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Praise: "Eloquent, lively, and
learned, with an intellectual breadth as
wide as a Rocky Mountains horizon, Andrew
Menard's Sight Unseen ably reconnoiters
geographies of both imagination and terra
firma. This fascinating book recovers the
American West as John Frémont found
it and shows us how the explorer taught us
to see American landscapes--and America
itself--anew." Tom
Chaffin, author of Pathfinder:
John Charles Frémont and the Course
of American Empire
January 18, 2012, Frémont
tracker Stephen
Schell writes: Many people know about this and will be
contributing. if you wish to place this
information on your site, please do so if
you think anyone is interested. This year
marks the 170th anniversary of the first
Fremont/Preuss Expedition. schell.stephen@gmail.com.
(current
count) Dickson
& Gilmore,
Louisville, May 24,
1845 1 patent
breeched half-stocked
rifle $40.00 1
Dob. briched do (sic)
Silver mounted rifle $45.00 6 do Iron
mounted 35$
each $210.00 8 powder horns
75¢
each $6.00 12 boxes spilt
capts (sic) 25¢
ea $3.00 $304.00 "This particular rifle is further
described in a 1988 article on Dickson
& Gilmore by George H. Norton in
The
Gun Report. The purchases made by
Frémont are from the book, The
Hawken Rifle: Its Place in History by
Charles E Hanson, Jr. published in
1979.
August, 2010 June, 2010
The
traveling howitzer. And also re Frémont in
Oregon:
September 20, 2008.
Exclusive! The portrait is signed in the lower
right corner S
N Carvalho 1864, and on the
reverse Painted
and presented to the Metropolitan Fair for
the benefit the Sick and Wounded Soldiers,
New It could have been done from
life, as both Frémont and
Carvalho were resident in New York in
1864. Solomon Nuñes Carvalho
was born in Charleston, South Carolina,
into a Sephardic Jewish family of
Spanish-Portuguese descent. Carvalho
worked as both a painter and a
photographer. During the winter of
1853-54, Carvalho accompanied
Frémont on a railroad survey
through the Rocky Mountains. The
daguerreotypes that Carvalho took on this
expedition, and the prints made from them
in the studio of Matthew Brady, no longer
exist, but engravings made from the prints
appeared in Frémont's Memoirs of
My Life, 1886. Carvalho remained for
some time in the Mormon settlements
painting portraits, including one of
Brigham Young. In 1856 Carvalho published
Incidents of Travel and Adventure in
the West with Col. Frémont's Last
Expedition, the only account of
Frémont's 5th expedition. <<< Carvalho assisting
Frémont in an observation by
recording time from the chronometer. Hear
the sounds:
Also in the Hope Valley/Carson
Pass area at Sorensen's
Hope Valley Resort. Or call
1-800-423-9949 to order. And at the Lake
Tahoe Historical Society in
South Lake Tahoe at 3058 Lake Tahoe
Blvd, (Hwy. 50) Next to the Senior
Center. Until Dec. 6th the museum will be
open on Saturdays and admission is free in
our off season. Look for the mural of
Frémont and Preuss facing the
street.
Antiques Roadshow, April 4, 2005
(and rebroadcasts)
That work has now been extended to an
examination of the west slope route
beyond
Carson Pass. Peter's material can also be accessed
by searching this website using the search
button at the top of this page An important historic site in grave
danger of being lost forever.
No one had previously measured a peak
of anywhere near that height in North
America. The highest peak in the east was
Mt. Washington at 6,288'. Frémont
determined the height by making a series
of barometric observations. The identity
of the particular peak has been debated
over many years. The American Alpine
Society made a determination for Mt.
Woodrow Wilson in the 1960s. But it was
not Mt. Woodrow Wilson. Frémont's
series of 12 barometric observations, when
mathematically reduced by modern method,
show conclusively that the peak was not
Mt. Woodrow Wilson, but the nearby peak
today called Fremont Peak, elevation
13,745'. PATHFINDER: John C.
Frémont and the Course of
American Empire Fatal
Glory:
Narciso Lopez and the
First Clandestine U. S.
War Against Cuba Sea
of
Gray :
The Around-the-World
Odyssey of the
Confederate Raider
Shenandoah Fall 2008: August 28 2005.
Richard's latest CD, Back
in Heaven [Lake
Tahoe]. I do like it! On Track 8,
Frémont's Cannon
[5:23], Richard has the
history very correctly. He wasn't
kidding when he promised it would
be "very dramatic." He takes the
listener right up Burcham Flat
Road south of Bridgeport to where
the Cannon was left in the snow
on January 29, 1844. The chorus,
which begins "Rock upon rock;
snow upon snow," quotes the old
Washo's warning to Frémont
in Charity
Valley on February 4,
1844. November 2005:
"My Back in
Heaven CD has just
made it to #9 on the
Western Music charts for
albums, and Addicted
to the Dust is the
#5 song. Hear Shelley in
Quicktime® Dunkerque, December 30,
1795.
