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Jedediah Smith and America’s Western Expansion and Exploration
by
O. Ned Eddins

Jedediah Strong Smith was born in the Susquehanna Valley of New York in 1799. Jedediah was ten years old, when the Smith family moved westward to Erie County, Pennsylvania. The local doctor took a liking to Jedediah. Dr. Titus Simons, who become a close family friend, helped Jedediah with his education and gave him a copy of the 1814 Biddle edition of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. When Jedediah Smith's family moved again to the Western Reserve country of Ohio. Jedediah Smith struck out for the frontier. According to some, Jedediah carried two books—the Bible and the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

James C. Auld wrote an excellent article in the 2008 Journal of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade questioning where the piety and bible toting image of Jedediah Smith originated.

Jedediah Strong Smith 1899 -1831

Not long after reaching St. Louis, Jedediah learned that the lieutenant governor of Missouri, William H. Ashley, and a veteran fur trader, Major Andrew Henry, had formed a partnership to trap beaver on the upper Missouri. Ashley had placed an advertisement in the Missouri Gazette:

Smith quickly signed on—this was his way west. At the junction of the Yellowstone and Missouri river, Major Henry built a second Fort Henry. From there, Maj. Henry sent a small party farther upriver to winter near the mouth of the Musselshell and Missouri rivers. During the winter, both parties lost horses to the Assiniboine.

When the Musselshell party returned in the spring to Fort Henry, Major Henry sent Jedediah Smith downriver to find Ashley and tell him they needed more horses at Fort Henry. Below the three Arikara villages, Smith found Ashley coming upriver with the supply boat . The Arikara villages were located on the Missouri River near the mouth of the Grand River.

Arikara Village - George Catlin

Arikara Lodge

York Inside a Lodge - Charles Russell

When Smith gave Ashley the message, Ashley stopped at an Arikara Village to trade for horses. The second day, the Arikara finally agreed to a trade, but that night a young trapper sneaked into the Arikara Village. He was killed and dismembered. The next morning at daylight, Arikara warrior opened fire on the traders.

Along with the rest of the shore party, Jedediah Smith was pinned down on the sandbar. After a brief fight, the men still alive dashed for the river and swam across it—a few were picked up by one of Ashley’s boats. Eleven men were wounded, two of them died after crossing the river . Twelve trappers were left lying on the sandbar.

Ashley went back downriver to a small island. All of the boatmen and most of the fur trappers refused to go back upriver. William Ashley asked for a volunteer to take word to Major Henry. Jedediah Smith and a French-Canadian trapper stepped forward. The two trappers hastened cross-country to Henry’s outpost with news of the disaster. The next day, Major Henry with fifty men started downriver in a keelboat to assist Ashley—the boat passed the Arikara villages at night.

Ashley had floated back downriver to the mouth of the Cheyenne River. Several of the men that had refused to go back upriver were sent in one of the boats back to St. Louis. The deserters promised to inform Colonel Leavenworth at Fort Atkinson of the Arikara attack.

Fort Atkinson was located at the Lewis and Clark Council Bluff site, which was several miles above present-day Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Fort Atkinson Barracks 1819 -1827

A month later, Colonel Leavenworth arrived at Ashley’s camp with six company’s of soldiers, sixty trappers from the Missouri Fur Company, and six hundred Sioux Indians. The combined parties proceeded on upriver to the Arikara village.

After a couple of days of basically doing nothing, Colonel Leavenworth signed a peace treaty with the Arikara.

Upon arriving at the Arikara Village, Sioux warriors raided the Arikara corn fields and killed several Arikara warriors. Disgusted with the inaction of the white man's army, the Sioux warriors went home the second day.

A disgruntled, Joshua Pilcher, head of the Missouri Fur Company wrote:

You came to restore peace and tranquility to the country, & leave an impression which would insure its continuance, your operations have been such as to produce the contrary effect, and to impress the different Indian tribes with the greatest possible contempt for the American character. You came to use your own language to "open and make good this great road": instead of which you have by the imbecility of your conduct and operations, created and left impassable barriers.

Leavenworth’s treaty accomplished nothing except to slow down the Missouri River fur trade for decades—that night, Pilcher’s men supposedly burned the Arikara village.

