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Mountain Men Part I #29

Mar 14, 2024

mountain

man and three who became prominent citizens of Santa Barbara. My name is George Sampanus and I will be your host as we open a window into Santa Barbara's past. Mountain men of a breed a

part

. My original plan was to tell the stories of Louis Burton, Isaac Sparks and George. gentleman every three

mountain

men who found their way to Santa Barbara and became prominent citizens and to give a brief history of the fur trading and trapping industry and the men who influenced and influenced their lives prior to their arrival here. I soon realized the story I wanted to tell. say that it was too long for one presentation, which led me to present it in two

part

s.
mountain men part i 29
The first part will focus on those men whose adventures and explorations touched and influenced the lives of our three Mountain Men. In part two, we will explore in more detail the lives and adventures of Burton Sparks and the Night as we follow them on their dangerous journey through the desert to California and then to Santa Barbara as a prelude to our story. The fur trade dates back to classical Greek and Roman times, the demand for beaver pelts for hats in the 15th and 16th centuries caused the European beaver population to be virtually eliminated by the mid-17th century.
mountain men part i 29

More Interesting Facts About,

mountain men part i 29...

Fortunately, that was not the case for the beaver. North American colonies are limited by the beaver. Our history begins at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. Finally, there are dozens of other mountain men whose feats of bravery, courage and adventure are too numerous to acknowledge. I have tried to limit this presentation to those that had direct contact and impact on Burton Sparks and one night long before the Europeans arrived. The North American Indians traded furs among themselves. Later, Europeans would trade beads, textiles, knives, and other iron-based products for furs.
mountain men part i 29
Early fur trading companies depended on Indians for trapping and hunting. Bieber furs were in demand as they could be easily combed and reconstituted into felt to make a variety of hat shapes and styles, these furs were especially valuable in China and fashionable Europe. The fur trade industry became a major economic enterprise in North America, attracting competition among the French, British, Dutch, Spanish, and Russians. Most American fair trade companies, such as John Jacob Astor's American. a company abiamoth likes modern-day Amazon built fortified trading posts in strategic locations in Beaver Country served as outposts for trade in the desert fur traders Trappers and beaver hunters became known as mountain men The first steps became the roots of the pioneers who followed the fur trade industry between 1820 and 1840.
mountain men part i 29
Rose flourished and declined due to changing fashions, but not before having learned everything important about the geography of the West, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company was established in St. Louis in 1822 by two Missourians, William Ashley and Andrew Henry. , obtained a license to fur trap fish in the upper Missouri River area. They revolutionized the fur business by introducing the Rendezvous, which was an annual trading event that was not limited to a fixed location, but was a substitute for In the fortified fort, this concept eliminated the Indians as middlemen when hiring and contracting trappers. independents who would live in the mountains all year round looking for their own sources of beavers to carry out their plan.
Ashley placed an ad looking for 100 living nomadic men with expert tracking skills. in the mountains for one, two or three years, many responded and applied for the opportunity. Jedediah strong-smith, 23, was one of those who responded to the ad. His six-foot-tall stature, commanding presence, and calm demeanor impressed Ashley enough to hire him and give him Smith was an adventurous young man, but one of his main reasons for facing the challenges of the uncharted West was to provide the necessary income. to his elderly parents, make arrangements for their care, and provide housing and education for his younger brothers and For his mentor, Dr.
Titus Simon, in addition to Smith, more than 100 men were recruited. Trappers traveled overland in small groups on horseback avoiding river arteries to escape detection by hostile Indians and develop new regions of untapped furs born in Jericho, New York, in 1799. Jedediah was the son of two fearful parents of God of New England; At an early age he was raised in the Methodist faith and was later mentored by Dr. Simon, a family friend. Dr. Simon not only strengthened jedediah's faith but also instilled in him a love of nature and adventure. gave him an early copy of Lewis and Clark's Voyage to the Pacific of 1814, unlike typical mountain men, Jedediah Smith was an educated, articulate gentleman and did not smoke or drink or use profanity wherever he went, he carried with him his rifle and three books, his Bible, his and the 1814 Journal of Lewis and Clark that Dr.
