Historical Context:
...to determine the height above the
sea of the limit of perpetual snow...we not only advance
the progress of meteorology, but likewise furnish facts
toward the interesting consideration of the geographical
distribution of plants and animals.
Joseph N. Nicollet, 1839
Now appeared in the distance to the
north and west, gleaming under the mantle of perpetual
snow, the lofty range known as the Wind River Mountains.
It was the first time I had seen snow in summer; some of
the peaks were very precipitous, and the view was
altogether most impressive.
General John Bidwell, 1841
Never before had anyone attempted to
measure the altitude of an American mountain with a
barometer.
William H. Goetzmann, Army Exploration of the American
West.
Fremont's ascent was a bold feat of
exploration, the hardest climb yet performed by Americans
in the West.
David Roberts, A Newer World: Kit Carson, John C. Fremont
And The Claiming of the American West
I fancied I could see Frémont's
men hauling the cannon up the battlements of the Rocky
Mountains, flags in the air, Frémont at the head,
waving his sword, and unknown and unnamed empires at
every hand.
Joaquin Miller
Is Frémont's "Snow Peak" today's
Frémont
Peak
Frémont: "I sprang upon the
summit, and another step would have precipitated me
to an immense snow field five hundred feet
below...We mounted the barometer in the snow of the
summit, and fixing a ramrod in a crevice, unfurled
the national flag to wave in the breeze where never
flag waved before."
A peak in the Wind River Chain of the Rocky
Mountains was ascended by Frémont and second
expedition members Preuss, Lajeunesse, Lambert,
Jannisse, and Descoteaux on August, 15, 1842. It
was front-page news. The peak is now
identified by some modern-day mountain climbers as
a peak called Mount Woodrow Wilson (it wasn't),
rather than another nearby peak now called
Frémont Peak (Frémont's Peak
in 1845).
By barometrical observation, Frémont's
determined its elevation to be 13,570 feet. (See
MY VIEWS
below)
 This
is the actual flag depicted in 19th century
drawings of the event. It was John Frémont's
personal flag carried on the First Expedition. Now
in the Southwest Museum. According to the donor,
Elizabeth Benton Frémont, it was designed
and made by Jessie Frémont and was presented
it to her by John on his return from the
expedition. The 26 stars, 13 above and 13 below the
eagle grasping a Peace Pipe, have faded, and do not
show well here.
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Which Peak?
Which route?
Up, men! he cried, yon rocky
cone...John Greenleaf
Whittier
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1877: "We found no signs of
anyone having visited this point
[Fremont
Peak] before; but I am of
the opinion that this is the point reached
by Frémont in 1842."
A. D. Wilson, Chief Cartographer, Hayden
Survey, 1877.
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What do you think?
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1960:  An
examination of the Bonney &
Bonney determination for
Mt. Woodrow
Wilson.
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MY
VIEWS
(it's my
site)
1999: Here
are the routes (there are 2 routes) and
the determination of
Fremont
Peak as the peak conquered,
with maps and a study of the barometric
observations.
More
on the approach route added 2003.
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2000: David
Roberts, A Newer World; Kit Carson,
John C. Fremont And The Claiming of the
American West. The author and
climber's determination of the peak
as
Fremont
Peak.
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In making an identification of the 1842
expeditionary route, and identity of the
particular peak climbed, the following
original material is available:
Fremont's narrative, as published
in the 1843 Report to Senate of the United
States.
Frémont's Tables of Astronomical
Observations, and Meteorological
and Barometric
Registers--appendices to that
report.
The Report illustrations, drawn by
Charles Preuss.
The 1843 Frémont / Preuss
map.
Expedition cartographer Charles
Preuss's diary.
See bibliography
below.
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Frémont's orders from Col. J. J. Abert,
Chief of the Corps of Topographical
Engineers, regarding the 1842 expedition were
to make a survey of the Platte River and up the
head of the Sweetwater to South Pass, and if time
permitted, to make a similar survey of the Kansas
River. The orders contained no instruction to move
northwest of South Pass to explore the Wind River
Range, let alone to scale "...the loftiest peak of
the Rocky mountains," which Frémont admits
in the Report, was "...beyond the strict order of
our instructions."
But apparently, Frémont already had this
adventure in mind before he started out.
When the barometer was broken near Boulder Lake on
August 10th, Frémont recorded that "The loss
was felt by the whole camp...The height of these
mountains, considered by the hunters and traders
the highest of the whole range, had been a theme of
constant discussion among them; and all had looked
forward with pleasure to the moment when the
instrument, which they believed to be true as the
sun, should stand upon the summits and decide their
disputes."
He repaired the barometer, and it did get to
the top of Fremont Peak.
