[Sidenote: =His father a French refugee=]
=144. A Great Explorer.= Fremont's father was a Frenchman who was
driven to America by the terrible French Revolution. John Charles
Fremont was born at Savannah (1813) while his parents were on a
journey through the South. His father died soon after, and his mother
went to live in Charleston, South Carolina.
[Sidenote: =Goes to South America=]
After a time at a good school, Fremont entered the junior class in
Charleston College (1828). After leaving college he spent two and a
half years on a voyage to South America.
[Sidenote: =Becomes a civil engineer=]
On his return he joined a company of engineers sent by the governor to
explore the mountains between South Carolina and Tennessee, in order to
find a suitable place for a railroad. This work was through a region
rough, wild, and full of beauty. It gave young Fremont a taste for
exploration which never left him.
Fremont's longing for a wild life was gratified when he was made
assistant to a famous Frenchman who was exploring the wild region
between the upper Missouri River and Canada.
[Illustration: THE PATHWAYS OF THE EARLY EXPLORERS OF THE WEST]
[Sidenote: =Marries Senator Benton's daughter=]
After this work Fremont returned to Washington and later married
Jessie Benton, the daughter of the senator from Missouri. Thomas H.
Benton was a great friend of President Jackson.
Fremont was now related to a powerful man who was deeply interested
in the growth of the "Great West." Benton's repeated speeches on the
"West" and on the "Oregon Country" called attention to the importance
of the Pacific slope.
[Illustration: JOHN C. FREMONT
_After a photograph from life_]
[Sidenote: =Receives permission to explore South Pass=]
In 1842 Fremont, now a lieutenant of engineers, received permission
from the government to explore the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains.
With a party made up largely of French Canadians, and assisted by that
famous guide, Kit Carson, he passed up the Kansas River, crossed to the
Platte, went up this river, and thus reached the South Pass.
[Sidenote: =Unfurls the Stars and Stripes on Fremonts Peak=]
=145. On the Watershed.= Standing on the watershed of a continent, he
saw the beginnings of rivers that flow into the Atlantic, and of others
that stretched away through unknown regions to the Pacific. He took
four men and climbed what has since been called Fremonts Peak, one of
the highest of the Rockies, about 13,800 feet above the sea. At the top
Fremont unfurled the Stars and Stripes in all its glory!
=146. A Pathway to the Pacific.= Fremont reported his discovery at
Washington and immediately applied for orders to make an expedition to
discover a more southerly route to California and Oregon.
[Sidenote: =Beholds Great Salt Lake=]
[Illustration: GAZING OUT AT THE BEGINNINGS OF RIVERS]
He left the little town of Kansas City with his guide, Kit Carson, in
May, 1843. In September, after traveling seventeen hundred miles, the
little party beheld the shores of Great Salt Lake. What feelings must
have stirred the breasts of men shut in for months by mountains, at
seeing what appeared to be an ocean, here in the midst of a continent!
Little did they dream of that hardy band of immigrants, so soon to
follow, who would make the shores of this sea blossom like a garden.
Fremont wrote: "As we looked over that vast expanse of water and
strained our eyes along the silent shores, over which hung so much
doubt and uncertainty, I could hardly repress the almost irresistible
desire to continue our exploration."
[Illustration: FREMONT'S MEN BUILDING A FIRE IN THE SNOW]
[Sidenote: =Reaches Fort Vancouver=]
After making preparations, the party crossed over to a branch of the
Columbia River. Down this stream they traveled until Fort Vancouver was
reached on November 4. Here Fremont was the guest of the governor of
the British Hudson Bay Company.
[Sidenote: =Travel in deep snow=]
[Sidenote: =Crossing the Sierra Nevada=]
November 10, on the way home, the little party started to make the
circuit of the Great Basin, a vast depression beyond the east wall
of the Sierra Nevada. But very soon they found deep snow on the
mountains. Turning to the west at about the latitude of San Francisco,
Fremont determined to cross the Sierra Nevada into the valley of the
Sacramento. The river was not many miles distant.