After the Arikara fight, Ashley went downriver to a trading post called Fort Kiowa. At the post, Ashley outfitted a party of eleven men under Jedediah Smith to travel overland to the Rocky Mountains. Among the men were Thomas Fitzpatrick, William Sublette, Jim Clyman, Thomas Eddie, Edward Rose, Stone, and Branch. The other three men’s names have been lost to history.

Near the Black Hills, Smith was attacked by a grizzly bear. After the bear was killed, Smith gave directions as Clyman stitched up the gaping wounds. James Clyman left a vivid description of the encounter:

Grissly did not hesitate a moment but sprang on the capt taking him by the head first pitc[h]ing sprawling on the earth…breaking several of his ribs and cutting his head badly…the bear had taken nearly all his head in his cap[a]cious mouth close to his left eye on one side and clos to his right ear on the other and laid the skull bare to near the crown of the head…one of his ears was torn from his head out to the outer rim…

Back at Fort Henry, Andrew Henry, sent another party of trappers under John C. Weber to the Bighorn Mountains and then the Wind River country where the two Ashley-Henry groups wintered with evidently different Crow villages--there is no mention of interaction between the two groups.

Wind River

In February, Smith attempted to cross Union Pass to the head of the Green River , but the snow was too deep.

Union Pass - Elevation 9,228 Feet

Returning to the Crow camp, warriors told Smith about a broad open pass at the end of the Wind River Mountains. In March of 1824, Jedediah Smith’s party followed the Sweetwater River to South Pass and on into the Green River Valley—Robert Stuart’s discovery of South Pass had been largely forgotten, and Jedediah Smith is credited with the effective discovery of South Pass.

South Pass - Elevation 7,473 Feet

Jedediah Smith split the party in two. He left Fitzpatrick and five men to trap the Green River Valley. The two parties were to rendezvous on the Sweetwater River in mid-summer.

Beaver Dam - North Horse Creek

Fitzpatrick's men stayed in the valley of the Seed-kee-dee (Prairie Chicken River or Green River)--Indians stole Fitzpatrick's horses on Horse Creek and this is where the name comes from. Thomas Fitzpatrick and his men had a good hunt, and by July were back on the Sweetwater River to meet the Smith Party. When Jedediah Smith didn’t show up, Fitzpatrick, Stone, and Branch started down the Sweetwater and North Platte rivers with a boatload of furs—the hollowed-out boat tipped over in Devils Gate. The furs were recovered and dried before being cached. The three men struggled across the open Plains to Fort Atkinson. At Fort Atkinson, Fitzpatrick sent a dispatch to Ashley in St. Louis advising him of the rich beaver country west of the Wind River Mountains.

Devils Gate

In November of 1824, Ashley organized a supply train of twenty-five trappers, fifty packhorses, a wagon, and a team—the wagon and team were abandoned along the trail. Ashley’s use of horses and mules for transporting supplies initiated the rendezvous system of the Rocky Mountain fur trade-the North West Company had been holding rendezvous at Grande Portage, then Fort William, since 1783.

Jedediah Smith and his five men trapped toward the northwest. On the Blackfoot River, they found an Iroquois trapping party that worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Iroquois had been attacked by a war party of Shoshone—they offered Smith their furs if his men would accompany them to the Flathead Post --several miles below Thompson Falls, Montana--on the Clark Fork River.. When Smith’s party arrived at the Flathead Post, the Flathead Post Factor, Alexander Ross, wrote:

That damn’d all cursed day when his Iroquois showed up under convoy of the smug Americans.

During the winter, Smith studied every detail of the Hudson's Bay Company operations. When Peter Skene Ogden, who had taken over from Ross, left for the Portneuf River in Idaho, Smith and his men followed.

A British diarist remarked:

One Jedediah S. Smith is at the head of them, a sly cunning Yankey.

In late June 1825, Smith arrived at Henry's Fork—near Burnt Fork, Wyoming—for the first mountain man rendezvous.

1825 Rendezvous Burnt Fork, Wyoming

Ashley left the one day rendezvous on the second of July. The furs gathered at the rendezvous came from Ashley's men, deserters from Peter Skeen Ogden, and Etienne Provost's men. Provost was a Taos trapper. An additional forty-five packs were picked up from a cache.

Andrew Henry had left the fur trade, and Ashley needed a new field partner. His choice was Jedediah Smith. Ashley and Smith took the furs to the Bighorn River, and then floated them down the Bighorn to the Yellowstone where they met Atkinson-O’Fallon Expedition. The furs were loaded on a steamboat and taken to St. Louis. The new partners took one hundred packs of furs back from the first rendezvous—on average a pack is sixty pelt pressed into a ninety pound bundle and tied.