The latitude determination of February
5th, which is the key to reconciling the
Preuss detail map of the Sierra Crossing,
is shown in an overview of the route
from:
NOVEMBER, 2001. First time in
Paperback! And SUMMER 2002, a new paperback
printing of Frémont's Report of
the Exploring Expedition: to the Rocky
Mountains In the Year 1842, and to Oregon
and North California in the Years 1843-44
by The Narrative Press at
$27.95.
News and Interesting
Items
April
2013.
This document box with the applied
name J. C. Fremont. was acquired by its
present owner at an auction of a Diego, CA
library that was closing. The auction
description by the library was that it was
a "dispatch box."
First
public announcement (October 2010!)
Andrew Menard writes,"I've just written a
book Sight
Unseen: How Fremont's First Expedition
Changed the American
Landscape. which will be
published by the University of Nebraska
Press in Fall 2012.
UPDATE--NOW
AVAILABLE.
At the same time, the Bison Book
division of the press will publish a
facsimile edition of the 1845 Report of
the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky
Mountains in the Year 1842, and to Oregon
and North California in the Years
1843-'44.
My book is mainly an examination of the
first expedition (1842), focusing on the
report itself--its science, its aesthetic,
the way it changed our view of the Great
American Desert and Manifest Destiny, its
contribution to the transcontinental
railroad; with a broader consideration of
American politics and culture from about
1825 to 1875. Read
an excerpt from the publisher.
looks
to be a banner year!
In addition to Sight
Unseen, Scott Stine's long
anticipated A
Way Across the
Mountain: The
1833 Sierran Crossing of Joseph
R. Walker is due to be
released at about the same
time.
Richard Orsi, CSUEB professor
emeritus of history, praises the
book as "One of the best examples
I've ever seen of
interdisciplinary research."
My name is Marlies Bugmann and I
reside in Tasmania, Australia. I translate
German travel fiction of the 1800s; the
author in question, Karl
Friedrich May (1842-1912), had an
extensive library with publications of/by
many American explorers, although much has
been lost during the past century, and two
world wars. It is fairly certain that,
among the sources of the German author,
there were accounts of Captain John C.
Frémont's expeditions.
The query I have, and which I have not
been able to get even near to answering
despite continued search on the Internet,
is an apparent connection to the name
Florimont. In the fiction novel, a
character (only mentioned) by the name of
Florimont (cf. Frémont) was also
known as "Track-Smeller" (cf.
Pathfinder)...................
Here are some of the Karl
May books that Marlies has
translated.
And her
website.
Last October my wife and I found the
Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC.
I discovered that Charles
Preuss, Thomas
Fitzpatrick, and Joseph
Nicollet are buried there. They
escorted me to the sites. 
They
did not know who Preuss was, and he
doesn't have a stone. The head of the
place said I might get one for him through
the USGS. Last week, I finally got
authorization from the US Army Corps of
Engineers to be sent to the cemetery--they
confirmed that Preuss was in their
employment.
I have planned a VA-like stone with the
following information:
Charles Preuss
1803-1854
US Topographical Engineers
Surveyor-Cartographer-Oregon Trail
Maps
September
20, 2011, Lake Tahoe.
At
the invitation of Joan and Dick Young, I
joined Peter
Lathrop at Camp
Richardson in his talk to the
Lake
Tahoe Historical Society about the
Frémont and Preuss first view of
Lake Takoe on February 14, 1844 from
Red
Lake Peak at Carson
Pass. About 60 people attended. Peter
presented a slide show of his photographs
made on Frémont's route from
Bridgeport
(Jan 26, 1844, to Carson
Pass, (Feb. 20, 1844) and the descent
to near Strawberry
(Feb. 23, 1844).
Peter, who lives in Minden, NV, has been a
major contributor to this website, and to
the fund of knowledge of the
Frémont routes of exploration,
since 2000.
June,
2011. The news of the recovery of
parts of the Frémont "lost cannon"
is for many of us equally exciting as
further evidence of the January 1844 route
between the Devils Gate and Antelope
Valley. Russ Gray, of Reno, has
been devoting much time in examining a
feasible descent route to the point where
the howitzer was abandoned allowing it to
get into the Deep Creek canyon where it
was discovered. After many miles of
following every conceivable route, Russ
has come up with only one that seems
possible. That route is a descent into
Cottonwood Creek and following that to, or
near, the confluence with Deep Creek.
Here is a
map showing that route with
Frémont's description.
In a recent email Russ added, "By the way,
my wife does not want to hike the area of
the canyon rim anymore: she tore some
ligaments in her knee on our last outing,
so just me and my son rest of
summer. She blames
Frémont."
May, 2012.
The Fremont Howitzer Recovery Team is
still at it. The team is now working under
the direction of Dr. James M. Allan, a
Research Fellow at the Archaeological
Research Facility of the University of
California and Director of the Institute
for Western Maritime Archaeology.
