Frémont judged that they were about as far south as San Francisco Bay. If this was true, he knew that the distance to that place was only about seventy miles. But to reach San Francisco Bay it was necessary to cross the mountains, and the Indians refused to act as guides, telling him that men could not possibly cross the steep, rugged heights in winter. This did not stop Frémont. He said: “We’ll go, guides or no guides!” And go they did.
It was a terrible journey. Sometimes they came to places where the snow was one hundred feet deep or more. But they pushed forward for nearly six weeks. Finally, after suffering from intense cold and from lack of food, they made their way down the western side of the mountains, men and horses alike being in such a starved condition that they were almost walking skeletons.
At last they reached Sutter’s Fort, now the city of Sacramento, where they enjoyed the hospitality of Captain Sutter. After remaining there for a short time, Frémont recrossed the mountains, five hundred miles farther south, and continued to Utah Lake, which is twenty-eight miles south of Great Salt Lake. He had travelled entirely around the Great Basin.
From Utah Lake he hastened across the country to Washington, with the account of his journey and of the discoveries he had made.
In 1845 Captain Frémont—for he had now been promoted to the rank of captain by the government—started out on his third expedition, with the purpose of exploring the Great Basin and then proceeding to the coast of what is now California and upward to Oregon.
Frémont’s Western Explorations.
Having explored the basin, he was on his way to Oregon, when he learned that the Mexicans were plotting to kill all the Americans in the valley of the Sacramento River. He therefore turned back to northern California, and with a force made up in part of American settlers gathered from the country round about, he took possession of that region, marched as fast as possible to Monterey, and captured that place also. Within about two months he had conquered practically all of California for the United States.
Frémont then made his home in California. On the 4th of the following July he was elected governor of the territory by the settlers then living there. Eleven years later the Republican party of the United States nominated him for President, but failed to elect him. He died in 1890. He has well been called “the Pathfinder.”
Frémont’s conquest of California was, in effect, a part of the Mexican War, which began in 1846. After nearly two years of fighting a treaty of peace was signed, by which Mexico ceded to the United States not only California but also much of the vast region now included in Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.