man have never gazed,
and to follow the course of rivers that run through
a new land.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And you've been listening to the story of Jedediah Smith,
and it's so interesting to hear from buzz Aldrin, one
of the great twentieth century explorers, talking about one of
the greatest nineteenth century explorers. When we come back more
of Jedediah Smith's story here on our American Stories, Leehabib Here,
as we approach our nation's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary,
(07:33):
I'd like to remind you that all the history stories
you hear on this show brought to you by the
great folks at Hillsdale College, and Hillsdale isn't just a
great school for your kids or grandkids to attend, but
for you as well. Go to Hillsdale dot edu to
find out about their terrific free online courses. Their series
on communism is one of the finest I've ever seen. Again,
(07:53):
go to Hillsdale dot edu and sign up for their
free and terrific online courses. And we continue with our
American Stories and the story of Jedediah Smith as being
(08:14):
told by Roger McGrath. Let's pick up where we last
left off.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
The Ashley Henry Expedition ascends the Missouri River in two
keel boats during the spring of eighteen twenty two for
twenty two weeks, and then travel nearly fourteen hundred miles,
covering some five to twenty miles a day. When spring
arrives in eighteen twenty three, the twenty four year old
(08:43):
Jedediah Smith has spent his first winter trapping beaver at
the mussel Shell River in central Montana. But the pelts
come with a price. The local Indians have stolen almost
all of the mountain men's horses. Because of this, Andrew
Henry looked for someone to carry a message to William Ashley,
(09:05):
asking her to buy horses from the Ourca Indians at
their village on the Missouri River.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
I'll go be dangerous traveling all by yourself.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Here's historian Mike Moore.
Speaker 7 (09:18):
To me.
Speaker 10 (09:19):
Jedediah is the epitomy of a man's man in the West.
He's mentally and physically tough. He's brave. He doesn't say
I cannot do that. He just says, let's go.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
They soon reached the Arica Indian village near present day Mowbridge,
South Dakota. Ashley approaches the village cautiously with some forty
men to negotiate with Chief Gray Eyes Tobacco, who met
Lewis and Clark in eighteen six and earned a reputation
as an iron will negotiator. We need horses with many
(09:55):
blankets many other things to trade for. Smith is left
in commit and of the shore party great positioned on
the sandbar. Ashley manages to conclude a deal trading Kettle's blankets,
lives and supplies of all kinds for horses. All seems flying.
The Rickra delivered the horses to the sandbar, but before
(10:16):
Ashley's men can swim them to the opposite bank of
the Missouri, a violent storm sweeps down upon them. The
shore party now has to remain with the horses on
the sandbar overnight. This gives the Arikra play. I have
time to think about the situation. There are six or
seven hundred Rikorra warriors and a mirror forty Ashley men
(10:41):
down below on the sandbar. Why not annihilate them and
capture the keel boats with all the cargo and weapons aboard.
At the break of day on June second, eighteen twenty three,
Smith and the others on the sandbar hear the crack
of rifles and lead ball begin ripping into their position.
(11:02):
Horses start toppling over, and men died behind them for cover.
Within minutes, most of the horses and several of the
men are dead.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
The Ricaras unleashed a fusillade of hundreds of flintlock guns.
Ricarra archers were also launching clouds of arrows as best
they could with this massed firepower. These guys on the
exposed sand barber in deep, deep trouble.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
By the twos and threes then died into the river
and are swept downstream. Smith makes it into the river unscathed,
and later is hauled the board a keelboat.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
But as Jed's leaving, he's looking at a beach that's
strung with the bodies of a dozen or so of
his comrades and all these dead horses they had just
traded for. And there's nothing that he can do.
Speaker 8 (11:53):
But my thoughts. I kept to myself, knowing that a
few words from me would discourage my men.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Thirteen men are killed at the battle site, and two
others later die of their wounds. The Rikra evidently suffer
few casualties.
Speaker 8 (12:11):
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
The battle is one of the deadliest in the history
of the Western Fur trade. Amen survivors of the attack
head downstream and reach Colonel Henry Leavenworth at Fort Atkinson,
about fifteen miles north at present day Omaha, Nebraska.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
Levenworth organizes what one fair trader called the Missouri Legion,
some three hundred and fifty soldiers, another seventy five or
eighty mountain men and trappers, and then Sue warriors who
saw a great opportunity here to have Uncle Sam help
destroy their inveterate enemies, the Aricra.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
On August ninth, eighteen twenty three, six weeks after the
Erikra battle, the mountain men are organized into two companies,
and Jedediah Smith is made captain of one of the companies.
When the force reaches the Erika of villages, the Lakota
Sioux wastes no time and immediately begin pouring fire into
(13:20):
the Aricras. Without any plan of attack, Jedediah Smith and
Colonel Leavenworth's forces have no choice but to join in.
Fifty Arikra are dead, and Sue managed to kill Chief
Gray Eyes. The Missouri Legion suffers no losses the Erkra
signal they want to parlay. Erkra subsequently agreed to all
(13:45):
of Colonel Levenworth's demands and Lovenworth calls off further attack.
The Lakota Sioux are outraged.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
The Lakota people thought it was stupid and disgusting that
the Whites didn't carry through this fight against the Arecaras.
That boosted the Lakota's contempt for white soldiers in their power.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Jededash Smith and the other mountain men are also outraged,
knowing it is simply an aricarra poy to gain time.
The mountain men are right. That night the Urcra slipped
out of their village and disappeared. Smith heads west and
spends the next three years leading trapping parties through the
(14:34):
Rocky Mountains. It's the beginning of expeditions that will learn
him five historic firsts. The first of these is pioneering
a trail through South Pass. Together with some crow Indians,
friend James Clyman and Tom Fitzpatrick, Smith establishes a trail
(14:59):
through a twenty min wide valley, the one opening through
the Rockies. It is the door to Oregon in California.
The route will be taken by pioneers on the Oregon Trail,
a stagecoach, the Pony Express, and the Union Pacific Railroad.
