Blazing the Trail to California

Some of the most colorful characters in the early history of California and the west were "mountain men" who guided the early overland settlers, discovered the best passes through the Rockies and scouted for the U.S. Army during the Mexican American War.

EARLY PHOTO OF A MOUNTAIN MAN

Robert Stuart (1785-1848) a Scotsman who was one of the founders of the fur trading outpost of Astoria, Oregon pioneered what would become the California - Oregon Trail in 1812-13. A legendary mountain man Jedediah Strong Smith (1799-1831) was the first American to visit Alta California by land in 1826. James Ohio Petty spent five and half years exploring Mexico, the Baja and the entire length of Alta California between 1824 and 1830. His father, who was with him, died enroute, and was buried at the San Diego mission. Kit Carson (1809-1873) visited California for the first time in1830. In 1844 he guided Lt. John Fremont through the Rocky Mountains. Antoine Robidoux (1794-1860) was a trapper who aggressively promoted California after his first visit in 1830s. His vivid descriptions of California led to the formation of the Western Emigration Society. The society sponsored the first wagon train west, the Bidwell-Bartleson party, which set out from Missouri on the Oregon Trail in May 1841. The guide for this wagon train was another mountain man, Thomas "Broken Hand" Fitzpatrick (1799-1854) The Bidwell ? Bartleson party, incidentally, included a group of Jesuit missionaries led by Fr. Pierre Jean De Smet, who were on their way to open up a mission in Montana. Fitzpatrick continued to guide wagon trains west through 1840's. The Indians knew him as Tete Blance (White Head). James Pierson Beckwourth (1798-1867), the most famous black mountain man, discovered a pass thru the Sierras into the Feather River Canyon and the town of Marysvale California. The Beckwourth pass became one of the important northern routes into California for gold seekers.

JAMES BECKWOURTH

Most of these men started out as fur trappers in the years when the Rocky Mountains offered some of the most plentiful beaver streams left in the world.

Beaver felt hats were fashionable in much of Europe from the middle of the 16^th century on, but the beaver quickly became extinct in Europe. The North American fur trade became the major source of beaver pelts. Firms like the American Fur Company and the Hudson Bay Company built permanent trading posts in the wilderness where they waited for Indians to bring furs to trade for utensils, weapons, cloth and other goods. One of the first American fortunes was made in the fur trade by John Jacob Astor (1768-1848)

General William H. Ashley (c.1778-1838) had a new and better idea: Bring the trading post to the trappers. In 1822 with his partner Major Andrew Henry, he advertised in the St. Louis Gazette and Public Advertiser:

"Enterprising young men to ascend the Missouri to its source, there to be employed for one, two or three years"

Ashley's plan was to bypass the middlemen and organize large numbers of adventuresome individuals to trap the beaver streams in the Rockies. His most brilliant idea, though, was to create an annual rendezvous where the trappers could meet old friends, sell their pelts and obtain new supplies for the fall hunt... and, as it turned, drink a lot and raise hell. The first Rocky Mountain Rendezvous was held in 1825 on the Green River in Wyoming and it became a happening. Ashley hauled trade goods to the trappers and Indians in the wilderness and purchased pelts before his competitors got any.

His scheme was so lucrative that within a few years, he retired and later became a U.S. Congressmen.

The annual trappers rendezvous continued from 1825-1840. Some events were held in Utah and Idaho but most were held in Wyoming.

ARTIST DEPICTION OF A TRAPPER RENDEZVOUS

Many of the men who opened up the west started out working for Ashley. Jedediah Smith was only 22 when he answered Ashley's advertisement in 1822. Even though he was one of the youngest trappers, within a year he was heading one of Ashley's companies penetrating deep into the central Rockies where he rediscovered the forgotten South Pass, the key to the settlement of Oregon and California. Smith ultimately bought out the general, forming Smith, Jackson and Sorbette, which became the leading fur trading company for a few years..

Jim Beckwourth was also an early Ashley recruit (he joined the company in 1824). Beckwourth, who was born in Virginia, led a particularly eventful life. After a few years trapping he spent seven years living with the Crow, where is said to have become a war chief. After returning to Saint Louis around 1837 he fought in the Seminole War in Florida, then moved to the Platte River area of present day Colorado where he had a trading post. He moved to California in 1844.

These mountain traveled to the trapping grounds in large groups, to ward off Indian attacks. They then split up to trade with friendly Indians.

Some of the early mountain men later became buffalo hunters.

What drove them all was an eagerness to discover.

Jedediah Smith put it best: "I wanted to be the first to view a country on which the eyes of a white man had never gazed and to follow the course of rivers that run through a new land."

STATUE OF JEDEDIAH SMITH

By 1840 the era of the mountain man had passed into history. Many of the early trappers never made it. Jedediah Smith was killed in 1831 by Comanches while he was crossing the Cimarron River, along the Santa Fe Trail. He was 32 years old. Others, like Jim Beckwourth, got sick of "civilization" and ultimately moved back into the mountains.

Today the era of the mountain man is reenacted throughout the west. For some years now there has been a mountain man encampment held at Mission La Purisima, in Lompoc, California.