The men and women who helped populate, break and tame the American West were a special breed of people.

Some stuck out, even among the very rugged general populace; here are a few. You will probably recognize a few such as Hugh Glass who was recently a character played by Leonardo Dicaprio in the excellent film The Revenant.

James Beckwourth (1798-1866)

Compared to life as a slave, life on the frontier must have seemed like been Club Med. This might help explain why this one former slave went on to become one of the most famous mountain men of the West. Born into slavery in Frederick County, Virginia, Jim Beckwourth’s mother was a slave and his father was an Englishman. Roughly 20 years later, Beckwourth received his freedom and hooked up with General William Ashely’s outfit, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Called “Ashley’s Hundred,” this group of trappers working the Rocky Mountain West was a who’s who of mountain men. Men such as Jim Bridger, Hugh Glass and Jedediah Smith were among the 100, and Beckwourth no doubt learned how to survive on the frontier with the best. Beckwourth’s time on the frontier is captured in the book The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, Mountaineer, Scout, and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians. While some of the numbers are embellished in the book, the events recounted by Beckwourth likely happened. And they may even have happened to him.

John Wesley Powell (1834-1902)

Mountain Man? Maybe. Canyon Man? Absolutely. After losing his right arm at the Battle of Shiloh in the Civil War, Major Powell, at 35, strapped a wooden chair to a wooden boat, enlisted nine men and floated his way down the Grand Canyon, making the first ever-run through the canyon by a bunch of white guys and possibly by anyone.  The journey started in May of 1869 on the shores of Wyoming’s Green River. Before hitting the mighty Colorado, the crew only lost one man who walked away, but most of their supplies had been lost to the rapids. Those who hiked out were killed by Shivwit Indians. Powell went on to head the U.S. Geological Society, and he is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Marie Dorion  (1786-1850)

Hardship is one thing. But throw a couple of kids under the age of 10 into the mix, and you get one hell of a miserable time. In January 1814, she took the kids and a horse in search of her husband’s camp somewhere in Idaho. Upon arriving, she found he had been killed and only one man was alive. She loaded him on the horse, but he died soon thereafter. Then, upon arriving back at her home camp, she found everyone there had been slaughtered as well. She loaded up her boys and some food and started heading west out of hostile territory. For three months they crossed the snows of the Blue Mountains and eventually had to eat the horse. After surviving the winter in the mountains and walking some 250 miles, she and her boys came to the Columbia River where the Walla Walla tribe helped her recover. She went on to remarry and have more children, the ancestors of whom settled the Willamette Valley.

Kit Carson (1809-1868)

When you’re number nine of 14 kids, you learn fast how to look out for yourself. And that’s just what Carson did. With no formal schooling, Carson never learned to read, opting to help on the family farm after his dad died when he was nine. At 15, he’d had enough. He joined a wagon train out of Missouri bound for Santa Fe. At 19, he started trapping in California and throughout the West. At first, Carson seemed to have real disdain for Indians and loved a good fight, of which he had many.  While escorting his daughter back east, he met John C Fremont on a Missouri River steamboat. He used Carson’s persona and tales of frontier adventure in his articles and reports, which promoted Carson to legendary status.

Hugh Glass (1783-1833)
As Hugh Glass crawled, dragged and limped some 200 miles from Fort Kiowa after being mauled by a grizzly and left for dead by his “companions,” I have to wonder if his fuel to live came from revenge or the off-chance that he would help Leonardo DiCaprio win his first Oscar. Unless you’ve been living a mountain man’s existence these past couple years, you’ve likely heard of Hugh Glass and his famous crawl. Before his bruin encounter, Glass was forced to be a pirate alongside Jean Lafitte. He and a companion escaped near Galveston two years later. After their escape, they were captured by the Pawnee in Kansas. Glass watched as the Pawnee impaled and burned his friend alive, and Glass gave the gift of cinnabar to the Chief. This saved his life. He went on to join the Rocky Mountain Fur Company where he met a young Jim Bridger and John Fitzgerald—the two men who would leave him for dead. Glass eventually reunited with both men, but killed neither.

This is just a short list of the “rough and tough” of the American frontier; many more endured as much although few attained such fame.

This group stands out, though, because of hardship they overcame before they set out West.

A former slave, amputee, mother of four and one of the youngest children of 14, each, in their own way overcame much just to get to the point they could build a reputation as a frontier legend.

To learn more about those who helped forge the West, please visit Outdoor Life.

Featured Image via Wikipedia