May,
2011. Loren Irving again takes camera
in hand and picks up the route of
Frémont's 2nd Expedition south of
Oregon. He has recently been traversing
the Black Rock Desert (at right with a
storm touching the ground), the Pyramid
Lake area, and has been as far south as
Bridgeport, CA. Loren has met and
conferred with veteran Frémont
tracker Peter
Lathrop, a long time friend of and
contributor to this website, in nearby
Minden, NV.
This will no doubt lead to a new
publishing project by Loren like his
Finding Frémont in Oregon, 1843
(see below).
You can also email
Loren to get on his mail list of
announcements of showings of his films and
other Frémont events.
February
28, 2011. longcamp.com
celebrates two million pages
visited!
Do you know which of the over
170 individual pages (URLs) on
the website is the
internationally most linked-to
and single most-viewed
page?
(This is my own personal
magnum opus, and
[hint] it isn't about
Frémont.)
Important
updates February, 2011.
Lost Cannon Recovery.
From a conversation with a third party
in the late 1990s, I had long suspected
that the late Francois "Bud" Uzes of
Granite Bay, CA would figure prominently
in the story of the finding of the Lost
Frémont Cannon.
Here are letters from Bud's sons Ron
and Russ Uzes with the story of the
discovery and recovery of the parts
from the lost howitzer And right where
Frémont said he left it on 29
January, 1844!
And an indication on a
Coleville/Walker, CA website that the
search continues? There is
additional information on the recovery
site with photographs.
All details on the history of,
and quest for, the "Lost Frémont
howitzer."
October,
2010. Email from a Colorado collector.
Was this
Frémont's rifle?
"This fine Plains Rifle surfaced in
Los Angeles in the 1950's and was obtained
from an antique shop in Inglewood.
Frémont's widow Jessie and daughter
Elizabeth were in Los Angeles: it is not
impossible, and a fun thought, that this
very rifle had been Frémont's and
had remained in the family until finally
someone sold it for whatever reason. (See
a telescope (below)
purchased from Elizabeth Benton
Frémont in Los Angeles in
1902.)
At the beginning of his 3rd expedition, in
addition to other arms purchases,
Frémont purchased the following
from Dickson & Gilmore in Louisville
on May 24, 1845."
See Frémont's other
arms purchases made for his 3rd
expedition.
October
5, 2010, 8:30 pm, Menamins Theatre, |
700 NW Bond Street, Bend, OR
World Premiere Screening of Finding
Frémont in Oregon, 1843, by
Loren Irving and the Deschutes County
Historical Society. Produced by Sandy
Cummings, TVStoryteller.com
A new documentary makes John C. Fremont's
1843 trek through Oregon come to life
through Fremont's own journal entries and
Loren Irving's photography. Irving located
and recorded all of Fremont's 31 Oregon
camps, strung out from The Dalles to the
Nevada border. Join Loren as he hosts this
amazing tale of John C. Fremont, Kit
Carson, Billy Chinook and twenty three
other men, 104 horses and mules, and, just
for good measure, a 223-pound cannon.
A copy may be purchased online from the
Des
Chutes Historical Museum Store.
And here a YouTube
clip describing the project.
September,
2010.
Update on
Stephen Schell's Frémont tracking
project.
Following John C.
Frémont's Trail Through Northern
Colorado 1843, is now
available. The printed book
includes color photos and maps. In
addition to the printed book, there is a
DVD that can be played on your computer.
This DVD contains 500 Photoshop labeled
photos that follow Frémont's trail
during his eight day journey through the
area. The photos are organized into
eight separate files (days) for easy
use. The book is $27.95
+mailing.
For those who prefer to read the book on
their computer, a DVD, including the
photos, is available for $18.98+
mailing.
To order an autographed book and/or DVD
direct from Steve, please contact him at
schell.stephen@gmail.com.
And
here, The Crossing, a rock-by-rock
identification of the route of
Frémont's epic winter crossing of
the snow covered Sierra Nevada by Bob
Graham.
This is the same printing done for and
sold by the Eldorado National Forest
Interpretive Association (ENFIA) at their
centers, including the one right at the
top of Carson Pass.
"We are now 1,000 feet above the level
of the South Pass in the Rocky mountains;
and still we are not done ascending."
Frémont, February 10, 1844.
"We are now completely snowed in. The
snowstorm is on top of us. The wind
obliterates all tracks which, with
incredible effort, we make for our
horses." Charles Preuss
A telescope that once belonged to John
Frémont, with the engraved initials
JCF, has turned up. It was
purchased from Frémont's daughter
Elizabeth about 1902 in Los Angeles. The
present owner is looking for a museum or
library who would like to own it.
It's back! On May 30, 1012 the telescope
turned up on ebay with a starting bid of
$49,000.00.
(It got no bids)
On April 13, 2013 it was again
included in on an online auction, but did
not make the reserve of $20,000.00.
