James P. Beckwourth

Jim Beckwourth was an African American who played a major role in the early exploration and settlement of the American West. Beckwourth was the only African American who recorded his life story, and his adventures took him from the everglades of Florida to the Pacific Ocean and from southern Canada to northern Mexico.

James Beckwourth was born into slavery in Virginia in 1805. He moved to St. Louis and learned to be a blacksmith. In 1822 he decided to head west. So, Beckwourth joined an expedition headed for the lead mines. In 1824, he joined William Ashley’s third and most difficult fur-trapping expedition to the Rocky Mountains. Beckwourth received a crash course in the dangers of mountain life, just barely managing to avoid death by freezing, starvation, and Indian attacks.

In the following years, he became a famous fur trapper and mountain man. Beckwourth worked with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and was an Indian fighter. Despite the risks, Beckwourth enjoyed being a mountain man, and he spent the next several years as a free trapper.Beckwourth is credited with discovering Beckwourth Pass in 1850. This is a low elevation pass.

It goes through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In 1851 he improved the Beckwourth Trail. This was originally a Native American path through the mountains. The trail allowed people to travel more quickly and safely.

Jim Bridger

James Bridger was one of the greatest frontiersmen of Utah and American history. During his lifetime he was a hunter, trapper, trader, Indian fighter, and guide, and one of only a few trappers to remain in the Rockies after the end of the fur trade. In 1822 young Bridger answered William Ashley's call for one hundred “enterprising young men.”

Bridger went with a group to the Yellowstone River, where Hugh Glass was attacked by a grizzly. He camped in the Salt Lake Valley in two camps: one at the mouth of the Weber River and one on the Bear. Bridger spent four years on the Wasatch Front, spending some of his winters in the Salt Lake Valley. He was present at all the rendezvous, including the Cache Valley rendezvous of 1826 at present-day Laketown, Utah.

In 1830 Bridger and four others created formed the Rocky Mountain Fur Company but by the end of the decade the fur trade itself was over. He made to be Fort Bridger, located on Black's Fork of the Green River. It became one of the main trading posts for the western migration, to serve the wagon trains heading to the far West.

In June 1847 Bridger first met the Mormon pioneers. At this gathering, Bridger and Brigham Young discussed the settling in the Salt Lake Valley. Where it is said that Jim Bridger told Brigham Young that he would give $1000 for the first bushel of corn grown in the Valley. Also during this meeting Bridger drew his map on the ground for Young depicting the region with great accuracy.

The coming of the Mormons increased the number of immigrants at the fort. However, the Mormon settlements attracted away a significant portion of Bridger's trade, including that of the Indians, causing economic hardships for the post.

Bridger sold his fort to the Mormons for $8,000. However, in 1857, the fort was destroyed by the Mormons to hinder the advance of Albert Sidney Johnston's Army.

Peter Skene Ogden Peter Skene Ogden was born in 1794, in Quebec Canada. He is not French but the son of loyalists who fled to Canada after the American Revolution.  He was a Canadian fur trader and a major explorer of the American West—the Great Basin, Oregon and northern California, and the Snake River country. He was the first to traverse the intermountain West from north to south.

Between 1824 and 1830 Ogden set out on a series of expeditions to explore the Snake River country. One of the company's objectives was to bring as many furs from this area as possible to discourage American trappers and traders. As a fur trader Ogden automatically became an explorer of new territory.

For many years he led annual trading expeditions to deal with Native Americans in competition with American traders operating out of St. Louis, Missouri.

In 1825 he reached the river in Utah that was named after him his name. In 1828–29: Ogden explored the Great Salt Lake and the Weber River drainage, where the Ogden River, and subsequently the current city of Ogden, Utah, is named for him. He also explored southern Oregon and northeastern California including discovering the Humboldt River in northern Nevada, and made the first reconnaissance of the eastern face of the Sierra Nevadas discovering Carson and Owens Lakes.

Ogden knew a number of Native American languages and was twice married to Native American women. He always remained a British subject. He spoke French as fluently as English and was known to traders as “Monsieur Pete.” His Traits of American-Indian Life and Character (1853) was published anonymously in London.

Etienne Provost Jim Bridger may have been known as the first mountain man to see the Great Salt Lake, but Etienne Provost (pra-vo) is also given this fame.  

Etienne Provost was considered by his contemporaries as one of the most knowledgeable, skillful, and successful of the mountain men. Of French Canadian ancestry, Provost was born in 1785 in Chambly, Quebec. Around 1814 he became involved in the St. Louis fur trade, often trapping in what was still Spanish territory. Described as short, fat and round, he guided important expeditions into the valleys. He also established Indian trading posts along the shores of the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake. At the trading posts the Indians could trade furs for metal objects, cloth, and other things from the East.

