General John C Femont
John Charles Frémont was born in Savannah, Georgia, January 21, 1813.
His ancestry is disputed by historians. In a biography of Andrew Jackson, written by H.W. Brands and published in 2005, the writer claims that Fremont was the son of Anne and Charles Fremon, and that Fremont added the accented “e” and the “t” to his name later in life. But, according to the 1902 genealogy of the Frémont family, he was the son of Anne Beverley Whiting, a prominent Virginia society woman, who after his birth, married Louis-René Frémont, a penniless French refugee, in Norfolk on May 14, 1807. This Louis-René Frémont was the son of a Québec City merchant, Jean-Louis Frémont, who was himself the immigrant son of Charles-Louis Frémont from Saint Germain en Laye near Paris. Most historians do agree however, that he was born illegitimate, and it was a social stigma at that time which he had to overcome before he could be accept into the social class he aspired to. It is also clamed that after the Fremont’s father died, his mother moved her family to Charleston.
In 1828, after a year’s special preparation, young Fremont entered the junior class of the college of Charleston. Here he displayed a remarkable aptitude for learning and excelled, especially in mathematics, but his irregular attendance and disregard of college discipline led to his expulsion from the institution, but still granted him a degree in 1836. In 1833 he was appointed teacher of mathematics on board the sloop of war “Natchez”, and soon after embarked on a cruise along the South American coast which lasted for about two and a half years. Soon after the sloop returned to Charleston, the United States Navy appointed him professor of mathematics, but he instead chose to serve as assistant engineer of a survey undertaken chiefly for the purpose of finding a pass through the mountains for a proposed railway from Charleston to Cincinnati. In July 1838 he was appointed second lieutenant of Topographical Engineers in the United States Army, and for the next three years he was assistant to the French explorer, Jean Nicholas Nicollet (1786-1843), employed by the war department to survey and map a large part of the country lying between the upper waters of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
Senator Benton Jessie Benton Fremont
In 1841 Frémont surveyed, for the government, the lower course of the Des Moines river. Upon his return to Washington to file his report with the war department, the then 28 year old Fremont meets the radiantly beautiful 17 year old Jessie, the daughter of a powerful Missouri Senator, Thomas Hart Benton, at several long westward expansion interviews at the senator’s home, and despite the strong opposition of her father, they eloped on October 19, of that year. Although this was a great upset for Benton, he felt that he needed Fremont mapping ability to satisfy his political and financial goals, and as the Democratic Party leader, he used his great influence with the government, so that Fremont was enabled to accomplish within the next few years the exploration of much of the territory between the Mississippi Valley and the Pacific Ocean.
During the summer of 1842, Frémont met the American frontiersman, Kit Carson, on a Missouri River steamboat in St. Louis, Missouri. Frémont was preparing to lead his first expedition and was looking for a guide to take him to South Pass. The two men made acquaintance, and as he had spent much time in the area, Carson offered his services. The five-month journey, made with 25 men, was a success, and Fremont’s report was published by the U.S. Congress. This famous Frémont report was said to have “touched off a wave of wagon caravans filled with hopeful emigrants” heading west.
From 1842 to 1846, Frémont and his guide Carson led expedition parties on the Oregon Trail and into the Sierra Nevada. During his expeditions in the Sierra Nevada, it is generally acknowledged that Frémont became the first European American to view Lake Tahoe. He is also credited with determining that the Great Basin had no outlet to the sea. He also mapped volcanoes such as Mount St. Helens.
In May 1843, Fremont’s second expedition was to map the area between the Rockies and the Pacific Ocean. The expedition was well-equipped and especially well-armed. The men carried breechloading rifles — though the Army would retain muzzleloaders for another 25 years.
They also dragged along a small howitzer — the “Fremont Cannon” of Nevada lore — which nearly ended the expedition before it started. The Topographical Corps didn’t need any confrontations with Mexican military in California or the British in Oregon. It sent Fremont a letter demanding he return to Washington and explain why he was taking a cannon on a peaceful, scientific expedition. Fremont’s wife intercepted the letter and, instead of forwarding it, sent him a message that he had better head west without further preparation.
The term “plausible deniability” would not come into common use for another 130 years or so, but Washington-reared Jessie Fremont understood the concept.
Fremont pushed through what is now Utah and into Oregon. Then he turned south seeking three important geographical features described by earlier explorers — the Rio Buenaventura, Klamath Lake and Mary’s Lake. He found Klamath Lake in short order but the other two, it turned out, do not exist.
By January 1844, Fremont abandoned the howitzer in heavy snowdrifts in Northern Nevada. History buffs and treasure hunters have been looking for it ever since. A copy was made and is a revolving trophy for football games between UNLV and UNR.
The expedition beat its way across the Sierra Nevada to Sutter’s Fort, arriving with only 33 of the 67 horses and mules that started the trek. Fremont then headed south to strike the Spanish Trail toward Santa Fe.
