ChatRoom
Search
TrailHead
Base Camp

       

In This Section... Before the World Rushed In Juan Bautista de Anza Jedidiah Smith John Sutter buys Fort Ross John Bidwell John C. Fremont Kit Carson, Fremont's Guide Donner Party Ranch and Mission Days Ranch and Mission Days, part 2 Joaquin Miller Mexican Period 1821-1846 Rancho Era Experience 1820-1848 Mission Era 1769-1820

John C Fremont

John C. Fremont is one of the most colorful, unusual, and contradictory characters in California history. As we will see in the following accounts of his activities, he lead a life in California that ranged from military service, Congressional reporter, travel log writer and map maker, to leader of a revolt, to military leadership, to a court marshal, political leadership in Congress and later in Arizona, a run for President of the United States, prosperous rancher, gold rush millionaire, and finally to a man of modest means living in New York.

His hopes for California were poetic, fancied on his imagine of an Italian Mediterranean transplanted to California soil. His image of himself as a military genius was at times exaggerated and lead first to honors and then to a court marshal at the hand of a competitive officer. His dream of the California life was realized on an elaborate estate in the Sierra foothills with an aristocratic wife, built from the earnings of a gold discovery on his land in Mariposa, but was lost due to faulty railroad investment, leaving him a much poorer man, supported by his wife's writings.

John Bidwell meets Fremont for the first time

Fremont biographies

The Bear Flag Revolt, by John Bidwell

Run for President