Editing Jedediah Smith (section)

===Return to St. Louis===
[[File:John Eaton.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Secretary of War<br /> [[John H. Eaton]]]]

After Smith's return to St. Louis in 1830, he and his partners wrote a letter on October 29 to Secretary of War Eaton, who at the time was involved in a notorious Washington cabinet scandal known as the [[Petticoat Affair]]<ref name=Latner>{{cite journal |last = Latner|first = Richard B. | title = The Eaton Affair Reconsidered.| journal = Tennessee Historical Quarterly |volume = 36 |issue = 3 |year =1977|pages = 330–51|jstor = 42623838 }}</ref> and informed Eaton of the "military implications" of the British allegedly alienating the indigene population towards any American trappers in the Pacific Northwest. According to biographer Dale L. Morgan, Smith's letter was "a clear sighted statement of the national interest".{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=323}}  The letter also included a description of Fort Vancouver and described how the British were in the process of making a new fort at the time of Smith's visit in 1829. Smith believed the British were attempting to establish a permanent settlement in the Oregon Country.<ref name=NPS />

Smith had not forgotten the financial struggles of his family in Ohio. After making a sizable profit from the sale of furs, over $17,000 (more than ${{inflation|US|17,000|1830|fmt=c}} in {{inflation/year|US}}){{inflation/fn|US}}  Smith sent $1,500 ({{inflation|US|1500|1830|fmt=eq}}){{inflation/fn|US}} to his family in Green Township, whereupon his brother Ralph bought a farm. Smith also bought a house on First Avenue in St. Louis to be shared with his brothers. Smith bought two African slaves to take care of the property in St. Louis.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=323}}

The partners' busy schedules in St. Louis also found them and Samuel Parkman making a map of their discoveries in the West,<ref name=Lyman>{{cite book|last1=Lyman|first1=Betsy Converse|title=Pioneer and General History of Geauga County: With Sketches of Some of the Pioneers and Prominent Men.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Eu0uAAAAYAAJ|publisher=The Historical Society of Geauga County|access-date=May 2, 2015|page=705|date=1880}}</ref> to which Smith was the major contributor.  On March&nbsp;2, 1831, Smith wrote another letter to Eaton, now a few months away from resigning because of the Petticoat Affair,<ref name=Latner/> referencing the map<ref name=Smith>{{cite journal|last=Smith | first=Jedediah |title=A Letter from Jedediah Smith| editor=James S. Hutchins| journal=Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly | year=2001|pages= 2–7}}</ref> and requesting to launch a federally funded exploration expedition similar to the Lewis & Clark expedition.{{sfn|Morgan|1964|p=323}}{{efn| President [[Andrew Jackson]], opposed federal funding for western overland exploration during his first term, but relented during his second term creating [[United States Exploring Expedition]] in May 1836.}} Smith requested that Reuben Holmes, a West Point graduate and military officer, would lead the expedition.<ref name=Smith/>

Smith and his partners were also preparing to join into the supply trade known as the "[[Josiah Gregg#Commerce of the Prairies|commerce of the prairies"]]. At the request of William H. Ashley, Smith Jackson and Sublette received a passport from Senator [[Thomas Hart Benton (politician)|Thomas Hart Benton]] on March 3, 1831, the day after Smith wrote his letter to Eaton, and they began forming a company of 74 men, twenty-two wagons, and a "six-pounder" [[artillery]] [[cannon]] for protection.{{citation needed|date=December 2015}}