Jedediah Smith and the opening of the West / by Dale L. Morgan

Illustrations: Jedediah Strong Smith -- A Mandan village on the Missouri [River] / Karl Bodmer, 1834 -- The interior of the hut on a Mandan chief / Karl Bodmer, 1834 -- Horse racing of Sioux Indians near Fort Pierre / Charles Bodmer, 1833 -- Funeral scaffold of a Sioux chief near Fort Pierre / Carl Bodmer -- South Dakota Badlands / Arthur Rothstein -- The frozen Missouri at the Mandans, February, 1834 / Bodmer -- Shoshoni: Washakie's lodge in the Wind River Mountains / W.H. [William Henry] Jackson, 1870 -- Camp of the Gros Ventres of the Prairies on the Upper Missouri / Bodmer, 1833 -- Trappers making their escape from hostile Blackfeet / Alfred Jacob Miller, 1837 -- Scotts Bluff National Monument -- Devils [Devil's] Gate on the Sweetwater River / Frederick A. Piercy, 1853 -- Crow Indian, Et-Tish-Easter-Ko-Kish, or, Spotted Rabbit / De Lancey Gill, 1910 -- Giving drink to thirsty trappers / Alfred Jacob Miller, 1837 -- The Falls of the Popo Agie / A.H. Carhart, 1922 -- Strawberry Point, upper Virgin River / Paul S. Bieler, 1941 -- Mojave Indians / Balduin Möllhausen, 1853 -- View of the mission of St. Gabriel / Alfred Robinson, 1846 -- Ocean scene at Seaview Ranch, Oregon coast / E. Lindsay, 1936 -- Looking across Smith River, Oregon, to the site of the Umpqua Massacre / Harvey E. Tobie, 1952.;Preface -- Young man of enterprise -- The hunters and the hunted -- The Missouri Legion -- South Pass -- The adventures of Hugh Glass -- and others -- The stakes of the Columbia -- Action on the fur frontier -- Rendezvous: 1825 -- Partner in the fur trade -- The South West expedition -- Rendezvous: 1827 -- The California quagmire -- The Umpqua massacre -- "Good, merchantable beaver furr" [fur] -- The things of time -- Appendix A: Letters of Jedediah Smith relating to his explorations -- Appendix B: Personal letters by Jedediah Smith and his family -- Notes.;Chronicles the adult life of fur trader Jedediah Smith, discussing his accomplishments on the frontier from Missouri to California and examining his role in American history. Preface -- Young man of enterprise -- The hunters and the hunted -- The Missouri Legion -- South Pass -- The adventures of Hugh Glass -- and others -- The stakes of the Columbia -- Action on the fur frontier -- Rendezvous: 1825 -- Partner in the fur trade -- The South West expedition -- Rendezvous: 1827 -- The California quagmire -- The Umpqua massacre -- "Good, merchantable beaver furr" [fur] -- The things of time -- Appendix A: Letters of Jedediah Smith relating to his explorations -- Appendix B: Personal letters by Jedediah Smith and his family -- Notes. Illustrations: Jedediah Strong Smith -- A Mandan village on the Missouri [River] / Karl Bodmer, 1834 -- The interior of the hut on a Mandan chief / Karl Bodmer, 1834 -- Horse racing of Sioux Indians near Fort Pierre / Charles Bodmer, 1833 -- Funeral scaffold of a Sioux chief near Fort Pierre / Carl Bodmer -- South Dakota Badlands / Arthur Rothstein -- The frozen Missouri at the Mandans, February, 1834 / Bodmer -- Shoshoni: Washakie's lodge in the Wind River Mountains / W.H. [William Henry] Jackson, 1870 -- Camp of the Gros Ventres of the Prairies on the Upper Missouri / Bodmer, 1833 -- Trappers making their escape from hostile Blackfeet / Alfred Jacob Miller, 1837 -- Scotts Bluff National Monument -- Devils [Devil's] Gate on the Sweetwater River / Frederick A. Piercy, 1853 -- Crow Indian, Et-Tish-Easter-Ko-Kish, or, Spotted Rabbit / De Lancey Gill, 1910 -- Giving drink to thirsty trappers / Alfred Jacob Miller, 1837 -- The Falls of the Popo Agie / A.H. Carhart, 1922 -- Strawberry Point, upper Virgin River / Paul S. Bieler, 1941 -- Mojave Indians / Balduin Möllhausen, 1853 -- View of the mission of St. Gabriel / Alfred Robinson, 1846 -- Ocean scene at Seaview Ranch, Oregon coast / E. Lindsay, 1936 -- Looking across Smith River, Oregon, to the site of the Umpqua Massacre / Harvey E. Tobie, 1952. In 1822, before Jedediah Smith entered the West, it was largely an unknown land, “ a wilderness, ” he wrote, “ of two thousand miles diameter.” During his nine years as a trapper for Ashley and Henry and later for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, “ the mild and Christian young man” blazed the trail westward through South Pass; he was the first to go from the Missouri overland to California, the first to cross the length of Utah and the width of Nevada, first to travel by land up through California and Oregon, first to cross the Sierra Nevada. Before his death on the Santa Fe Trail at the hands of the Comanches, Jed Smith and his partners had drawn the map of the west on a beaver skin