Often the Indian people and the trappers got along well together, but Provost was not so lucky. He and other trappers met a group of Indians in the valley of the Great Salt Lake the Indian leader invited Provost and his men to sit and smoke a peace pipe with him. Provost and his men put down their weapons and joined the group. At a signal from their leader, the Indians attack the trappers. Provost and a few of his men dashed for satefy and escaped. The rest were killed. This was the first reported clash between American Indians and non-Indians in Utah.

Provost and his party met Peter Skene Ogden and members of his Hudson's Bay Company trapping party on the Weber River, near present-day Mountain Green. But spent much of his time working in New Mexico.

Provost also met William Ashley’s large trapping party and helped to guide Ashley to the site of the first annual mountain man rendezvous at Henry’s Fork.

The city of Provo and the Provo River are named after Provost.

Captain Benjamin Bonneville

Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville (1796-1878) was a French-born army officer, frontiersman and explorer of the American West, His family moved to the United States in 1803. Benjamin was well educated and graduated from West Point in 1815. As a young man, he was inspired by the writings of Hall J. Kelley, as well as editorials in the St. Louis Enquirer, which were edited by Thomas Hart Benton, that promoted exploration of the American West.

Bonneville met with Kelley, who was impressed by him and appointed him to lead one of the expeditions to the Oregon Country that were to leave in early 1832. However, the lack of volunteers for the expedition forced the delay and eventual cancellation of the expedition, leaving Bonneville still anxiously wanting to explore the west. In 1832, Bonneville took a leave from the military and led 110 men on an expedition into Wyoming Territory. They went up the Missouri River then to the Platte River, they reached the Green River in Wyoming in August and built a winter fort, which they named Fort Bonneville.

The following spring, the expedition explored along the Snake River in present-day Idaho, and another party, under the leadership of Joseph Walker, was sent to explore the Great Salt Lake and to try to find an overland route to California.

During his lifetime, his explorations were made famous by writer, Washington Irving, who published the book, The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, in 1837.

The ancient sea which covered much of Utah is named after him.

Joseph R. Walker

Joseph Reddeford Walker was a trapper who later worked as a guide for pioneer groups going to California. He was one of the greatest trailblazing mountain men and the first Anglo-American to see Yosemite and was born in Tennessee.

Although he had little formal education, Walker was an exceptionally intelligent explorer and leader, possessing an extraordinary ability to read and remember the geography and topography of uncharted regions. The trail he established across Nevada became the main route for travel to California, known as Walker Pass became known as the California Trail and was much used during the California Gold Rush.

Although much of Walker’s route had already been used by others, it was his published report of the route that made it popular to travelers.

Walker, who married an Indian woman, knew the Indians of the Great Basin better than most white trappers. However he spent little time in Utah.

Walker’s journeys into the relatively unexplored far western regions of the continent began when he met Captain Benjamin Bonneville, who asked him to join his trapping and trading expedition into the West. The following year, Walker, embarked on a daring journey west into the Mexican province of Alta California, a feat that had only been accomplished by two other Anglos, Jedediah Smith and Peter Ogden.

Ignoring the trails blazed by his predecessors, Walker instead led a small group of men on a new route through the Sierras that proved far more challenging than expected, and at several points the explorers were reduced to eating their horses to stay alive. But after crossing the Continental Divide on November 13, 1833, Walker and his men were rewarded with an amazing sight that no Anglo-American had ever before seen: the mighty redwoods and majestic waterfalls of the Yosemite Valley. Later in life, every man in the troop recalled that day of discovery as among the greatest of his life.

In the following years, Walker worked as a guide for explorers like John C. Fremont. He also led countless emigrant parties to California.

Walkara

A man of legend, Walkara was a colorful figure. Chief Walkara, also known as Walker, was born about 1808, along the Spanish Fork River in what is now Utah, one of five sons of a chief of the Timpanogo band.

Described as being over six feet tall and extremely strong, he was a successful warrior from a young age. His piercing eyes earned him the nickname "Hawk of the Mountains." He was an intelligent, resourceful Ute who took what he wanted. An excellent horseman and hunter, he was joined by other war-minded Indians from several bands of Utes. Together they raided Navajos, Paiutes, and Goshutes, stealing horses, women and children. They sold the women and children for slaves to other bands and later to the Spanish.

Also known for his excellent marksmanship, discipline, and bravery, he quickly became a leader, gathering a raiding band of warriors from the Great Basin tribes, including Utes, Paiute and Shoshone.

He attacked ranches and travelers along the Old Spanish Trail. Other tribes feared him so much they paid him tribute in return for protection and assistance. He often wore yellow face paint and became known as a great horse thief, stealing some 3000 horses James Beckwourth was known to trade whisky with Walkara in return for horses.

Walkara spoke Spanish and English in addition to his native language. Later when the Mormon pioneers came, Walkara sent many messages back and forth to Brigham Young. He invited the Mormons to settle in what is now Manti, which they did.

