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James Bridger, known as Jim Bridger (March 17, 1804 – July 17, 1881), was among the foremost mountain men, trappers, scouts and guides who explored and trapped the Western United States during the decades of 1820–1850, as well as mediating between native tribes and encroaching whites. He was of English ancestry, and his family had been in North America since the early colonial period.〔David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 633–639〕 Jim Bridger had a strong constitution that allowed him to survive the extreme conditions he encountered walking the Rocky Mountains from what would become southern Colorado to the Canadian border. He had conversational knowledge of French, Spanish and several native languages. He would come to know many of the major figures of the early west, including Kit Carson, George Armstrong Custer, Hugh Glass, John Fremont, Joseph Meek, and John Sutter. ==Career== Jim Bridger was born in Richmond , Virginia. He began his career in 1822 at the age of 17, as a member of General William Ashley's Upper Missouri Expedition and had a significant role in the ordeal of Hugh Glass. He was among the first white men to see the geysers and other natural wonders of the Yellowstone region. In the winter of 1824-1825, Bridger gained fame as the first European American to see the Great Salt Lake (though some now dispute that status in favor of Étienne Provost), which he reached traveling in a bull boat. Due to its saltiness, he believed it to be an arm of the Pacific Ocean. In 1830, Jim Bridger and several other trappers bought out Ashley and established the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, competing with the Hudson's Bay Company and John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company for the lucrative beaver pelt trade. In 1843, Bridger and Louis Vasquez built a trading post, later named Fort Bridger, on the west bank of Blacks Fork of the Green River to serve Pioneers on the Oregon Trail. In 1835 he married a woman from the Flathead Indians tribe with whom he had three children. After her death in 1846, he married the daughter of a Shoshone chief, who died in childbirth three years later. In 1850 he married Shoshone Chief Washakie's daughter, with whom he had two more children. Some of his children were sent back east to be educated. Bridger had explored, trapped, hunted and made new trails since 1822. He could assess any wagon train or group, their interests in travel, and give them expert advice on any and all aspects of heading West, over any and all trails, and to any destination the party had in mind, if the leaders sought his advice. In 1846, the Donner Party came to Fort Bridger, but apparently, did not speak with Jim Bridger. In 1850, Jim Bridger was exploring in order to find an alternate overland route to the South Pass, he found what would eventually be known as Bridger's Pass, which shortened the Oregon Trail by 61 miles. Bridger Pass would later be the chosen route for both the Union Pacific Railroad and later Interstate 80. In 1864, he blazed the Bridger Trail, an alternate route from Wyoming to the gold fields of Montana that avoided the dangerous Bozeman Trail. Later, he served as guide and army scout during the first Powder River Expedition against the Sioux and Cheyenne that were blocking the Bozeman Trail (Red Cloud's War). In 1865 he was discharged at Fort Laramie. Suffering from goiter, arthritis, rheumatism and other health problems, he returned to Westport, Missouri, in 1868. He was unsuccessful in collecting back rent from the government for its use of Fort Bridger. He died on his farm near Kansas City, Missouri, on July 17, 1881, at the age of 77. For some 23 years, Bridger's grave was located in a nondescript cemetery just a few hundred yards from his farm house,〔http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=21552〕 but his remains were re-interred in the more notable Mount Washington Cemetery〔http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=134〕 in Independence, Missouri in 1904. In the Independence Missouri School District, a junior high and then the middle school which replaced it, are named after the mountain man. 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「Jim Bridger」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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