July 1010. The route of
Frémont's 3rd expedition as it
crossed the Sierra into California in
December 1845 is put to a map for the
first time. This is not the emigrant route
down the South Yuba and Bear Rivers to
Johnson's Rancho, but a ridge route along
the North Fork of the American River
direct to Sutter's Fort, a route which
anticipated the route of the CPRR.
Thanks
to Russ Gray of Reno, NV, we now have the
location of the recovery location of the
parts from the Model 1835 Watervliet
Arsenal built carriage of Frémont's
"lost cannon."
The parts are on public display at the
Ranger Station in Bridgeport, CA, a few
miles south of where they were
found--right where Frémont said he
left it.
And, May, 2012.
The Fremont Howitzer Recovery Team is
still at it. The
team is now working under the
direction of Dr. James M. Allan, a
Research Fellow at the Archaeological
Research Facility of the University of
California and Director of the Institute
for Western Maritime Archaeology.
May,
2010, from Lorin Irving in Bend,
Oregon:
On loan to the Deschutes Historical
Society Museum in Bend, the
"Frémont Cannon" was transported
from the Nevada State Museum in Carson
City by Archeologist Bill Cannon and his
wife. It has been at the museum in Carson
City since donated by William
R. Bliss of Glenbrook, CA in 1941, but
is now on loan for a few months in the
Fremont exhibit at the Society
Museum."Watching it being carried in to
the Museum by two strong volunteers, I
couldn't help but think of the times when
the expedition was faced with the descents
and ascents as steep as the Metolious
River Canyon near the area of Box
Canyon and that descent of Winter Ridge
down into Summer Lake."
December 18, 2009 From Doug Uran,
Recreation and Cultural Heritage
Specialist, Silver Lake Ranger
District.
"Hi,
Bob. I am taking in each day [of the
Report] and each camp on the same
[calendar] day and time. Only the
Long Creek camp on the 15th is true to the
words--the same snow, cold, and
understanding of the view of what they had
to cross (Sycan Marsh), and you really
could not see Winter Rim at this
point. But to imagine the sub-chief,
(Mosenkwaskit) who is Perry Chocktoot's
Great-grand uncle, a close friend of mine
who is the director of Cultural Heritage
for the Klamath Tribes. I told Loren that
I will be visiting the sites to Warner
Valley (if the snow and ice lets me). So
far the Summer lake site is warm and only
20 inches of snow at Fremont Point."
Doug has recovered a cache of six period
(pre 1844) coins from the route of
Frémont's descent from Winter Ridge
to Summer Lake. December 17, 1843: "One of
the mules rolled over and over two or
three hundred feet into a ravine, but
recovered himself without any other injury
than to his pack."
UPDATE
October 24,
painting my
wagon
I have been invited to travel
437
miles north to Bend, Oregon to
participate in an upcoming symposium on
John C. Frémont hosted by
The Deschutes County Historical
Society. A number of presenters will
explore the route and impact of
Frémont's journeys in the
West--particularly his 1843 route through
Central Oregon. The event will be held
Saturday, October 24, 2009. Those
interested can find all the details
here
including an attendance
form download
At
Drake historian Brian Kelleher's request,
I will be going to Campbell Cove, at the
entrance
to Bodega Harbor. Brian will be addressing
the Bodega Historical Society and the new
Harbor Master. As part of this
presentation I will repeat my
determination of latitude at meridian
transit as it would have been determined
by Francis Drake in June/July 1579.
Preparing for this means bringing the
published 1574 solar declinations forward
432 years using the rule of obliquity
of the ecliptic.
We have done this publicly on a number of
occasions, including large gathering in
July
2000 following an announcement by Carl
Nolte of the San Francisco Chronicle, and
in February 2001 for the filming of a
History Channel show on Drake's
circumnavigation.
(It rained. Yep, cutting room floor
:-)
Learn more about this very interesting 16C
determination of latitude.
Now you see it; now you
don't!
On
July 16, 2008 this important
Frémont portrait in oil appeared in
an ebay auction by seller Hess Fine Art in
St. Petersburg, FL. The no reserve
auction began at $0.99. But on July 25,
with 16 hours remaining, the auction was
mysteriously terminated at the $8,800 bid
level with the standard ebay catch-all
notification "The seller ended this
listing early because of an error in the
minimum bid or reserve amount." For
several days, Clearwater International
must seen the landing of many 
representatives
of major gallerie$
and auction
hou$e$--no
doubt the reason for the aborted ebay
auction of this national
treasure.
York,
21st March, 1864, S. N.
Carvalho. This was the
forerunner of the New York Metropolitan
Museum. You can see it listed as Catalog
number #267.
The
images above are the result of much
editing of the very poor images from the
ebay auction with Photoshop®.
Camera perspective
correction was done using the stated
12" x 14" dimensions of the canvas.