Fremont described the march in his memoirs:
“Our cavalcade made a strange and grotesque appearance, and it was impossible to avoid reflecting upon our position and composition in this remote solitude. Within two degrees of the Pacific Ocean; already far south of the latitude of Monterey; and still forced on south by a desert on one hand, and a mountain range on the other; guided by a civilized Indian, attended by two wild ones from the Sierra; a Chinook from the Columbia; and our own mixture of American, French, German — all armed; four or five languages heard at once; above a hundred horses and mules, half wild; American, Spanish, and Indian dresses and equipments intermingle; — such was our composition. Our march was a sort of procession. Scouts ahead, and on the flanks; a front and rear division; the pack animals, baggage, and horned cattle in the centre; and the whole stretching a quarter of a mile along our dreary path. In this form we journey; looking more like we belonged to Asia than to the United States of America.”
They made their way down the Mojave River, which runs only intermittently, and the cattle were growing weak from want of water and grazing. On April 24, Fremont stopped to slaughter three and dry the meat.
“In the afternoon we were surprised by the sudden appearance in the camp of two Mexicans — a man and a boy. The name of the man was Andreas Fuentes; and that of the boy (a handsome lad, 11 years old) Pablo Hernandez. They belonged to a party consisting of six persons, the remaining four being the wife of Fuentes, the father and mother of Pablo, and Santiago Giacome, a resident of New Mexico.”
The group had been herding horses from Los Angeles toward Santa Fe when it was attacked by perhaps 100 Indians, said the fugitives. “The Indians charged down into their camp, shouting as they advanced, and discharging flights of arrows … Fuentes drove the animals over and through the assailants, in spite of their arrows; and, abandoning the rest to their fate, carried them off at speed across the plain.”
Eventually, they left their horses to water at Agua de Tomaso and continued until they came upon Fremont.
Fuentes guided Fremont back over his own trail.
On April 25 Fremont’s men reached Agua de Tomaso, but the herd had been driven away. Fuentes, Carson and another scout, Alexander Godey set off in pursuit, but Fuentes turned back because his horse went lame.
“In the afternoon of the next day, a war-whoop was heard, such as Indians make when returning from a victorious enterprise; and soon Carson and Godey appeared, driving before them a band of horses, recognized by Fuentes to be part of those they had lost. Two bloody scalps, dangling from the end of Godey’s gun, announced that they had overtaken the Indians as well as the horses.”
On April 29, Fremont’s group reached the spring where Fuentes’ party had been attacked — near today’s Tecopa, on the California-Nevada border.
“The dead silence of the place was ominous,” wrote Fremont, “and galloping rapidly up, we found only the corpses of the two men; everything else was gone. They were naked, mutilated, and pierced with arrows … Of the women no trace could be found, and it was evident they had been carried off captive. A little lap-dog, which had belonged to Pablo’s mother, remained with the dead bodies, and was frantic with joy at seeing Pablo; he, poor child, was frantic with grief, and filled the air with lamentations for his father and mother. Mi padre! mi madre! was his incessant cry.”
Pablo Hernandez was adopted by Benton’s family and became a good scholar, but upon reaching adulthood returned to Mexico. The last Fremont heard of him — a report he could not verify — was that he had moved to California and become an outlaw. Fuentes became a good explorer and would accompany Fremont on another expedition.
Now that Fremont was far off the main route to New Mexico, Fuentes became his guide along the alternate. On May 1, they encamped at a spring in the mountains — probably today’s Mountain Spring. They made but 12 miles the next day, camping, probably, in the region of Blue Diamond or Oak Creek Canyon.
And on May 3: “After a day’s journey of 18 miles, in a northeasterly direction, we encamped in the midst of another very large basin, at a camping ground called Las Vegas — a term which the Spaniards use to signify fertile or marshy plains, in contradistinction to llanos, which they apply to dry and sterile plains. Two narrow streams of clear water, four or five feet deep, gush suddenly with a quick current, from two singularly large springs; these, and other waters of the basin, pass out in a gap to the eastward. The taste of the water is good, but rather too warm to be agreeable; the temperature being 71 in the one and 73 in the other. They, however, afford a delightful bathing place.”
It was all Fremont would write about the location that would become Sin City.
His departure route, to the northeast, was difficult and dangerous. “Skeletons of horses … between 50 and 60 miles without a drop of water,” he noted. “We ate occasionally the (barrel cactus) and moistened our mouths with the acid of the sour dock.”
On the Muddy River, Paiutes spotted Fremont, suspected he was raiding for slaves, and made a show of force. “They were barefooted and nearly naked; their hair gathered up in a knot behind, and with his bow, each man carried a quiver with thirty or forty arrows partially drawn out. Besides these, each held in his hand two or three arrows for instant service. Their arrows are barbed with a very clear translucent stone, a species of opal, nearly as hard as the diamond; and shot from their long bow, are almost as effective as a gunshot,” he wrote. Fremont negotiated peace here, but on the Virgin River, a day’s march further northeast, one man fell behind and was never seen again. Those who tracked him found signs of struggle and death.
Yet for all its dangers, the route through Las Vegas became well traveled, simply because it became well-known. Congress printed 20,000 copies of Fremont’s 1845 report of this trip and its map. “This meant anybody who wanted one could have it,” said Warren. “It became so important that if a group of emigrants did NOT have one, that fact would be mentioned in diaries.”
(continued in Part 2)
