The Splendid Wayfaring: The Story of the Exploits and Adventures of Jedediah Smith and His Comrades, the Ashley-Henry Men, Discoverers and Explorers of ... Great Central Route from the Missouri River

by John G. Neihardt

With the publication of The Splendid Wayfaring in 1920, John G. Neihardt sought to restore the reputation of a mountain man who went far in opening up the American West. The exciting narrative begins in 1822, when Smith ascended the Missouri River in the first fur-trading expedition of William H. Ashley and Andrew Henry, and ends in 1831, when he was killed by Comanche Indians on the Cimarron River. In the intervening years Smith became the first explorer to recognize South Pass as the gateway to the Far West, the first overlander to reach California and travel up the coast to the Columbia River, and the first white man to cross the Sierra Nevada and the Great Basin from west to east. The Splendid Wayfaring follows in novelistic detail the history-making adventures of Smith and his companions.

CONTENTS
I Down The Ohio
II At St. Louis
III Northbound With The Robins
IV The Battle
V The Express To Henry
VI The Two Parties Unite
VII The Leavenworth Campaign
VIII Westward By The Grand
IX Jed Wrestles With Death
X The Ghost
XI The First White Men Through South Pass
XII Treasure And Trouble Therewith
XIII The Return
XIV Ashley's Long Winter Trail
XV Down Green River
XVI The Rendezvous
XVII Back To The States
XVIII General Ashley Retires
XIX The First Americans Overland To California
XX Smith's Second Journey
XXI The End Of The Trail
List Of Sources

This book published in 1920 has been reformatted for the Kindle and may contain an occasional defect from the original publication or from the reformatting.

178 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 1970

About the author

John Gneisenau Neihardt

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's to those intrepid adventurers of 1823, many who disappeared 'leaving no hint of the manner of their passing; and others, bewitched by the wild life and the vast free spaces of the wilderness, who shed, as an uncomfortable coat, the inheritance of ages, lapsing into the primitive, never again to long for the snug comforts and predetermined ways of civilized man." This light history reads like an adventure story from its time, the 1920s. Readers should neither be surprised by its triumphalist tone nor it's use of period idiom.

[Magen Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Warning: Not overrun but there is frequent use of the times colloquialisms.

This is an account of the travels of Jedidiah Smith, now forgotten explorer and first non indigenous man to travel across the Great Basin. It is an interesting look into this part of the history of the modern west, originally written in 1920. Well researched for the time, it does have a heavy focus on the Henry-Ashley camps and only a small fraction of focus on Smith himself. Still an important collection.of the known hsitory at the time of writing. An enjoyable read.

[Luciano Mezzetta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Neihardt is a poet. I first read the book 50 years ago and it is still alive. Sorry I mistyped "first" and the google translator translated ," I fist the book 50 years ago ", into Italian. Porco miseria! I hope it has been translated into decent Italian.