Simon gave him. He practiced faith, prayed, read his Bible and meditated daily. At the end of a long day of hiking in the mountains, he would light a fire, cook food, and spend the night reading his Bible. and singing hymns, his fellow mountaineers thought his religion was strange, but he won them over with his authenticity, honesty and morals. Furthermore, no one could question his talent as an explorer or his endurance on the road where he often sang hymns. Smith got his first glimpse of the West. He bordered on October 1, 1822, when he finally reached the mouth of the Yellowstone River in what is now Wyoming.
Smith and a few other men continued down the Missouri to central Montana, where they built a camp from which to trap an arakara during the winter the following May. The Indian attack killed 12 trappers and wounded 11 members of their party. One of the injured was Hugh Glass, about whom I will comment later. Smith's brave conduct during the Arakara massacre further enhanced his reputation and he became one of Ashley's top lieutenants that same year. Smith and a dozen men headed west and headed overland to the Rocky Mountains, becoming the first Americans to explore the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming for trappers to obtain needed supplies and deliver their pelts.
Ashley told the trappers to meet him in a large meadow. near Henry's Fork of Wyoming's Green River in the early summer of 1825. This would become the first rendezvous of fur trappers and proved to be a great success as Ashley took home an ordained prophet for his efforts, while the fur trappers not only had the opportunity to trade for supplies but a chance to enjoy a few weeks of wild socializing at the Rendezvous the traders trappers Indians friends and families ate they drank bet on horse races and on foot they fought and fought Every spring Ashley told them sent the supplies they needed overland on the back of pack mules each summer, trappers collected and traded their pelts for tools, supplies and luxuries at the rendezvous, life for the mountain men was difficult and fraught with danger from months away from the thieves until the next annual meeting, dressed and in buckskin clothing of their own making, they cross the continent using only the goods they obtained once a year.
Everything they couldn't get on a date came by living off the land that encompassed the fur trade industry. a combination of French, British, American and Indian characteristics in marriage was a culturally accepted norm among participants in the fur trade, for example, Kit Carson married an Arapahoe named Singer Grass and adored her. They had two daughters, one named Adeline, her Indian name Prairie Flower Singer. Grass died in childbirth. Carson later married a Cheyenne woman named Kissing Road, but her distaste for his children caused constant discord between them, resulting in a failed marriage that soon resulted in Kissing.
Road showed Kit the way and evicted Carson from her tepee, a Cheyenne form of divorce. Carson remarried a Hispanic woman named Maria Joseph Jaramillo Joseph and Kit together had eight children. We'll have more details on Carson later in this presentation. The encounter system lasted from 1825 to 1840 as the fur trading industry grew and then declined. The trappers were not fully aware. that the vagaries of fashion in Paris, coupled with the availability of silk from China, allowed hats to become less expensive, causing demand for beaver pelts to decline dramatically. The history of the mountain men would not be complete without mentioning Hugh Glass and his legendary survival after a savage grizzly bear attack.
Glass was one of the kind souls who was hired by Ashley in response to his announcement that he was injured in the attack. arakara that killed 12 and wounded 11. Glass was one of those injured in the massacre, but his legendary fame comes from a ferocious attack by a grizzly bear during Ashley's expedition in 1823. Glass became estranged from the rest of the group when he encountered a large grizzly bear. The average male grizzly weighs approximately 800 pounds and possesses a bicycle capable of breaking cast iron. A bear could outrun a horse in a short sprint and its Four Paws with workshop claws could easily tear a human limb from limb.
The bears are capable of knocking down a mounted man and his oars and feasting on both to satisfy their need to consume approximately 20,000 calories per day or the equivalent of 48 six-ounce glass steaks. He fired a shot from his rifle that hit the bear and enraged the animal while the mountain man climbed a tree, the enraged bear threw the glass to the ground and severely mauled it, the noise attracted other members of the group. to the rescue, but the animal was so close. The rescuers hesitated to shoot for fear of hitting the glass, eventually quoting James Clymen, a fellow trapper at Frontiersman, the bear seemed satisfied and turned to leave when two or three men shot the bear.
