Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/40

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28 Joseph J. Hill who was the leader of the one from the Great Basin but "Peg-leg" Smith was a member of the party. But it is not within the scope of the present article to consider the movements of these parties. The Smith, Jackson, and Sublette expedition to Santa Fe, 1831. In the summer of 1831, shortly after the re- turn of Young from California, a caravan of more than ordinary significance arrived at Santa Fe from Indepen- dence, Missouri. The organizers and principal proprie- tors in this company as it left Missouri were Jedediah S. Smith, David E. Jackson, and William Sublette, of Rocky Mountain fame. When the company reached Santa Fe, however, on July 4, 1831, Smith was no longer at its head. He had been killed by a band of Comanche Indians, lying in ambush at one of the water holes of the Cimarron River. His death naturally brought about a dissolution of the company. Shortly afterwards Sublette returned to Missouri. Jackson, however, remained in New Mexico and with David Waldo and Ewing Young entered the fur trade of the Far Southwest under the firm name of Jack- son, Waldo, and Company. Jackson, Waldo, and Company send two parties to CaMfornia, 1831. In the fall of 1831 two parties were sent out by this company— one was to go to California to purchase mules to be taken to the United States; the other was a trapping party destined for the waters of the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys. Jackson leads a party to California to purchase mules, 1831 The first of these expeditions left Santa Fe under the command of Jackson on August 29, 1831, according to Austin Smith whose brother, Peter, accompanied the party. 39 The company consisted of eleven men. Each had a riding mule, and there were seven pack mules, the loads Im~~T Warner was a member of the company, and his Reminiscences of Early California, Ms. in Bancroft Library, is our most detailed authority for this expedition. This is not the same although, in general outline similar to his "Reminiscences of Ear y California from 1831 to S5S Primed in the Annual Publications of the Historical Society of Southern California for 1907-1908, VII, pp. 176-193.