James Nesmith

James Willis Nesmith was an American politician and lawyer from Oregon. Born in Canada to American parents, he grew up in New Hampshire and Maine. A Democrat, he moved to Oregon Country in 1843 where he entered politics as a judge, a legislator in the Provisional Government of Oregon, a United States Marshal, and after statehood a United States Senator and Representative.

James Nesmith was born in New Brunswick, Canada while his parents were on a visit from their home in Washington County, Maine, on July 23, 1820. Of Scottish and Irish heritage, his father was William Morrison Nesmith and his mother the former Harriet Miller. About 1828, James and his father moved to Claremont, New Hampshire, where he received a limited education. In 1838, Nesmith moved to Ohio, followed by Iowa in 1842 where he waited to immigrate to Oregon Country. Nesmith planned on traveling the Oregon Trail with Elijah White in 1842, but was late to arrive and instead left the next spring with Marcus Whitman after working as a carpenter in the interim at Fort Scott in Kansas.

Source: Wikipedia