Oscar Smith
Oscar Smith was an early pioneer and part of Brigham Young’s advance party that entered into the Salt Lake Valley on July 22, 1847. Along with Orson Pratt and Green Flake, Smith and Hark Wales were tasked with scouting the terrain, charting a course, and improving the trail to Utah.
- It was the enslaved men, Hark Lay, Oscar Crosby, and Green Flake, who – largely following the Donner Party’s path from the year before – made the descent into Emigrant Canyon and entered the Salt Lake Valley on 22 July 1847. By the time Brigham Young arrived in the valley, just two days later via the road created by Lay, Crosby, and Flake, the party had already started the work of building homes and planting potatoes, buckwheat, and beans.[1]
Oscar and his brother (or half-brother) Hark Wales were born into bondage and lived on the John Crosby plantation in Mississippi. Oscar was inherited by William Crosby and was known as Oscar Crosby.
Smith traveled to San Bernardino Valley in California with the Lay family to establish a new Mormon settlement. According to California law, he was set free. He dropped the Crosby surname and chose Smith as his new last name. The 1860 United States census record shows him living by himself as a laborer in Los Angeles. He is believed to have died there.[2]
It is uncertain if Oscar was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
