Jedediah S. Smith (1799-1831), trapper, fur trader, and explorer in the American West, was one of the most skillful of the mountain men, although most of his accomplishments were recognized only recently.

Jedediah Smith's activities in the West occurred between 1822 and 1831, a period of rapid American penetration into the Rocky Mountain area and of phenomenal growth in American fur trading and trapping. He was the first reported American to travel overland to California, the first to cross the Sierra Nevada from the west, the first to travel across the Great Basin, north and south as well as east and west, the first to travel north up the California coast to Oregon, and the first to provide a usable description of South Pass.

The fourth of 12 children, Smith was born on Jan. 6, 1799. As a child, he roamed the wooded hills in south-western New York, and when he was 12, the...