Trinity River
On April 17, 1828 Jedediah Smith led a company across the divide to the Hay Fork of Trinity River. The trail was difficult, as it wound among steep hills, and the Indians were unfriendly.
Smith continued to press on, forcing his way down the Hay Fork and then the South Fork of the Trinity. The 300 head of half-wild horses and mules they brought compounded the difficulties. Smith determined to name the river after himself. It became Smith's River the Trinity on maps until he was forgotten in the pathfinding rush of the 1850s and '60s.
The Trinity River was rediscovered by Maj. Pierson B. Redding in 1845, while he was trapping in that area. He called it the Trinity because he believed it discharged into Trinidad Bay. Three years later, after California had been ceded to the United States by Mexico, gold was found on the headwaters of the Trinity by Major Redding. As a result of two days' prospecting, Redding and his party found the river bars to be "rich in gold." These bars were worked with the aid of Indian labor. It was not long before the news brought "emigrants" who were flooding into California over the northern trails. By 1849 the population of the Trinity River district had "passed all bounds”. A harbor then needed to be built somewhere on the north coast which could serve as a base of supplies.
Dr. Josiah Gregg (scientist, traveler, and author) was one of those drawn to the Trinity diggings by the discovery of gold. In November 1849, he became involved in organizing a party to reconnoiter the region west of the Trinity.