In less than a month, Jedediah Smith left St. Louis for the mountains. Jedediah's fall hunt was in the Wyoming, Utah, Idaho area. Jedediah met Ashley at the 1826 Rendezvous held in Cache (Willow) Valley at Cove, Utah--the 1826 site is disputed between Cove and Blacksmith Fork Canyon.

1826 Rendezvous Cove, Utah

After the rendezvous, Jedediah Smith, William Sublette, and David E. Jackson met with Ashley on the Bend of the Bear River and bought Ashley's interests in the Ashley-Smith Company. The new partnership agreed to buy the rendezvous supplies through Ashley. After four years in the mountains, Jedediah Smith was now head of the dominate fur trade company in the Rocky Mountains.

In August, the three partners split up for the fall hunt. Smith, with seventeen men, pushed south to investigate the trapping potential south and west of the Great Salt Lake. This trek took Smith up Spanish Fork Canyon—through Castle Valley—over the mountains to Richfield—then over the mountains to Cove Fort. Except this detour through Castle Valley—then I-70 to Cove—Smith followed I-15 through Utah to the Virgin River (Brooks).

Smith Map of 1826 - 1827

Smith followed the Virgin River to its confluence with the Colorado River. He crossed the river and continued south to the Mojave villages. In his journal, Smith stated:

that by the time they reached the Mojave Crossing [near Needles, California]…he had lost so many horses that we were all on foot—my men and the remainder of my horses were worn out with fatigue and hardship & emaciated with hunger…

After resting several days at the Mojave village, Smith and his men started on the one hundred and thirty-eight mile trail across the Mojave Desert. There were usually four dependable sources of water in the barren desert--Paiute Spring, Rock Spring, Marl Spring, and Zzyzx Spring near Soda Lake .

Smith Butte - Mojave Desert

Rock Springs - Mojave Desert

Soda Lake - Mojave Desert

It took two weeks to cross the barren, blazing desert before reaching San Bernardino Valley. Spanish Priests welcomed them at the San Gabriel Mission-near present-day Los Angles.

Smith’s clerk, Harrison Rogers, described it:

…great feasting among the men. … I was introduced to the 2 Priests over a glass of good old whiskey—and found them to be very Joval friendly gentlemen… . Plenty of good wine during supper, before the cloth was removed sigars was introduced… . Friendship and peace prevail with us and the Spanyards….

Smith was called to San Diego were he was questioned by the Mexican governor. Backed by Captain Cunningham of the schooner Courier and other Yankee sea captains in port, Smith eventually convinced the governor that he sought only beaver. The governor ordered Smith to take his men and leave the same way as they had come into California.

Jedediah Smith retraced his route as far as the edge of the desert, and then headed north into the San Joaquin Valley.

Smith pushed northward three hundred and fifty miles, but the Sierra Nevada Mountains formed a constant barrier to the east—it would be hard to cross the snow-capped range with fifteen men, packs of furs, and the equipment. Leaving most of his men to trap the Stanislaus River, Smith set out with two companions, Robert Evans and Silas Gobel for the 1827 Rendezvous on Bear Lake.

Ebbetts Pass - Elevation 8,715 Feet

Smith, Gobel, and Evans left on the twentieth of May, 1827, with seven horses and two mules. Smith crossed the Sierras over Ebbett’s Pass then skirting Walker Lake, before heading into the Great Basin.

Great Basin

Smith recorded on his map:

This plain is a waste of sand with a few detached mountains some of which are in the region of perpetual snow…a few Indians are scattered over the plain, the most miserable objects in creation.

Smith’s journal leaves a terrifying picture of the desert journey. From a high hill, he wrote:

I could discover nothing but sandy plains or dry Rocky hills…I durst not tell my men of the desolate prospect ahead…. With our best exertion we pushed forward, walking as we had been for a long time over the soft sand…worn down with hunger and fatigue and burning with thirst increased by the blazing sands…it then seemed possible and even probable we might perish in the desert unheard of and unpitied. My dreams were not of Gold or ambitious honors but of my distant quiet home, of murmuring brooks of Cooling Cascades.