The portrait joins some half dozen
Frémont portraits by notables such
as G.
P. A Healy, William
S. Jewett, T.
Buchanon Read, Thomas
Hicks, Guiseppe
Fagnani, Charles
Loring Elliott, Otis
Bass, in important collections
including the National Portrait Gallery.
Watch Frémont
age>>>>
It may be some time before this portrait
again surfaces.
August, 2009 After 11 months,
Its Back!
The Carvalho portrait, now
cleaned, and with the original
frame reguilded, has reappeared
on the market from Anthony's Fine
Art in Salt Lake City. Looks
Great! Turns out I did ,a pretty
good job in my
Photoshop®
restoration :-)
Update 2010. When I looked
recently, I found the painting
marked "SOLD."
Carvalho,
from Incidents of Travel,
1856:
"Here was no chance work, no guessing, for
a deviation of one mile, either way,
from
the true course, would have plunged the
whole party into certain destruction...It
seems as if Col. Frémont had been
endowed with supernatural powers of
vision, and that he penetrated with his
keen and powerful eye through the limits
of space, and saw the goal to which all
his powers had been concentrated to reach.
It was a feat of scientific correctness,
probably without comparison in the records
of the past."
Mark
Mysliwiec of Chicago regains his lead
in the JCF Look-alike contest.
The route of the Joseph R. Walker
[Bonneville] expedition to
California in 1833: one hundred and
seventy-five years of lore and legend
dispelled.
Exclusive!
Frémont's lost cannon parts
found?
Herb Kuehne of Kirkwood, CA
tells us of items on display at the
Humboldt-Toyage National Forest Ranger
Station in Bridgeport. Herb took
photographs of the parts and of three iron
tires. They have been identified by Lt.
Col. Paul Roswitz as the axle strap
and trunnion plate of a pre-1848
US-made copy of the French mountain
howitzer carriage.
2007--2010:
I have not been as busy as usual with this
Frémont project, because I have
become involved with a group tracing out
and mapping the remaining evidence of the
1852 Johnson Cut-off--the
first wagon road ac
ross
the Sierra on today's Hwy 50 alignment
(more or less). The group of about 10
volunteers is led by Ford and Ellen Osborn
and Eldorado National Forest archaeologist
Krista Deal. This makes for great outings,
fresh air, Nature, and a lot of fun. I
have even been able to implement some of
the barometrical work I have previously
done regarding Frémont's routes
in helping locate a site on the Johnson
route. Here,
a reenactment of the barometric data
gathering of a survey of the Johnson road
by civil engineer George H. Goddard in
1854. Goddard's use of the aneroid
barometer on his survey was pioneering use
of that instrument.
At right, trying to keep my feet
dry. Didn't, though :-)
Frémont's 1844 route from Red Lake
to "THE PASS" (Carson Pass), nearly
snowless in winter, has been developed
by Peter Lathrop.
As readers of The Report may have noted,
there is no mention in the 1844 narrative
of having to build a "road through the
snow" between the "Long Camp" and the
"summit of the pass." Peter locates that
summit of February 1844.
More of Peter's tracking of
Frémont's route from the East Fork
of the Carson River to Strawberry can be
found below.
The
Crossing will be available at
the Eldorado
National Forest Interpretive
Association (ENFIA) information
center on highway 88 at Carson Pass. The
Carson Pass center is staffed from late
spring through fall.
ENFIA now has an online
store that carries The
Crossing. And ENFIA's new guide,
Hiking
in the Greater Carson Pass Region,
contains a map and hiking directions to
Frémont's Long
Camp, the historic site first
discovered and presented on this
website.
See it
And at the Placerville Ranger Station
in Camino, right off of Hwy. 50 at 8 mile
road exit. They are open year round,
Mon-Fri, 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. In the summer
they are open on Saturdays the same time.
And at the Supervisor's off ice on Forni
Road in Placerville, and at Pacific Ranger
Station just east of Pollock Pines, at
Fresh Pond.
In the Placerville area you can
find a copy year-round at Placerville
News Co, 409 on historic Main
Street; right by the bell tower.
Placerville News stocks a great selection
of local.
Since
July, 2004, Frémont's Long
Camp is now a Geocache site.
Click
the Geocaching icon to visit the
page.
Anyone with a GPS device can participate
in this popular new hobby. There are
probably many geocaches right near you.
Geocacher MarshallOD found it:
I parked at the three way junction
about 1/4 mile below the cache to walk and
stretch my legs. I appreciate the
opportunity to stand at this historical
place and imagine Fremont's passage
through the area. My pen wouldn't give up
any more ink, so I took a photo of the
cache, which I'm attaching as my
"log."
Program #911
Reno Sparks Convention Center
A model 1835 mountain howitzer tube
dug up in a back yard near the
California-Nevada border!
The
tube was marked "C. A. & Co.
[Cyrus Alger], Boston."
Just right, so far!
