Frémont's "Snow
Mountain"
A few of the peak illustrations
1856-1900
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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.
Frémont
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All of the following images are invention.
There is only one
authentic contemporary image
of Fremont Peak. It was drawn on site by Frémont's
cartographer Charles Preuss and was published with
Frémont's government report in 1843.
The first four illustrations are from 1856
presidential election campaign biographies and
literature. This one, from Smuckers' Life, is of a
not very inspiring sort of lump of a peak. What
appears to be a game of rock-paper-scissors going on on
the sidelines looks more exciting. Ho, hum.

Smucker, Samuel M,
A. M., The Life of Col. John Charles Frémont
and His Narrative of Explorations and Adventures in
Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon and California, Miller,
Orton & Mulligan, New York, 1856.
But later versions show lofty needle-like spires--a
lot more romantic--and are accompanied with a lot of
hat-waving and, one assumes, hurrahing and fireing of
guns. They set the stage for other later commercial
views

Upham, Charles
Wentworth, Life, Exploration and Public
Services of John Charles Frémont,
Ticknor and Fields, Boston,
1856.
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Bigelow, John, Memoir of the
Life and Public Services of John Charles
Frémont, Derby & Jackson, New
York, 1856.
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Part of a political cartoon
published by N. Currier, 1856 presidential
campaign
FREE SOIL, FREE SPEECH, FREE PRESS, FREE MEN
& FREMONT
The name
Frémont!
does have quite a ring to
it.
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Baker & Godwin
Campaign poster
New York: 1856
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Francis C. Woodworth , The
Young American's Life of Frémont
Miller Orton & Mulligan, NY
1856
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Greeley (Horace) and
McElrath, Life of
Frémont,
New York, 1856
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c.1890
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With the unfurling of
Frémonts flag, "Destiny's
screaming eagle had replaced the fabled
god Terminus so often referred to by
Senator Thomas Hart Benton in his
public addresses. William H.
Geotzmann
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c.1856
Up, men! he
[Frémont] cried,
yon rocky cone.
John Greenleaf
Whittier
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Greely, A. W., Men of
Achievement, Charles Scribner's Sons,New York,
1893
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Undated pencil
sketch
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Civil War envelope cover.

U. S. Post Office
1898
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A Cigar Box label
(embossed)
F. Heppenheimer's Sons, NY., © 1898 by
American Lithographic Co.
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N. C. Wyeth
for Charles Scribner's Sons, c.1940.
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1944 wall calendar "Flags In
America's History" with illustrations by N.C.
Wyeth was made to advertise John Morrell and
Company of Ottumwa, Iowa. This is from the month
of October. The painting is in the U. S. Naval
Academy Museom
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Another commemorative
stamp and a rather silly looking 1st
Day Cover 1994
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Oops! NOT John
Charles Frémont. Flag waving in
the breeze; sword drawn--apparently a
popular theme in 19C
merchandising.
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See another picture that
isn't Frémont
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"I sprang upon the summit, and
another step would have precipitated me
into an immense snow-field five hundred
feet below....and, fixing a ramrod in a
crevice, unfurled the national flag to
wave in the breeze where never flag
waved before."
Fremont
Peak, WY.
Frémont, 1842
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"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
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"[K] had succeeded in
climbing [the wall] with
astonishing ease...with a flag clamped
in his teeth. Stones were still
rattling down under his feet. He stuck
the flag in; it flew in the wind."
Franz
Kafka, 1930 Recollection of a
Churchyard Wall
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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.
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Real
Peak illustrations 1843 and
1845
These are the only two plates that
were published in the official government
printings of Frémont's Report in 1843,
and in 1845. They were made from field drawings
by expedition cartographer Charles Preuss. The
two view overlap and are arranged here as a
panorama of the range.
See the positions from where these two
drawings were made.

The image below was rendered from USGS 7.5' DEM
files using MacDEM and POV-Ray.

Did Charles Preuss make use of a camera
obscura?
 The
celebrated American portraitist G. P. A. Healy
painted the 29 year old 2nd Lieutenant
Frémont against the backdrop of the Wind
River Range as rendered onsite by
Frémont's expedition artist and
cartographer Charles Preuss. Jackson Peak is
shown over his right shoulder and Island Lake at
his right elbow.
Frémont wrote in his expedition Report
that "The summit rock was gneiss, succeeded by
sienitic gneiss. Sienite and feldspar succeeded
in our descent to the snow line, where we found
feldspathic granite."
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The object of the climb was not to bag
a peak, but to measure the peak.
The height of the Rocky mountains has been
previously estimated at from 10,000' to
27,000'.
"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.
This was cutting edge science! And
Frémont's barometrical observations were
accurate and are perfectly valid data today.
Measuring the peak.
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