The Fremonts and Utah BY MARY LEE SPENCE
L HERE is A FREMONT legend. For some it gleams as brightly as burnished gold; for others it is incredibly tarnished and scruffy. Writers like Allen Nevins have defended and extolled the explorer; others, including Ogden-born Bernard DeVoto, have roasted him with all the sarcastic adjectives they could summon to their pens. But in all this one point is clear: nobody ignores the man. John Charles Fremont was born in 1813 and died in 1890, the date Frederick Jackson Turner took to denote the end of the American frontier; thus Fremont's career paralleled the great nineteenth-century period of expansion. His was a multi-faceted calling: his most monumental success came as an explorer in the West—not in his role as senator from California, Civil War general, presidential aspirant, territorial governor of Arizona, or most certainly not as a businessman. Five times he led men across the Plains and Rockies under conditions of hardship and privation, and through his narratives publicized the West to a nation hungry to know. And aiding his long public career was his wife, the charming and spirited daughter of Missouri's dreadnought senator, influential Thomas Hart Benton. A beautiful and talented girl, Jessie Benton Fremont had inherited her father's concern for power and prestige and learned to write with remarkable ability. Together, she and John Charles made a truly dashing pair, a rarity in American history. But to emphasize the fortunate marriage connection is in no way to underestimate Fremont's abilities. He had audacity, courage, and a quick mind that had absorbed a great deal of knowledge in the fields of natural history, geography, and surveying. His maps, which were constructed with the assistance of the skillful German topographer, Charles Preuss, were used by thousands of immigrants on their travels to Oregon and California. His reports contained original material on ethnology, and in some cases he was the first to notice particular Indian tribes and give careful descriptions of their characteristics and appearance. He was Ms. Spence is assistant professor and academic counselor, Department of History, University of Illinois, and coeditor of The Expeditions of John Charles Fremont.
