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|nationality = American }} Jedediah Strong Smith (January 6, 1799 – May 27, 1831), the son of a Bainbridge, 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 during the early 19th century. After 75 years of obscurity following his death, Smith was rediscovered as an American whose explorations led to the use of the 20 mile wide South Pass as the dominant point of crossing the Continental Divide for pioneers on the Oregon Trail. Smith led the first documented exploration from the Salt Lake frontier to the Colorado River. From there, Smith's party became the first Americans to cross the Mojave Desert into California. On the return journey, Smith and his companions were the first United States citizens to explore and eastwardly cross the Sierra Nevada and the treacherous Great Basin Desert. Smith and his companions were also the first Americans to travel up the California coast (on land) to reach the Oregon Country. Surviving three massacres and one bear mauling, Jedediah Smith's explorations and documentation were important aids to later American westward expansion. In 1831, while searching for water off the Santa Fe Trail in present-day southwest Kansas, Smith disappeared. It was learned some weeks later that he had been killed during an encounter with the Comanche. ==Early life== Smith was born in Jericho, now Bainbridge, New York on January 6, 1799〔Morgan, p. 24〕 to Jedediah and Sally (née Strong) Smith, both of whom descended from families that came to New England during the Puritan emigration. Around 1810, Smith's father, who owned a general store, was caught up in a legal issue involving counterfeit currency after which the elder Smith moved his family West to Erie County, Pennsylvania.〔Barbour, p. 16〕 According to Dale L. Morgan Smith's love of nature and adventure came from his mentor, Dr. Titus G. V. Simons, a pioneer physician who was on close terms with the Smith family. Morgan speculated that Simons gave the young Smith a copy of Lewis and Clark's 1814 book of their 1804 journey to the Pacific, and, according to legend, Smith carried this journal on all of his travels throughout the American West.〔Morgan p. 25〕 The Smith family moved westward again to Ohio and settled in Green Township, or what is now called Ashland County, in 1817.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jedediah Smith」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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