01Biography
A Scottish-born partner in John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company. In 1810 he sailed around Cape Horn to help build Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia. Returning east overland in 1812 with a small party, his group became the first non-Native travellers to cross South Pass, the gentle Wyoming saddle that would later make the entire Oregon Trail possible. His meticulous journal, kept through a winter of near-starvation in present-day Wyoming, recorded the route in detail.
02Why they matter
Documented the South Pass route on which the Oregon Trail would later be built.
03How they died
Retired from the fur trade in 1820 and settled in Detroit, where he served as treasurer of Michigan's territorial government. He died in Chicago on 28 October 1848, aged 63, of a heart condition while travelling on business.
04Legacy
His route across the Continental Divide became the spine of the trail. His journal was not published in full until the 20th century.