Jim Bridger - J. Cecil Alter
Category: Autobiography & Biographies
Tags: Autobiography & Biographies
On March 20, 1822, the Missouri Republican published a notice addressed to enterprising young men in the St. Louise area. The subscriber, it said wishes to engage one hundred young men to ascend the Missouri River to its source, there to be employed for one, two, or three years. For particulars enquire of Major Andrew Henry or of the subscriber near St. Louise. The subscriber was General William H. Ashley, and among the enterprising young men who embarked with Major Henry less than a month later was eighteen-year-old James Bridger, former blacksmiths apprentice. So began the Ashley-Henry fur empire and the long, colorful career of Jim Bridger., In the years that followed, Jim Bridger became a master mountain man, an expert trapper, and a guide without equal. He came to know the Rocky Mountain region and its inhabitants as a farmer knows his fields and flocks. Indeed, J. Cecil Alter tells us, he was among the first white men to use the Indian trail over South Pass; he was first to taste