Further, these items had been purchased before
the start of the expedition:
Voucher No.30, St. Louis, 26
May 1842
U.S. to Hendrick Tisius
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2 pair ice shoes
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10.00
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2 pair iron plates and heels with steel
nails [crampons]
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4.00
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2 steel pins for sticks [for
alpenstocks]
Jackson, Donald, and
Mary Lee Spence, The Expeditions of
John Charles Frémont:
Vol. I, Travels from 1838 to 1844
University of Illinois Press, 1970,
p.142.
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0.50
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When the purchase was questioned by the
government auditors, Frémont explained that
"The articles in this account were for use among
the ice-fields in the Survey of the Wind River
Mts."
Preuss was recorded as slipping and sliding down
an "ice field" on August 14, so these items
apparently never got to or were not used in the
Wind River Mountains or the climb of Fremont
Peak:
 August
15, 1842 on Fremont Peak: "Hitherto I had worn a
thick pair of moccasins, with soles of
parfléche [rawhide]; but
here I put on a light thin pair, which I had
brought for the purpose, as now the use of our
toes became necessary for further advance."
Parfléche soles caused
Frémont to take a cold bath on his
mid-winter crossing of the Sierra Nevada in
1844.
At twenty-nine years of age, Frémont took
a lot of chances. He recorded in his Memoirs
that on July 4, 1838, when camped with Nicollet at
the Pipe Stone Quarry, "There was a detached
pedestal standing out a few feet away from the
bluff, and about twenty-five feet high. It was
quite a feat to spring to this from the bluff, as
the top was barely a foot square and uneven, and it
required a sure foot not to go further."
Of this, Nicollet recorded in his
Journal, "The colors of the United States
are unfurled on the summit of a large,
sharp-cornered rock, 23 feet high, standing
isolated in front of the hill, its four faces
precipitous. It is called "the chimney." One cannot
reach the summit of the rock by any of its flanks.
It is necessary to jump from the top of the hill to
the summit of the rock and land there firmly
balanced. The top is a surface 2 feet square, and
the space between it and the hill is 5 feet wide.
Mr. Frémont was assigned this operation and
executed it successfully."
Another surveyor on gauging a jump:
"An Irishman told me that if he held up one
leg and if he could bring his toe in range with
his eye and the opposite bank he knew that he
could jump it. Why, I told him, I can blot out a
star with my toe, but I would not engage to jump
the distance. It then appeared that he knew when
he had got his leg at the right height by a
certain hitch there was in it. I
suggested that he should connect his two ankles
with a string." Thoreau, Journal, 1850.
 Fremont
Peak [13,745'], as it turns out, ranks only
third in height in Wyoming...nevertheless,
"Fremont's ascent was a bold feat of exploration,
the hardest climb yet performed by Americans in the
West." David Roberts, A Newer World; Kit Carson,
John C. Fremont And The Claiming of the American
West, Simon & Schuster, 2000.
The 5 cent commemorative stamp was issued in
1898.
See some of the published illustrations
1856-1900.
Frémont and Charles Preuss climb Red Lake
Peak in the Sierra Nevada on February 14, 1844
to look for the Sacramento Valley and discover Lake
Tahoe.
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Bibliography:
Bowditch, Nathaniel,
Ll. D., The New American Practical
Navigator, E. and G. W. Blunt, New York,
23rd Edition, 1853 (includes year 1842).
Frémont, J.C.,
Lieutenant, A Report on an Exploration of the
Country Lying Between the Missouri River and the
Rocky Mountains, on the Line of the Kansas and
Great Platte Rivers, Senate Document 243,
Washington, 1843. Contains the 1843
Frémont/Preuss map.
Greely, Gen. A. W.,
American Weather, Dodd, Mead &
Company, New York, 1888.
Middleton, W. E. Knowles,
A History of the Barometer, The Johns
Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1964.
Negretti & Zambra, A
Treatise on Meteorological Instruments,
London, 1864.
Nicollet, Joseph Nicolas,
Essay on Meteorological Observations,
Printed by order of the War Department,
Washington, 1839.
Nicollet, Joseph, eds. Bray,
Martha Coleman, The Journals of Joseph N.
Nicollet, Minnesota Historical Society, St.
Paul, 1970.
Plympton, George W., The
Aneroid Barometer; Its Construction and Use,
D. Van Nostrand Company, New York,
1884.
Preuss, Charles, Exploring
With Frémont, Translated by Erwin G.
and Elisabeth K., Gudde, University of Oklahoma
Press, Norman, 1958.
Williamson, R. S., On the Use
of the Barometer on Surveys and
Reconnaissances: part I, Meteorology in its
Connection with Hypsometry; part II, Barometric
Hypsometry; New York, D. Van Nostrand, 1868.
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