(15:20):
That fall, Jet and his crew blazed through grizzly country
in present day South Dakoda. The grizzly bear is the
most deadly frontier beast, up to ten feet tall and
one thousand pounds with claws six inches long. Grizzlies don't
fear anything on earth, including man.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
The grizzly was the largest, most powerful animal in North
America at the time. It had nothing above it in
the food chain. It looked at everything as a potential
source of food, and it stood up and towered over
you. You could pump bullets into the thing, that it would
still come at you. It was literally a monster.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Suddenly to hear this thrashing in the underbrush nearby. Sure enough,
pristly bear bursts out of the thickets, smashes into the
line of march, and.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Jed is in the front and he runs up into
this clearing and I think that Jed running drew that
bear to him. Bear attacks.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
The bear immediately grabbed him in a vicious and deadly
bear hug and seized Jedediah's head in his jaws.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
And as he pulls his head away, pulls his jaws off,
he just rips the scalp.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath, author of Gunfighters,
Howiemen and Vigilantes, Violence on the Frontier, the US Marine
and former history professor at UCLA, a regular contributor here
tell the story of Jedediah Smith, and what a story.
It's unimaginable what these men did. These mountain men, Lewis
and Clark forged the path, but these guys created the
(17:08):
pathways and many and multiple ones, including the Oregon Trail,
Jedediah Smith responsible for that, and the South Pass and
what they had to deal with in the interim warring
Indian tribes, nature itself, storms, and yet they prevailed. The ambition,
by the way, is such a big part of this
and Jedediah Smith had it in spades. He wanted to
(17:31):
do good. He also had that ambition that fuels so
much of the move west, and that is money and freedom.
And when we come back more of Jedediah Smith's story
here on our American stories, and we continue with our
(18:09):
American stories and the story of Jedediah Smith. Telling that
story is Roger McGrath. Let's pick up where Roger least
left off.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
There laid Jedediah in a bloody heat, his manner, panic stricken,
and there's no surgeons there. They don't know what the
heck to do, and nobody wants to lay their hands
on this guy's mangled face.
Speaker 8 (18:30):
You gotta sit around and watch me bleed to death.
Speaker 11 (18:33):
What's best to do.
Speaker 9 (18:35):
We'll give me a pike.
Speaker 7 (18:35):
Somebody get some water.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
And the only one who's not panicking is Jedediah Smith,
and he's saying, all right, guys, you need to work
on me here.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Jedediah's friend James Clement describes the incredible ordeal in his journal.
Speaker 11 (18:52):
Get some water, captain said, send one or two men
for water. If you have a needle in thread, get
it out and sew up my wounds around my head
to climbing.
Speaker 8 (19:04):
You got a needle and thread, you gotta get it
out now.
Speaker 11 (19:08):
I got no thread, got some fine sinew.
Speaker 8 (19:11):
It'll have to do. You're gonna have to work on
me right here.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Oh.
Speaker 11 (19:17):
I got a pair of scissors and cut off his hair,
and then began my first job of dressing wounds. Upon examination,
the bear had taken nearly all his head in his
capacious mouth and torn his face from his left eye
to his right ear, and laid the skull bear near
the crown of his head.
Speaker 8 (19:38):
You sew it up tight, climbing all I need to
bleed to death.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Right here.
Speaker 11 (19:43):
One of his ears was torn from his head out
to the outer rim. After stitching all the other wounds
and the best way I was capable, the ear was last.
Then I put in my needle, stitching it through and through,
over and over, you know, laying the parts together as
nice as I could.
Speaker 9 (20:05):
I got it.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Miraculously, A stitching job is successful. Alough Smith is left
with a frightful scar. He grows his hair long and
styles it with a distinct comb over to hide the
vivid red scar, missing eyebrow and displaced ear. It becomes
his signature look. Just ten days after the attack, Jed
(20:35):
Smith is back on his horse and heads west to
high Beaver Country, six hundred miles away. Smith's trapping skills
earn him the record for beaver pelts taken in one season.
He arrives at the annual rendezvous with six hundred and
sixty eight pelts, which sell for six dollars apiece, earning
(20:56):
him some four thousand dollars. That's more than four hundred
thousand dollars in today's money. Smith is so successful as
a mountain man that in eighteen twenty six, at twenty
seven years of age and five years of experience already
as a trapper, he organizes his own fur trading company
(21:18):
and brings in David Jackson and William Sublet as partners.
For the next five years, Smith's company dominates the American
fur trade. The eighteen twenty six mountain Man renzvou is
held at the Great Salt Lake in Utah. When it concludes,
(21:39):
Smith assembles a party of twenty men, having talked them
in to an audacious plan to blaze a trail to
the Mexican province of California. Now the map behind the
Great Salt Lake is a blank. The Indians are unable
to help. They can't answer Smith's questions about this unmapped ye,
(22:01):
all anyone knows is somewhere, maybe one thousand miles to
the west, is this place called California. Smith and party
leave the Great Salt Lake in August eighteen twenty six,
and he becomes the first to travel length and breath
of the Great Basin.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Jededi's greatest accomplishment was probably getting across the Great Basin
virtually on foot, and they basically walked across the deserts
of Nevada. When he got ready to go to California,
there were guys ready to follow him into lands that
nobody had been to before. They didn't know what they
(22:43):
would find, but they were willing to follow Jededi Smith.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
They travel southwest, and by November, after a little more
than three months on the trail, Smith and his party
reached Mission San Gabriel, some ten miles still the small
pueblo of Los Angeles, today a city of four and
a half million people, Los Angeles then had but fifteen
(23:11):
hundred residents. Jet Smith and his men are the first
Americans to cross overland to California. Most of the route
of Smith's expedition is followed today by Interstate fifteen. Smith
and his men spend the winter at a cap on
(23:32):
the Stanislaus River in the San Joaquin Valley. When spring arrives,
Smith attempts another first. He and two of his trappers
head for the eighteen twenty seven Mountain Man rendezvous at
Bear Lake, on the border of Utah and Idaho. But
to do so, they have to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
(23:54):
Despite encountering snowfields up to eight feet deep, the men
struggle cross the mountains in eight days. Theirs is the
first recorded crossing of the rugged mountain range, and ironically,
for Americans, the direction of travel in this first recorded
(24:15):
crossing of the Sierra Nevada is from west to east.