[Illustration: FREMONT'S EXPEDITION REACHING SUTTER'S FORT, CALIFORNIA]
But what miles! Up and down, up and down that snowy mountain range,
which the Indians told him no man could cross in winter, with snow
lying upon it as deep as the dark forest trees were high, and places
where, if a man slipped off, he would fall half a mile without stopping!
[Sidenote: =In the Valley of the Sacramento=]
They attempted to cross without a guide, in the dead of winter. In
forty days the men and the surviving horses--a woeful procession
crawling along one by one, skeleton men leading skeleton
horses--arrived at Sutter's Fort (Sacramento) in the beautiful valley
of the Sacramento. Here genial warmth, trees in foliage, grassy ground,
and flowers made a fairy contrast to the famine and freezing they had
met on the mountains they had climbed.
After enjoying the hospitality of Colonel Sutter, Fremont again crossed
the mountains farther to the south, where the beautiful San Joaquin
River makes a gap or pass.
[Sidenote: =Sees the Mohave Desert=]
When he reached the top of the pass Fremont beheld the plains of the
Mohave Desert. An Indian said to him: "There is neither water nor
grass--nothing; every animal that goes upon them dies."
[Sidenote: =End of second expedition=]
Pushing forward with great energy, he reached Utah Lake, thus having
nearly made the circuit of the Great Basin.
Fremont hastened to Washington with the story of his discoveries.
General Scott now recommended that he be made captain.
[Sidenote: =Third expedition=]
Fremont's third expedition, with Carson as a helper, began in the
spring of 1845, and aimed to explore the Great Basin and the coast of
California and Oregon.
[Illustration: THE UNFURLING OF THE AMERICAN FLAG IN CALIFORNIA
_The Stars and Stripes were raised for the first time in California
near Monterey in 1846_]
[Sidenote: =War breaks out=]
=147. In the Mexican War.= Little did Fremont--or any of his men--think
what fortune had in store for them. On his way to the Oregon Country
Fremont received news that the Mexicans were planning to kill all the
Americans in the Sacramento Valley. War had already broken out between
the United States and Mexico, but he did not know it. He returned,
reaching the valley in May, 1846. The settlers rushed to join him, and
in one month northern California was declared independent.
[Sidenote: =Conquest of California=]
Fremont then marched to Monterey and joined Commander Sloat, who had
raised the American flag there, July 7, 1846. This practically finished
the conquest of all California in sixty days.
[Sidenote: =Fourth expedition=]
[Sidenote: =Elected to United States Senate=]
=148. Becomes a Private Citizen.= Soon after this event Fremont
returned to Washington, gave up his place in the regular army, and went
to live in California. His journey to California made up his fourth
expedition. But the people would not let him long remain in private.
The state elected him to the United States Senate. Fremont was not long
in Congress, but was of great service in giving advice concerning the
long-talked-of railroad to the Pacific.
Early in 1848 gold was discovered in the sand near the American River
at Sutter's Mill, the site now occupied by Coloma. As the news spread,
great excitement arose, and everybody wanted to dig gold. This was the
"gold fever" of 1848 and 1849. The rush to the coast was tremendous.
It made the building of a railroad urgent. Fremont made his fifth
expedition to survey three routes to the Pacific. After great hardships
he returned to Washington to report what he had found.
[Sidenote: =Nominated for president=]
He now took up his residence in New York City and became a member of
the party opposed to the extension of slavery. The new party, the
Republican, nominated him as its first candidate for president (1856).
He was defeated after a most exciting time, yet he carried all the
northern states but four.
[Sidenote: =A major-general in the Civil War=]
During the Civil War he was made a major-general, but after a year or
two he resigned. He was talked of for president in 1864, but did not
make the race.
After the war was over he was interested in a great continental
railroad. From 1878 to 1881 he was governor of Arizona. Congress voted
him a pension just before he died in 1890.