Great Salt Lake Desert

When Evans collapsed, Smith and Gobel dug a pit beneath a broad juniper tree and covered him with sand. A few miles further, the two men located a spring. Smith returned to Evans with a kettle of water.

Putting the kettle to his mouth he did not take it away until he had drank all the water, of which there was at least 4 or 5 quarts and then asked me why I had not brought more.

Reaching Great Salt Lake, the men continued along the southern shore to the flooded Jordan River. Smith cobbled together a raft for their belongings. Holding the towrope in his teeth, he swam across.

Having covered well over six hundred miles in six weeks, most of it on foot, the three men reached the rendezvous near the Utah-Idaho border at the south end of Bear Lake on July 3, 1827. Smith remarked:

my arrival caused a considerable bustle in camp, for myself and party had been given up as lost. A small Cannon brought up from St Louis was loaded and fired for a salute.

1827 Rendezvous - Bear Lake Utah

After the 1827 rendezvous, Smith eighteen men and two French-Canadian women set out for California. Based on his previous experience, Smith took seven hundred pounds of dried buffalo meat. Except a detour through the Bear River Valley and across the mountains and down the Weber River, Smith followed present day I-15 to southern Utah. Instead of going through the Virgin River Gorge, Smith followed an Indian trail from Santa Clara over Utah Hill to Beaver Dam Wash then followed it to the Virgin River.

Smith's Route 1827 - 1828 - 1829

Crossing the Colorado River, the party continued on to the Mojave Village. After spending three days at the village, Smith and eight men swam the horses and took the supplies across on rafts. With Smith and eight men on the other side of the river, the Mojave attacked and killed the men on their side of the river, including Silas Gobel and the two women—unbeknown to Smith, several Mojave warriors had been killed the previous winter by trappers from Taos led by Ewing Young.

The survivors gathered what supplies they could and then made a fort of piled dead trees and brush. Smith and eight men held off a second attack. When the men opened fire:

…the indians ran off like frightened sheep…

With the horses and most of the supplies gone, the party had fifteen pounds of dried meat, their knives, and five guns left. As soon as it was dark, the survivors started across the Mojave Desert. The Smith Party reached the San Bernardino Valley in late August and immediately moved north to rejoin the trappers on the Stanislaus River.

Seeking supplies at the San Jose Mission, the mission fathers put Smith in the guardhouse until he could be taken to Monterey. The governor planned to send Smith to Mexico for trail, but again ,several sea captains came to Smith’s aid. The Captains convinced the governor to release Smith. After posting a bond, the governor released Jedediah with the promise that he and his men would be out of California within two months.

Smith was determined not to leave California empty-handed. The beaver pelts and a few otter skins were sold to the Captain of the schooner Franklin for thirty-nine hundred and twenty dollars. With the money, Smith purchased three hundred and thirty horses and mules to sell at the next years rendezvous.

In late December, Smith and his men began the journey up the Sacramento River. Smith was looking for a place to cross the Sierras. Trapping as they went, they had reached present-day Red Bluff, California by April. With a wall of mountains to the east, Smith gave up leaving California by crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He decided to head for the Pacific Coast and then turn north to the Columbia River and Fort Vancouver.

Swamps, thick brush, and boulder fields blocked the route to the coast. The trappers didn’t reach the coast until June. The Indians of the interior valleys had been friendly, but as they crossed the costal mountains, Indians occasionally shot arrows into camp wounding several of the horses.

As most of the trappers contract with the company had expired, Smith re-engaged the trappers at one dollar per day—most historians claim the Ashley men were the more glamorous free trappers…but…they were hired in St. Louis by Ashley and again by Smith in California.

One of the trappers found a young Indian boy and brought him into camp. By signs, the boy indicated he had been taken from the Willamette Valley. Given the name Marion, the trappers took him with them to the Umpqua River.

Two Indians that spoke Chinook visited camp and told the trappers they were ten days travel from the Willamette Valley. A few days later, a hundred Indians approached with fish and mussels to trade. The Indians had knives and tomahawks, one had a flintlock musket, one a cloak, and others had cloth pieces—Hudson's Bay Company trade goods. Meeting these two groups of Indians indicated to the trappers that this area was frequented by Fort Vancouver fur traders and trappers.

The Umpqua Massacre

The next day, the expedition moved two miles to a large Indian village. The villagers brought goods to trade including fish, shell fish, berries, and some furs. That evening, a guard discovered three mules and one horse had been killed with arrows. Indian interpreters told Jedediah the killing was done by an Indian from a lower Umpqua village—the Kelawatset Indian felt he had been cheated in a trade.

