The West Old & New Vol. III Issue III March 2014 | Page 9

published (1856). He was credited with the discovery of Beckwourth Pass in the Sierra Nevada in 1850, and improved a Native
American path to create what became known as the Beckwourth Trail through the mountains to Marysville, California.
Jim Bridger (1804–1881) came west in 1822 at the age of 17, as a member of Ashley's Hundred exploring the Upper Missouri drainage. He was among the first non-natives to see the geysers and other natural wonders of the Yellowstone region. He is
also considered one of the first men of European descent, along with Étienne Provost, to see the Great Salt Lake. Because of its
salinity, he first believed it to be an arm of the Pacific Ocean. In 1830, Bridger purchased shares in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. He established Fort Bridger in southwestern Wyoming. He was also well known as a teller of tall tales.
John Colter (1774–1812), one of the first mountain men, was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He later became
the first European man to enter Yellowstone National Park, and to see what is now Jackson Hole and the Teton Mountain Range.
His description of the geothermal activity there seemed so outrageous to some that the area was mockingly referred to as Colter's
Hell. Colter's narrow escape following capture by Blackfeet, leaving him naked and alone in the wilderness, became a legend
known as "Colter's Run".
Kit Carson (1809–1868) achieved notability for his later exploits, but he got his start and gained some recognition as a trapper. Carson explored the west to California, and north through the Rocky Mountains. He lived among and married into the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes. He was hired by John C. Fremont as a guide, and led 'the Pathfinder' through much of California, Oregon
and the Great Basin area. He achieved national fame through Fremont. Stories of his life as a mountain man turned him into a
frontier hero-figure: the prototypical mountain man of his time.
John “Liver-Eating” Johnson (1824–1900) was one of the more notable latter-day mountain men. Johnson worked in Wyoming and Montana, trapping for beaver, buffalo and wolf hides. Unaffiliated with a company, Johnson bargained independently to
get prices for his hides. Elements of his story were portrayed in the film Jeremiah Johnson. Dennis McLelland wrote a biography
about him.
Joseph Lafayette "Joe" Meek (1810–1875) was a trapper, law enforcement official, and politician in the Oregon Country
and later Oregon Territory of the United States. A pioneer involved in the fur trade before settling in the Tualatin Valley, Meek
would play a prominent role at the Champoeg Meetings of 1843 where he was elected as a sheriff. Later he served in the Provisional Legislature of Oregon before being selected as the United States Marshal for the Oregon Territory.
Jedediah Smith (1799 - circa 1831) was a hunter, trapper, and fur trader whose explorations were significant in opening the
American West to settlement by Europeans and Americans. Smith is considered the first man of European descent to cross the future state of Nevada; the first to traverse Utah from north to south and from west to east; and the first American to enter California
by an overland route. He was also first to scale the High Sierra and explore the area from San Diego to the banks of the Columbia
River. He was a successful businessman and a full partner in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company after the departure of Ashley.
Smith had notable facial scarring from a grizzly bear attack.
To the left a photograph of mountain man Seth Kinman.

David Thompson
Known as “Koo-Koo Sint, the Stargazer
David Thompson was a British-Canadian fur trader, surveyor and map-maker.
He was known to the native people as “Koo-Koo-Sint,” the Stargazer. He is known
for the fact that he mapped over 3.9 million square kilometers of North America and
is described as the “greatest land geographer who ever lived.
He was born in Westminster to Welsh migrants, David and Ann Thompson.
When he was two his father died. The financial hardship caused by this resulted din
his placement in the Grey Coat Hospital, a school for the disadvantaged. Thompson
graduated to the Grey Coat mathematical school and was introduced to basic navigation skills. At the age of 14, in 1784, he entered a seven-year apprenticeship with the
Hudson’s Bay Company. He set sail in May of that year from England and arrived in
Churchill, (now Manitoba, Canada). He was put to work copying the personal papers
of the governor of Fort Churchill. He spent one year in York Factory and then was a
clerk at Cumberland House and SouthBranch House before arriving at Manchester
House in 1787. In 1788 he seriously fractured his leg, which forced him to spend two winters in recovery at Cumberland House.
During this time he refined his mathematical, astronomical and surveying skills under