He immediately turned on the glass that had survived two attacks from Savage, but his ordeal was not over when the bear turned to leave the glass a second time, the group firing several more shots at the animal with their dying energies, the bear jumped onto the glass a third time and finally perished. collapsing on top of the injured mountaineer Rescuers were shocked once they removed the bear's carcass that Glass was still alive against all reason had survived being bitten and mauled multiple times and being crushed by an animal weighing more than 800 pounds in either these episodes.
He could have killed the Mountaineer, but the glass had refused to die. Examining the extent of the glasses' wounds, the Mountaineers declared the wound mortal and made preparations for their friend's burial, digging a shallow grave and two Members of the group, Bridger and John Fitzgerald, were left awaiting his death. friend to breathe his last glass was placed in the trench and Bridger and Fitzgerald became nervous to break the somber vigil and Fitzgerald worried about being attacked by Indians since the glass was not flexible enough to simply die, the two decided Cover the glass with the height of the bear. and get out of there before the Indians arrived Fitzgerald took Glass's rifle and the two hurried to rejoin their group.
Glass finally recovered alone and covered by the heavy, stinking bear skin, discovered that his possessions were gone, tending to his own wounds and headed towards the nearest settlement. He crawled at first and then began to walk slowly. . Hugh Glass headed towards the camp. He ate what he could find, mainly berries, roots and insects, but occasionally the remains of a buffalo carcass that had been ravaged by wolves. Glass, although driven by Revenge, was suppressed. Bridger, but he did not exercise Revenge mainly because Major Fitzgerald was the one who insisted on leaving him and Bridger was only a 19-year-old boy.
When he finally located Fitzgerald, he had enlisted in the army safe from much reprisal in the winter of 1832. The glass's astonishing survival story came to an end when an Arakara war party ambushed his capturing party, killing the glass and two others returning with Jedediah Smith. His adventures read like a novel. He was in dozens of hand-to-hand fights with the Indians. He was attacked. three times by grizzly bears once he escaped by jumping into a river and another time he escaped when the bear clung to his horse's tail as he sped away a third time he did not escape a large Grizzly came out of a thicket and violently mauled him by throwing him fell toground breaking his ribs and literally scalping him, his head was in the Bear's mouth and bit his ear, but somehow maybe he played dead Smith survived, the Scout was hanging by his head by one ear while he waited for his men to come out. came with help he found comfort in Psalm 23 the men found him in such a condition and were calmly horrified Smith instructed a fellow trapper and friend Jim Clyman the same man who recounted the episode of the glass to sow the hanging meat in Kleinman did his best that he could But he thought that nothing could be done about the severed ear.
Smith insisted that he tried to unite her and succeeded and somehow Jedediah survived. Jedediah is catching the fur trade and exploring adventures and discoveries. Too many to mention, but he found his way to California in 1826. He traveled west along the Mojave Trail, the western part of what would become the Old Spanish Trail, reaching the San Gabriel Mission. He was received warmly, but not by the Spanish governor, who arrested him as a spy and detained him for two weeks. The governor released him. he conditionally and ordered him to leave by the same route by which he came once outside the Mexican settlements.
Smith was convinced that he had complied with the governor's orders and continued on, crossed the mountains near Tehachapi and reached the Great Valley of California. He traveled. north but was repulsed by deep snow in May 1827. Jedediah Smith with two companions successfully crossed the mountains in eight days and after 20 more days reached the Great Salt Lake in 1831 he led a party of 83 men, including our own Isaac Sparks, along the Cimarrón Nuevo River In Mexico, with supplies scarce and lack of drinking water, the men separated each day in search of water wells. Smith was traveling alone when a hunting party of 20 Comanche Indians attacked him;
There was a brief face-to-face confrontation until a Comanche shot Smith in the Jedediah, wounded in the left shoulder, turned his horse and with a rifle shot was able to kill his chief. The Comanches pounced on him without time to use his guns and stabbed him to death with their spears in the space of nine years beginning with his first expedition. in 1822 until his death in 1831. Jedediah Smith played an important role in opening up the Wild West. He traced his explorations for thousands of miles, paving the way for the white settlers who followed him. He was the first recorded white man to travel overland to California. the first to cross the Sierra from the West, the first to cross the Great Basin, the first to travel north along the California coast to Oregon and the first white man to cross the South Pass Beyond the Frame as a hunter and explorer frontier Smith was a great leader and businessman eventually purchased the Rocky Mountains for a company.