When Smith and the two others arrive at the rendezvous
early in July eighteen twenty seven, cheers are up and
a small cannon is fired in salute. A mountain map
had given up Smith and his party for dead.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
No one believed that he could still be alive. No
one could believe that he did what he did.
Speaker 6 (24:44):
The thing that stands out to me when I think
about Jed Smith and his accomplishmences is the really remarkable
amount of terrain that he covered, the extraordinary trips that
he made through territory which was uncharted, unmapped, unknown, with
such ease that he triedveled across the landscape.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
After spending a week at the rendevo, twenty eight year
old Smith heads for California again. This time he has
a party of nineteen mountain men with him, traveling by
the root of the previous year. Smith arrives at the
Mojave Indian settlement on the Catlorado River in August of
eighteen twenty seven. Smith has met to try before and
(25:26):
traded with him, and doesn't expect any trouble.
Speaker 7 (25:29):
His medicine was considered strong amongst a lot of the
Native nations that had dealt with him. They understood that
there were special things about him that put him over
and above other men, and they respected that.
Speaker 6 (25:45):
They brought him pumpkins and squash. He got good information
after he got guides that took him across the desert,
showed him waterholes, got them all the way over to
the Mission San Gabriel. But something was different on the
second trip.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Men set up camp for the night and prepare for
departure in the morning. At daybreak, Smith and the mountain
Men must first cross the Colorado River. Smith leaves ten
of his men on the eastern shore while he and
eight others transport themselves and part of their supplies on
(26:23):
small rafts across the Colorado. Just as they are nearing
the California shore, several hundred Mojave warriors attack the mountain
Men left behind it.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath tell one heck
of his stories. Our whole crew is listening to that
mauling scene by the grizzly and then the tree eyes,
the medical operation performed by his buddy stitching together with
let's just say not first grade medical materials, restitching his
face and his ear, reassembling this man's actual head, and
(27:01):
then him growing the hair long and making these scars
a part of his persona. When we come back, more
of the remarkable story of Jedediah Smith, who also put
together the preeminent fur trading outfit in the country. More
of this remarkable story of courage, ambition and commerce here
on our American stories, and we continue with our American
(27:39):
stories and with the story of Jedediah Smith here for
the final portion. The final segment is Roger McGrath.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Just as they are nearing the California shore, several hundred
Mojavey warriors attack the mountain men left behind.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
The look back on the bank, and all of a sudden,
these eight or ten guys that are with the party
that are still there are just surrounded by mahaves. This
incredible shout goes up. They're looking back at their party
and they're just being annihilated. They're being clubbed and beaten,
and spears, knives, tomahawks right before their eyes, they're being killed.
Speaker 6 (28:21):
Here's Smith looking through the willows, seeing his men being slaughtered.
Can only imagine what might have been going through his
head at that particular time.
Speaker 8 (28:31):
I thought it most prouded to go to the bank
of the river and select the spot on which we
might sell our lives at the dearest rate.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
They fall back into this little grove of trees. They
begin to ford up. They use their knives to chop
down some smaller branches and make them like spears. They
tie their knives under the end of the spears, and
they pile up some logs to make sort of a
fort there.
Speaker 8 (28:56):
Some of the men asked if I thought we would
be able to defend ourselves. I told them I thought
we would, but that was not my opinion. Thus, poorly prepared,
we waited the approach of our unmerciful enemies. On one side,
the river prevented them from approaching us, but in every
(29:16):
other direction the Indians were closing in upon us.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
As the Mohaves approach, Jed has his two s marksmen
shoot and kill two of the Mohaves. That was just
enough to make the Mohaves think twice about attacking.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
At nightfall, Smith and the survivors, many of them wounded,
slipped westward into the desert. He then blazes a trail
through the mountains and forests of northern California to the
Pacific coast and then up the coast he did or.
Smith's trail blazing takes him through the coast r woods,
(30:01):
and the mountain men gaze upon the tallest trees on earth,
some of them nearly four hundred feet high. The area
today is Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park, once in Oregon.
Now mid July eighteen twenty eight, Smith leads his men
(30:23):
up the coast to the Umpqua River and then up
the river a short distance to a large village of
killawat Set Indians, part of the Umpqua tribe. The killawat
Set seem friendly and gladly trade with the mountain men.
While it's men trading with the Indians, the killawat Set
(30:44):
guide helps Smith scout the area ahead for the best
route for Vancouver. Upon returning to the village, though Smith
senses something's wrong, He stealthily creeps closer and sees the
Watsat have killed, scalped, and mutilated his men.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
The Caloacids used axes, knives, and whatever came to hand
to murder these Americans as quickly as they possibly could.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Well, Smith could do nothing but creep back up the
trail and begin what became a three week, two hundred
mile journey north to Fort Vancouver, the Great Hudson Bay
Company post, located on the north bank of the Columbia
River in today's state of Washington.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
He's the first individual known to have gone from California
to the Columbia River, so he explored the west coast
of the United States.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Smith remains in the Oregon Country trading and trapping until
March eighteen twenty nine. The seven years of incomprehensibly hard
living has taken it. I'm both a physical and spiritual being.
Here's Jedediah Smith's scholar, James Oh.
Speaker 9 (32:07):
He does write a letter home, the famous letter on
Christmas Eve, eighteen twenty nine, and he really pours his
heart out, and he really lets it all go about
how much he misses his spiritual life and how much
he wants people to pray for him out here. And
here's a chance for him to let loose and get personal.
(32:28):
Knowing that this letter is going to be read by
his family.
Speaker 8 (32:33):
I find myself one of the most ungrateful, unthankful creatures imaginable.
