Show Fifty Famous Frontiersmen By ELMO SCOTT WATSON The Pioneer Photographer I summer for the last few L sears ears a gray ra haired New Yorker has been setting out on a romantic journey He Be Is William H Jackson past four score years In age who has been back tracking on the path ot of bl hip youth the historIc Oregon trail Amon Among the thousands oho v ho passes passel 0 over er that trail Jackson Is unique For he was as the pioneer 1 aphel of that highway ay of a westward I nation the first man to tra traer er e It t with Uh the crude photographIc materials of 65 years ago to make a record or of the country through which It ran In Its primitive e state and to make hundreds ot of photographs of IndIans among them chIefs and who became famous by their deeds on the warpath and In the council councH lodge Born In ew York In 1843 Jackson became an itinerant arti artist t a map map- mapmaker maker In the UnIon army durIng the Civil W war ir a village mage photographer aft aft- afterwards then a seeker fortune In the trans Mississippi West IVest In 1860 67 he be hess ss IS as a for tor a freighters outfit hauling supplies from Nebraska City on the MissourI to the valley ot of the GI Great eat Salt Lake In Utah beet I he and his brother set up as photographers In the booming frontier ton to ton n of Omaha but when the Union pacific begin bUIlding west Jackson left hIs brother to run the studIO and started out to record what was hap happening pening In what was ms then the real Wild West To get pictures he be took the chance of losIng his bis scalp but he got the pIctures 1 So successful was he that Dr 0 V head of the United States geological survey sur offered him a job as photographer for the expedition which started out In 1870 1570 to survey the old Oregon Mormon trail trall and the theold theold old Overland Stage route Por the next nest ten years he accompanied other surveyIng expeditions and It was on these expeditIons that he took the plc pIc pIctures tures ot of scenes In the West Indians frontier posts etc ete which have become such a prIceless heritage to posterity In 1871 he made the first photo photo- photographs graphs of the marvels of the Yellow Yellow- Yellowstone stone country and his pictures as well as the of and the sped mens collected by the Hayden etIe of which he was a member played an Important part In the cre creation atlon of the Yellowstone National park parkin parkin in 1872 In recent years Mr Jackson has been research secretary of the Oregon Trail MemorIal association In which role he Is completing the work started when he was not only a fron frontiersman himself but the pIctorIal his ot of the frontier The First Forty Niner ONE OND sprIng day in the year 1848 a 8 horseman came galloping through the streets of San Francisco sprang from his weary horse and rushed through the plaza hatless and travel travel- stained waving aloft a little bottle filled wIth some shinIng particles and shouting Gold 1 Gold I Gold from the AmerIcan river rI 1 Thus it was that Sam Brannan frontiersman and adventurer won the tItle of the first Niner For he was the first to bring to San Fran FranCisco Cisco authentic news of the discovery of gold by James W Marshall near Sutter's Port rort But this was not the only historIc first In the career of Sam Drannan Brannan Back In the late thirties and early for for- forties tIes he had been a journeyman prInter a free lance riter an editor and a natural born pi Also he be was wasa wasa a full fledged elder In the Church ot of the Latter Day Saints until the Mor Mor- Mor Mormon mon leaders a little later had occasIOn and sery er good reason to expel him himIn himIn In July Jul 1846 he brought to a colon colom of some Mormons th the first American colonists to reach Yerba YerbaBuena YerbaBuena Buena the little Spanish settlement on onI I San Francisco bay Immediately he be heI I began on the series ot of hIs historic firsts he firsts he preached the first EnglIsh sermon e es or er heard there he solemn solemnized the first American marriage on California son soil he set up the first flour mill and gave the settlement its first ne newspaper r the tho California Star After lie he was e from the Mor Mor- Mor Mormon mon church he became the first Call fornia promoter by getting out a special special cial edition of his Star and sending 2000 copies ot of the paper overland to the Mis valley alley and the eastern states extolling the virtues ot of the country to prospective settlers Then came the discovery of gold and Brannan's role as the first Forty er ills sensational announcement of the gold dIscovery depopulated San FrancIsco within a few days and re re- resulted suIted In Sutter's little kingdom or of New Nev Helvetia being overrun o by a swarm of In the wild ern er 1 that followed Bran Brannon non prospered He was gambler and bunker banker merchant and hotel owner im- im importer porter and c orter gold digger and andreal andreal real estate speculator and smuggler As San grew he loomed larger and larger on Its hort horl zon ant and at last was ruling It like a ChInese mandarin Then misfortune overtook hIm His later career was one of ups and downs but he never remained entirely down and when he be died In 1853 at the a ne e ot of se seventy ent he heUS henas US nas fairly prosperous In cOntrast to the poverty which had Imd 0 overtaken those other two early Johann August Sutter the former king ot of New Hel- Hel and James W Marshall c 1933 19 western W stOrD No lIp NO per Union |