Other trappers soon followed his example into the San Joaquin Valley. One of these men was Ewing Young. He earned the title of Premier Mountain Man of the Southwest. He was a carpenter from Tennessee in 1822. He formed a partnership with a merchant named Liam Bicknell and ran three wagonloads and 21 men, including William Wolfskill and Joseph Walker, of whom more later. This was the first wagon crossing west across the plains to Santa Fe, a dangerous 1,000-mile journey to For the next nine years, Ewing Young maintained a base of operations in both New Mexico and San Luis while operating a trading post in Taos.
The southwest never held the annual gathering as was common in the north. His position was a permanent meeting for trappers in the southwest. For adventure and profit he told a friend I want to get out of where the trappers have ever been. He did just that by trapping the Colorado River on the rugged western slope of the Rocky Mountains and returning with his mules loaded with thousands of dollars worth of beaver pelts. Hostile natives were a constant threat. One trapper recorded that only 16 of 160 trappers survived in a single year in the Gila Basin in the spring of 1826.
Young sent his companion William Wilskill and a small group of trappers to the Gila Basin while he was on an expedition. commercial. Ten Apaches ambushed the group which took the Furs and forced them to return to Tao's young group empty-handed. Evening the score with the Apaches, he directed his priority of 16 trappers toward the village, defeating them and inflicting many casualties, another group trapping along the Gila included James or Patty, whose narrative provides a written account of early American expeditions to Arizona. Patty's group beat Peter by taking a large amount of furs after a band of Apaches raided his horse.
The trappers buried his cash carefully concealing the site after returning with more pack animals. They discovered that his money had been found once again. A group of American trappers saw an entire season of dangerous and hot work in the Arizona desert. Young led a group up the Colorado River where they had another encounter with natives, this time the Mojave, an aggressive Mojave. The chief demanded a horse and when he refused he impaled the animal, causing an angry trapper to shoot him dead, Mojave backed off and left, but the young men knew their habits were ready when the natives launched a pre-dawn attack killing to 16 warriors who returned several days later.
They threw poisoned arrows into Young's camp, killing two and wounding two more. Patty claimed that his blanket alone was pierced by 16 arrows. Young pursued the war party with a vengeance, killing several and hanging their bodies from the branch of a poplar tree as a stern warning to the others. As an additional precaution, Young divided his expedition into two groups, one to trap the other and stand guard. The persistent Mojave attacked again, this time killing three trappers when Young discovered their bodies had been torn to pieces and were being roasted over a campfire. Young thus decided it was time to leave the Colorado River and return to Taos.
The 1,000-mile expedition had been profitable, taking some twenty thousand dollars worth of furs, but he had lost a third of his men to hostile Indians. Upon returning to Taos, his problems continued. Mexico approved the law. allow only Mexican citizens to be licensed to trap Enforcement of the new law began when Young was still trapping in Arizona without suspecting that his license was now void and The Season's catch worth twenty thousand dollars was confiscated . Young's next expedition to the Gila was attacked by an Apache who ambushed his group and killed 18 of his 24 trappers again. Young sought out the Apaches who had defeated his expedition the previous year, whipped them hard, and continued trapping despite these setbacks.
Young equipped yet another expedition the following year with Young's best-known protégé, Kit Carson. Kit Carson was born in Kentucky and raised on the Missouri frontier; he was 16 years old when, as an indentured servant, he left home and headed west in a wagon train as a cook. Bound for Santa Fe, he learned through the leadership of Ewing Young and William Wolfskill, his mentors, and soon became proficient. Trapper and traitor, accompanied Young on the expedition to Mexican California and joined him at fur trapping exhibitions in the Rocky Mountains, as mentioned above, lived among intermarried with the Arapahoe and Cheyenne tribes, could not read not even the name of the writer, but he became fluent. speaking English Spanish Navajo Apache Cheyenne Arapaho Paiute Shoshone and Ute he later served as a scout and guide for John C Fremont and Stephen W Kearney and served in the civil wars between Mexico and the United States.
