Description

pp. 295, “These journals set down, in his own homey words, James Clyman’s experiences on the plains and in the mountains during the heyday of the American fur trade, and during the peak of emigration to Oregon and California. They are especially valuable, says editor Linda Hasselstrom, because they are ‘conspiciously sober and meticulous…. Clyman shows the mental bent of a surveyor : he scrupulously takes measurements and notes down facts…. Alongside the vivid but exaggerated sketches some mountain men have left us, we are lucky to have the record of one man who was keen, thorough, and precise observer.” And the events Clyman recorded were momentous : He was a member of Jebediah Smith’s first brigade, which made the discovery of South Pass and opened the Intermountain West to the beaver hunters. Crossing the country during the great migration of 1846, he encountered the Donner party, and gave them sound advice they tragically ignored. He brought off one of the West’s remarkable feats of survival : Seperated from his companions by Indians, Clyman walked alone, footsore and starving, across 600 miles of the Great Plains to Fort Atkinson. This reissue, including all of Clyman’s journals, and much of his correspondence and verse, offers a new Introduction, Notes, Bibliography, Map and Index.”