[From James G. Scrugham, Nevada: The Narrative of the Conquest of a Frontier Land (1935), vol. I, pp. 33-38]

V

JEDEDIAH STRONG SMITH

1827-1831

The season had been a profitable one for the new firm, and Smith had brought a small supply of furs from California. Spending about a month with his partners and in the preparation of a new expedition to relieve his party camped on the Stanislaus, Smith again set out for California in the middle of July, following his southern route of the year before to the Colorado River. He had in his party nineteen men, including Silas Gobel, and two Indian women, doubtless wives of some of the trappers in the party. The expedition proceeded without untoward incident until it reached the Mohave Valley on the southeast side of the Colorado where the year before Smith had secured horses from the "run-away Indians." He again camped here for three days to rest his party and to trade with the Indians. A raft was constructed and the party proceeded to cross the river. In the midst of this movement while the whites were divided and totally unprepared, the Indians made a fierce and wholly unexpected attack upon them which was most disastrous, ten of the men being killed and the two Indian women captured, and practically all the supplies either destroyed or stolen by the treacherous savages. With his remaining force Smith pushed on by forced marches across the barren desert he had crossed the year before, and in nine and a half days came again to the friendly shelter of San Gabriel mission. Remaining there only long enough to secure a few supplies he pushed on to his party on the Stanislaus which, practically destitute of food or raiment, was impatiently awaiting his return. He joined them nearly as destitute as were they.

One object of Smith's expedition had no doubt been to circle the Great Basin to the south and west until it should come to the Buenaventura River up which it would trap towards the Great Salt Lake. His long journey from San Gabriel north had no doubt disabused his mind as to the existence of a stream connecting the lake with the Pacific ocean, and he had now fallen back on the secondary objective, the Columbia River route to the east. He had, in fact, in May, before crossing the mountains, written to Father Duran at San Jose a letter explaining his reason for being in the country, in which he said: "We are Americans, on our way to the Columbia." The prime objective of the expedition had now become the exploration of the region west of the Sierras from the Stanislaus to the Columbia, with possibly a lingering hope still of finding the fabled river to the interior, the unavailing search for which seventeen years later was to bring Fremont's party to grief on the other side of the mountains. Smith's situation was now precarious in the extreme. Destitute of supplies and in a foreign country whose officials were hostile to his government and

33

34        NEVADA

more than suspicious of his purposes, his only recourse was to boldly face the Mexican governor and frankly state his case. This he proceeded forthwith to do. Remaining with his party only two days, he secured the services of two Indian guides and set out for the mission of San Jose. On his arrival there he was immediately dispossessed of his horses and arms and thrown into a dirty hovel called a guard-house, where he remained two weeks, when he received orders to await on the governor of the province at Monterey. Thither under guard of four soldiers he repaired, arriving at midnight of the third day, and being immediately thrown into the "callibose" where without food he remained until late in the forenoon of the following day. He was then taken to the residence of Governor Echeandia when, after food was served, an attempt was made to arrive at an understanding. As neither could speak the language of the other little progress was made. Smith was, however, granted his liberty within the town until an interpreter could be procured. The equivocating disposition of Echeandia proved quite as disappointing as lack of understanding, for after presenting his case through the interpreter Smith could get no satisfaction from the wily official. Finally after weeks of retarded diplomacy four masters of American ships in the harbor of Monterey came to the rescue and appointed Captain Cooper agent "for the United States, in order to settle the matter in some shape or manner." The result of this international step was that Smith signed a bond in the sum of thirty thousand dollars obligating him-self to move his party within sixty days outside the Mexican boundaries. Under the terms of the bond, signed November 15, 1827, Smith was privileged to purchase supplies for his party, which he immediately proceeded to do. The main party was brought to San Jose, and later moved on a sailing vessel to San Francisco. The bond provided that the Americans should leave Mexican territory by way of the straits of Carquinez, go to the Russian settlement at Bodega, and not return south of the latitude of 42°. Setting out from San Francisco and finding it impossible for lack of boats to cross the river (Sacramento) at the straits, Smith departed from the exact course prescribed, and following along the south side of the river and up the San Joaquin until he came to an easy crossing, he proceeded in a leisurely manner to the American River, the chief eastern tributary of the Sacramento, where he camped for a time. The knowledge of his encampment on that stream coming to the Mexicans they gave to the river its present name. If Smith still had any hope of discovering a river cutting through the mountains to the interior valley a short exploration of the American River, the most promising stream he had encountered, must have certainly dispelled it. Crossing to the north side of the American he turned his course to the northwest and came again to the Sacramento which he crossed. On May 10 the expedition was on the main branch of the Trinity River, having left the valley of the Sacramento en route to the coast. It would be interesting to know the reasons for this change of course, but doubtless the approach of summer, the despair of discovering a route to the interior by water, and the hope of finding vessels on the coast which would carry them to the Columbia, were all factors in the decision. The change of route was a deplorable mistake which led to woeful disaster. The hard-ships of this journey to the coast and thence to the Umpqua River