However, the serial numbers indicated that
this was "464" in Alger's production, and
"87" in Alger's mountain howitzer
production. It is marked by the proofer,
Louis A. B. Walbach and carries the date
1853--the only year that Walbach was a
proofer.
So not Frémont's
Lost Cannon, but these are
still showing up in the region!
Roadshow appraiser Christopher
Mitchell put the value at $35-45,000.
December,
2004. I was very pleased to receive a
letter from Midge Sherwood advising me
that I had been awarded an honorary
charter membership in the Friends
of Frémont organization,
an adjunct of the Huntington Westerners.
Ms. Sherwood serves as President of that
group of Westerners, which is associated
with the Huntinton Library and Botanical
Gardens in San Marino, California, and as
Founding Chairman of The Friends of
Frémont. She is also the author of
Frémont:
Eagle of the West,
Jackson Peak publishers, 2002.
The Huntington Library is one of the great
repositories of western material. Tom
Chaffin, under an Andrew Mellon
postdoctoral fellowship, spent much of
nine months at the Huntington researching
his new biography on Frémont
(see below).
Spring
2004. History Day
I recently had the pleasure of being
interviewed by Brittany Darrow,
State History Day participant from Alta
Sierra and Buchanan High in Clovis, CA.
History Day in California is a statewide
program sponsored by Constitutional Rights
Foundation and the California Department
of Education in conjunction with National
History Day.
Brittany
was doing research for her presentation
Exploring
the West: The John and Jessie
Frémont Story.
I have since learned that Britanny has
advanced to the State Finals, to be
held April 29th - May 2nd, 2004 in
Sacramento. Congratulations
Brittany!
In the course of her research,
Britanny also interviewed Frémont's
and Jessie Benton Frémont's
biographers Tom Chaffin
(see
below),
Mary
Lee Spence, and Pamela
Herr.
Details of this program can be found on
the following websites: Alta
Sierra and Buchanan High, History
Day in California, and National
History Day
Peter
Lathrop of Minden, NV has
spent years hiking the Markleeville/Carson
Pass area--winter and summer--and has been
looking at that part of the Sierra
crossing route in detail. Usually
accompanied by his mountain goat
daughters ("Brittney and Heather never go
around when they can go
over"), Peter is collecting much
new information on the western Nevada
portion of the 1843-44 Frémont
expedition--derived from Frémont's
latitude determinations, the Report
narrative, and extensive fieldwork.
A good place to start following the
Lathrop adventures is with this initial
page, which contains links: an email from
Peter Lathrop.
March,
2004. A side trip. A visit to the 1846
Hastings Adobe--the second oldest
structure in Solano County, and one time
home of Lansford W. Hastings, author of
the Emigrant's Guide to California,
and one of the framers of the Constitution
of California.
See it.
"MAYBYE"
[sic] was the message I found
inscribed on a marker when I visited the
Long
Camp site on July 8, 2003.
Apparently a skeptic had visited the
site!
Over the years there have been many
theories and suggestions for the location
of the Long Camp. Most are presented on
this website. They have, none of them,
been very specific as to the exact
location.
See them
This website has always provided space for
contributors to provide alternate
views and additional information. Some
of these alternate views are by Peter
Lathrop, Brian
O'Connor, Lt.
Col. Paul Rosewitz, Jiggs
Caudron, Wayne
Stark, Raymond
Aker (Drake Navigators Guild).
Perhaps the author of the MAYBYE will come
forward with his alternative.
email Bob
Graham
See at Frémont's Longcamp on
Google Maps!
FRONT
PAGE NEWS in 1842.--Frémont scales,
and measures, a nearly 14,000' peak in the
Rocky Mountains.
See the route that the expedition took to
the mountain, and a modern examination of
Frémont's barometric
observations.
MAY
23, 1999 - Carson Pass
Tom Chaffin (pictured) accompanied Bob
Graham to Frémont's "Long Camp"
site near Carson Pass. Professor Chaffin,
of Emory University in Atlanta, was
returning home from nine months at the
Huntington Library in San Marino, where,
under an Andrew Mellon postdoctoral
fellowship, he has been researching a new
biography of Frémont (see
below).
It was from this campsite on February 14,
1844 that Frémont and Preuss
climbed Red Lake Peak (right) and recorded
the first sighting of Lake Tahoe.
The discovery of Lake Tahoe
See an article by Tom Chaffin about
visiting this campsite in the April 2000
issue of OUTSIDE
MAGAZINE.
by Tom
ChaffinHill &
Wang--Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
New York, 2002
click
image for larger view
From the preface:
"On one particularly splendid
spring morning, up at the Sierra
Nevada's Carson Pass, I strapped
on snowshoes and, led by
mountaineer Bob Graham, hiked up
to Frémont's Long Camp,
which the explorer established
during his epic 1844 winter
crossing of that range. Graham, a
retired farmer from
Sacramento--using
Frémont's writings, modern
topographical maps, and GPS
technology--had discovered the
site during his own rambles
through the Sierras."
