Trappers and Trailblazers

Each 4^th Grade Student made a Power Point Presentation on one of the following men. The goal was for students to learn the importance of trailblazers and trappers in helping California become a part of the United States. We hope this activity helped the students better understand how the trappers and trailblazers opened the West to settlers from other parts of the United States.

“California historian James J. Rawls asserts that Jedediah Strong Smith is the explorer truly worthy of the title of "the Pathfinder."

http://www.geocities.com/cott1388/jedediah.html

Please click on your student’s initials below to view their work.

“James 0. Pattie of Kentucky is known for hair-raising Indian battles, desert hardships, the sympathy of a beautiful young woman, a trumped up jail stay and an incredible medical maneuver during a smallpox epidemic.”

http://www.sandiegohistory.org/bio/pattie/pattie.htm

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“Ewing Young was born in 1810 in TN. He traveled from Missouri to New Mexico in 1823. In May 1834, he met the Oregon promoter, Hall Jackson Kelley, in southern California and the two, with twelve others came to Oregon in 1834. In 1837 he organized the Willamette Valley Cattle Co to bring cattle from California. In this venture he and ten other settlers were successful, returning with 600 head. After this he became a prominent leader in Oregon.”

http://www.oregonpioneers.com/1838.htm

“Joseph Reddefield Walker was the second white man to cross the Sierra Nevada and the first to do it in an east-to-west direction. When he left California the following year, he made a southerly crossing over a relatively low Sierra pass that still bears his name. While crossing the Sierra Nevada in 1833 Walker and his party were the first white men to gaze upon the Yosemite Valley. They were also the first to see the huge redwood trees that became known as "Sequoia gigantea."

http://www.mtdemocrat.com/columist/hughey22.shtml

“James Beckwourth (1798-1867) was born a slave, but raised free by his mulatto mother and white father. In 1823, Beckwourth joined the fur-trading expeditions of William Ashley and Andrew Henry into the Rocky Mountain region of the West. This legendary mountain man distinguished himself among the Crow Indians, becoming a tribal chief and great warrior. Later, Beckwourth served as a guide, army scout, and hunter. He discovered a route through the Sierra Nevada Mountains to California that was named for him.

http://klesinger.com/jbp/jbeck.html