John Charles
Frémont
  See
a series of portraits 1843-1890.
The nervous, rocky West is intruding a new
and continental element into the National Mind,
and we shall yet have an American.
Emerson, The Young American,
February, 1844
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  John
Charles Frémont was born in Savannah, Georgia in
1813. Though poor, through the efforts of a family friend,
John Charles was prepared for and entered the Junior Class
Charleston College at the age of 15. Though he showed great
promise in languages, science, and mathematics, the
following year, a few weeks before graduating he was
expelled for nonattendance.
But, things got better. Read more about his life as an
explorer and mapmaker and as a
soldier.
As leader of his surveys, Frémont was addressed as
"Captain" by his civilian scouts, hunters, and
voyaguers as, even though on his first two
expeditions he was a 2nd Lieutenant in the army. But he was
also the astronomer, navigator, surveyor, geologist,
hypsometer, and botanist,
making important contributions in many scientific
fields.
Professional assiduity, unusual
self-control, readiness to endure any amount of
monotonous hard work, deprivation, and
exhaustion--these were traits of Frémont
that we should not allow his many adventures,
and the picturesqueness of the scenes in which
he moved to obscure. It is significant that
[Kit] Carson, like that other expert
frontiersman Alex Godey, regarded him with
deferential respect. To both he was as efficient
a man of action as they could desire--and in
addition a scientist.
Allan Nevins, DeWitt
Clinton professor of history, Columbia
University.
Frémont was
a great explorer not so much because he broke
new trails into the wilderness as Smith and
Walker did, but because he brought enthusiasm,
large ambition, imagination and scientific
knowledge to his task.
Robert
Glass Clelland
Contemporary
descriptions:
His men all loved
him intensely. He gave his orders with great
mildness and simplicity, but they had to be
obeyed. There was no shrinking from duty. He was
like a father to those under his command. At
that time I thought that I could endure as much
hardship as most men, especially a small,
slender man like Frémont; but I was
wholly mistaken.
Peter
H. Burnett, first governor of the State of
California.
 A
vast cloud of dust appeared first, and then in a
long file emerged this wildest wild
party.
Frémont rode
ahead, a spare, active-looking man, with such an
eye! He was dressed in a blouse and leggings,
and wore a felt hat. After him came five
Delaware Indians, who were his bodyguard, and
have been with him through all his
wanderings.
Lieutenant
Frederick Walpole
The colonel
[Frémont] is a man of small
stature, of slender but wiry formation, and with
a countenance of firmness and decision. This is
the firth time he has crossed the continent in
connection with his scientific purposes. To
sleep under the open heaven, and depend upon
one's rifle for food, is coming about as near
the primitive state of the hunter as a civilized
man can get; and yet, this life, in this case,
is adorned with the triumphs of
science.
Rev
Walter Colton, Alcalde, Monterey
The fact is, the
people of the country are frightened at the very
name of Frémont. He is represented to
those who do not know any better as being a
Cannibal, a bloodthirsty Barbarian, &c
&c. His very name causes females to shudder,
and crying children to be mute as death, as I
have myself seen. While at the same time those
who know the gentleman in question admire him
for the childlike simplicity and unaffected
kindness, justice and liberality which marks his
every movement.
Captain
William Dame Phelps
I have seen in no
other man the qualities of lightness, activity,
strength and physical endurance in such
equilibrium. His face is rather thin and
embrowned by exposure; his nose a bold aquiline
and his eyes deep-set and keen as a hawk's.
Rough camp life has lessened in no degree his
native refinement of character and polish of
manners. A stranger would never suppose him to
be the Columbus of our central wilderness,
though when so informed, would believe it
without
surprise.
Bayard Taylor.
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PATHFINDER: John C.
Frémont and the Course of American
Empire
by Tom Chaffin
Hill & Wang--Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, New York, 2002
Order online at Barnes
& Noble or
amazon.com
There in no
connection between this website and the
publisher or any
bookseller
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