Hugh glass mountain man story

If you’ve seen “The Revenant,” you might think you know. But there are many versions of the story.

Probably the most famous “true story” from the mountain man period of the American West is the saga of fur trapper Hugh Glass. The generally accepted version goes something like this: Attacked by a grizzly, severely mauled, Glass is considered beyond saving and is left behind to die. Two fellow trappers, one of whom is the young Jim Bridger, are paid to stay with him until the end and provide a proper burial. But Glass hangs on. The men are increasingly worried about nearby hostile Indians, who might discover them at any time. So they abandon the dying man, taking his rifle, knife, and other vital gear. Glass is left on his own, deep in the wilderness. But somehow he manages to survive, drinking stream water, eating berries and whatever else he can find for sustenance. His wounds are terrible–he can’t stand or walk–but he slowly gains enough strength to begin crawling over the prairie, aiming for a fort hundreds of miles away. He is driven by a fierce will to live and a burning desire for vengeance on the scoundrels who robbed him and left him for dead.

It is, of course, the stuff of legends, and a great story, which is why the Glass story has been told and retold, first as ostensibly true accounts, then as blatant fiction in novels and movies, most recently The Revenant. “Everyone knows” about Hugh Glass, but as is often the case with what everyone knows, it turns out that much is doubtful or plainly false. In fact, there isn’t one Hugh Glass story, but several conflicting versions. Some historians even believe the whole chronicle is largely made up, a tall tale first spun by Glass and then embellished by others. Let’s take a closer look at some of the details. 

Little is known about Glass’s origins, but it is believed he was born circa 1780, near Philadelphia. At the

American fur trapper and frontiersman (1783–1833)

For the Australian pastoralist, see Hugh Glass (pastoralist).

Hugh Glass (c. 1783 – 1833) was an American frontiersman, fur trapper, trader, hunter and explorer. He is best known for his story of survival and forgiveness after being left for dead by companions when he was mauled by a grizzly bear.

No records exist regarding his origins but he is widely said to have been born in Pennsylvania to Scotch-Irish parents. Glass became an explorer of the watershed of the Upper Missouri River, in present-day Montana, the Dakotas, and the Platte River area of Nebraska. His life story has been the basis of two feature-length films: Man in the Wilderness (1971) and The Revenant (2015). They both portray the survival struggle of Glass, who crawled and stumbled 200 miles (320 km) to Fort Kiowa, South Dakota, after being abandoned without supplies or weapons by fellow explorers and fur traders during General Ashley's expedition of 1823. Another version of the story was told in a 1966 episode of the TV series Death Valley Days, titled "Hugh Glass Meets the Bear".

Despite the story's popularity, its accuracy has been disputed. It was first recorded in 1825 in The Port Folio, a Philadelphia literary journal, as a literary piece and later picked up by various newspapers. Although originally

Read Part 1: Legends of America: Ashley’s 100

Century Watch

This Year in History: A.D. 1823

 
Today people usually call them mountain men—the trappers of the Rocky Mountain West. Popular literature and movies often portray them as “crusty old coots” providing comic relief in cowboy stories. But in their prime, fifty years before the West of the cowboys, the mountain men lived a mythic period of American history. This was the West of Hugh Glass. They usually called themselves mountaineers rather than mountain men. They were mostly young, in their twenties and thirties. Daring, curious, fiercely independent, or rebellious, each of them chose to leave the familiarity of the settlements to take part in one of the first commercial enterprises of the American West—the fur trade.

Hugh Glass survived what appeared to be certain death at least six times in his life. His greatest story of survival, and the one that made him a legend, began in August of 1823. When Glass walked into Fort Kiowa in October—seemingly returned from the dead—his story became a tale of mythic proportions.

Hugh Glass’ survival against the odds—mauled by a grizzly bear, left for dead without weapons or equipment to survive or die alone—was a story so amazing that it became legend even among the mountaineers themselves. Recounted around camp fires during Glass’ own lifetime, the story made it into print a mere two years after the incident, and the drama of it still echoes today.
—Scott Walker, HughGlass.org/mountain-man/

1822: Ashley’s 100

Hugh Glass had already had his share of adventure before the fateful day in 1822 when he picked up a newspaper in Missouri. Captured in the Gulf of Mexico by the pirate Jean LaFitte and facing execution, he jumped overboard and escaped through Texas only to be captured in Kansas by the Pawnee, who made a ritual sacrifice of his companion. Glass bartered for his life with Vermillion (p

Take a mountain man hundreds of miles from civilization, add a bear, subtract his gun, and what do you have? One epic tale of survival.

The odyssey of mountain man Hugh Glass, now immortalized in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s film The Revenant, is probably the most epic personal saga ever recorded on the American frontier. Like a figure from mythology, Glass was a mighty hunter and warrior pitted against a monstrous beast and treacherous enemies. But there was no kingdom to save or princess to win. Horribly wounded and disfigured, Hugh Glass crawled, staggered, floated, and fought his way across 2,000 miles of frozen wilderness — for the sole purpose of getting his trusty rifle back and killing the two men who had robbed him and left him for dead.

The film is partially based on Michael Punke’s excellent historical novel The Revenant. But where Punke sticks closely to known facts and plausible conjecture, Iñárritu sentimentalizes the revenge story by inventing an added family motive for Glass and leading him to redemption. A shaggy, bearded, buckskin- and fur-clad Leonardo DiCaprio takes on the lead role, forging his way through the forested Canadian wilderness that stands in for the barren, windswept plains of Montana and the Dakotas.

We don’t know much about the real Hugh Glass. He was probably born in Penn­syl­vania between 1775 and 1780. According to the usual story told by mountain men and written down later by Phil­lip St. George Cooke and others, Glass went away to sea as a young man, became a ship’s captain, and was then captured by pirates working for the Louisiana buccaneer Jean Lafitte. Given a choice between death and working for Lafitte, Glass chose piracy and sailed for a year under the skull and crossbones.

Some say that he com­mitted barbarous acts, but mostly Hugh Glass was known as a trustworthy and honorable man, if a little strange. One contemporary described him as “bold, daring, reckless and eccentric to