“a much less interesting . . . women & children”: Ibid.
six had run aground: Six of eight ships in one stretch had wrecked in 1848–49. “Very Late From the Isthmus,” Weekly Herald, February 17, 1849.
some were turned away: “From Chagres and Panama,” Schenectady Reflector, March 2, 1849.
twelve thousand dollars’ . . . “the gold stories are not at all exaggerated, but are rather below the truth”: Ibid.
Fremont’s Exploring Expedition: “New Publications,” New York Commercial Advertiser, March 13, 1849.
piles of luggage: These details were noted by other visitors of the era. Steen, “Palaces for Travelers,” 269.
“devoted to the single male guests” . . . “velvet, lace, satin, gilding, rich carpets and mirrors”: Ibid.
three emeralds that she wanted to have set in gold: Southern Sentinel, quoting the New York Sun, March 22, 1849.
“Mexican and Peruvian Emperors”: New York Sun, quoted in Trenton State Gazette, February 28, 1849.
“I was much in the position of a nun . . . starting made harder than ever”: JBF, Year of American Travel, 22.
“He went off . . . against their will”: Ibid, 23.
“the cry of ‘carrying off a free colored girl’ . . . alarm of fire”: Ibid.
“colored mob” . . . “what could be done”: Ibid., 24.
“It was true that we were Southerners . . . contrary directions”: Ibid., 24.
March 15, 1849: The departure is recorded in the New York Herald, March 16, 1849.
newspapers took note of the famous explorer’s wife on board: Including the New York Examiner, March 21, 1849; the New York Evangelist, March 22, 1849; the Washington Daily Union, March 20, 1849; and the Worcester Palladium, March 21, 1849.
“a larger number . . . heretofore gone in any steamer”: “Movements for California,” New York Herald, March 16, 1849.
5 of the 338 were female: A list of the passengers is printed in ibid.
Collis P. Huntington, was: A “C.P. Huntington” is on the passenger list in ibid.
hoped to set up a branch store: This was his plan from the beginning. Lavender, The Great Persuader, 7.
rifles, woolen socks, and medicine: Ibid., 8.
“I was too worn down and silenced to care to know strangers”: JBF, Year of American Travel, 28.
his berth, “thoroughly seasick”: Ibid., 27.
“made me go into the air”: Ibid.
“I had never seen the sea” . . . “of freshness”: Ibid., 27–28.
“the numbness of grief”: Ibid., 25.
“morbid dwelling on what was now ended”: Ibid., 28.
“Perhaps the sharpest lesson of life . . . ‘When I died the first time . . . ’”: Ibid., 29.
he had worked for the previous expedition: Favour, Old Bill Williams Mountain Man, 160.
“a man about six feet one” . . . “all muscle and sinew”: The traveler was Albert Pike, quoted in ibid., 92.
an eccentric horseman: Micajah McGehee, a member of the expedition, described Williams this way in a short memoir published in Century Illustrated Magazine, March 1891.
his knees nearly touched his chest: Nevins, Frémont: Pathmarker of the West, 352.
expressed doubt about the wisdom of a winter crossing: McGehee, “Rough Times in Rough Places,” 772.
delivered documents to William Clark: Favour, Old Bill Williams Mountain Man, 50.
“The sight was beautiful” . . . “wall of high mountains”: McGehee’s short memoir was printed with the headline “Rough Times in Rough Places” in Century Illustrated Magazine.
“We occupied more than half a month” . . . “waste time in searching”: JCF to JBF, January 27, 1849, JBF, Year of American Travel, 70.
must have “entirely forgotten”: Ibid.
“It was obvious that Bill had never been here”: Preuss, diary entry, December 15, 1848, Gudde and Gudde, Exploring with Frémont, 144.
“two trappers . . . had been frozen to death here the year previous”: McGehee, “Rough Times in Rough Places.”
“with the willfully blind eyes . . . confidence he pushed on”: Kern, journal entry, December 9, 1848, Spence, Expeditions, vol. 3, 94.
“Usually the snow forms no obstacle . . . traveling”: JCF to JBF, JBF, January 27, 1849, Year of American Travel, 70.
“We had to rise from our beds” . . . “in pursuit of them”: McGehee, “Rough Times in Rough Places.”
sketched bare trees and vertical rock walls: Two paintings are reprinted in Spence, Expeditions, vol. 3, 101–2.
“the most rugged, and impracticable . . . even in the summertime”: JCF to JBF, January 27, 1849, JBF, Year of American Travel, 70.
“Even along the river-bottoms . . . tree trunk at zero”: Ibid., 71.
“For days in succession . . . previous day’s work”: McGehee, “Rough Times in Rough Places.”
“noses, ears, faces, fingers, and feet”: Ibid.
the only item . . . inexhaustible supply was coffee: Weeks later, when all other food had run out, Charles Preuss wrote in his diary that they were able to share “our coffee” with an Indian who offered them food (January 14, 1849, Gudde and Gudde, Exploring with Frémont, 148).
starving mules ate the blankets: McGehee, “Rough Times in Rough Places.”