Jedediah Smith

Jedediah Strong Smith, born Jan 6, 1798 one of America’s greatest trapper-explorers, was born in Bainbridge, New York. Jedediah Strong Smith, the son of a New York general store owner, was a hunter, trapper, fur trader, trailblazer, author, cartographer and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, North American West and Southwest.

At age 24, Smith joined the fur trader William Ashley. Unlike earlier fur traders, who depended on Native Americans to actually trap or hunt the furs, Ashley sent out independent Anglo trappers like Smith to do the job. Smith became one of Ashley’s best explorers. In September 1823, while Smith was leading a small band of trappers west overland a grizzly bear nearly killed him. The beast broke several of his ribs, tore away one eyebrow, gashed his scalp in numerous places, and practically destroyed one of his ears. Smith's companions hurriedly attended to his wounds, but because deep scars remained, Smith wore shoulder-length hair for the rest of his life.

The following year Smith and his men traveled with the large Hudson's Bay Company trapping party led by Peter Ogden into the Snake River Valley. During the winter of 1824/1825 Ashley brought trade goods to the mountains. Smith led another party of trappers to the area around the Great Salt Lake. He and his partners, David Jackson, and William Sublette, dominated American trapping and trading efforts in the northern Rockies until 1830. He discovered that a place to cross the mighty Rockies almost effortlessly.

Later named the “South Pass,” Smith’s new route was a high plain that gradually rose like a shallow ramp to provide an easy crossing of the Continental Divide which alerted the nation to the existence of this easy route across the Rockies. Smith’s discovery of South Pass was monumentally important. Not only did his fellow fur trappers prefer South Pass to the far more difficult and dangerous Missouri River route blazed by Lewis and Clark in 1804, but the South Pass became an early 19th century “super-highway” for settlers bound for Oregon and California. Ideally suited for heavy wagon traffic, South Pass made the mass emigration of Americans to the Far West possible.

He was killed by Indians at a water hole.

Antoine Robidoux

Antoine Robidoux was born on 24th September 1794 in Florissant, Missouri and was French Canadian. (Does that strike you as odd? He’s French Canadian but born in Missouri!)

He moved to Sante Fe in 1823 and became a mountain man trapping beavers in the Rocky Mountains. Robidoux also built trading posts on the Gunnison River and in the Unita Mountains of Utah. He is the most colorful and perhaps the best known of the six Robidoux brothers. Robidoux worked out of New Mexico with Provost. He built many forts and used them as trading post.

Robidoux spoke English, Spanish, French, Ute and other Indian Languages. Fort Robidoux in the Uinta Basin was his trading center among the Utes. While he was there, he carved a message in French on a rock. In English it says: Antoine Robidoux passed here November 13, 1837, to establish a house of trade at the Green or Uinta River.

In letters he sent back East he helped to publicize the merits of settling in California.

Juan Rivera

Wanting to expand the Spanish Empire to stop the expansion of other European powers, and to enrich themselves, New Mexican authorities sent expeditions northward. In 1765, a Ute from the north had sold an ingot of silver to a blacksmith in a small settlement northwest of Santa Fe. That transaction set in motion a series of events that led to two well-documented European explorations into Utah. Believing that the fringe territories held numerous, easily mined treasures, Juan Maria Antonio Rivera led a small party of Spaniards to the Dolores River in western Colorado.

After Rivera's return to Santa Fe from the north in July 1765 he was asked to return to eht lasnd he had just visited to seek "trade, fair treatment, and alliances."

Most of the journey took Rivera along trails well-worn by Spanish and Ute traders in Colorado. He crossed into Utah northeast of Monticello, most likely on October 6, 1765. Continuing northwestward, they skirted the southwestern base of the La Sal Mountains and pushed into Spanish Valley, which flows toward the present site of Moab. There they discovered an excellent ford of the broad, deep Colorado.

As a symbol of discovery, conquest, and Spanish sovereignty, Rivera left a large cross with an inscription. Instead of pressing farther into Utah before returning to Santa Fe, the explorers apparently followed the Colorado upstream, perhaps as far as the Gunnison and the Uncompahgre in western Colorado, probably in search of Lake Copala. Although Rivera had found neither gold nor European villages, he had discovered an excellent ford later used by the Old Spanish Trail, and he had documented a portion of the route that was followed eleven years later by Dominguez and Escalante.

Meriwether Lewis

Meriwether Lewis teamed up with William Clark to form the historic expedition pairing Lewis and Clark, who together explored the lands west of the Mississippi.

Born on August 18, 1774, near Ivy, Virginia, Meriwether Lewis, in 1801, was asked by President Thomas Jefferson to act as his private secretary. Jefferson asked Lewis to gather information about the plants, animals, and peoples of the region. Lewis jumped at the chance and selected old friend William Clark to join him as co-commander of the expedition.

