America’s School Trust Library The Zybach Collection

The Zybach Collection · Jedediah Smith

People

The men who died, the roll of the party as its clerk wrote it, the people on both sides in 1828, and the people who made the memorial.

Everyone on this page is named because a document in this series names them. Nobody living appears except in the public role the creator himself publishes: no address, no telephone number, no email, and nothing about anyone’s private life.

The men named on the memorial plaque

Fourteen names, as they are set out on the plaque cast for the memorial stone under the heading “Smith, Jackson & Sublette / ‘Free Trappers’ / Died July 14, 1828.” The project’s own accounts differ on whether fourteen or fifteen men were killed; the creator’s index says fifteen, his second field report says “the 14 or 15 beaver trappers killed near here,” and his article notes that the larger number “may include the Kalapuyan slave boy, Marion, who probably survived.”

Photographic Report of 15 June 2023, p. 7

Who they were

For the interpretive sign the creator wrote a line or two about each man, mostly out of the journals. They are printed here as he wrote them, grouped as he grouped them. Note that his list treats “Peter Ranne” and “John Peter Ranne” as two men, as the clerk’s roll below does, while the plaque carries one — which is one reason the project’s own accounts give the number killed as fourteen in some places and fifteen in others.

Nine who set out with Smith from the 1826 rendezvous

The creator’s heading: “In mid-August, the following nine men embarked with Smith on the ‘Southwest Expedition’ to California. Two years later, they were killed while still together and their remains later buried nearby. The quoted words are from Smith’s or Roger’s journals.”

John Gaither
“Kentucky.” Employment contract with SJ&S extended on July 2 at Coquille River camp.
John Hanna
“Missouri.” Wounded the bear that attacked Rogers on March 18; killed a “fat deer” on June 14 near Smith River, California.
Abraham Laplant
“Indiana.” He spoke broken Spanish and served as the expedition’s interpreter while they were in California.
Emmanuel Lazarus
“German.” Employment contract with SJ&S extended on July 2 at Coquille River camp.
Martin McCoy
“Kentuckian.” Killed a large grizzly bear with Palmer along the Sacramento River south of present-day Red Bluff on April 1.
Peter Ranne
“E Frenchman.” Sick entire five weeks in Oregon with “swollen legs.”
John Peter Ranne
“a man of colour.” The first Black man known to arrive by land in California; or to travel overland from San Diego to the Oregon Coast.
Harrison G. Rogers
“a Virginian.” Clerk and journalist on Smith Expeditions from 1826 to 1828. Severely wounded by bear attack on March 18, near Feather River, California.
John Reubascan
There is bare mention of this man and no evidence of a contractual relationship with SJ&S; he may have preferred being a “free trapper” or planning to quit.

Six who joined after the 1827 rendezvous

The creator’s heading records that on 13 July 1827 Smith left the Bear Lake rendezvous with eighteen new recruits, two women and two years’ supplies; that in August the brigade was attacked on the Colorado River, ten men killed and the two women captured; and that the survivors joined the earlier party in September. “These men had the shared experience of the killing of their comrades to replace their memories of the Rendezvous and were themselves killed on July 14, 1828.”

Thomas Daws
Too ill to perform contractual work on July 2, Coquille River camp.
Joseph Lapoint
Excellent hunter. Bayoneted an attacking bear on April 7; killed a 695-pound elk on June 15, in Elk Valley, near Smith River, California.
Toussaint Marechal
Captured Kalapuya slave boy Marion on July 3 near Whiskey Run campsite.
Joseph Palmer
Killed a large grizzly bear with McCoy along the Sacramento River south of present-day Red Bluff on April 1.
Charles Swift
Employment contract with SJ&S extended on July 2 at Coquille River camp.
Thomas Virgin
“the old man.” Jailed in San Diego; shot and killed an Indian while being attacked with arrows that wounded his horse on May 19, Gans Prairie, California.

Bob Zybach, 1828 Umpqua Memorial sign draft, 20 October 2023, pp. 7–9. Transcribed from his draft; the ligatures in his PDF do not survive text extraction and have been restored. Nothing else is altered.

The roll of the party, as Rogers wrote it

The heading “Men’s names with J. S. Smith” stands at the head of Rogers’s second journal, before the entry for 10 May 1828. Spellings are his.

The second journal of Harrison G. Rogers, p. 1

In 1828

Everyone else the record names: the survivors, the Hudson’s Bay Company men who went to look for them, the Umpqua chief who told McLeod what had happened, and the surveyor who found the place thirty years later.

