David Edward Jackson

Regions of the Missouri River Watershed

Jackson married and moved to Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, with his wife and four children in the early 1820s, planning to engage in farming. The town had been founded by French colonists in the late 18th century. His older brother, George, had preceded him to the area and owned a sawmill.

Instead of farming, Jackson responded to William Ashley's advertisement looking to employ men for his and Andrew Henry's new fur trade venture. Jackson was probably hired as a clerk.[7] In the spring of 1822, Jackson headed up the Missouri River with Henry and 150 other men in a fur trade expedition to Native American tribes on the upper river.[lower-alpha 1] A few weeks later, Ashley sent more men, including Jedediah Smith on a boat called the Enterprize. It 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. It had been built over the summer by the first group of 150 men.[lower-alpha 2]

Arikara warrior
Bodmer (1840–1843)

It is not known if Jackson returned to St. Louis with Ashley that fall, or traveled with Jedediah Smith in the spring of 1823. At that time, Major Henry ordered Smith and some other men to go down the Missouri to Grand River in order to meet Ashley and buy horses from the Arikara, but warning him of the Native Americans' hostility to whites. They had recently had a skirmish with men from the Missouri Fur Company.[10] Ashley, who was bringing supplies as well as 70 new men up the river by boat,[11] met Smith at the Arikara village on May 30.[12] They negotiated a trade for several horses and 200 buffalo robes. They planned to leave as soon as possible to avert trouble, but weather delayed them. An incident precipitated an Arikara attack on the Ashley party. Forty Ashley men were caught in a vulnerable position, and 12 were killed.[13][lower-alpha 3]

Ashley and the rest of the surviving party traveled by boat downriver, ultimately enlisting aid from Colonel Henry Leavenworth, Commander of Fort Atkinson. In August, Leavenworth sent a force of 250 military men, 80 Ashley-Henry men, 60 men of the Missouri Fur Company, and a number of Lakota Sioux warriors, enemies of the Arikara. They intended to subdue and punish the Arikara. After a botched campaign, Leavenworth negotiated a peace treaty.[15]

Either David Jackson or his brother George had been appointed commander of one of the two squads of the Ashley-Henry men in this military expedition.[16][lower-alpha 4]

Little is known about Jackson's movements until just after the 1826 Rocky Mountain Rendezvous, a major gathering of trappers and traders. It is presumed he was at the first, 1825 rendezvous held on Henry's Fork of the Green River,[lower-alpha 5] but he may not have been at the one held in 1826 at Bear River in Cache Valley. Soon after the rendezvous, Ashley, along with his party taking back the furs, traveled with Smith and William Sublette to near present-day Georgetown, Idaho. There, Jackson and the other men bought out Ashley's share of the Ashley-Smith partnership.[19][lower-alpha 6]

As a partner, 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])

Jackson and his party traveled south to Cache Valley, where they spent the rest of the 1826-1827 winter.[24] He was at the 1827 rendezvous at Bear Lake, then returned to St. Louis, Missouri, which had become a center of fur trade, 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. The two partners and their men trapped down to Pierre's Hole, where they joined Sublette. The rendezvous that year (1829), was held near present-day Lander, Wyoming. Jackson is thought to have returned afterward 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 southeast 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 with his partners for a trade trip to Santa Fe, which was controlled by the Spanish.[28] The caravan of wagons left St. Louis on April 10, 1831, traveling down the Santa Fe Trail. To save time, the group decided to take the "Cimarron cutoff," at the risk of 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. His death resulted in Jackson and Sublette reorganizing their partnership.[28]

While in Santa Fe, Jackson partnered with David Waldo, to journey to California to sell the merchandise he had transported from Missouri. Waldo convinced him of the viability of traveling to California to purchase mules, and to drive them back to Missouri to sell, to yield more profit. Jackson and Sublette traveled to Taos where Jackson met Ewing Young, who had traveled between Santa Fe and California the previous year. He 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; Moses Carson, brother of Kit; and four other men.[31] Several weeks later, they reached Tucson, Arizona, and went on to the Gila River, which they followed to the Colorado River. They crossed the Colorado River and the Colorado Desert, reaching San Diego in early November.[33]

Jackson traveled up the California coast as far north as the lower end of the San Francisco Bay. By the end of March, 1832, when he met with Young in Los Angeles, he had purchased only 600 mules and 100 horses rather than the more than 1,000 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 swim across. 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 which Young had trapped to that point.[35]

Due to the summer heat, many of the mules died on the way back to Santa Fe, which the party reached in the first week of July. Jackson sold part of the herd of 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.

Upon his return to Missouri, the 44-year-old Jackson began to have health problems.[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 return to California to try to collect payment. In January 1837, he finally was able to travel to Paris, Tennessee, to try to collect money on some investments he had made there. While there, Jackson contracted typhoid fever. He lingered for several months and died on December 24, 1837.

Ewing Young left California for Oregon in 1834. With the money and property secured from Jackson, he had capital for several ventures.[37] In February 1841, Young died without any known heir and without a will.[38] Probate court had 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 Young's death contributed to the creation of a provisional government in the Oregon Country.[38]

• Jackson Lake, and Jackson Hole, a valley in Wyoming are named for David Jackson.[37] The town of Jackson, Wyoming, in turn, derives its name from the valley.[40]
• The Hoback Basin, a braided floodplain of the Hoback River where Bondurant, Wyoming is located, was once known as Jackson's Little Hole.[41]

• 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 (ed.). 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.