David Edward Jackson

David Edward Jackson (1788–December 24, 1837) was an American pioneer, trapper, fur trader, and explorer. He was a clerk for the William Ashley and Andrew Henry partnership, and later, became a partner in the company.

Early life

Paternal ancestry

David Edward Jackson was the grandson of John Jackson (1715 or 1719 – 1801) and Elizabeth Cummins (also known as Elizabeth Comings and Elizabeth Needles) (1723–1828). John Jackson was a Protestant (Ulster-Scottish) from Coleraine, County Londonderry, Ireland. While living in London, England, he was convicted of the capital crime of larceny for stealing £170; the judge at the Old Bailey sentenced him to seven years of indentured servitude in America. Elizabeth, a strong, blonde woman over 6 feet (180 cm) tall, born in London, England was also convicted of larceny in an unrelated case for stealing 19 pieces of silver, jewelry, and fine lace, and received a similar sentence. They both were transported on the prison ship Litchfield, which departed London in May 1749 with 150 convicts. John and Elizabeth met on board and were in love by the time the ship arrived at Annapolis, Maryland. Although they were sent to different locations in Maryland for their indentures, the couple married in July 1755.^[1]

The family migrated west across the Blue Ridge Mountains to settle near Moorefield, Virginia (now West Virginia) in 1758. In 1770, they moved farther west to the Tygart Valley. They began to acquire large parcels of virgin farming land near the present-day town of Buckhannon, including 3,000 acres (12 km²) in Elizabeth's name. John and his two teenage sons, were early recruits for the American Revolutionary War, fighting in the Battle of Kings Mountain on October 7, 1780; John finished the war as captain and served as a lieutenant of the Virginia militia after 1787. While the men were in the Army, Elizabeth converted their home to a haven, "Jackson's Fort," for refugees from Indian attacks.^[2]

John and Elizabeth had eight children. Their second son was Edward Jackson (March 1, 1759 – December 25, 1828); Edward and his wife had three boys and three girls; the second boy being David.^[3] Their third son was Jonathan Jackson, Stonewall Jackson's father.^[4][5]

Childhood

Jackson was born in Randolph County in the Shenandoah Mountains of what was then part of Virginia and is now in West Virginia. When he was eight, his mother died and his father remarried three years later. In 1801, when he was 13, his family moved west, near Weston, West Virginia Lewis County, on the Allegheny Plateau. Jackson's father and stepmother had nine more children.^[6]

Ashley and Henry

Regions of the Missouri River Watershed

Jackson moved to Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, with his wife and four children in the early 1820s, planning to engage in farming. His older brother, George, had preceded him to the area and owned a sawmill. Instead of farming, however, Jackson responded to Ashley's advertisement looking to employ men for his and Andrew Henry's new fur trade venture. He was probably hired as a clerk^[7] and headed up the Missouri River with Henry and 150 other men in the spring of 1822.^{[lower-alpha 1]} A few weeks later, Ashley sent more men, including Jedediah Smith on a boat called the Enterprize which sank and left the men stranded in the wilderness for several weeks. Ashley himself brought up an additional 46 men on a replacement boat, and they and the stranded group finally reached Fort Henry, which had been built, by the previous 150 men, over the summer.^{[lower-alpha 2]}

Arikara warrior
Bodmer (1840–1843)

It is not known if Jackson returned to St. Louis with Ashley that fall, or if he was with Jedediah Smith when, in the spring of 1823, Maj. Henry ordered Smith and some other men to go back down the Missouri to Grand River to take a message to Ashley to buy horses from the Arikaras, who, due to a recent skirmish with Missouri Fur Company men, were antagonistic to the whites.^[10] Ashley, who was bringing supplies as well as 70 new men up the river by boat,^[11] (if Jackson was not with Smith, he must have come up the river with Ashley)^[7] met Smith at the Arikara village on May 30.^[12] They negotiated a trade for several horses and 200 buffalo robes and planned to leave as soon as possible to avert trouble, but weather delayed them and before they could depart an incident fomented an Arikara attack. Forty Ashley men, were caught in a vulnerable position, and 12 were killed in the ensuing massacre.^{[13][lower-alpha 3]}