NEVADA        35

in Oregon are set down in considerable detail in the journal by Rogers, who makes the final entry on July 13.

After travelling over three thousand miles through a wilderness inhabited, if at all, by savages, and after suffering incredible hardships for almost two years, they were now within a day's march of a territory held under firm control by the Hudson's Bay Company where trappers would be safe from Indian attack, where food would be abundant, and travelling comparatively easy. The joy of the devoted little band about to emerge from the peril and suffering of its long and gloomy journey may be imagined. The next morning Captain Smith, as was his custom, left camp early to select a route and blaze a trail for the company to follow. Returning towards camp a few hours later he was startled to meet John Turner running frantically along the trail and to learn from him the lamentable fate of his companions. Shortly after his departure the Indians had come into camp apparently in a friendly mood, but at a concerted signal had suddenly attacked the whites engaged in packing the animals for the day's journey, and with tomahawk and club put them all to death. Turner alone, so far as he knew, had escaped. Knowing well that their only hope of safety lay in avoiding the Indians, Smith and Turner hurried on toward the Willamette with only Smith's rifle and the ammunition he carried to protect them from savages and provide them with food. Three weeks later, "one night in August, 1828," Dr. McLaughlin, chief of the Hudson's Bay Company's post at old Vancouver on the Columbia, was "surprised," as he wrote in a paper found after his death, "by the Indians making a great noise at the gate of the fort, saying they had brought an American. The gate was opened, the man came in, but was so affected he could not speak. After sitting down some minutes to recover himself, he told us he thought he was the only survivor of eighteen men conducted by the late Jedediah Smith. All the rest he thought were murdered." This supposed sole survivor of the massacre was Arthur Black whose life had been saved by the fact that at the time of the attack he had stood apart from the main party and had just loaded his rifle. Three Indians had attacked him but he had beaten them off and escaped into the forest. Following along the coast to the north he had been compelled by hunger to seek food from the Tillamook Indians who had treated him kindly and brought him to Fort Vancouver. After listening to his story, Dr. McLaughlin, ever ready to succor the needy and distressed, "immediately equipped a strong party of forty well-armed men" to go up the Willamette to search for other possible survivors of the Smith party. Just "as these men were embarking," writes McLaughlin, "Smith and his two men arrived. I then arranged as strong a party as I could make to recover all we could of Smith's property." There is no record of the survival of others than Smith, Turner and Black, and in his account McLaughlin doubtless had Black in mind when he wrote of the arrival of "Smith and his two men." The efforts made by McLaughlin to recover the property belonging to the expedition and to punish the Umpqua Indians were successful. An official report made by Smith, Sublette and Jackson in 1830 mentions "the efficient and successful aid which they gave him in recovering from the Umpqua Indians a quantity of furs." This was done, says McLaughlin, "from a principle of Christian duty, and as a lesson to the Indians to show them they could not

36        NEVADA

wrong the whites with impunity." Rogers' journal was also re covered, but its ending with the lamentable death of its writer closes, except for meager details, this interesting and romantic chapter in western history.

