Memory of Jedediah Smith Kept Alive - 1931

 

Memory of Jedediah Smith, First American who Pierced

Barrier of Rockies, is Kept Alive

Norwich Sun, July 27, 1931

 

Los Angeles, Cal.--This city has an inspiration about a man named Jedediah Strong Smith, born 132 years ago in the hamlet of Bainbridge, Chenango county, New York, and is about to express it in a substantial way.  The theme is of a small town boy who made good in a big country.  Los Angeles is going to honor him as the first American, westward faring, who pierced the barrier of the Rockies and opened a gateway to the Pacific.  His name is written indelibly into western frontier history, and something of the glory of his record will be revealed when this city, celebrating her one hundred fiftieth birthday anniversary with La Fiesta de Los Angeles, recalls the days of the pioneers and places Jedediah Strong Smith at the very head of the list.....

 

Jed Smith, the New York state boy, will be there in spirit; his counterpart, buckskin clad, with Bible in one hand and rifle in the other, as he is described as having traveled, will lead a pack burdened mount in the historical parade which will unroll the scroll of local history from September 4, 1781, to the present day.  The pioneering spirit drove Jedediah from the village of his birth first to the Great Lakes where he heard from the lips of far west trappers intriguing tales of the raw, ragged frontier.  The call was irresistible, and the youth, then in his early twenties, struck out for St. Louis as a trapper, trader and explorer.

 

Then tales of rich trapping lands across the Rockies inspired him to launch an expedition which started from Great Salt Lake on August 16, 1826, primarily to find a south pass through the mountain barrier to the Pacific.  Eight hundred miles of desert, plain and mountain, and countless unbridged streams separated Smith and his hardy band of 15 from their goal, but, breaking through at last, more than three months later, at Cajon Pass, they came to Mission San Gabriel.  Untold hardships were behind them; their spent, starving animals had been slaughtered to ward off starvation of the entire party; Indians had been beaten off; agonizing thirst had laid its grim fingers at their throats.  But Smith had discovered his South Pass through the frowning Rockies, opened California to overland colonization, and earned for himself the title "Pathfinder of the Sierras."  ....The first party of white men to traverse the Rocky mountain range by the southern route straggled into Mission San Gabriel late in November, 1826, and were welcomed by the good padres in charge.  The path they followed is known today as the Arrowhead trail, one of the most heavily traveled of the great transcontinental highways....

 

The mission near Los Angeles where Smith found refuge had been established more than half a century then; it was called "the pride of California's 21 missions," with its rich orchards and vineyards, its thousands of cattle, sheep, horses, mules and goats ranging far and wide over its vast domain.  Into this pastoral paradise came Jed Smith.  And out of it again went he, just as fast as Governor Echeandia of Alta California could turn him around and head him back over the mountains again.  This was the way of it.  Alta California had been established under the old Spanish regime as a buffer state against the invasion of Russians coming down from the north.  But Spain felt no fear from the east, the desert and the mountains, it was thought, were an impregnable barrier.  But now came Smith over those same mountains and desert, to upset the serenity and security of the outpost under Mexican rule since 1822.  Echeandia could see no other course than to banish the intruders forthwith.  Credit one error to Echeandia; he should have welcomed him with open arms and prevented him from ever getting back to tell his fellowmen of this new land and the way to get there.

 

Smith and his companions went back to Salt Lake.  Safely there, either his wrath or his sense of humor prompted him to organize another party of 19 men and head back into Echeandia's country again.  After frightful and devastating experiences, such as could be survived only by stout hearts and hardened bodies, seven of these finally arrived at Mission San Gabriel again; the others were massacred by Indians.  The governor, irate on hearing of his return, clapped Smith into jail at San Jose, there to languish for weary days before American ship captains at Montery posted a $30,000 bond to insure his departure again from the country.  This time Smith and his little band went into the north west. 

 

That was the last California was to see of him.  But he was bound for the coast again when in 1831 he was killed by Comanches, somewhere on the desert, while seeking water to save a stranded immigrant train.  He had shown the way, however, for other pioneers who were soon to follow in his tracks.  And these other pioneers were to give a tremendous impetus to the development of this section of the country.

 

So Los Angeles in particular, and California in general, feel they owe an unpayable debt of gratitude to Jedediah Strong Smith.  And as a belated installment on the account, the various events of La Fiesta de Los Angeles will be dedicated to the indomitable spirit of Smith and the few other later pioneers who first brought the American element to the Mexican Pueblo de Nuestra Sonora la Reina de Los Angeles--Village of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels.