These biographical and historical sketches are highlights of Missouri history. Many sketches are from Missouri, Day by Day , published by the State Historical Society of Missouri in 1942. Links are to related primary sources at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection on the four campuses of the University of Missouri system.
Previous sketches are also available.
He received a fair English education and became at 13 a clerk on a Lake Erie freighter. Sometime between 1816 and 1822 Smith came to St. Louis. He was on the upper Missouri with General William Henry Ashley in 1823. In the summer of 1826 Ashley sold his Rocky Mountain trade to Smith, David E. Jackson, and William L. Sublette. Smith's plan to go north from California into Oregon in 1826 was thwarted by the suspicious governor of California.