Lewis, Clark, and the rest of their expedition began their journey near St. Louis, Missouri, in May 1804. This group of more than 30 men—often called the Corps of Discovery by historians—faced nearly every obstacle and hardship imaginable on their trip. They braved dangerous waters and harsh weather and endured hunger, illness, injury and fatigue.

Along the way, Lewis kept a detailed journal and collected samples of plants and animals he encountered. Lewis and his expedition received assistance in their mission from many of the native peoples they met during their journey westward because they were the first white man many of them had seen.

The Mandans provided them with supplies during their first winter. It was during this time that expedition picked up two new members, Sacagawea and Touissant Charbonneau. The two acted as interpreters for the expedition and Sacagawea, Charbonneau's wife and a Shoshone Indian, was able to help get horses for the group later in the journey.

Their successful return and the stories they told opened the West to settlement a hundred years sooner than Thomas Jefferson thought.

William Clark

Born on August 1, 1770, in Caroline County, Virginia, William Clark went on to become half of the legendary exploration team of Lewis and Clark. The journey began when Meriwether Lewis invited him to share command of an expedition of the lands west of the Mississippi River. After more than two years and more than 8,000 miles, the expedition helped mapmakers understand the geography of the West.

U.S. soldier and explorer William Clark was born on August 1, 1770, in Caroline County, Virginia. A younger brother to Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark, William Clark entered the military at the age of 19. First he served in the militia and then entered the U.S. Army. Clark became friends with Meriwether Lewis while the two served together in 1795. The next year he resigned from the army to become the manager of his family's estate.

In 1803, Clark received a letter from his old friend Lewis, inviting him to share command of an expedition of the lands west of the Mississippi River. The legendary journey began the following May in St. Louis, Missouri. An experienced soldier and outdoorsman, Clark helped keep the expedition moving. He was also an excellent mapmaker and helped to figure what routes the expedition should take.

In early July, Lewis and Clark decided to divide into two groups to see more of the area. Clark took a group with him to explore the Yellowstone River. During this part of the journey, he named a rock formation after Sacagawea's son, calling it Pompy's Tower. The formation stands near what is now Billings, Montana, and bears the only physical trace of the entire expedition's path—"W Clark July 25 1806" carved on its surface.

Sacagawea

Sacagawea age 16, a Shoshone Indian slave who had been kidnapped by the Mandan Indians at age 11, and her husband Touissant Charbonneau, a French-Canadian trader, to join the expedition as interpreters was part of the more than 30 member Corps of Discovery known as the Lewis and Clark expedition.

During the journey, Sacagawea gave birth to a child named Jean Baptiste in February 1805. The child was later nicknamed "Little Pomp" or "Pomp" by William Clark.

The expedition made it to the present-day Oregon coast in November 1805. They built a fort they named Fort Clatsop and waited out the winter there. In March, the expedition prepared to make the journey back to St. Louis.

Without her help at the Gates of the Mountains which was land she recognized from traveling there as a child, the Corps would have gone the wrong way and would not have received help from the Shoshone band which rescued them when they became lost in the mountains and they nearly starved. Also, the Shoshone band was led by Sacagawea’s own brother Camewait.

One time when a canoe flipped over all the records and plant samples were floating down river, it was Sacagawea who had the calm sense to pick them out of the river and save much of their efforts.

Sacagawea was never paid for her help.

John Wesley Powell

Not really a mountain man, John Wesley Powell was a soldier, scientist, and explorer. He is best known for his daring exploratory trips down the Green and Colorado Rivers in 1869 and 1872, and is credited with leading the first group of white men down the Colorado River through present day Grand Canyon.

Powell was born in Mount Morris, New York, in 1834, the son of Joseph and Mary Powell. His father, a poor itinerant preacher, had emigrated to the U.S. from England, in 1830.

In 1869, ten men in four wood row boats were about to embark on a journey that would cover almost 1,000 miles through uncharted canyons and change the west forever. Three months later, only five of the original company plus their one-armed Civil War hero leader would emerge from the depths of the Grand Canyon at the mouth of the Virgin River.

Thirty-five-year-old Major John Wesley Powell was that expedition’s leader. From early childhood, Powell manifested deep interest in all natural phenomena. Original and self-reliant to a remarkable degree, he early undertook collection and exploring trips quite unusual for a youth of his age and studied botany, zoology, and geology wholly without the aid of a teacher.

Powell was born in Mount Morris, New York, in 1834. He had served in the Civil War, where he lost his right arm at the Battle of Shiloh.

Lake Powell today, is named after him.

John Henry Weber

John Henry Weber was born in 1779 in Denmark. By 1807 he migrated to America where he became acquainted with William Ashley. In 1822 Weber enlisted in the Ashley-Henry Fur Company which left St. Louis in the spring bound for the beaver trade of the Upper Missouri River. After reaching the mouth of the Yellowstone River, the company divided into two trapping brigades and it appears very probable that Weber commanded one of them. Certainly Weber was considered one of the most prominent members of the entire Ashley-Henry company.