I have need of your prayers.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
During his stay, Smith gains an intimate knowledge of the
Oregon contraint and know it's there are almost no British
settled there. Earlier, Smith saw that Mexican roll of California
is The population of Mexicans is no more than seven
or eight thousand. Moreover, almost none of them have settled
(33:08):
north of San Francisco Bay or in the interior valleys.
Both the Oregon Country and California are ripe for the taking.
Smith feels it's his duty as an American to make
his observation known to officials in Washington, in particular Secretary
(33:30):
of War John Eaton. Smith sends a long, detailed letter
to Secretary of Eaton that reveals not only Smith's writing
skills in command of the language, but also his comprehensive
understanding of geopolitical strategy. Smith also sends precise descriptions of
his trailblazing and copies of his maps. In effect, Smith
(33:54):
becomes an explorer and strategist for the US government. Yet
Smith is a buckskin clad mountain man, and he continues
to lead trapping parties until August eighteen thirty when he
retires to Saint Louis. Smith has made and saved in
enough money to live comfortably as a gentleman. At just
(34:18):
thirty one years of age, he is most experienced man
in the West. Time to call it quits, however, Smith
is intrigued by the large profits Saint Louis traders are
making on the Santa Fe Trail. Early in eighteen thirty one,
(34:42):
Smith leads a trade caravan he is organized from Saint
Louis en route to Santa Fe. By late May, the
caravan has moved into the dreaded Cimarron desert. For three days,
the traders push on and know Smith scouts far out
(35:03):
of the wagons. Several miles out, he comes upon a
water hole. Too late. He realizes that lying in wait
at the waterhole is a hunting party of some twenty
dimanchie including a chief. They're waiting for buffalo, but Smith
will do just fine. Smith knows that a bull approach
(35:30):
is now his only hope, and he rides directly up
to the command See tries to communicate with them in
the sign language of the planes, but they ignore his
peaceful gestures and begin to circle to his rear. Suddenly,
Smith's nervous horse wheels about, exposing Smith's back to the
(35:51):
co mansion. Instantly, commanchee fire and a musketball rips into Smith.
Guesps the impact, but is able to turn his horse
about and lets his rifle war. Smith's single shot drills
the commanche chief in the chest, and he drops to
the ground dead. Smith kills two more commanche with his
(36:15):
pistols before other commanches close in. They thrust their long
lances and repeatedly stab Smith. At just thirty two years
of age, Jedediah Smith's legendary luck finally runs out. The
(36:36):
commands she regards Smith as such a great warrior. They
do not mutilate and dismember his body, but give him
the same funeral rights they give their chief. Jed Smith
has passed from life into history. Had a water hole
in the Cimarron Desert.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Had a terrific by the production, editing and storytelling by
our own Greg Hangler and a special thanks to Roger McGrath.
He's the author of Gunfighters, Highwomen, and in Vigilantes Violence
on the Frontier. He's a US marine and former history
professor at UCLA. Doctor McGrath has appeared on numerous History
Channel documentaries. You probably recognize his voice. He's a regular
(37:21):
contributor here at Our American Stories, and my goodness, this
may be one of my favorites about any of the
stories about the West. Imagine seeing the Grizzly in real life,
the things these men saw that no one else saw,
and then these encounters with Indian tribes across the Pacific
Northwest and across America. We're just brutal and vicious. And
(37:45):
the idea that there's just one side to that story,
while these stories show that it was complicated, and he
dies in battle and dies at the hands of the
Comanches who buried Jedediah Smith with the same rights, and
in fact that they buried their own chief. The story
of Jedediah Smith here on Our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Just decades following the signing of the US Constitution in
seventeen eighty seven, trailblazers called mountain Men headed west. Here
to tell the story is Roger McGrath, author of Gunfighters,
Hwomen and Vigilantes, Violence on the Frontier, Take It Away, McGrath.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
By eighteen twenty one, twenty four US states have been established.
The population is something around nine point six million. The
country's border expands to the Missouri River, and beyond that
border liys a fast western territory of brutal wilderness shrouded
in myth Reconquering it requires extraordinary men. One of the
(01:01):
greatest of these is Jedediah Smith.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
He was the first to come overland into California.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
He's the first known person to cross the Sierra.
Speaker 5 (01:12):
Nevada, the first man to recognize the significance of the
South past.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Smith's discoveries beyond the Missouri surpassed those of even Lewis
and Clark. Here's Jim Hardy, director of the Fur Trade
Research Center.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Without men like Jededi Smith and particularly his trails. We
wouldn't have had an Oregon trail. We wouldn't have had
a gold rush because the route to California and Oregon
wouldn't have been there yet.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Smith embodies the character of America frontier, grit, organ individualism, survival.
Jedediah Strong Smith is born the fourth of twelve children
on January sixth, seventeen ninety nine, in south central New
York State, to parents who descend from the Puritan settlers
(02:07):
of Massachusetts. Following the expanding Frontier, the family moves westward
in eighteen ten to Erie, Pennsylvania, and two years later Jedediah,
now thirteen years old, goes to work as a clerk
on a freighter that sails the waters of Lake Erie.
The young teenager becomes familiar with not only shipping and trading,
(02:31):
but also the adventurous life of those who live farther
to the west than In eighteen fourteen, a family friend
gives Jedediah a copy of the Journals of Lewis and Clark,
and he devours the book. Here's an astronaut buzz alderin
(02:51):
Lewis and Clark, who want to see what's on the
other side.
Speaker 6 (02:57):
Given a mountain.
Speaker 7 (02:59):
We want to climate.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
We hold those venturers of the past in great admiration. Then,
in the spring of eighteen twenty two, the twenty three
year old is off on his own to the edge
of Western civilization in Saint Louis, Missouri. The city is
the center of America's fastest scoring industry, the fur trade.
(03:26):
Here's Martin Barber, author of Jedediah Smith, no ordinary mountain man.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
Jedediah's primary reason for going to Saint Louis and then
into the far West as a beaver hunter was motivated
by his ambition a word that he uses often, his
ambition to make good at a time when the nation
was in terrible economic condition after the Panic of eighteen
nineteen inclosures of banks and rural mortgage failures. So he's
(03:56):
driven by the urge to make good. That means he
wants to make money.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
A scope for writer. Smith details his life in his journal.
