Frémont, John Charles
Born January 21, 1813
Savannah, Georgia
Died July 13, 1890
New York, New York
Explorer, military leader, politician
"Frémont was required to work long hours in difficult wilderness conditions, yet he found his labors exhilarating and described the job as 'a kind of picnic with work enough to give it zest.'"
Edward D. Harris, in John Charles Frémont and the Great Western Reconnaissance
John Charles Frémont, known popularly as "The Pathfinder," was responsible for leading some of the greatest mapping expeditions of the nineteenth century. Covering more ground than the famous Lewis and Clark expedition (see Lewis and Clark entry), and reporting on his discoveries in far greater detail, Frémont's various expeditions west of the Mississippi River offered the American public a detailed view of lands that were then largely unknown. His reports helped fuel the national fever known as "manifest destiny" (the belief that the United States was destined to stretch all the way to the Pacific Ocean) and encouraged many to settle in the West. Frémont himself was a charismatic and controversial figure who wrote of his explorations with great flair, though he was often criticized—and once nearly sentenced to prison—for some of his questionable decisions.
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