Ashley and the rest of the surviving party rode back down the river, ultimately enlisting aid from Colonel Henry Leavenworth who was the Commander of Fort Atkinson. In August, Leavenworth sent 250 military men and along with 80 Ashley-Henry men, 60 men of the Missouri Fur Company and a number of Lakota Sioux warriors, enemies of the Arikaras, they set out to subdue the Arikaras. After a botched campaign, a peace treaty was negotiated.^[15] Either David or his brother George had been appointed commander of one of the two squads of the Ashley-Henry men^{[16][lower-alpha 4]}

Smith, Jackson & Sublette

Little is known about Jackson's movements until the 1826 rendezvous. It is presumed he was at the first, 1825 rendezvous held on Henry's Fork of the Green River,^{[lower-alpha 5]} but he was definitely present at the 1826 one held on the Bear River in Utah. There he along with Smith and William Sublette, bought out Ashley's share of the Ashley-Smith partnership^{[19][lower-alpha 6]} Jackson took on the role of field manager, possibly because of his similar role when working for Ashley.^[20] That fall, Jackson, Sublette, and Robert Campbell trapped along the Snake River^{[lower-alpha 7]} system, then moved up into the upper Missouri and over the Great Divide to the headwaters of the Columbia River.^{[lower-alpha 8]} They then traveled south to Cache Valley, where they spent the rest of the winter.^[24] He was at the 1827 rendezvous at Bear Lake, then returned to Missouri with Sublette for a short time.^[25]

Jackson returned to the fur country for the 1828 rendezvous, after which he traveled with a party to the Flathead Lake Montana region, where they wintered.^[25] The next spring, Smith found him along the Flathead River, and the two partners and their men trapped down to Pierre's Hole where they joined Sublette. The rendezvous that year (1829), was held in near present-day Lander, Wyoming, after which Jackson is thought to have returned to the upper Snake River region in northwest Wyoming, then traveled east to spend the winter with Smith and Sublette along the Wind and Powder Rivers. Jackson returned to the upper Snake in the spring of 1830, then returned to the Wind River Valley for the annual rendezvous.^[26]

At the rendezvous, Smith, Jackson and Sublette sold out their interests in the fur trade to a group of men who called the firm the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. The three partners returned to St. Louis having made a tidy profit in their enterprise.^[27]

Trip to Santa Fe

By early 1831, Jackson was in Missouri's lead belt attending to his personal affairs and those of his brother George, who died on March 26, 1831. On April 7, he returned to St Louis to meet up with his partners for a trade trip to Santa Fe.^[28] The caravan of wagons left St. Louis on April 10, 1831, down the Santa Fe Trail. To save time, the group decided to take the "Cimarron cutoff," risking not finding water for two days. Smith went missing while looking for water, but the caravan continued on, hoping he would find them. Upon reaching Santa Fe on July 4, 1831, the members of the trading party discovered a Mexican merchant at the Santa Fe market offering several of Smith's personal belongings for sale. When questioned about the items, the merchant indicated that he had acquired them from a band of Comanche hunters.^[29] Smith had encountered and been killed by a group of Comanche and his death necessitated a reorganization of the partnership between Jackson and Sublette.^[28]

California

While in Santa Fe, Jackson partnered with another man, David Waldo, to journey to California to sell the merchandise he had transported from Missouri. Waldo convinced him of the viability or traveling to California to purchase mules, then drive them back to Missouri to sell. Jackson and Sublette traveled to Taos where Jackson met Ewing Young, who had traveled between Santa Fe and California the previous year, and who persuaded Jackson, that his knowledge of the area would be indispensable to Jackson and Waldo in the mule venture.^[30] It was decided Jackson would take a group of men directly to California, and travel through the area buying mules. Young and his group of men would trap along the way to California, and meet up with Jackson in time to drive the mules back to Santa Fe. Jackson left for Santa Fe on August 25, 1831.^[31]

