Jedediah Smith, was born on June 24, 1798, at Bainbridge, New York. He was the first American to cross west over the Continental Divide, rediscovering South Pass, and the American to traverse California's rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains. He was also first to open the coastal trade route from California to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River.
             Jedediah Smith was the first American to enter California overland from the east and first to cross the Great Basin Desert and return east, overland from California.
             Jedediah and his party of trappers spent the winter of 1823-24 with a band of Crow Indians who told him how reach Utath's Green River. In mid March 1824, his company rediscovered the South Pass it was a passage to the Northwest through Wyoming and descended into the Green River area for the spring hunt. In July 1825, Jedediah attended the first Mountain Man rendezvous at Henry's Fork then accompanied William Ashley to St. Louis with the season's bounty of furs. In route downriver, Ashley took Jedediah as partner to replace the retiring Andrew Henry.
             In August, he led seventeen men to appraise the trapping potential of the region south and west of the Great Salt Lake. When he and his band arrived at San Gabriel Mission near Los Angeles, they became the first Americans to cross overland to California, entering from the east. They were blocked by the Mexican govenor of California, Jedediah had to change is plans to explore Oregon and so he journeyed to the American River near Sacramento instead.
             His band reached the Utah Nevada border near Grandy, Utah, continued on the Skully Valley and reached the South tip of the Great Salt Lake two day
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