By
Tom Chaffin
University of Virginia
Press. November 1996 Now
in paperback.
By
Tom Chaffin
Hill and Wang
Pub Date:
01/2006
The
H. L.
Hunley:
The Secret Hope of the
Confederacy
By
Tom Chaffin
Hill and Wang
Dayton,
Nevada, January 29, 2002.
"I am working on a song with the
working title of Frémont's
Cannon. I know a good deal about the
events of the 43-44 expedition and have
researched the net and library for
additional information. I also had the
good fortune of working as a range
technician for the forest service at the
Bridgeport Ranger District and have ridden
or driven a good deal of the eastern slope
of the Sierras. All this brings me to my
question. Was the original cannon
abandoned by Frémont ever found?
Obviously you have done an incredible
amount of research on the subject and I
would really enjoy your thoughts on the
matter." Richard Elloyan.
Frémont's Cannon
A sound sample
in Quicktime®
"Hello, Bob. I guess this has
taken about three years from
inception to completion. I hope
you like it, regardless of the
artistic license I used in
telling the story. It is
difficult to compress all this
into a 5-minute song.
Richard."
A really big Thank
you! to all my fans!
Richard"
Richard Elloyan is a singer,
songwriter, and poet of unique wit and
imagination. Writing his own music and
poetry, he captures the spirit of the west
and those who live its lifestyle. Raised
in the historic mining town of Virginia
City, Nevada, Richard grew up surrounded
by the romantic stories and characters
that shaped the growth of Nevada and
California. In his day job, he is
an environmental health specialist for the
State of Nevada.In Frémont's search for
the legendary Buenaventura
River, he and the
cannon nearly got to Richard
Elloyan's hometown of Dayton, Nevada.
Peter
Lathrop of Minden, Nevada has been
identifying and refining much of the
Fremont 2nd Expedition route in western
Nevada and the east slope of the Sierra
Nevada. Peter has determined that
Churchill
Butte, just east of Dayton, was the
mountain Frémont climbed on
January 20, 1844 to survey the upstream
course of the Carson River. Ominous
looking storm clouds in the mountains
determined him to move further south to
attempt a crossing of the Sierra.
Dayton, Nevada, June 28,
2004,
The
Reno Gazette,
Frémont at Churchill
Butte, by Laura Tennant.
JULY
13, 2000 - Hope Valley. AND UPDATE
Tom Howard:
Professor
Howard presented a slide show and talk on
his book, SIERRA
CROSSING: FIRST ROADS TO
CALIFORNIA (University
of California Press); the 
first
book to deal comprehensively with the
crossing of the Sierra Nevada from trails
to highways.
The talk was given at Sorrensen's Hope
Valley Resort, which is situated on the
West Fork of the Carson River at the top
of Carson Canyon--just east of the
Pickett's Junction.
The next morning we did some hiking in the
area; to my Frémont campsite, and
down the original wagon route from Carson
Pass to Red Lake. Click image to
find Sierra Crossing at
amazon.comSee
my photos of some of the historic
roads written about in Tom's Book.
FEBRUARY
13, 2000 - Sacramento.
Like classic Jazz and Swing from the '30s,
40s, 50s?
I have taken over the creation and
maintenance of the website of my pal
Shelley Burns and Avalon Swing.
Check it out for events schedule, sound
files, videos, and CD sales.No, this hasn't anything to
do with John Charles Frémont or
Francis Drake, but Shelley says she
hasn't "anything at all against either
of them."
JULY
13, 2000 - Hope Valley.
Early
this year the Department of Defense
eliminated the Selective
Availability of civilian access to
the Global Positioning System.
Because of the increase in accuracy, it
now makes sense to set the receiver to
deg/min.mm, as opposed to the classic
deg/min/sec.
Elevations are now very good - better than
a pocket aneroid and contour map!
The refined coordinates made at the
Frémont campsite are:
The snow hole N38° 41' 02";
W119° 57' 22"; el. 8070' (EPE=6')
Preuss vantage N38° 41' 01";
W119° 57' 18"; el. 8087' (EPE=6')Frémont's
Long Camp is now a Geocache site.
Click the Geocaching icon to visit
the page.
Anyone with a GPS device can participate
in this popular new hobby. There are
probably many geocaches right near
you.
Precision is painstaking
work. It demands precautions,
stratagems planned like war.
[Jean-Baptiste-Joseph]
Delambre used astronomical theory
to prepare his observations. He
verified the verticality of his
[Borda's repeating]
circle by three different
methods. He drew up formulas to
correct his data for refraction
and temperature. He estimated in
advance the best precision he
could expect. And only then did
he begin his sightings of
Polaris, a star
particularly suitable for
assessing latitude because its
proximity to the pole meant that
its angular height as it crossed
the celestial meridian would,
with only minimal correction,
supple the angular distance of
the observer from the
equator.--or, in other words, his
latitude.