Speaker 8 (04:05):
I intend to follow my strong inclination to visit this
unexplored country and unfold those hidden resources of wealth and
bring to light those wonders which I readily imagine a
country so extensive might contain.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Jedediah Smith becomes a regular reader of the Missouri Gazette
and Public Advertiser, the town's leading newspaper. One day, an
advertisement on page three catches his eye.
Speaker 8 (04:33):
Wednesday morning, February thirteenth, eighteen twenty two to enterprising young men,
the subscriber wishes to engage one hundred men to ascend
the River Missouri to its source. There to be employed
for one, two or three years for particulars. Inquire of
Major Andrew Henry near the lead mines or the subscriber
(04:56):
at Saint Louis, signed by one General William H. Ashley.
Speaker 6 (05:02):
It was almost as if his life was lined up
for that particular moment to be able to read that article.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Next, Smith gets the William Ashley as fast as he can.
Speaker 9 (05:13):
Thomas Mitchell.
Speaker 7 (05:15):
Next, what do you do?
Speaker 8 (05:19):
The trapper name Jedediah Smith.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Welcome mister Smith to the Ashley Henry for a company.
Speaker 7 (05:33):
Yahya, thanks man, let's go.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
It is from these beaver trapping expeditions that the new
mountain Man emerges. But there's something about Smith's character that
sets him apart from these other young adventurers. Smith is
a devout Christian, doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't chase women.
He is long, encourage and clear thinking in a tight spot.
(05:56):
His Bible and gun are his closest companions. As phil
Ann shoots Rites of Smith in Out Where the West Begins,
Volume two. Smith was hardly a stereotypical mountain man, yet
few mountain men earned greater respect from their peers. Here's
(06:17):
for a trade historian Rex Norman and Jim Hardy.
Speaker 6 (06:22):
There was something about his nature that seemed to exude
to people confidence, trustworthiness, and boldness.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
He had read Lewis and Clark's journals. Lewis and Clark
takes this expedition all the way out to the Pacific
Ocean and back over a period of little more than
two and a half years. And you read that, and
you can get caught up in the romance. You can
get caught up in the wonder.
Speaker 7 (06:50):
Of what's out there.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
And I think jed was suffering from a little wanderlust.
Speaker 8 (06:59):
I want to be the first to view a country
on which the eyes of a white man have never gazed,
and to follow the course of rivers that run through
a new land.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And you've been listening to the story of Jedediah Smith,
and it's so interesting to hear from buzz Aldrin, one
of the great twentieth century explorers, talking about one of
the greatest nineteenth century explorers. When we come back more
of Jedediah Smith's story here on our American Stories, Leehabib Here,
as we approach our nation's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary,
(07:33):
I'd like to remind you that all the history stories
you hear on this show brought to you by the
great folks at Hillsdale College, and Hillsdale isn't just a
great school for your kids or grandkids to attend, but
for you as well. Go to Hillsdale dot edu to
find out about their terrific free online courses. Their series
on communism is one of the finest I've ever seen. Again,
(07:53):
go to Hillsdale dot edu and sign up for their
free and terrific online courses. And we continue with our
American Stories and the story of Jedediah Smith as being
(08:14):
told by Roger McGrath. Let's pick up where we last
left off.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
The Ashley Henry Expedition ascends the Missouri River in two
keel boats during the spring of eighteen twenty two for
twenty two weeks, and then travel nearly fourteen hundred miles,
covering some five to twenty miles a day. When spring
arrives in eighteen twenty three, the twenty four year old
(08:43):
Jedediah Smith has spent his first winter trapping beaver at
the mussel Shell River in central Montana. But the pelts
come with a price. The local Indians have stolen almost
all of the mountain men's horses. Because of this, Andrew
Henry looked for someone to carry a message to William Ashley,
(09:05):
asking her to buy horses from the Ourca Indians at
their village on the Missouri River.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
I'll go be dangerous traveling all by yourself.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Here's historian Mike Moore.
Speaker 7 (09:18):
To me.
Speaker 10 (09:19):
Jedediah is the epitomy of a man's man in the West.
He's mentally and physically tough. He's brave. He doesn't say
I cannot do that. He just says, let's go.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
They soon reached the Arica Indian village near present day Mowbridge,
South Dakota. Ashley approaches the village cautiously with some forty
men to negotiate with Chief Gray Eyes Tobacco, who met
Lewis and Clark in eighteen six and earned a reputation
as an iron will negotiator. We need horses with many
(09:55):
blankets many other things to trade for. Smith is left
in commit and of the shore party great positioned on
the sandbar. Ashley manages to conclude a deal trading Kettle's blankets,
lives and supplies of all kinds for horses. All seems flying.
The Rickra delivered the horses to the sandbar, but before
(10:16):
Ashley's men can swim them to the opposite bank of
the Missouri, a violent storm sweeps down upon them. The
shore party now has to remain with the horses on
the sandbar overnight. This gives the Arikra play. I have
time to think about the situation. There are six or
seven hundred Rikorra warriors and a mirror forty Ashley men
(10:41):
down below on the sandbar. Why not annihilate them and
capture the keel boats with all the cargo and weapons aboard.
At the break of day on June second, eighteen twenty three,
Smith and the others on the sandbar hear the crack
of rifles and lead ball begin ripping into their position.
(11:02):
Horses start toppling over, and men died behind them for cover.
Within minutes, most of the horses and several of the
men are dead.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
The Ricaras unleashed a fusillade of hundreds of flintlock guns.
Ricarra archers were also launching clouds of arrows as best
they could with this massed firepower. These guys on the
exposed sand barber in deep, deep trouble.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
By the twos and threes then died into the river
and are swept downstream. Smith makes it into the river unscathed,
and later is hauled the board a keelboat.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
But as Jed's leaving, he's looking at a beach that's
strung with the bodies of a dozen or so of
his comrades and all these dead horses they had just
traded for. And there's nothing that he can do.
