speech often amounting to insolence, and unlimited ability to make himself disagreeable. How far these peculiarities, and the young man's connection with the smuggling operations of Bradshaw and Lang, may have provoked Echeandía to the infliction of special penalties, I cannot say.
Thomas L. Smith, commonly called 'Peg-leg' Smith — a well known character in many parts of California, but chiefly in later times, who died in a San Francisco hospital in 1866 — was one of the famous trappers and Indian-fighters of this early epoch. He was at times a companion of Jedediah Smith, and was the hero of many will adventures in various parts of the great interior; but very few of his early exploits have ever been recorded with even approximate accuracy of time or place. He owes his position on this page to a report that he came to California in 1829, a report that I have not been able to trace to any reliable source.[1] Engaged in trapping in the Utah regions, he came to California to dispose of his furs. He was ordered out of the country, and departed, he and his companion taking with them, however, a band of three or four hundred horses, in spite of efforts of the Californians to prevent the act. Some accounts say that be visited the country repeatedly in those early years, and we shall find archive evidence of his presence a little later, acting with the horse-thieves of the Tulares, and known as 'El Cojo Smit.'[2]
In the spring of 1828 the Mexican government granted to Richard Exter and Julian Wilson[3] a pro-
- ↑ The story is told in many newspaper biographical sketches published at the time of Smith's death. I have before me the S. F. Bulletin, Oct. 26, 1866; Nevada Daily Gazette, Oct. 25, 1866; and others in Hayes' Scraps, Cal. Notes, ii. 309-12.
- ↑ As an item which I am unable to connect with any of the expeditions particularly accredited to this period, I may notice a record of Nov. 6, 1829, that five deserters from Upper California were captured on the frontier of the peninsula, one of whom, an Englishman, stabbed a neophyte, and was shot by another. St. Pap., Sac., MS.. xiv. 10-11.
- ↑ Exter, of Exter, Graves, & Co., Mexico, was connected with the General