The trappers used canoes to cross Coos Bay in the area of Henderson Marsh. Smith and five men remained behind to swim the last horses and mules across. While waiting, Smith was uneasy about the way the Indians acted—Smith was unaware that the Hudson's Bay Company policy was to send well-armed parties in and through the Kelawatset country.

When one of the Indians stole and hid an axe, Smith tied a rope around his neck to scare the Indian into giving the axe back. The other trappers stood by with drawn guns. The axe was recovered, but the Indian involved was a Kelawatset chief.

On the thirteenth of July, the expedition camped at the mouth of the Smith River—the location was on the north bank of the Smith River across from the west end of Perkins Island. That day, fifty to sixty Indians visited the camp to trade furs and food.

The morning of the fourteenth of July, Jedediah Smith, John Turner, and Richard Leland left camp in a canoe to search for a route to the Willamette Valley. They were accompanied by a Kelawatset Indian guide.

While the three men were gone, about a hundred Kelawatset Indians were allowed into the camp. On a signal, the Indians rushed the trappers. Fifteen men, including Harrison Rodgers and Marion, the Indian boy were killed. Only one man survived the attack, Arthur Black. Knowing he could find refuge at Fort Vancouver, Black head north keeping the coast line in sight. He reached Fort Vancouver on the eighth of August, twenty-six day after the attack.

As Smith paddled down the river, an Indian on shore called to Smith's guide. The guide grabbed Smith's rifle and jumped into the water. Kelawatset Indians hidden on shore started shooting arrows at the canoe.

Paddling to the opposite bank, the three men climbed a hill for a better view of the camp. Dismembered bodies could be seen scattered he camp clearing. Deciding nothing could be done for his men, Smith, Turner, and Leland headed north. The men reached Fort Vancouver on the tenth of August—two days after Black’s arrival.

Fort Vancouver 1829

After hearing Smith’s report, Dr. John McLoughlin, the Chief Factor at Fort Vancouver, immediately sent Michel Laframboise with Indian interpreters to the Umpqua River area to offer rewards for the return of any survivors.

A few days later, McLoughlin sent Alexander McLeod with a party of men to recover what he could of Smith's property. The expedition, including Smith and his surviving men, arrived at the site of the Umpqua massacre on the sixth of September. Eleven bodies were found and buried. There were no signs of the other four men.

At the time of the attack, Smith had two hundred and twenty-eight horses and mules, seven hundred and eight beaver pelts, fifty to sixty otter skins, two hundred pounds of beads, one hundred pounds of other goods, and camp equipment. McLeod was able to recover thirty-eight horses and mules, seven hundred pelts, several rifles, cooking pots, traps, clothes, beads, and other items that had been traded off by the Kelawatset Indians. Among the recovered goods were Smith and Harrison Rogers journals .

The Hudson’s Bay Governor, George Simpson, authorized payment to Smith of thirty-two hundred dollars for his horses and pelts. Simpson wrote Smith that:

whatsoever we have done for you was induced by feelings of benevolence and humanity alone … the satisfaction we derive from these good offices, will repay the Honble Hudsons Bay Compy amply for any loss or inconvenience …

In return, Smith made a map of his travels, and possibly, made an agreement to keep his trappers east of the Continental Divide and out of the Snake River country.

Smith spent the winter of 1828-29 at Fort Vancouver. In March, he journeyed east to Flathead Post-eleven miles upriver from Thompson Falls, Montana.. Smith found David Jackson and his trappers on the Clark Fork River. The two trapping parties reached Pierre's Hole in August.

Pierre's Hole - Teton River

Not long after the Smith and Jackson parties reached Pierre's Hole, William Sublette arrived with a pack train from the 1829 Rendezvous on the Popo Agie—this was the only year a rendezvous was held at two different locations. After the supplies were unloaded and the pelts loaded, Smith led a large force into the Piegan Indian country of Montana. Sublette returned to St. Louis for the next years supplies.

With beaver getting harder to find and prices dropping, Smith, Jackson, and Sublette decided it was time to leave the mountains. At the 1830 Rendezvous on the Wind River, the three partners sold their company to Thomas Fitzpatrick, Milton Sublette, Jim Bridger, Henry Fraeb, and Jean Gervias. The partners agreed Sublette would remain the rendezvous supplier. The new company was named the Rocky Mountain Fur Company.

