01Biography
An officer in the Army's Corps of Topographical Engineers, John C. Frémont led five expeditions into the West, starting in 1842, and he became known as 'the Pathfinder.' On the first, in 1842, Kit Carson guided his party up the Platte and over South Pass.
The reports he wrote with his wife, Jessie Benton Frémont, were printed in large numbers and widely read, and a set of seven trail maps published in 1846 served as a guide for many emigrants. In 1846 his men, Carson among them, attacked a Wintu village on the Sacramento River, killing at least 120 people, and later a Klamath village in southern Oregon.
02Why they matter
Mapped the road over South Pass in 1842 and published reports and trail maps that many emigrants used.
03How they died
He became one of California's first two U.S. senators and, in 1856, the Republican Party's first candidate for president. Gold on his Mariposa estate made him rich for a time, but he later lost his fortune. He died in New York City on July 13, 1890, aged 77, with little money left.
04Legacy
Frémont Peak in Wyoming's Wind River Range, which he climbed in 1842, and many towns and counties across the West carry his name, among them Fremont County, Wyoming, where South Pass lies.