The young man took 17 men, including Carson, and headed west to California in In the spring of 1830, after a near-disastrous journey through the trackless wilderness of the Mojave Desert, they arrived at the San Gabriel Mission, They headed north, finding their way into California's Great Central Valley and venturing further north to the Sacramento Valley. They sold their skins to a Yankee. The sea captain became the first American trapping expedition to reach the Pacific coast from Santa Fe, the young party returned to Arizona and successfully trapped the Gila. The group then headed to Santa Fe, where they sold two thousand pounds worth of beaver pelts, earning the young men a small fortune.
Growing problems with the Apache and Mojave Comanches inspired the young man to move his base of operations to California in 1831. He left New Mexico for good and eventually settled in the Oregon Territory, becoming one of that region's most prominent citizens. . The young man died prematurely in 1841, at age 42, after having traversed some of the wildest country in America. Ewing Young's travels and trapping expeditions were enormous. Crossing trails and mingling with other prominent fur traders, including William Wolfskill and Joseph Walker Louis T Burton Isaac J Sparks and George Knightover, with three mountain men crossed the country to California in the 1830s as part of separate Burton fur trapping expeditions with William Wilskell's party 1831 Isaac Sparks with Ewing's youth party 1832 and George Nightover with Captain Joseph Walker's party in 1833.
We will now turn our attention to William Wolfskill and Joseph Walker William Wiltskill arrived in Santa Fe with the same caravan of becnel that included Ewing Young and Joseph Walker. He spent the summer of 1822 trapping beaver in his second season. He was accompanied by a New Mexican who had caught Viva with him in the fall before the January cold hit. snow while they were lighting a fire to warn each other while they were sleeping the skill woke up to receiving a rifle bullet in his chest hitting his rifle was no longer there, he would have been mortally wounded if the bullet had not passed through his blankets his right and left arm hand since his arms were crossed over his chest while he slept he was able to get up and walk towards the nearest Spanish settlement 25 miles away he arrived late the next morning exhausted and weak from the blood loss that should occur in the settlement but the new The Mexican culprit approached the authorities reporting that he had been attacked by Indians and that his companion had been murdered.
The New Mexican had told the soldiers that the Indians had shot him. They took his gun and that the Mexican had shot him several arrows. They, dumbfounded, learned that Wolfskill was alive and had given authorities a different version to determine who was telling the truth. Authorities returned to the site where they found only two pairs of footprints and no arrows in the snow. The aggressor was exposed and imprisoned. Skill had many trapping expeditions with young men, the two teamed up and on one expedition they returned with ten thousand dollars worth of furs and opened a trading post in Santa Fe, as mentioned above, during these years Wool Skill applied for and was granted citizenship Mexican in 1830.
Wolfskill with a group. Of 11 men and his staff, including Al Lewis Burton and three free Trappers under the leadership of George Yount, set out for California. A separate expedition led by Ewan Young included Kit Carson and our own Isaac Sparks, who would reunite and return to Santa Fe after the trapping season. That plan did not materialize, both the young man and the wolf's skill decided separately to take on the lucrative sea ​​otter for a commercial business the young men arranged to use the Guadalupe a ship captained by William Richardson more skill and the young men also separated the young men headed north and later settled in the Napa Valley while Wilskill returned to the Mission San Gabriel and was preparing to build a boat to use in his new company Sea Otter.
Both ventures were unsuccessful. Ewing Young, not having legs for the sea, abandoned it after a few days and found his way to Oregon, where he was the first American to homestead and build a mill in the Willamette Valley. The growth experts built his boat and then learned that Mexican authorities were having problems with his license. He and his boat were restricted to an area in southern waters where sea otters were not as abundant when licensing issues were resolved. Wolfskill sold his boat. Wolfskill gave up the trapper's life and became a farmer, buying land near Los Angeles, planting grapes, and receiving an award for having the best vineyard in California.
He groves of orange, lemon and lime trees and soon had the largest citrus orchards in the United States. He also invested in herds of cattle and became one of the richest men in California. He became a leader in California's agricultural industry and served as an official in Los Angeles County. and is credited with opening the first American school in California. William Wolfskill died in 1866 at the age of 68, having been at the forefront of California's future citrus economy and having forged a new route westward into California that served as a major factor in California's shift from de a Mexican province to a stateAmerican Joseph Rutherford Walker was born in 1898 in Tennessee, moved to Missouri and continued west when he was 15 years old.
