This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,

the show where America is the star and the American people coming to you from

the city where the West begins, Fort Worth, Texas. Our next story is brought to us by one of the

best Old West storytellers in the country, Roger McGrath. McGrath is the author of gunfighters,

highwayman, and vigilantes, violence on the frontier, a U.S. Marine and

former history professor at UCLA, McGrath has appeared on numerous History Channel documentaries,

and he's a regular contributor for us here at Our American Stories. Here's Roger McGrath with

the story of legendary mountain man, Tom Fitzpatrick.

Tom Fitzpatrick was one of the greatest of the mountain men.

He trapped nearly every beaver stream of the west and became the leader of trapping parties halfway through his first season in the mountains.

He was a partner in the famous Rocky Mountain Fur Company.

He made the effective discovery of South Pass.

He guided the first pioneer settlers most of the way to California and others all the way to Oregon.

He guided the first Catholic missionaries to the Pacific Northwest. He was a guide for John C. Fremont

on his second expedition and a guide for John C. Fremont on his second expedition and a guide for Colonel

Stephen Carney during the Mexican War. He was Indian agent for the tribes of the High Plains.

He did it all. Here's Dublin Ireland's Miles Dungan.

Miles is a historian specializing in 19th century Irish history and in the American West.

I think he's probably the single most significant Irish-born figure in the history of the American West,

and there were many significant Irish-born figures in that history.

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