For roughly the next five years, Weber's life was occupied in the Rocky Mountain fur trade, a significant portion of which was spent in Utah. During the summer of 1824, his brigade crossed South Pass and the Green River Valley and descended upon the Bear River region for the fall hunt. As winter approached, the company journeyed to "Sweet Lake" (Bear Lake), then to the Bear River's north bend and south to "Willow Valley" (Cache Valley). Weber's brigade spent the winter of 1824-25 in Cache Valley on Cub Creek, near present-day Cove, Utah.

Allegedly, while in Cache Valley, discussions arose concerning the remaining course of the Bear River. A subordinate of Weber, a young Jim Bridger, was selected to settle the question by floating down the river during which voyage he came upon the Great Salt Lake.

The following spring hunt Weber's brigade traveled throughout northern Utah and met up with Peter Skene Ogden's Snake Country Expedition near present-day Mountain Green, Utah. That summer, Weber and his brigade were at the first rendezvous held near present McKinnon, Wyoming, just north of the Utah border.

In the winter of 1825-26 in the Salt Lake Valley his men were forced by the winter's severity to move their winter quarters from Cache Valley. The Weber River was so christened during this winter camp. Many names get their name from that river today: Weber University, County, Canyon, and others.

Weber attended the rendezvous of 1826 in Cache Valley, the close of which appears to mark the end of Weber's own fur trade adventures. There is no clue as to why he left the mountains; however, it is possible that he left because of his age or because his friend, Andrew Henry, had already left the mountains.

William H. Ashley The Man who Started it All -- Almost

General William H. Ashley was not a mountain man but he sure influence them!

William Henry Ashley (ca. 1778-1838), American businessman, fur trader and explorer, and politician, was a leading figure in the organization and operation of the Rocky Mountain fur trade during the 1820s. General Unlike earlier fur traders, who depended on Native Americans to actually trap or hunt the furs, Ashley eliminated the Indians as middlemen and instead sent out independent Anglo trappers like Smith to do the job.

Ashley went to the Rocky Mountains twice; he attended the 1825 and 1826 Rocky Mountain Rendezvous. After the Sweetwater Rendezvous of 1826, William Ashley sold out and never returned to the mountains. Ashley's only interest in the Rocky Mountain fur trade was to make money to further his political ambitions.

Ashley’s fur trading career started with and ad by the William H. Ashley-Andrew Henry Fur Company in the Missouri Gazette & Public Advertiser Feb. 13, 1822 where he advertised for “enterprising young men” to enter the trade. Ashley's advertisement encouraged a number of the most famous of the trappers and mountain men to enter the trade.

While working for Ashley, Jedediah Smith brought back news of South Pass; Ashley took wagons over it and later explored parts of the Colorado River Valley.  

Kit Carson

Kit Carson was an American frontiersman, trapper, soldier and Indian agent who made an important contribution to the westward expansion of the United States.

A chance encounter in 1842 with the explorer John C. Frémont made Kit Carson an active participant in extending the boundaries of the United States to its present size. He fought with Mexico during the Mexican American War and when he wasn’t fighting, he was acting as a guide for people in Colorado and New Mexico.

Born on Christmas Eve, 1809, Christopher "Kit" Carson became one of the most famous figures in the American West. He grew up on the Missouri frontier on lands bought from the sons of Western hero Daniel Boone. From an early age, Carson knew both the beauty and the danger that this area possessed. He and his family often feared attacks on their cabin from Native Americans.

Forced to help his family when his father died, Kit never learned to read—a fact he later tried to hide and was ashamed of. At the age of 14, he headed west on the Santa Fe Trail, working as a laborer in a caravan of merchants.

Carson eventually learned the ins and outs of trapping in the sometimes hostile lands of the West. He became one of the famed mountain men, who lived and worked in the wilderness. He worked for Jim Bridger and the Hudson Bay Company at different times. Along the way, Carson learned to speak Spanish, French and several Native American languages.

In 1842, Carson met explorer John C. Frémont, an officer with the United States Topographical Corps, while traveling on a steamboat. Frémont soon hired Carson to join him as a guide on his first expedition. With his many years living rough in the woods, Carson was the ideal candidate to help the group make their way to the South Pass in the Rocky Mountains. Frémont's reports from the expedition, which praised Carson, helped make him one of the most famous mountain men.

Carson also later became a popular hero in many Western novels. Carson is still remembered for his many roles—trapper, explorer, Indian agent and soldier. With his tremendous life experiences, he has come to symbolize the American West.

John Charles Fremont

John C. Fremont was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1813, the son of Charles Fremont, a French emigrant. Fremont spent his boyhood in Charleston and was educated in the Scientific Department of the College of Charleston but he was expelled three months short of graduation.