Jedediah Strong Smith
Partner in Smith, Jackson & Sublette and leader of the expedition. Survived the attack and reached Fort Vancouver. Guidebook #1, p. 3; Zybach, pack trails draft, appendix C
Harrison G. Rogers
Clerk of the expedition and keeper of the journal that runs to 13 July 1828. Killed the next day; named on the memorial plaque. The second journal of Harrison G. Rogers
Arthur Black
Survivor; separated from the others and reached Fort Vancouver on 8 August 1828, “in his opinion at the time, the only survivor.” McLoughlin, 10 August 1828; Zybach, pack trails draft, p. 33
John Turner
Survivor, with Smith and Leland. Zybach, pack trails draft, appendix C
Richard Leland
Survivor, with Smith and Turner. Zybach, pack trails draft, appendix C
Peter Ranne
One of the men killed; the creator’s article calls him “the first black man to enter California.” Rogers’s roll records him as “a man of colour.” Zybach, Castor Canadensis, Spring 2023; Rogers’s second journal, p. 1
Marion
A Kalapuyan boy held by the party as a slave. The creator writes that the count of fifteen “may include the Kalapuyan slave boy, Marion, who probably survived.” The Historic Cemeteries form calls him “an Indian slave boy who may or may not have been killed.” Zybach, Castor Canadensis, Spring 2023
John McLoughlin
Chief factor at Fort Vancouver. Received Black, sent parties to search for survivors and to recover the property, and reported the events to London on 10 August 1828. McLoughlin, 10 August 1828
Alexander Roderick McLeod
Hudson’s Bay Company brigade leader who took the recovery expedition south and wrote the journal entry of 28 October 1828. Journal of Alexander Roderick McLeod, 6 September – 10 December 1828
Michel La Framboise
Hudson’s Bay Company brigade captain, sent by McLoughlin on 26 August 1828. The creator’s guidebook records that his wife, Emily Picard, was the great-great-grandmother of a member of the modern project. Zybach, pack trails draft, p. 33; Guidebook #2, p. 3
Thomas McKay
McLoughlin’s stepson, sent with La Framboise. Zybach, pack trails draft, p. 33
St. Arnoose (Old Chief)
Named in the 1987 draft’s biographical summaries, and again in the creator’s 2023 correspondence as one of the people who ought to be named on the Bolon Island sign, with Rogers and La Framboise. Zybach, pack trails draft, appendix C; Zybach to the Culture Committee, 20 July 2023
George Simpson
Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company. His letters of December 1828 and dispatch of March 1829 open the fourth guidebook. Guidebook #4, contents
Harvey Gordon
United States deputy surveyor. His General Land Office survey of 1857–58 recorded the place of the killings; the note he made on the plat is quoted in the creator’s article and in the sign drafts. The Library does not publish the survey description. Zybach, Castor Canadensis, Spring 2023

Chief St. Arnoose’s own account of the cause is printed in full on the 1828 record page.

The project

The people the creator names on his own pages as having done the work, in the role his pages give them. Businesses and their named contacts are on the sponsors table, exactly as he publishes them.

Bob Zybach
Chair of the memorial committee; author of the guidebooks, the reports, the 1987 draft and the 2023 journal article.
Wayne Knauf
Jedediah Smith Society member; began the research in 2000. With Tope Knauf, of K2 Consulting, a project sponsor.
Don Whereat
Quuiich tribal historian; joined the research in 2001 and field-mapped the routes of 13 and 14 July 1828.
James C. Auld
Smith historian; led the July 2000 memorial ceremony with Wayne Knauf and wrote on the events at Defeat River.
Joe Molter
Jedediah Smith Society member and field researcher; assisted with the guidebooks and the California leg.
David Gould
Coos Bay Timber Operators, and a director of Oregon Websites and Watershed Project; donated and placed the memorial stone.
Vyla Grindberg
Douglas County GIS; made the five map sheets for the guidebooks. The creator’s index spells the surname both Grinberg and Grindberg.
Cathy Schneider
Northwest Canine Resources; handled the search dog and filed the May 2023 report.
Milton von Damm
President of the Jedediah Smith Society.
Patricia Whereat Phillips
Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians; convened the Culture Committee meeting of 20 July 2023 at which the project was presented.
Tam Moore
Photographer; several of the project’s photographs are his.
Peter Meyerhof
Rendezvous participant and photographer.
Ellyn Mole
Ellyn Amalia Designs, Creswell; graphic artist for the interpretive sign.
Larry Hager
Bronzecraft Memorials, Wamic; cast the bronze plaque.
Stu Richardson
Richardson Masonry, Reedsport; cut the stone and set the plaque.
Dale Hanson
Pacific Memorials, Wilbur; advised on the stone and the plaque.

Provenance

Built by
America’s School Trust Library, from the creator’s published files
Sources
The plaque text in the field report of 15 June 2023; the sign draft of 20 October 2023; Rogers’s second journal; the 1987 draft’s biographical appendix; the creator’s project index and sponsors page
Living people
Named only in the public project role the creator publishes. No contact details of any kind are published.
The creator’s pages
orww.org/1828_Umpqua_Memorial/

Series · Chronology · The 1828 record · Submit a correction