Of the arduous and perilous journey made by Smith and Turner from the scene of the massacre to Fort Vancouver almost nothing is known; but, for that matter, his arrival on the Willamette closed Smith's career as an explorer and geographer of unknown lands, for he was now within a territory familiar to the Astorians and the trappers of the Hudson's Bay Company. He could look back, however, over a journey which in extent of hitherto unexplored territory traversed, in varieties of land and climate and inhabitants met with, and in peril encountered and hardship endured, can hardly be equalled in the annals of American travel. Starting from the Great Salt Lake in August, 1826, he had led the first American expedition overland to California, and by the following spring had covered a distance of not less than fifteen hundred miles; leaving his party on the Stanislaus he had pursued a direct course eastward to the rendezvous on Bear Lake, the first white man to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Great Basin, a journey of more than six hundred miles through a veritable no man's land. Returning to his forlorn party on the Stanislaus by the Colorado River route, he traveled again not less than twelve hundred miles mostly in a desert country; he was the first white man, so far as known, to traverse the entire length of California from its southeast to its northwest corner, along the San Joaquin, the Sacramento, the Trinity, and the coast, through lands then inhabited only by savages. Including his side trips to San Diego in 1826 and to Monterey in 1827, to consult the Mexican authorities, his total journeyings must have exceeded four thousand miles. The accurate information which he acquired and which he freely imparted to others concerning the hitherto unknown lands which he explored, went far to change the crude and imaginary maps of his time to the real geographies of today. Few expeditions in that respect have been more useful to the world; for him personally it was a heart-breaking disappointment. All but two of the brave men who had followed his leadership with unflinching loyalty had met violent deaths at the hands of treacherous savages; the great Buenaventura River he had hoped to explore from the ocean to the Great Salt Lake had proven a myth; the rich trapping grounds he had dreamed of beyond the western deserts did not exist. Small wonder that the whole business lost its interest for him, and that a longing for a life more congenial to his intelligence and character urged him from the wilds.

Whether from lack of transportation facilities or in order to recuperate his strength, Smith remained with McLaughlin at Fort Vancouver until the following spring, 1829, when he went up the Columbia with one of the trapping expeditions bound for the Snake River. Later he met his partners at Pierre's Hole, in southern Idaho, and went with them on the fall hunt on the headwaters -of the Madison and Gallatin rivers, in Montana. In the following spring, 1830, with James Bridger as guide, Smith led a party of trappers northward into the country of the hostile Blackfeet. While crossing the Big Horn River on the ice he lost 30 horses and 150 traps, but kept on to the Musselshell and the Judith. There he found beaver in abundance but the Blackfeet Indians

NEVADA        37

were so hostile and powerful that the expedition turned back; and after a successful season joined the other parties at the summer rendezvous on Wind River, the last to be held by Smith and his partners, who sold their business to the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and proceeded to St. Louis with their furs, said to have been the most valuable season's catch in the history of the American fur trade.

We have an interesting glimpse of Jedediah Smith at this time, after his return from eight years of wild life in the wilderness. A young man from the East, named J. J. Warner, desiring to go out with the trappers in search of health and adventure sought the advice of the young explorer. In his Reminiscences of Early

[picture]

A VIEW OF BLACK CANYON BEFORE CONSTRUCTION WHICH STARTED ON THE GREAT BOULDER DAM

California Warner tells of his meeting with Smith. "Instead of finding a leather-stocking," he says, "I met a well-bred, intelligent, and Christian gentleman, who repressed my youthful ardor and fancied pleasure for the life of a trapper and mountaineer by informing me that if I went into the Rocky Mountains the chances were much greater in favor of meeting death than of finding restoration to health, and that if I escaped the former and secured the latter, the probabilities were that I would be ruined for any-thing else in life than for such things as would be agreeable to the passions of the semi-savage. He said that he had spent eight years in the mountains and should not return to them."

There remains but a melancholy paragraph to be added. At St. Louis Smith found two of his younger brothers anxious to embark in some of the adventurous enterprises of which the young city at the mouth of the Missouri was the teeming center. Outside the trapping expeditions to the Rocky Mountains, to which Smith was unalterably opposed, the now profitable commerce with the Mexicans at Santa Fe appeared most promising. Steamboat traffic

38        NEVADA