Mountain Man - Notable Figures

Notable Figures

• George Drouillard (1774/75?–1810). Hunter, interpreter, sign-talker on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Often considered as one of Lewis' two most appreciated members with John Colter. Born to a French Canadian and Shawnee mother in Detroit, Drouillard proved to be the most skillful hunter on the expedition, notably during the harsh wintering in Fort Clatsop. He eventually went on trapping in today's Wyoming and Montana after the expedition, working for Manuel Lisa Missouri Fur Company he had signed on with in 1807. Often venturing out alone like John Colter, notably to the headwaters of the Big Horn River from the Yellowstone and around the Three Forks of the Missouri, George Drouillard was savagely killed in May 1810 by Blackfeet Indians in the Three Forks area.
• Jim Beckwourth (1800–1866) born into slavery, came to Missouri with his parents and was freed by his father. He started working with the Ashley expedition, signed on with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and became a well-known mountain man. He lived with the Crow for years and became a war chief. He was the only African American in the West to have his life story published (1856). He was credited with the discovery of Beckwourth Pass in the Sierra Nevada in 1850, and improved a Native American path to create what became known as the Beckwourth Trail through the mountains to Marysville, California.
• Jim Bridger (1804–1881) came west in 1822 at the age of 17, as a member of Ashley's Hundred exploring the Upper Missouri drainage. He was among the first non-natives to see the geysers and other natural wonders of the Yellowstone region. He is also considered one of the first men of European descent, along with Étienne Provost, to see the Great Salt Lake. Because of its salinity, he first believed it to be an arm of the Pacific Ocean. In 1830, Bridger purchased shares in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. He established Fort Bridger in southwestern Wyoming. He was also well known as a teller of tall tales.
• John Colter (1774–1812), one of the first mountain men, was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He later became the first European man to enter Yellowstone National Park, and to see what is now Jackson Hole and the Teton Mountain Range. His description of the geothermal activity there seemed so outrageous to some that the area was mockingly referred to as Colter's Hell. Colter's narrow escape following capture by Blackfeet, leaving him naked and alone in the wilderness, became a legend known as "Colter's Run".
• Kit Carson (1809–1868) achieved notability for his later exploits, but he got his start and gained some recognition as a trapper. Carson explored the west to California, and north through the Rocky Mountains. He lived among and married into the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes. He was hired by John C. Fremont as a guide, and led 'the Pathfinder' through much of California, Oregon and the Great Basin area. He achieved national fame through Fremont. Stories of his life as a mountain man turned him into a frontier hero-figure: the prototypical mountain man of his time.
• John "Liver-Eating" Johnson (1824–1900) was one of the more notable latter-day mountain men. Johnson worked in Wyoming and Montana, trapping for beaver, buffalo and wolf hides. Unaffiliated with a company, Johnson bargained independently to get prices for his hides. Elements of his story were portrayed in the film Jeremiah Johnson. Dennis McLelland wrote a biography about him.
• Joseph Lafayette "Joe" Meek (1810–1875) was a trapper, law enforcement official, and politician in the Oregon Country and later Oregon Territory of the United States. A pioneer involved in the fur trade before settling in the Tualatin Valley, Meek would play a prominent role at the Champoeg Meetings of 1843 where he was elected as a sheriff. Later he served in the Provisional Legislature of Oregon before being selected as the United States Marshal for the Oregon Territory.
• Jedediah Smith (1799 - circa 1831) was a hunter, trapper, and fur trader whose explorations were significant in opening the American West to settlement by Europeans and Americans. Smith is considered the first man of European descent to cross the future state of Nevada; the first to traverse Utah from north to south and from west to east; and the first American to enter California by an overland route. He was also first to scale the High Sierra and explore the area from San Diego to the banks of the Columbia River. He was a successful businessman and a full partner in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company after the departure of Ashley. Smith had notable facial scarring from a grizzly bear attack.