He and his older brother, Joel, enlisted in Colonel John Brown's company of mounted riflemen, serving under Andrew Jackson in the Creek Indian Campaign, and fought alongside Sam Houston at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend when he was 20. years. He was hunting and trapping in the southern Rocky Mountains when he was arrested by Mexican authorities for not having a trapping license. He served a short prison sentence but won. For his favor in helping the Mexicans in their war against the Pawnee Indians, he was rewarded with rare trading privileges that led him to explore remote regions at age 26. Waka was hired as a guide for the U.S. government's first study of the Santa Fe Trail in his Returning to Fort Osage Missouri, the governor asked Walker to select a site for a new town that Walker called New Town Independence and agreed to serve as the first sheriff of Jackson County.
One of his duties as sheriff was to review advertisements and keep an eye out for runaway and indentured slaves. servants, an advertisement published in 1826 ended up on the desk of Christopher Carson, a boy of about 16 years old, small for his age but with light, thick hair. Carson had escaped from a saddle maker who offered a penny reward for his return. Walker liked The Boy, instead of returning Carson to his teacher, Walker put him in the care of his friends' Taoist trap. Woolskill hired Carson to care for his horse, nicknamed Boyd's Kit, and eventually taught him to become a top-notch trapper.
They remained lifelong friends in 1830 while leading horses to Fort Gibson in Oklahoma. Walker met Benjamin Bonneville, a French-born officer in the United States Army as a trapper and explorer. In 1832 he accompanied Bonneville on the first expedition over the south pass into the Green River valley. The following year, Bonneville sent Walker, now 34 years old, in command of a group of 36 men, including our own George Niedaver of the Green River, to find a land route to California, although we do not know their exact route, the group did a subtle crossing over the Sierra. The Jewish journey was plagued by encounters with Indians, freezing temperatures, rugged terrain, and steep drops that nearly froze to death.
They survived by eating frozen insects, berries and horse meat. Their spirits were recharged as Walker and his men were rewarded with an astonishing sight that no white man had ever seen. Earlier they had seen the northern edge of Yosemite Valley at the drop point of the tallest waterfall in North America, looking down on the most impressive mountain abyss on a continent with its majestic waterfalls and mighty redwoods. Finally they headed to Monterey, where six of the group included none made it. Walker's permission to remain in California on February 14, 1834 The rest of Walker's party headed east at the base of the Sierra they turned south in search of an easier crossing than the one they used on the trip to Westwood found it and it was later called The Walker pass, the priority then turned north through the desert almost dying of thirst before reaching the Humboldt Sink Zenith Leonard, who acted as an employee of the Expedition, wrote a narrative that gives an account circumstantial of the entire route in the Bancroft Library there is a manuscript dictated by George none of which corroborates many of the incidents recorded by Leonard a third source Joe Meeks the West River substantiates the account of this route it would become the main road to California in 1843 Walker led a 22-car train and was the first to cross the South Pass on what would become the Mormon Trail in 1849 he joined the rush of men during the gold rush selling livestock to miners as well as leading expeditions Prospecting years later, at age 64, he led a group of prospectors near Prescott, Arizona, where they found gold when he finally settled on his California ranch in 1867, nearly blind and approaching 70, the Intrepid Mountain Man He remembered a single day as the best of his life and asked that a remembrance be engraved on his tombstone while camping in Yosemite on November 13, 1833.
He died at the age of 78 and earned a reputation as a gentleman who earned great respect for part of his fellow mountaineers. He was a great leader in For 40 years he led hundreds of trappers, traders and immigrants, without losing a single man. He was a hero to John Framework and Kit Carson held him in the highest regard. George night called him one of the best leaders I have ever known. His name survives today. at Walker Pass Walker Lake Waka River Walker Valley Walker Gulch Walker Canyon Walker Creek Walker Trail Walker Peak Walker Mining District Walker Arizona and Walker California In part two we will explore in detail the lives and adventures of Burton Sparks and the night as we follow them .
On his perilous journey across the desert to California and Santa Barbara, we'll accompany them as they transform from land-loving mountain trappers to otter-hunting sea captains and upstanding citizens of Santa Barbara, thank you, thank you, foreigner, foreigner.

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