Robert Redford's "Jeremiah Johnson”: The Real Story of a Hollywood Mountain Man

And we continue with our American Stories. The lore and legend of the American mountain man is a story that only seems to grow with time. In 2015, Leonardo DiCaprio played the legendary mountain man Hugh Glass in The Revenant.

In 1972, Robert Redford starred as the title character in Jeremiah Johnson. Here to separate fact from fiction is Ashley Lubinsky. Ashley is the former co-host of Discovery Channel's Master of Arms, the former curator in charge of the Cody Firearms Museum, and she's president of the Gun Code LLC.

Here's Ashley. I used to run this very large museum in the American West, and on display at that museum, there was a firearm called a Hawken rifle and a buoy knife with a sheath. And these two things belong to a man named Liver Eating Johnson, although that's not really his name. His name was John Johnston with a T, but he also at some points in his life went by John Garrison, John Johnson with no T because spelling standardization wasn't a thing in the 1800s, Jack Johnson, and then by his prolific mythic name, Liver Eating Johnson. And a lot of people who'd come to the museum would also call him Jeremiah Johnson.

And the reason behind that was because of a movie that was starring Robert Redford called Jeremiah Johnson in 1972. And so basically you've got the man, you've got his artifacts, and then you've got a whole host of nonsense somewhere in the middle in order to kind of understand who he was and why people are so obsessed with him even today. Now part of that really plays into people's fascination with the American West, especially the early American West. So before trains, before mass migration out west, you know, these rugged men, kind of scary looking men a little bit, that would go out west and they were basically mapping the terrain, but then they were also hunting, trapping, trading with Native Americans. And all of those people that went out there had very kind of iconic stories.

One of them is Hugh Glass, who, you know, was attacked by a bear and then, you know, abandoned by his people and basically had to drag himself to a fort. So all of these stories are just larger than life. So it makes perfect sense that Liver Eating Johnson's story is no different. And because of the movie, because of a novel by Vardis Fisher called Mountain Man, his life is just larger than life, actually. So here's a few things we do know about him that are true. So he was born John Garrison, but he did change his name to John Johnston at some point.

And like I said, his name appeared in newspapers and records as John Johnson without the T, but that, again, is because they didn't have spell check on their, in their newspaper reports. So he actually was born in 1824, and he lived in Little York, New Jersey, and kind of like the start of a lot of stories about, you know, rugged, violent men is that he grew up in a very violent home. And so he was one of six siblings and he had an alcoholic father who really kind of beat up on him. And so it kind of starts that beginning to understanding his life. He stood at six feet tall. He was over 200 pounds.

So just this really impressive looking person. But this idea of his violent nature is also what kind of fuels this mythology behind who he is. And a lot of that comes from an academic book that was written in the middle of the 20th century called Crow Killer. And the book is fascinating.

I highly recommend the read. However, it's based almost exclusively in oral tradition. And oral tradition was a huge part of Native American customs. The mountain man custom when you were moving out west.

And so it's understandable. You're sitting around the campfire, you're telling stories. And one of the stories that was told was about liver eating Johnson. And this story was passed down and it begins in 1847. The previous winner, John Johnston, was living out west and he married a flathead Indian woman.

And right after the nuptials, he was called away to go to work and he left her at their cabin. And when he returned in May of 1847, he found her murdered by the Crow Indians. So the story goes, he declared war on the Crow Nation and then he single handedly killed dozens of Crow warriors. And ultimately, he was attacked by a Blackfoot chief, the wolf, and several of his men.

And they, the story gets so weird. So they capture him and it says that he was able to chew through his leather cuffs that they shackled him with. And he attacked a guard with a kick and blow to the face. And he cut off that man's leg and ate it as he kind of made his grand escape and got back to safety. And that he continued to kill these Crow warriors until 1868.

He was tired of fighting and he rode into the camp of Crow Chief Gray Bear, which would blossom into a lifelong friendship. So this is part of that story. The other part of that story is the liver eating part. So if you believe the part about the eating a leg, I mean, I guess it doesn't sound totally crazy that he would be eating livers. But this story basically said that he was carving out the livers of his foes. So the Crow warriors and eating them. And part of that story, if I understand it correctly, is that to the Crow Nation, you know, the liver was considered the way to pass on to the afterlife.

So in a sense, he was eating their souls. But this story kind of kept going and growing bigger and bigger, passed on by different tribal nations, passed on by different mountain men. And then, you know, basically immortalized in this academic book that then became a novel, became a movie.

And here we are. The interesting part of this, though, is there is primary source documentation from this time period that don't put him in the West in 1847. They actually put him in the Mexican-American war around this time. And his obituary actually in the Carbon County Democrat states that he went to shore for leave and never came back after violently attacking a lieutenant in his command.

But a military pension that Johnson claims in 1884 said he was in the Navy until the 1860s. The primary source documentation implies that he always had a great relationship with the Crow Nation. And in fact, he had issues and declared war on the Blackfeet and the Sioux, which does kind of follow the trajectory of a lot of mountain man history.

The Blackfeet and the mountain man really didn't get along. And the piece about the liver, actually, there are some reports that say that that was a joke that he started. And I guess be careful things you joke about because it becomes basically like a game of telephone when you pass on oral histories. So if you don't want to believe that he was in the West until the 1860s or even if you want to believe that he was out there earlier, because I will say when I was running the museum, nobody cared when I corrected the story.

They still wanted to know the story as they saw it when they watched the movie. But there are some things that we know after that time period. So he moved out West in the 1860s and he was a deputy sheriff in Montana. So he spent some time in Colson, Montana, and then he moved to Red Lodge, Montana. And he did fight in the Plains Indian Wars.

But he stayed there until 1899 when he was admitted to the Santa Monica National Soldiers Home. And he died on January 21st, 1900. So right at the turn of the 20th century, which is actually pretty late when you consider the mountain man era. By that point, you're getting a much more modern America.

The Transcontinental Railroad is put into place. People are living out in the American West. So it's kind of this bygone era that he's now passing away.

And things really change as you get into the 20th century. After the Robert Redford movie came out in 1972, Jeremiah Johnson, Robert Redford actually had his body removed and moved to Cody, Wyoming. And I don't know why, Cody, but I mean, there's a lot of Western stuff in Cody. So if you're planning on visiting his grave, he's not in California anymore. You can go to this small town of 9000 people. And there's this repurposed ghost town of old buildings that were from all over the West that they've kind of put together.

So you can go and see them all in one place. And if you walk about 20 yards out of that little ghost town, you can go and visit his grave. And a lot of people go because of Robert Redford as well. And a terrific job on the production and editing by Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to Ashley Lebinski. And by the way, Ashley's done some terrific storytelling for us. And that includes Annie Oakley, Eli Whitney, the story of the cult revolver, and Sarah Winchester. Go to OurAmericanStories.com and take a listen. We're very grateful to have her as a regular contributor here on Our American Stories. The story, the myth, and the facts of mountain man Jeremiah Johnson here on Our American Stories.