Background
James Clyman was born on February 01, 1792 in Fauquier County, Virginia, United States. About 1806 the family moved to Pennsylvania and then to Stark County, Ohio.
James Clyman was born on February 01, 1792 in Fauquier County, Virginia, United States. About 1806 the family moved to Pennsylvania and then to Stark County, Ohio.
Clyman acquired little education. He became an adept in woodcraft and marksmanship.
Clyman served as a mounted ranger throughout the Indian campaigns of the War of 1812, returning to farm work at its close. In 1818 he left home, drifting westward and working at various occupations. Early in 1823 he went to St. Louis, where, as a clerk, he joined Ashley’s second expedition to ascend the Missouri. He was in the battle with the Arikaras, June 2, when he barely escaped with his life, and also in the second battle, August 11. In September he left the Missouri with the Smith-Fitzpatrick party that reached Green River in February or March 1824—probably the first whites to traverse South Pass and certainly the first to traverse it from the east.
Returning by the pass, and becoming separated from his companions on the Sweetwater, he walked the 600 miles through a hostile and unknown region back to the Missouri, arriving at Fort Atkinson in September. Here he seems to have met Ashley’s first overland expedition, with which he again went to the mountains. He was one of the four men who in the early spring of 1826 circumnavigated Great Salt Lake. In October 1827 he returned to St. Louis. With the proceeds from the sale of his furs he bought a farm near Danville and with a partner started one of the first stores in the town.
He was a soldier in the Black Hawk War of 1832, for a time with Abraham Lincoln in Jacob Earley’s company, and continued in the service until 1834. His roving disposition led him next to the Wisconsin frontier, where he acquired his title of colonel at the hands of General Henry Dodge and where he was severely wounded in an encounter with an Indian. The Danville and Milwaukee settlements alternately claimed him until after the winter of 1842-1843, when he started on a horseback trip for his health. At Independence, Missouri, in the spring of 1844, he decided to try the West again and accordingly set out with one of the emigrant trains. Arriving at the Willamette in October, he remained in Oregon for a time, but in the following year went to California.
In the spring of 1846, learning of Fremont’s difficult position, he offered to raise for the Pathfinder a company of mounted men, but on the declination of the offer started east with a party of disappointed emigrants. Arriving at Independence in July, be spent the next eighteen months in visiting friends. But in 1848 he again headed west, this time as guide to an emigrant party which included the Mecombs family. Arriving in California in September, the Mecombs settled at the town of Napa, and Clyman remained with them.
In 1850 he acquired the land on which he established his own ranch, and his subsequent life was uneventful. He died at his Napa home. Except at the hands of H. H. Bancroft he had received little attention from historians until Mr. C. L, Camp assembled and annotated his manuscripts.
(Excerpt from James Clyman, American Frontiersman, 1792-18...)
(James or Jim Clyman (1792 – 1881) was a mountain man and ...)
Clyman was more than six feet tall, rawboned and angular, with stooping shoulders and a long, narrow head. His hair was dark brown, his complexion ruddy, and his eyes were small, dark blue, and piercing. In manner he was dignified and courteous, and his disposition was exceptionally generous and helpful.
On August 22, 1849, Clyman married Hannah Mecombs.
