GENERAL JOHN C. FRÉMONT[17]
By Jane Marsh Parker
(1813-1890)
In these days of rapid transit between New York and San Francisco, of luxurious travel across desert and mountain, the story of John Charles Frémont, the Pathfinder of the great West, is of peculiar interest, a striking illustration that the history of the world is in the biography of its leaders, in the pathfinders of the unexplored.
The stormy tide of the French Revolution sent the father of John Charles Frémont to the New World about the time, presumably, when Napoleon Bonaparte was in the height of power. This M. Frémont came of a good family living near Lyons, France. A British man-of-war made prize of the ship in which he sailed for San Domingo, and he was carried prisoner to one of the British West India islands, his captivity lasting several years. Upon gaining his liberty he stopped at Norfolk, Va., to refill an empty purse as a teacher of French, and there met Anne Beverly Whiting, a leading belle of an old Virginia family, who became his wife. One of the illustrious connections of the Whitings was that with the family of George Washington. M. Frémont's marked fondness for travel and adventure was shared by his wife. They took long journeys through the wild southern country, stopping at Indian villages, often sleeping by camp-fires. On one of these expeditions, when making a halt at Savannah, Ga., John Charles, their first child, was born, January 21, 1813. M. Frémont died a few years after.
The boyhood of John Charles was spent in Charleston. It is well to remember, in a study of his life, his French blood and early southern environment. His first choice of a profession was the law. At the age of fourteen he became a student in the office of John W. Mitchell, who placed him under a private tutor, Dr. Roberton, who understood the lad thoroughly and developed his character in the right direction. Dr. Roberton seems to have first discovered what was made plain in Frémont's after-life—the makings of a poet, and the foresight of a prophet. Translating the story of the battle of Marathon in the Greek class, young Frémont catches the spirit with which it was told by Herodotus, and writes verses in protest of tyranny which are published in one of the Charleston papers. "In one year," wrote his tutor, "he had read four books of Cæsar; Cornelius Nepos; Sallust; six books of Virgil; nearly all of Horace, and two books of Livy. In Greek—all of Græca Minora, about half of the first volume of Græca Majora, and four books of the Iliad." At fifteen he enters the junior class of Charleston College. At sixteen he is confirmed in the Episcopal Church, entertaining at that time thoughts of entering the ministry. His steady progress is interrupted by his first love affair; his absorbing passion so gets the better of his common sense, that he neglects his books and classes and is expelled from college. We next find him teaching higher mathematics, acting as private tutor, and devoting his evenings to the charge of the Apprentice's Library, a school in Charleston. At twenty years of age he received the appointment of teacher of mathematics, and his long connection with the United States Army had its beginning; his post the sloop of war Natchez. He was to go on a cruise of two years and more along the coast of South America. Here was a chance for him to unfit himself for further advancement, but he improved his time upon the cruise to the utmost, and his diligent scholarship won for him the double degree of bachelor and master of arts from the college from which he had been expelled. His application for a mathematical professorship in the Navy resulted in his passing the severe examination, and in an appointment to the frigate Independence. He declined the office, however, having decided to become an engineer, to join Captain Williams's survey of the mountain passes between South Carolina and Tennessee. There was talk of a railroad between Charleston and Cincinnati in those days.
That was Frémont's first experience in exploring expeditions. The corps lived chiefly in camp. The survey was in wild mountainous regions of the unexplored South, among Indians sullen against the Government. Frémont liked this kind of a life. He enlisted under Captain Williams the second time in 1837, as assistant engineer, going with him upon a military reconnoissance of the Cherokee country in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. A war cloud was rising; the peril of the expedition was its charm to Frémont. "St. Louis was then on the border of an immense and almost unexplored Indian country. The caravans of merchandise going through it to Santa Fé, ran all the risks you can read of among Bedouins in the desert; the hunters and trappers, as well as the merchants, started off into the unknown with only one certainty, that danger was there; and when they came back—if they ever did—it was as from underworld."[18]
About this time a distinguished French geographer, M. Nicollet, was sent to this country by France to explore the sources of the Mississippi, "in the interests of geography." The United States were also interested in the geography of the almost unknown Northwest. M. Nicollet was appointed to make explorations for the United States, and Frémont was honored with the position of principal assistant. It was high time that something should be done in the interests of a geography made up largely from travellers' tales. That there was a great river, the Buena Ventura, running from the base of the Rocky Mountains to the Bay of San Francisco, nobody doubted, for there it was upon the map. The exploration of M. Nicollet, assisted by Frémont, awakened great interest. They were absent two years; their field, the territory between the Missouri and the upper rivers, as far north as the British line. Their report was awaited with impatience. Frémont came home to find that he had been appointed second lieutenant of the United States Topographical Engineers. As a scientific explorer his fame was established. The year following his return he spent in Washington with M. Nicollet, preparing his report for publication. Among those most deeply interested was Senator Benton, of Missouri, "Tom Benton," as he was popularly called, and "Old Bullion." Benton's hobby was the opening of a road for immigrants to the Pacific coast, as a necessary step to the acquisition of the territory held by Mexico—the California of to-day. Senator Benton's interest in the report of the young engineer, then about twenty-seven years of age, was surpassed by the young engineer's interest in the senator's daughter, Jessie, then only fifteen, an interest which ended in a betrothal contrary to the wishes of older heads, owing to Miss Benton's youth and young Frémont's connection with the army. The young engineer received an unexpected and unwelcome order, sending him to the wild frontier of Iowa at once, where the Sacs and Foxes, it was thought by Senator Benton (who had a hand in his exile), might be made to help postpone the marriage, at least. But banishment and red-skins were of no avail in breaking the engagement.
Frémont performed his duty to the letter, returned to Washington, and married Miss Benton, October 19, 1841—a "runaway match" which happily brought life-long happiness to both parties—Mrs. Frémont becoming the connecting link, to use her own words, between her father's "fixed idea of the importance of the speedy acquisition of the Pacific coast, and its actualization through the man best fitted to be the pioneer of the undertaking."
Less than a year after his marriage, in the summer of 1842, Frémont was sent by the War Department on the first of the five expeditions which gave him the name of Pathfinder.