This is the only time in the history of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade that a company was actually named the Rocky Mountain Fur Company.

1830 Wind River Rendezvous

In a letter to Gen. William Clark, Smith reported his travels and his losses in men and horses between August 1827 and July 1828 at twenty-five men and over three hundred riding and pack horses. His travels had taken him —across the Great Basin from North to South and East to West—from the southern end of California to the Columbia River - from Fort Vancouver to Flathead Post in Montana -- from Clarks Fork River to Pierre's Hole in Idaho .

Smith returned to St. Louis on the seventh of October, 1830. He had been away from civilization for five years. At the time, Jedediah Smith had a broader knowledge of the American west than any other person. Settled down in St. Louis, he started to work on his journals and maps for publication. Perhaps from boredom or missing his wandering days, Smith invested in a trading caravan with Sublette and Jackson.. The wagons bound for Santa Fe left St. Louis in April, 1831. On the hot arid Cimarron cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail, the wagon train ran out of water. After four days, Jedediah Smith, as he had done many time, setout to find water—he never returned.

Santa Fe Trail

Jedediah Smith’s fate was pieced together from accounts of Indian traders in Santa Fe. Jedediah found water, but a Comanche war party found him. Jedediah Smith was killed on the Cimarron River on the twenty-seventh of May, 1831. At the time of his death, Jedediah Smith was thirty-two years old.

This article was written by O. Ned Eddins of Afton, Wyoming. Permission is given for material from this site to be used for school research papers.

Citation: Eddins, Ned. (article name) Mountainsofstone.com. Afton, Wyoming. 2002.

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References:

Auld, James C. The Legend of Jedediah Smith: Fact, Fantasy and Opinion. Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal Vol. 2. Museum of the Mountain Man. Pinedale, Wyoming. 2008.

Bailey, Thomas A. Kennedy, David M. The American Pageant: A History of the Republic. Tenth Edition. D. C. Heath and Company. Lexington, Mass. 1994.

Berry, Don. A majority of Scoundrels. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, Oregon. 2006.

Brooke, George R. The Southern Expedition of Jedediah Smith: His personal account of the Journey to California 1826-1827. University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska. 1977.

Carlson, John H. The Plains Indians. Texas A&M Press, College Station, Texas. 1998.

Clyman, James. Journal of a Mountain Man. Mountain Press Publishing Company. Missoula Montana. 1984.

Chittenden, Hiram Martin.

-----The American Fur Trade of the Far West. Vol.1. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska 1986.

-----The American Fur Trade of the Far West. Vol.2. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska 1986.

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Hafen, Leroy, Editor. Mountain Man Series 10 Volumes. Arthur Clark Co. Spokane, Washington. 2000.

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Lindsley, Margaret Hawkes. Andrew Henry: Mine and Mountain Major. Jelm Mountain Publications. Laramie, Wyoming. 1990.

Morgan, Dale L.

-----Jedediah Smith and Opening of the West. Bison Books, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln Nebraska 1969.

-----The West of William Ashley. Edited by Dale L. Morgan, The Old West Publishing Company. Denver, Colorado, 1964.

Nestor, William R. The Arikara War: The First Plains Indian War, 1823. Mountain Press Publishing Company, Missoula, Montana. 2001.

Neihardt, John G.. The Splendid Wayfaring: Jedediah Smith and the Ashley-Henry Men. 1822-1831. Bison Books. University of Nebraska Press. Lincoln, Nebraska. 1970.

Oglesby, Richard Edward. Manuel Lisa and the Opening of the Missouri Fur Trade. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman Oklahoma. 1963.

Sunder, John E. Bill Sublette Mountain Man. University of Oklahoma Press. Norman, Oklahoma. 1973.

Sullivan, Maurice S. The Travels of Jedediah Smith: A documentary outline including his journal. University of Nebraska Press. Lincoln, Nebraska. 1992.

Victor, Mrs. Francis Fuller. River of the West. Mountain Press Publishing Co., Missoula, MT, 1983.

Wissler, Clark. Indians of the United States. Double Day Inc. Garden City, New York, N. Y. 1966.

Wood, Raymond W. Thiessen, Thomas D. Early Fur Trade of the Northern Plains. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma. 1985.