Speaker 8 (11:53):
But my thoughts. I kept to myself, knowing that a
few words from me would discourage my men.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Thirteen men are killed at the battle site, and two
others later die of their wounds. The Rikra evidently suffer
few casualties.
Speaker 8 (12:11):
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
The battle is one of the deadliest in the history
of the Western Fur trade. Amen survivors of the attack
head downstream and reach Colonel Henry Leavenworth at Fort Atkinson,
about fifteen miles north at present day Omaha, Nebraska.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
Levenworth organizes what one fair trader called the Missouri Legion,
some three hundred and fifty soldiers, another seventy five or
eighty mountain men and trappers, and then Sue warriors who
saw a great opportunity here to have Uncle Sam help
destroy their inveterate enemies, the Aricra.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
On August ninth, eighteen twenty three, six weeks after the
Erikra battle, the mountain men are organized into two companies,
and Jedediah Smith is made captain of one of the companies.
When the force reaches the Erika of villages, the Lakota
Sioux wastes no time and immediately begin pouring fire into
(13:20):
the Aricras. Without any plan of attack, Jedediah Smith and
Colonel Leavenworth's forces have no choice but to join in.
Fifty Arikra are dead, and Sue managed to kill Chief
Gray Eyes. The Missouri Legion suffers no losses the Erkra
signal they want to parlay. Erkra subsequently agreed to all
(13:45):
of Colonel Levenworth's demands and Lovenworth calls off further attack.
The Lakota Sioux are outraged.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
The Lakota people thought it was stupid and disgusting that
the Whites didn't carry through this fight against the Arecaras.
That boosted the Lakota's contempt for white soldiers in their power.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Jededash Smith and the other mountain men are also outraged,
knowing it is simply an aricarra poy to gain time.
The mountain men are right. That night the Urcra slipped
out of their village and disappeared. Smith heads west and
spends the next three years leading trapping parties through the
(14:34):
Rocky Mountains. It's the beginning of expeditions that will learn
him five historic firsts. The first of these is pioneering
a trail through South Pass. Together with some crow Indians,
friend James Clyman and Tom Fitzpatrick, Smith establishes a trail
(14:59):
through a twenty min wide valley, the one opening through
the Rockies. It is the door to Oregon in California.
The route will be taken by pioneers on the Oregon Trail,
a stagecoach, the Pony Express, and the Union Pacific Railroad.
(15:20):
That fall, Jet and his crew blazed through grizzly country
in present day South Dakoda. The grizzly bear is the
most deadly frontier beast, up to ten feet tall and
one thousand pounds with claws six inches long. Grizzlies don't
fear anything on earth, including man.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
The grizzly was the largest, most powerful animal in North
America at the time. It had nothing above it in
the food chain. It looked at everything as a potential
source of food, and it stood up and towered over
you. You could pump bullets into the thing, that it would
still come at you. It was literally a monster.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Suddenly to hear this thrashing in the underbrush nearby. Sure enough,
pristly bear bursts out of the thickets, smashes into the
line of march, and.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Jed is in the front and he runs up into
this clearing and I think that Jed running drew that
bear to him. Bear attacks.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
The bear immediately grabbed him in a vicious and deadly
bear hug and seized Jedediah's head in his jaws.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
And as he pulls his head away, pulls his jaws off,
he just rips the scalp.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath, author of Gunfighters,
Howiemen and Vigilantes, Violence on the Frontier, the US Marine
and former history professor at UCLA, a regular contributor here
tell the story of Jedediah Smith, and what a story.
It's unimaginable what these men did. These mountain men, Lewis
and Clark forged the path, but these guys created the
(17:08):
pathways and many and multiple ones, including the Oregon Trail,
Jedediah Smith responsible for that, and the South Pass and
what they had to deal with in the interim warring
Indian tribes, nature itself, storms, and yet they prevailed. The ambition,
by the way, is such a big part of this
and Jedediah Smith had it in spades. He wanted to
(17:31):
do good. He also had that ambition that fuels so
much of the move west, and that is money and freedom.
And when we come back more of Jedediah Smith's story
here on our American stories, and we continue with our
(18:09):
American stories and the story of Jedediah Smith. Telling that
story is Roger McGrath. Let's pick up where Roger least
left off.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
There laid Jedediah in a bloody heat, his manner, panic stricken,
and there's no surgeons there. They don't know what the
heck to do, and nobody wants to lay their hands
on this guy's mangled face.
Speaker 8 (18:30):
You gotta sit around and watch me bleed to death.
Speaker 11 (18:33):
What's best to do.
Speaker 9 (18:35):
We'll give me a pike.
Speaker 7 (18:35):
Somebody get some water.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
And the only one who's not panicking is Jedediah Smith,
and he's saying, all right, guys, you need to work
on me here.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Jedediah's friend James Clement describes the incredible ordeal in his journal.
Speaker 11 (18:52):
Get some water, captain said, send one or two men
for water. If you have a needle in thread, get
it out and sew up my wounds around my head
to climbing.
Speaker 8 (19:04):
You got a needle and thread, you gotta get it
out now.
Speaker 11 (19:08):
I got no thread, got some fine sinew.
Speaker 8 (19:11):
It'll have to do. You're gonna have to work on
me right here.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Oh.
Speaker 11 (19:17):
I got a pair of scissors and cut off his hair,
and then began my first job of dressing wounds. Upon examination,
the bear had taken nearly all his head in his
capacious mouth and torn his face from his left eye
to his right ear, and laid the skull bear near
the crown of his head.
Speaker 8 (19:38):
You sew it up tight, climbing all I need to
bleed to death.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Right here.
Speaker 11 (19:43):
One of his ears was torn from his head out
to the outer rim. After stitching all the other wounds
and the best way I was capable, the ear was last.
Then I put in my needle, stitching it through and through,
over and over, you know, laying the parts together as
nice as I could.
Speaker 9 (20:05):
I got it.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Miraculously, A stitching job is successful. Alough Smith is left
with a frightful scar. He grows his hair long and
styles it with a distinct comb over to hide the
vivid red scar, missing eyebrow and displaced ear. It becomes
his signature look. Just ten days after the attack, Jed
(20:35):
Smith is back on his horse and heads west to
high Beaver Country, six hundred miles away. Smith's trapping skills
earn him the record for beaver pelts taken in one season.
He arrives at the annual rendezvous with six hundred and
sixty eight pelts, which sell for six dollars apiece, earning
(20:56):
him some four thousand dollars. That's more than four hundred
thousand dollars in today's money. Smith is so successful as
a mountain man that in eighteen twenty six, at twenty
seven years of age and five years of experience already
as a trapper, he organizes his own fur trading company
(21:18):
and brings in David Jackson and William Sublet as partners.
For the next five years, Smith's company dominates the American
fur trade. The eighteen twenty six mountain Man renzvou is
held at the Great Salt Lake in Utah. When it concludes,
(21:39):
Smith assembles a party of twenty men, having talked them
in to an audacious plan to blaze a trail to
the Mexican province of California. Now the map behind the
Great Salt Lake is a blank. The Indians are unable
to help. They can't answer Smith's questions about this unmapped ye,
(22:01):
all anyone knows is somewhere, maybe one thousand miles to
the west, is this place called California. Smith and party
leave the Great Salt Lake in August eighteen twenty six,
and he becomes the first to travel length and breath
of the Great Basin.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Jededi's greatest accomplishment was probably getting across the Great Basin
virtually on foot, and they basically walked across the deserts
of Nevada. When he got ready to go to California,
there were guys ready to follow him into lands that
nobody had been to before. They didn't know what they
(22:43):
would find, but they were willing to follow Jededi Smith.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
They travel southwest, and by November, after a little more
than three months on the trail, Smith and his party
reached Mission San Gabriel, some ten miles still the small
pueblo of Los Angeles, today a city of four and
a half million people, Los Angeles then had but fifteen
(23:11):
hundred residents. Jet Smith and his men are the first
Americans to cross overland to California. Most of the route
of Smith's expedition is followed today by Interstate fifteen. Smith
and his men spend the winter at a cap on
(23:32):
the Stanislaus River in the San Joaquin Valley. When spring arrives,
Smith attempts another first. He and two of his trappers
head for the eighteen twenty seven Mountain Man rendezvous at
Bear Lake, on the border of Utah and Idaho. But
to do so, they have to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
(23:54):
Despite encountering snowfields up to eight feet deep, the men
struggle cross the mountains in eight days. Theirs is the
first recorded crossing of the rugged mountain range, and ironically,
for Americans, the direction of travel in this first recorded
(24:15):
crossing of the Sierra Nevada is from west to east.
When Smith and the two others arrive at the rendezvous
early in July eighteen twenty seven, cheers are up and
a small cannon is fired in salute. A mountain map
had given up Smith and his party for dead.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
No one believed that he could still be alive. No
one could believe that he did what he did.
Speaker 6 (24:44):
The thing that stands out to me when I think
about Jed Smith and his accomplishmences is the really remarkable
amount of terrain that he covered, the extraordinary trips that
he made through territory which was uncharted, unmapped, unknown, with
such ease that he triedveled across the landscape.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
After spending a week at the rendevo, twenty eight year
old Smith heads for California again. This time he has
a party of nineteen mountain men with him, traveling by
the root of the previous year. Smith arrives at the
Mojave Indian settlement on the Catlorado River in August of
eighteen twenty seven. Smith has met to try before and
(25:26):
traded with him, and doesn't expect any trouble.
Speaker 7 (25:29):
His medicine was considered strong amongst a lot of the
Native nations that had dealt with him. They understood that
there were special things about him that put him over
and above other men, and they respected that.
Speaker 6 (25:45):
They brought him pumpkins and squash. He got good information
after he got guides that took him across the desert,
showed him waterholes, got them all the way over to
the Mission San Gabriel. But something was different on the
second trip.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Men set up camp for the night and prepare for
departure in the morning. At daybreak, Smith and the mountain
Men must first cross the Colorado River. Smith leaves ten
of his men on the eastern shore while he and
eight others transport themselves and part of their supplies on
(26:23):
small rafts across the Colorado. Just as they are nearing
the California shore, several hundred Mojave warriors attack the mountain
Men left behind it.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath tell one heck
of his stories. Our whole crew is listening to that
mauling scene by the grizzly and then the tree eyes,
the medical operation performed by his buddy stitching together with
let's just say not first grade medical materials, restitching his
face and his ear, reassembling this man's actual head, and
(27:01):
then him growing the hair long and making these scars
a part of his persona. When we come back, more
of the remarkable story of Jedediah Smith, who also put
together the preeminent fur trading outfit in the country. More
of this remarkable story of courage, ambition and commerce here
on our American stories, and we continue with our American
(27:39):
stories and with the story of Jedediah Smith here for
the final portion. The final segment is Roger McGrath.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Just as they are nearing the California shore, several hundred
Mojavey warriors attack the mountain men left behind.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
The look back on the bank, and all of a sudden,
these eight or ten guys that are with the party
that are still there are just surrounded by mahaves. This
incredible shout goes up. They're looking back at their party
and they're just being annihilated. They're being clubbed and beaten,
and spears, knives, tomahawks right before their eyes, they're being killed.
Speaker 6 (28:21):
Here's Smith looking through the willows, seeing his men being slaughtered.
Can only imagine what might have been going through his
head at that particular time.
Speaker 8 (28:31):
I thought it most prouded to go to the bank
of the river and select the spot on which we
might sell our lives at the dearest rate.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
They fall back into this little grove of trees. They
begin to ford up. They use their knives to chop
down some smaller branches and make them like spears. They
tie their knives under the end of the spears, and
they pile up some logs to make sort of a
fort there.