On September 6, Jackson's group left Santa Fe.^{[lower-alpha 9]} Members of the group included, Jackson and his slave, Jim, Jedediah Smith's younger brother Peter,^{[lower-alpha 10]} Jonathan Trumbull Warner,^[31] Samuel Parkman,^[32] and possibly David's brother William Waldo and Moses Carson, brother of Kit, and four other men.^[31] Several weeks later, they reached Tucson, Arizona then to the Gila River, which they followed to the Colorado River. They crossed the Colorado River and the Colorado Desert and reached San Diego in early November.^[33]

Jackson traveled up the California coast as far north as the south end of the San Francisco Bay. By the end of March, 1832, when he met with Young in Los Angeles, he had only 600 mules and 100 horses rather than over 1,000 as they had planned. In May, the two groups drove the animals to the Colorado River, reaching it at its floodstage in June. After 12 days, they had the animals across, and Jackson's and Young's parties again split; Young to take $10,000 of Jackson/Waldo cash and property and return to California^{[lower-alpha 11]} and continue trapping and buying mules to drive back later. Jackson took possession of the skins Young had trapped to that point.^[35]

Due to the summer heat, many of the mules were lost on the way back to Santa Fe, which the party reached in the first week of July. Jackson sold part of the animals in Santa Fe. Ira Smith, another Jedediah Smith brother, had traveled to Santa Fe to meet Peter. Ira, and Jackson headed back to St. Louis with the remaining animals.

Later years and death

Upon his return to Missouri, the 44-year-old Jackson's health began to fail.^[36] He spent his remaining years trying to put his financial affairs in order. He had never heard from Ewing Young after leaving him with the substantial amount of cash and property at the Colorado River, but was never healthy enough to travel back to California to try to collect payment. He, finally, was able to travel to Paris, Tennessee, in January, 1837, to try to collect money on some investments he had made there. While there, David Jackson contracted typhoid fever and although, he lingered, for several months, his poor health prevented him from recovering and he died on December 24, 1837.

Ewing Young left California for Oregon in 1834. With the money and property Jackson had left with him, he had capital for several ventures.^[37] In February 1841, Young died without any known heir and without a will.^[38] This created a need for some form of probate court to deal with his estate, which had many debtors and creditors among the settlers.^[38] Doctor Ira L. Babcock was selected as supreme judge with probate powers to deal with Young's estate.^[39] The activities that followed his death eventually led to the creation of a provisional government in the Oregon Country.^[38]

Legacy

• Jackson Hole and Jackson Lake in Wyoming are named for him.^[37]
• The town of Jackson, Wyoming is named for him.
• The Hoback Basin, a braided floodplain of the Hoback River where Bondurant, Wyoming is located, was once known as Jackson's Little Hole.^[40]

Notes

Citations

References

• Barbour, Barton H. (2011). Jedediah Smith: No Ordinary Mountain Man. Norman: U of Oklahoma Press,. ISBN 978-0-8061-4196-1. 
• Hays, Carl D. W. (1983). "David E. Jackson". In Leroy R. Hafen. Trappers of the Far West: Sixteen Biographical Sketches. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-7218-9. originally published in Leroy R. Hafen, ed. (1972). Mountain Men and Fur Traders of the Far West vol. IX. Glendale: The Arthur H Clark Company. 
• Morgan, Dale L. (1964) [1953]. Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the American West. Lincoln, London: Bison Book, University of Nebraska Books. pp. 28–9. ISBN 0-8032-5138-6. 
• Robertson, Jr., James I. (1997). Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend. New York: MacMillan Publishing. pp. 1–2. ISBN 0-02-864685-1. 
• Talbot, Vivian Linford (1996). David E. Jackson: Field Captain of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade. Jackson Hole: Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum. 
• Jackson, John C., Shadow on the Tetons: David E. Jackson and the claiming of the American West, Missoula: Mountain Press Publishing Co., 1993.