Smith, Jedediah (Strong) (1798?–1831), a United States explorer and trader. He was the first American known to reach California overland from the east. His journeys throughout the Far West opened much of the region to later pioneers.
Jed Smith was born in Bainbridge, New York. As a young man, he traveled west and became a fur trader. In 1826, he left Great Salt Lake with 17 men and traveled across the unexplored Mojave Desert to California. On his return to Great Salt Lake, he became the first white man to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the deserts of what are now Nevada and Utah. On a second trip to California, he explored northward into Oregon country, 1828–29. Smith was killed by Comanche Indians on the Santa Fe Trail.