Speaker 8 (28:56):
Some of the men asked if I thought we would
be able to defend ourselves. I told them I thought
we would, but that was not my opinion. Thus, poorly prepared,
we waited the approach of our unmerciful enemies. On one side,
the river prevented them from approaching us, but in every
(29:16):
other direction the Indians were closing in upon us.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
As the Mohaves approach, Jed has his two s marksmen
shoot and kill two of the Mohaves. That was just
enough to make the Mohaves think twice about attacking.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
At nightfall, Smith and the survivors, many of them wounded,
slipped westward into the desert. He then blazes a trail
through the mountains and forests of northern California to the
Pacific coast and then up the coast he did or.
Smith's trail blazing takes him through the coast r woods,
(30:01):
and the mountain men gaze upon the tallest trees on earth,
some of them nearly four hundred feet high. The area
today is Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park, once in Oregon.
Now mid July eighteen twenty eight, Smith leads his men
(30:23):
up the coast to the Umpqua River and then up
the river a short distance to a large village of
killawat Set Indians, part of the Umpqua tribe. The killawat
Set seem friendly and gladly trade with the mountain men.
While it's men trading with the Indians, the killawat Set
(30:44):
guide helps Smith scout the area ahead for the best
route for Vancouver. Upon returning to the village, though Smith
senses something's wrong, He stealthily creeps closer and sees the
Watsat have killed, scalped, and mutilated his men.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
The Caloacids used axes, knives, and whatever came to hand
to murder these Americans as quickly as they possibly could.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Well, Smith could do nothing but creep back up the
trail and begin what became a three week, two hundred
mile journey north to Fort Vancouver, the Great Hudson Bay
Company post, located on the north bank of the Columbia
River in today's state of Washington.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
He's the first individual known to have gone from California
to the Columbia River, so he explored the west coast
of the United States.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Smith remains in the Oregon Country trading and trapping until
March eighteen twenty nine. The seven years of incomprehensibly hard
living has taken it. I'm both a physical and spiritual being.
Here's Jedediah Smith's scholar, James Oh.
Speaker 9 (32:07):
He does write a letter home, the famous letter on
Christmas Eve, eighteen twenty nine, and he really pours his
heart out, and he really lets it all go about
how much he misses his spiritual life and how much
he wants people to pray for him out here. And
here's a chance for him to let loose and get personal.
(32:28):
Knowing that this letter is going to be read by
his family.
Speaker 8 (32:33):
I find myself one of the most ungrateful, unthankful creatures imaginable.
I have need of your prayers.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
During his stay, Smith gains an intimate knowledge of the
Oregon contraint and know it's there are almost no British
settled there. Earlier, Smith saw that Mexican roll of California
is The population of Mexicans is no more than seven
or eight thousand. Moreover, almost none of them have settled
(33:08):
north of San Francisco Bay or in the interior valleys.
Both the Oregon Country and California are ripe for the taking.
Smith feels it's his duty as an American to make
his observation known to officials in Washington, in particular Secretary
(33:30):
of War John Eaton. Smith sends a long, detailed letter
to Secretary of Eaton that reveals not only Smith's writing
skills in command of the language, but also his comprehensive
understanding of geopolitical strategy. Smith also sends precise descriptions of
his trailblazing and copies of his maps. In effect, Smith
(33:54):
becomes an explorer and strategist for the US government. Yet
Smith is a buckskin clad mountain man, and he continues
to lead trapping parties until August eighteen thirty when he
retires to Saint Louis. Smith has made and saved in
enough money to live comfortably as a gentleman. At just
(34:18):
thirty one years of age, he is most experienced man
in the West. Time to call it quits, however, Smith
is intrigued by the large profits Saint Louis traders are
making on the Santa Fe Trail. Early in eighteen thirty one,
(34:42):
Smith leads a trade caravan he is organized from Saint
Louis en route to Santa Fe. By late May, the
caravan has moved into the dreaded Cimarron desert. For three days,
the traders push on and know Smith scouts far out
(35:03):
of the wagons. Several miles out, he comes upon a
water hole. Too late. He realizes that lying in wait
at the waterhole is a hunting party of some twenty
dimanchie including a chief. They're waiting for buffalo, but Smith
will do just fine. Smith knows that a bull approach
(35:30):
is now his only hope, and he rides directly up
to the command See tries to communicate with them in
the sign language of the planes, but they ignore his
peaceful gestures and begin to circle to his rear. Suddenly,
Smith's nervous horse wheels about, exposing Smith's back to the
(35:51):
co mansion. Instantly, commanchee fire and a musketball rips into Smith.
Guesps the impact, but is able to turn his horse
about and lets his rifle war. Smith's single shot drills
the commanche chief in the chest, and he drops to
the ground dead. Smith kills two more commanche with his
(36:15):
pistols before other commanches close in. They thrust their long
lances and repeatedly stab Smith. At just thirty two years
of age, Jedediah Smith's legendary luck finally runs out. The
(36:36):
commands she regards Smith as such a great warrior. They
do not mutilate and dismember his body, but give him
the same funeral rights they give their chief. Jed Smith
has passed from life into history. Had a water hole
in the Cimarron Desert.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Had a terrific by the production, editing and storytelling by
our own Greg Hangler and a special thanks to Roger McGrath.
He's the author of Gunfighters, Highwomen, and in Vigilantes Violence
on the Frontier. He's a US marine and former history
professor at UCLA. Doctor McGrath has appeared on numerous History
Channel documentaries. You probably recognize his voice. He's a regular
(37:21):
contributor here at Our American Stories, and my goodness, this
may be one of my favorites about any of the
stories about the West. Imagine seeing the Grizzly in real life,
the things these men saw that no one else saw,
and then these encounters with Indian tribes across the Pacific
Northwest and across America. We're just brutal and vicious. And
(37:45):
the idea that there's just one side to that story,
while these stories show that it was complicated, and he
dies in battle and dies at the hands of the
Comanches who buried Jedediah Smith with the same rights, and
in fact that they buried their own chief. The story
of Jedediah Smith here on Our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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