He went west surveying for the government. During the next twelve years, Fremont led five expeditions into the West. On the first, he surveyed the Platte "up to the head of the Sweetwater"; on the second, of fourteen months duration, he made a circuit of the entire West, launching his India-rubber boat on the Great Salt Lake on the outbound trip and examining Utah Lake on the return. The third expedition took him across the Salt Lake Desert.

He got involved in the struggle to take California from Mexico and was court-martialed for it. His expedition in the snows of the rugged San Juan Mountains of Colorado nearly ended in disaster and his last exploration was rescued by the Mormons who lived in Parowan.

He ran for president but lost to James Buchanan.

Fremont's grandest achievement was in exploring the West and making it known through his lively, readable reports (prepared with the help of his wife) and his maps (drawn with the assistance of Charles Preuss). They seem to have been influential in the Mormons' decision to settle in the Salt Lake Valley. He also discovered and named the Great Basin as a geologic and geographic entity and established the correct elevation of the Great Salt Lake at 4,200 feet.

Howard Stansbury

Howard Stansbury was a major in the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers. His most notable achievement was leading a two-year expedition to survey the Great Salt Lake and its surroundings.

The expedition report entitled Exploration and survey of the valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah, including a reconnaissance of a new route through the Rocky Mountains gave the first serious scientific exploration of the flora and fauna of the Great Salt Lake Valley as well as a favorable impression of the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who had settled there beginning in 1847.

He was born in 1806 in New York City and trained as a civil engineer. In 1849 Stansbury was ordered to travel from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to survey the Great Salt Lake in Utah, to evaluate emigration trails along the way (especially the Oregon and Mormon trails), and to scout for possible locations for a transcontinental railroad. The expedition consisted of 18 men including second-in-command Lieutenant John Williams Gunnison.

During the next two years, the expedition explored the Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake and the Cache Valley of northern Utah all the way to Fort Hall in southern Idaho. When he arrived in the Utah Territory, the Mormon leaders were worried that the expedition was part of an effort by the U.S government to oust the settlers. Stansbury held a meeting with Brigham Young where he assured the leader that the expedition was purely scientific. Young responded by assigning his personal secretary, Albert Carrington, to assist the expedition

In 1850 Bridger consulted and guided the Stansbury expedition, which established a road much of which would later become the route of the Overland Stage and the Union Pacific Railroad. The same year, the territory of Utah was created; it included under its jurisdiction the Fort Bridger area.

The mountains by Tooele are named after him.

Lt. John Gunnison

John Williams Gunnison was born on November 11, 1812 in Goshen, New Hampshire. After he grew up he became a school teacher. During his years as a teacher, he prepared himself to enter West Point Military Academy. In June of 1837 he graduated second out of fifty.           

Gunnison’s first sight of the western lands came as a member of the Captain Stansbury’s Utah Territory Expedition of 1849. Their task was to explore the route to the Mormon community in Utah.

After a long, yet beautiful journey through the Great Plains and southern Wyoming, they arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. They explored and mapped the Great Salt Lake region and gathered scientific information about their surroundings. That winter incredible amounts of snow fell bringing with it many dangers and hardships.

The Stansbury party is credited with being the first to completely circumvent the lake by land.  The exploration team wintered in the Salt Lake Valley, completing their works by the following summer.  The exploration team left Utah after surveying and mapping the Jordan River, Utah Lake, and the Great Salt Lake.  Gunnison and his men decided to navigate around what is now known as the Black Canyon and follow an easier route west through the present day town of Montrose. When the expedition finally reached Utah, Gunnison witnessed the destruction left by Paiute Indian raids on Mormon settlements.

Local residents reassured the expedition that the attacks were not a serious threat because peace talks had just taken place. After a trip for provisions to the town of Fillmore, Gunnison divided the troops to make up for lost time. He went ahead with a crew of soldiers and guides on October 25 and the party camped along the bank of the Sevier River. The attack came during the early hours of the next morning. Only four men of his party survived. John W. Gunnison never returned home to his family.

Gunnison’s spirit of adventure and longing for the landscapes of the West made him unique among explorers. His place in the history of exploration in the United States brought early Americans closer to an understanding of the wild country beyond the Mississippi River and the tradeoffs that often must be made in order to experience those places. Today it gives us an idea about why the landscapes of the west were so magnetic for John W. Gunnison and continue to be so for many explorers and adventurers, regardless of the personal costs.

James Clyman

James Clyman began life on a farm owned by George Washington. He fought in the War of 1812. In St. Louis he met General William Ashley. At age 31 (the oldest in the group) he went with Ashley heading into the West looking for furs.

The life of a 19th century mountain man was exciting, but often violent and brief. One fur-trading partnership led by Jedediah Smith reported that over a six-year period his company employed about 180 men.

Of those hired, 94 were killed by Indians. That doesn’t include the men who died from grizzly bear attacks, blizzards, hypothermia or drowning. For these bold frontiersmen death lurked behind every hill, tree and boulder.

