- David Edward Jackson
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David Edward Jackson (1788–1837) was an American pioneer, explorer, trader, and fur trapper.
He spent his early life west of the Shenandoah Mountains, in what was then part of Virginia and is now in West Virginia: he was born in Randolph County, and his parents, Edward and Elizabeth Jackson, soon moved the family west to Lewis County, on the Cumberland Plateau.
He was one of those who opened the Oregon Trail having explored many connecting valleys in his life as a trapper. By 1826 Jackson bought a majority position in the three year old Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and along with several partners, prospered while the fur bearing beavers remained plentiful; which populations began a quick decline ca. 1833, presumably from over trapping. [notes 1]
Jackson Hole in Wyoming is named for him.
Notes
- ^ There were too many companies taking pelts, and too little time for breeding pairs to propagate big families. In part, the nature of beavers was at fault; the animals instinctively migrate to new undammed, heavily forested stream beds, and avoid old damns. The effect of trapping a breeding pair was to cause an interruption in beaver population that took years to recoup until the region regenerated its tree stocks and new migrant beavers re-established a locales numbers.
Further reading
- LeRor R. Hafen, editor, Mountain Men & Fur Traders of the Far West, 1965-72 (10 volumes).
Jackson, John C., Shadow on the Tetons: David E. Jackson and the claiming of the American West, Missoula: Mountain Press Publishing Co., 1993.
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