Jedediah Smith: No Ordinary Mountain Man Volume 23

by Barton H. Barbour

Book Overview

Mountain man and fur trader Jedediah Smith casts a heroic shadow. He was the first Anglo-American to travel overland to California via the Southwest, and he roamed through more of the West than anyone else of his era. His adventures quickly became the stuff of legend. Using new information and sifting fact from folklore, Barton H. Barbour now offers a fresh look at this dynamic figure.

Barbour tells how a youthful Smith was influenced by notable...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0806141964
• ISBN13: 9780806141961
• Release Date: April 2011
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 2.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

An important pick for any who would discern Smith's inner psyche

Jedediah Smith was the first Anglo-American to travel overland to California via the Southwest, and he traveled more of the West than anyone of his times. This biography surveys his journeys and tells of his early influences which included a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Barbour researches Smith's journals more than other scholars and offers insights into Smith's choices, itineraries and personality. An important pick for any who would discern Smith's inner psyche.

Jedediah Smith: No ordinary biography

This is an excellent narrative with all the latest findings strung together for the first time about our Jacksonian American explorer/mountain man Jedediah Smith -- all woven together here in a knowing and sensitive way. Plus this book puts you right in the chapparal with the men struggling with mules through brush and into the difficult river fordings of the early 1800s West, and puts you into the head of a leader and businessman obsessed with security among the sometimes inhospital and difficult to understand native tribes and the obviously greedy and well-organized fur-seeking brits of the Hudson's Bay Company. Barbour's description of Smith's dealings with the West Coast tribes and the well-documented prejudices among the Americans, Mexicans, Spainish, Mission Catholics and native tribes is both useful and fascinating. Barbour also calls to attention the importance of Smith's mapmaking ability and traces his findings to other Americans' maps instrumental to opening the West to the United States. And that Smith, though no teetotaler, did not, like Abraham Lincoln, have much of a taste for liquor or gambling yet both were glad to hold court with like-minded intellectuals. Of course, Smith was not the politician Lincoln was, but both were leaders revered by the people gathered around them. Our author also points out delightful ironies such as the fact that despite all the stream work of catching beavers of Smith's brigades and even more intensely by the HBC, none ever saw the glint of gold that stuffed the sandbars and creekbeds attendant with California's beaver dams, a discovery that would transform history just 20 years later. Our author also has command of phrasing and irony, both much appreciated. You will know Jedediah Smith and the times and people he lived in and among when you finish this book.

The Good Die Young!

That statement holds true to a great man. Did Jedediah Smith have flaws, yes he did. But he was a man, who made no compromise and did not think he was better than anyone else, regardless of there skin or class background. He even freed a Black slave of his, when the man's porcupine was stolen by Joe Meek and no one was willing to turn in a white man for a black man. Jedediah Smith was true Christian man, by both name and by action and was no hypocrite. He was a missionary as many people today believe he was, perhaps not in the way we like to think, but in my opinion he was a true Christian missionary in the he lived, how treated people and how he carried himself. That is what God expects of us today. I commend Mr. Barbour for this fair and balance biography of a great man, who died too soon.

A Valuable New Biography of One of the Great Mountain Men

The latest installment in the University of Oklahoma's Western Biography series, this book tells the life of Jedediah Smith; one of major figures in the history of the fur trade. It is the first major new biography of Jedediah Smith that takes advantage of recently found documentation of Jedediah's time in Mexican California. The book is very well written and spends time detailing Jedediah's background and the history of fur trading. The author also describes in detail Jedediah's contributions to the exploration of the West. Jedediah understood the geography of the West better than any man (Native, European or American) alive during his life. His explorations led him from what is now Glacier National Park all the way to southern California. The author devotes most of the book to Jedediah's years in California (1826-1829). It is here that the author distinguishes himself from the other standard biography of Jedediah (Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West (Bison Book)). There is a rich treasure trove of new information about this time in Jedediah's life and the author does an excellent job of relating it. The author is even-handed and does not idolize or demonize Jedediah. He plants Jedediah firmly in the milieu of his own time and lets the story unfold. It is obvious that Jedediah was a complex man and any attempt at simplification would be futile. I do wish that the book talked more about Jedediah's life after he left the care of the Hudson's Bay Company. The last year or two of Jedediah's fur trading career are dealt with fairly quickly. And though it is true that nothing of major import happened to Jedediah during this time, it would still had been interesting to read more about Jedediah's explorations right before his untimely death. I would not say that this biography supplants (but neither is it inferior to) Morgan's biography; but it certainly is a watershed book in the same way that Morgan's was. It is an important new biography and one that anyone who has an interest in the fur trade or Western exploration cannot afford to miss. You will enjoy this book!