The men in Lt. John Charles Frémont’s command were a bit confused. They had spent the spring and summer of 1843 trekking west into Oregon Territory (Pacific Northwest), exploring and mapping as they went. Their orders seemed clear enough. Survey the Oregon Trail by carrying a line of astronomical and barometric observations through to the Columbia River (for a possible transcontinental railroad route), and then retrace their steps back to Missouri. Why then had Frémont told his men to head south, down along the eastern side of the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada on their return from the Pacific?
John C. Fremont. | Courtesy Sutter’s Fort Archives
Although Frémont’s motives will probably always remain a mystery, he was most likely following instruction from his father-in-law, Missouri Sen. Thomas Hart Benton. Sen. Benton, one of the most politically powerful men in Washington, was an ardent expansionist and strong proponent of manifest destiny. Three years before, in February 1840, Frémont had met and fallen in love with Sen. Benton’s 16-year-old daughter Jessie. Her parents were adamantly opposed to a marriage, so Jessie and John eloped. Jessie had always been a determined and headstrong person; she obviously liked what she saw in the handsome 27-year-old explorer.
Read more about John Fremont’s encounter with Chief Truckee
Born in Virginia, but raised in Washington, D.C., Jessie Benton was known for her intelligence, magnetism and raven-haired beauty. By the time she met John Frémont, nearly 12 years her senior, she had already received two marriage proposals, including one from President Martin Van Buren. To protect his precocious daughter, Sen. Benton cloistered her in an elite seminary just outside the city for her education and personal development. In an ironic twist of fate, it was Benton himself who introduced John Frémont to his daughter at Georgetown Seminary.
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“Her parents were adamantly opposed to a marriage,
so Jessie and John eloped.”
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Like her future husband, Jessie had a voracious appetite for knowledge. With her father’s encouragement, she read many of his legal and political books, documents and maps and often accompanied him to Senate debates. Under her father’s guidance, by her mid-teens, Jessie was as astute a politician as any male, outspoken on political issues and against slavery.
John Frémont was a skilled leader, navigator, cartographer and wilderness survivalist. Born Jan. 21, 1813, the illegitimate child of his French immigrant father and the runaway young wife of an elderly military officer, Frémont excelled in school. His exceptional scholastic abilities in Greek and Latin attracted wealthy, influential mentors who paid for him to attend prep school and then college, where he studied astronomy and mathematics. It was partly due to the conditions of John’s birth and his unorthodox upbringing that the Bentons considered him beneath their daughter’s social station and an unsuitable husband. Nevertheless, the newlyweds would become a political power couple and influence the country in beneficial ways.
Despite his aversion to the marriage, to advance the career of his new son-in-law, Sen. Benton assigned Frémont as point man for the U.S. government’s final push at westward expansion, which might include military aggression against, and forced land acquisition from, Mexico. California would be the greatest prize of all, but to get it Sen. Benton needed Frémont to gather detailed knowledge of the Western landscape and, if possible, Mexican troop strength.
A topographical engineer, Frémont was perfect for the mission. He had training in surveying, meteorology, geology and the botanical field. His strong background in the geographic sciences ultimately gave him the ability to be the first to navigate, interpret and map the rugged western topography with skill and confidence.
Part of Frémont’s focus on the 1843-44 expedition was the Buenaventura River, a mythical ribbon of water that purportedly drained west from the Rocky Mountains and flowed all the way to the San Francisco Bay. The erroneous belief in the nonexistent Buenaventura River, as well as other crucial misconceptions of the region, would be corrected by Frémont’s expedition.
As the men explored what today is Western Nevada, it quickly became obvious that the Sierra Nevada range blocked the possibility of any westbound river from reaching the Pacific Ocean. There were an assortment of maps of the region available before 1843, but ultimately it was Frémont’s explorations that produced the first reliable maps of the West and placed Western cartography on a scientific foundation. Frémont was also the first to comprehend that all the rivers in this region of the country fail to reach the sea and evaporate in desert sinks, inspiring him to name it the Great Basin.
When the men reached the terminus of the Truckee River, Frémont named it Pyramid Lake in honor of the triangle-shaped rock island located on the lake’s eastern side. When he observed monstrous Lahontan cutthroat trout swimming in Pyramid Lake’s feeder stream, he called it the Salmon Trout River, later renamed the Truckee by a wagon train in 1844. Near Pyramid Lake Frémont met the friendly Paiute Indian, Chief Winnemucca (later “Chief Truckee”), who explained that if they followed this river they could cross the mountains. Instead of heeding the advice, Lt. Frémont ordered his men south, along the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada range.
New Year’s Day 1844 came and went with Frémont and his men struggling through the bleak and frigid landscape. An atmospheric inversion produced a persistent and gloomy pogonip (frozen fog) that obliterated the horizon. Their horses and pack animals were so tired and footsore from sharp rocks that they could barely maintain a modest pace. At that point, Frémont realized that there was no way that the animals could make it back to Missouri so he decided to cross the wintry Sierra Nevada into California.
Their first attempt into the mountains followed the Walker River, but the rugged and broken country made the trip impossible. On Jan. 29, the heavy cannon was abandoned on the West Fork of the Walker. Due to the extreme difficulty of this route, Frémont consulted with a few Indians who then led the expedition to the East Fork of the Carson River where they camped for the night. While there, other Indians approached the camp to inform Frémont that it was “six nights travel to the place where the whites lived,” but that the journey could only be made in summer.
Read Part II in the next edition of Tahoe Weekly or online at TheTahoeWeekly.com.
Tahoe historian Mark McLaughlin is a nationally published author and professional speaker. His award-winning books are available at local stores or at thestormking.com. You may reach him at mark@thestormking.com. Check out his blog at tahoenuggets.com or read more at TheTahoeWeekly.com.