His thirty-eight observations of
Polaris
as it transited the celestial
meridian below the pole gave him
a latitude of 51° 3' 16.66",
which shifted by a minuscule 0.06
seconds when he removed his least
reliable data. The two hundred
results for its transit above the
celestial pole were trickier, due
to the cloud cover, and differed
by one full second with the
earlier results. But when he
excluded the less reliable data,
the difference narrowed to within
.5 seconds (or some twenty-five
feet. It was another
demonstration of the repeating
circle's precision, as well as a
testament to Delambre's
preparation, skill, and
integrity.
Ken Alder,
The
Measure of All
Things
Frémont and
Polaris and
latitude
SEPTEMBER,
2000.
Grover's Hot Springs to Charity
Valley:
This is an on-site examimation of the
Route to Carson Pass as traveled by the
Expedition between Markleville and Carson
Pass. The same route was traveled and
described by Joseph LeConte on his trip
from Yosemite to Lake Tahoe in 1870.
Pictured are landmarks recorded by
Frémont while led by his Washoe
guide Mélo, the location from which
the Pass was pointed out, and the location
of the campsite of February 4th, 1844.
Markleeville to Carson Pass.
OCTOBER,
2000, Saint Louis, Missouri.
Several emails regarding
Frémont's mountain howitzer were
recieved from Lt. Col. Paul R.
Rosewitz, Field Artillery, U.S. Army,
Military Education Quota Manager, in St.
Louis, MO. The communications,
because of their definitive nature, are
posted on the website in their
entirety.
See the article Mountain
Howitzer.
AUGUST
25, 2001 - Piermont, New York. Rockland
Cemetery.
Rodger D. Cary writes:
"General Frémont is buried in
Rockland County New York, where I live. He
has long been forgotten here. This year I
have organized a ceremony at his grave to
honor him. It will be on August 25, near
the day he issued the first emancipation
proclamation [in Missouri, as Major
General of The Army of the West] in
American history. In today's politically
correct atmosphere that was the only way
to get people and the press involved."
Frémont's Emancipation
Proclamation.
Memoirs
of My Life, John Charles
Frémont , with a fine new
introduction by Charles M. Robinson,
III., professor of History at South
Texas Community College, and the author of
many books on the West.
It contains over 650 pages. It is a photo
facimile of the original slightly reduced,
yet the text is perfectly readable. Unlike
the heavy, oversized 1887 edition, I can
carry this one to the coffee shop in the
morning. The publisher, Cooper Square
Press, has done a fine job of reproducing
the 95 original plates.
The price at Amazon is less than $20!
Click the image to go there.
And
don't miss this one;
Welsh, Stanley
L., John Charles Frémont
Botanical Explorer, Missouri
Botanical Garden
Press.
Click image.
"Among Frémont's most
lasting and important works are those in
the field of botany, a field largely
ignored by his boigraphers." Stanley L.
Welsh
Frémont's contributions to the
botany of the West.
An
email to this web site from a Forest
Service nature guide.
MAY
24, 1999 - Bodega Bay.
Dr. Kent Lightfoot (foreground),
head of the Department of Anthropology at
the University of California, Berkeley,
called a press conference to announce the
results of a magnetometer sweep of
Brian Kelleher's (white hat in
center) Drake Landing Site at Campbell
Cove. The survey's indications of
habitation were strong enough that the
State of California will conduct a "dig"
within the next few months under the
direction of archaeologist Breck
Parkman (red jacket). Erika
Radewagen, survey and remote-sensing
specialist, demonstrates the use of the
magnetometer
Bob Graham's article on Drake's
sixteenth century navigation.
And, the results of his experiment in
the determination of latitude using an
astrolabe at Campbell Cove.
Read
an email to this site by a descendant
of Drake's crew.
I
get many emails asking about
DREAM WEST, the 1986 CBS
mini-series based on a novel of the same
name by David Nevin. The series starred
Richard Chamberlain as John Charles
Frémont:
"Is it based on fact?"
Yes.
"Where Can I buy it?"
Sorry, I don't know if it is available for
purchase. If anyone does know, will they
email me, and I will post it here.
This scene (left) from the mini-series is
interesting. Frémont (actor Richard
Chamberlain), with telescope, is
apparently making a longitude
determination by observing one of the four
galilean moons of Jupiter. His assistant
would be watching the chronometer to note
the time to the second of the emersion or
immersion of one of the satellites..
In the image above right, from the
frontispiece of Soloman. N.Carvalho's 1856
Incidents of Travel and Adventure in
the West with Col. Frémont's Last
Expedition, Frémont is shown
with sextant, and Carvalho recording the
time of the chronometer.
This is described in detail on this
website in the following article.
FRÉMONT AND THE DETERMINATION OF
COORDINATES, or
LONGITUDE AND THE
BUENAVENTURA RIVER.
©1999, 2007
Bob
Graham