James Clyman was unusual among the early trappers because he kept a journal in which he chronicled his incredible adventures. Although telling tale tales was considered an art among mountain men, Clyman’s first-hand recollections are a conspicuously sober and meticulous record. His experience as a land surveyor compelled him to take measurements and note down facts. He was a keen, thorough, and precise observer of the landscape around him.

Many mountain men were crude, illiterate frontiersmen, sometimes on the run from the law, the church, their families, or anything else that tried to tie them down. In contrast, James Clyman was born into a family of respectable tenant farmers.

He was well-educated for the time; his literary tastes included Shakespeare, Byron and, of course, the Bible. Many frontiersmen were unkempt runaways from society, but Clyman carried himself with bearing and dignity.

Like all mountain men, Clyman was independent and self-supporting. He wore a fringed buckskin suit and carried a powder horn, shot pouch, tomahawk, knife, pistol and a muzzle-loading rifle. Besides buckskin pants and shirt, trappers often wore an overcoat made from a thick Hudson’s Bay blanket.

No matter the season, Clyman needed nothing that he couldn’t obtain using only the equipment on his back. Clyman was stingy with words and not easy to know, but when the chips were down, he was the man to have at your side.

Joaquin

In 1776 Joaquin was only twelve years old when he helped to guide the Catholic priests Escalante and Dominguez on their journey. Joaquin helped guide the party through its entire journey, the only Utah native to do so. The Fathers met the Ute boy at a Ute village in Colorado, but he was originally from Utah Valley. This Utah native offered to help guide the expedition. The Fathers gave him the Spanish name of Joaquin, and the boy traveled the entire 1,700 miles with them.

Before the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition had been underway a month--moving north through New Mexico and into Colorado--Father Escalante learned about a settlement of Indians to the northeast. Hoping he could persuade one of them to guide his party through the unknown land--Utah--to the west, he made a historic detour. At this Indian camp, Father Escalante told the natives about the good news of the Lord. "All listened with pleasure," he recorded. One of these Indians agreed to guide the explorers. As they were leaving, a young Laguna Indian boy unexpectedly decided to go with them. He didn't even have a horse, but to avoid further delay, Father Escalante put him on the back of his own horse. The Spaniards called this Indian boy, Joaquin.

Near Jensen, Utah, on September 14, 1776, the explorers made camp on the Green River (near Dinosaur National Monument). They remained there overnight while the tired animals grazed on the abundant pasture land and had a good rest.

While they were there, Joaquin must have grown restless, because he mounted a high-spirited horse and, while galloping across a meadow, it tripped in a hole and fell. The quote from Father Escalante's diary concerning this incident gives some insight into either his patience or his affection toward this young Indian:

"We were frightened, thinking that the Laguna had been badly hurt by the fall because when he had recovered from his fright, he wept copious tears. But God was pleased that the only damage was that done to the horse which completely broke its neck, leaving it useless."

On September 23, 1776, Escalante arrived at Utah Lake, which was in Laguna territory. The party's initial meeting with the Laguna Indians was a success because of Joaquin.

At first some Lagunas had come out to meet them with weapons, but the Indians were convinced of the group's good intentions "on seeing that the boy Joaquin was on such good terms with us that he paid no attention to his own people. He even refused to leave the fathers....sleeping at his side during the brief space of time that was left in this night. Such an attitude found in an Indian boy so far from civilization that he had never before seen fathers or Spaniards was an occasion for surprise not only to his own people but to us as well."

Hugh Glass Hugh Glass born in 1780 was an American fur trapper and frontiersman from Pennsylvania It was said that he was a former pirate who gave up his life at sea to travel to the West as a scout and fur trapper. In 1822, Glass joined the William Henry Ashley’s group hunting fur.

Glass surprised a grizzly bear and her two cubs while scouting for the party. The grizzly attacked him before he could fire his rifle. Using only his knife and bare hands, Glass wrestled the bear to the ground and killed it, but in the process he was badly mauled and bitten. 

His companions, hearing his screams, arrived on the scene to see a bloody and badly maimed Glass barely alive and the bear lying on top of him. They shot the bear head and uncovered Glass's mangled body. They bandaged his wounds the best they could and waited for him to die. Ashley asked for volunteers to stay until Glass was dead and then bury him. John Fitzgerald and Jim Bridger agreed and immediately began digging the grave. But after three days Glass was still alive when Fitzgerald and Bridger began to panic as a band of hostile Indians was seen approaching. The two men picked up Glass's rifle, knife and other equipment and dumped him into the open grave. They threw a bearskin over him and shoveled in a thin layer of dirt and leaves, leaving Glass for dead. 

But Glass did not die. After an unknown time, he regained consciousness to a very grim situation. He was alone and unarmed in hostile Indian territory. He had a broken leg and his wounds were festering. His scalp was almost torn away and the flesh on his back had been ripped away so that his rib bones were exposed. The nearest help was 200 miles away. His only protection was the bearskin hide.

Glass set his own broken leg and began crawling toward the Cheyenne River about 100 miles away. Fever and infection took their toll and frequently rendered him unconscious. Once he passed out and awoke to discover a huge grizzly standing over him. According to the legend, the animal licked his maggot-infested wounds. This may have saved Glass from further infection and death. Glass survived mostly on wild berries and roots. On one occasion he was able to drive two wolves from a downed bison calf and eat the raw meat.

Glass was driven by revenge. He told others that the only thing that kept him going was the thought of killing the men who had left him for dead. It took Glass two months to crawl to the Cheyenne River. There he built a raft from a fallen tree.

 After he regained his health, which took many months, Glass did indeed set out to kill the two men who had left him for dead. He found Bridger at a fur trading post on the Yellowstone River but didn't kill him because Bridger was only 19 years old. Glass later found Fitzgerald but didn't kill him either because Fitzgerald had joined the Army. 

Sir William Drummond Stewart:

Sir William Drummond Stewart is a Scottish nobleman who came to North America seeking adventure in the Rocky Mountains, and fell in love with the people, scenery and life.  He is a unique mountain men.  He spent parts of seven years living in the western wilderness, performing the duties of a hunter and brigade captain. In the last years he spent in the west, his financial situation, improved, and with the luxuries he could now afford he became a kind of wilderness prince. He even hired a painter to paint pictures about his experiences.

William Drummond Stewart was born December 26, 1795 at Murthly Castle, Perthshire, Scotland.  William was educated at home by tutors.  Only the eldest son could inherit the titles and estate, and as second son, it was decided that William would go into the Army—which he did and fought Napoleon’s army.

Some time in 1832 William had a huge fight with his brother who held the family’s money.  In the time following the quarrel, William determined to escape the London social scene and the confines of family by travel and adventure.  He was attracted by North America and the Far West.  The promise of wild vistas, struggle and danger in the Western wilderness held an appeal to a basic part of his character.  

His first Rendezvous was in 1833 and he attended the last great Rendezvous in 1840. The Rendezvous system of meeting and fur trade ended because not only were the beaver trapped out, but steamships running the Missouri River made them unnecessary.

In 1843 he took a group (sort of the first tour group) into the Wind River Range to have just fun and adventure. He planned to run the trip under a form of military discipline, but he also planned on having available all those luxuries which could be transported to the wilderness.  The trip was not a real success and everyone ended up arguing, fighting and the group split up before they returned to St. Louis.

Don Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco, cartographer of the Dominguez-Escalante expedition of 1776

Born in 1713 to a family of minor nobility in the northern Spain, Miera left almost no biographical details until he showed up in El Paso around 1740. We do have some good

physical descriptions of him as an adult, and he was a man of striking appearance. He was very short, not quite five feet tall, with a thin nose, very light skin, blue eyes, and thick chestnut hair with full beard. He moved to to Santa Fe in the 1750s.

Ultimately it was his artistic talent that brought him success. Northern New Spain (the American Southwest) was poorly known to the Spanish government and subject to repeated problems with the various Indian tribes. Miera proved to be an excellent mapmaker, and was sent on multiple reconnaissance missions to produce a cartographic record of the area.

He went with Fathers Escalante and Dominguez seeking out a trade route from Sante Fe to California. On the trip Miera was repeatedly ill with stomach and intestinal troubles. He was very independent, which often caused trouble for his companions. On at least one occasion he deliberately took a different course from that of the rest of the group and stayed away so long that another man was sent out to search for him. However, Miera was evidently the senior member of the expedition, and others often turned to him for practical information including the identification of metals encountered along the route.

In what is now Utah, his calculations led him to believe that Monterey was only a week's travel farther on and that the expedition should press onward to the west, to claim the glory of opening a usable route, despite the imminent onset of winter in early October. Against his pleading, and that of several other expeditionaries, Domínguez and Escalante determined instead, to turn back. They however left the final decision to the casting of lots, which ultimately supported their decision. Had the group continued toward Monterey, it would have been without Domínguez and Vélez de Escalante, leaving Miera as the group’s sole and authoritative leader.

During the return trip to Santa Fe, Miera suffered from the bitterly cold weather. Domínguez and Escalante wrote that he "was ready to freeze on us," and they feared that he "could not survive such cold." But he survived, and from the data he had compiled along the way, he drew a two-sheet map of the lands the expedition had covered. Miera mapped the route from Santa Fe northwest to Lake Provo, southeast to Glen Canyon, and back to Santa Fe through the Hopi pueblos and Zuni. It is crowded with representations of landforms and various types of native settlements. Plotted according to latitude, are the nightly stops, or parajes, where the expedition camped. The dense style is uniquely that of Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco.

It was the first of its kind.