“Old Bill Williams . . . when we got into camp”: Ibid.
“pack saddles and packs . . . strewed along”: JCF to JBF, January 27, 1849, JBF, Year of American Travel, 71.
“It was impossible to advance . . . inevitable ruin”: JCF to JBF, January 27, 1849, ibid., 71.
His story had begun: When she wrote her memoir of her California journey, she included a reference to Díaz. JBF, Year of American Travel, 88.
“two or three hundred huts . . . leaves of the palm”: Augustus Campbell to his mother, April 2, 1849, reprinted in Campbell and Campbell, “Crossing the Isthmus of Panama, 1849.”
“as small as a craft could well be . . . stepping down upon a toy”: JBF, Year of American Travel, 45.
“The scenery is delightful” . . . “cried like a child”: Letter reprinted in the Salem Register, May 17, 1849.
“The woods are alive with parrots, chattering away like so many demons”: Ibid.
“with all the sympathies of his kind nature” . . . “my comfort and security”: JBF, Year of American Travel, 14–15.
“to see that everything . . . home talk with a lady”: Ibid., 49.
“being young and strong and a Kentuckian”: Ibid., 50.
“when suddenly his eyes . . . from sunstroke”: Ibid., 51.
doctor at Gorgona: The name may confuse anyone looking at a modern map of Panama, which includes a Pacific seaside community called New Gorgona but no Gorgona inland on the Chagres River. Nineteenth-century maps of Panama did show such a town, which appears to have vanished later as the landscape was reshaped by the building of the Panama Canal after 1903. One older map is reprinted in Campbell and Campbell, “Crossing the Isthmus of Panama, 1849.”
another collection of bamboo huts, surrounding a handful of stone houses: Augustus Campbell to his mother, April 7, 1849, reprinted in Campbell and Campbell, “Crossing the Isthmus of Panama, 1849.”
“There were hundreds . . . hill-slopes”: JBF, Year of American Travel, 51.
“There were many women . . . and already many had died”: Ibid., 51–52.
“It was more trough than trail”: Ibid., 52.
“The whole thing . . . in helpless silence”: Ibid.
“From here I see the jail . . . to make them march about”: Elizabeth Benton Frémont to Thomas Hart Benton, April 27, 1849, Herr and Spence, Letters, 40–41.
“is apparently completely in possession of our countrymen” . . . “knocked down by the inevitable hammer”: Letter from a
correspondent in Panama City, dated May 15, 1849, New York Evening Post, July 6, 1849.
as Worcester, Massachusetts: “California Items,” Worcester Palladium, March 21, 1849.
Charleston, South Carolina: “News from California,” Milwaukee Sentinel and Gazette, May 28, 1849.
Tahlequah, the new capital of the relocated Cherokee: A note of Mrs. Frémont’s progress and the illness of her brother-in-law appeared in the Cherokee Advocate on May 28, 1849.
DREADFUL INTELLIGENCE . . . FREMONT’S PARTY: “Dreadful Intelligence from the Rocky Mountains,” New York Herald, March 27, 1849.
ate their macaroni and cooked the meat of dead mules: Frémont still had a little macaroni left on one of his last days before the rescue. JCF to JBF, January 27, 1849, JBF, Year of American Travel, 72. Survivor Andrew Cathcart recorded eating mule meat in his letter to C. J. Colville, February 10, 1849. Spence, Expeditions, vol. 3, 91.
“A few days were sufficient” . . . “discouraged by misfortune”: JCF to JBF, January 27, 1849, JBF, Year of American Travel, 72.
He had borrowed them from Senator Benton’s library: JCF to JBF, January 27, 1849, JBF, Year of American Travel, 73.
Lincoln had read them twice: Donald, Lincoln, 54.
“In a sunshiny day . . . till he froze to death”: JCF to JBF, January 27, 1849, JBF, Year of American Travel, 73.
“by Frémont’s harsh treatment”: Richard H. Kern, journal entry, Spence, Expeditions, vol. 3, 96.
Around January 8: Author’s calculation. They walked five days for aid before finding an Indian who could help them, and Preuss’s diary reports that they finally reached the home of the Indian the morning after that, or January 14.
“a magnificent breakfast of corn mush and venison, together with our coffee”: Preuss diary entry, January 14, 1849, Gudde and Gudde, Exploring with Frémont, 148.
a rifle and John’s own two blankets . . . “wretchedly poor” horses: JCF to JBF, January 27, 1849, JBF, Year of American Travel, 74.
“We had to open our eyes . . . skinny and hollow-eyed did they look”: Ibid., 149.
“entirely lost sight of the purpose of their expedition” . . . straps, gun cases: Ibid.
Manuel returned to camp to die: Richard H. Kern, journal entry, January 16, 1849, Spence, Expeditions, vol. 3, 96.
the men cried: JCF to JBF, January 27, 1849, JBF, Year of American Travel, 80.
eleven had died: By JCF’s count. JCF to JBF, Janaury 27, 1849, JBF, Year of American Travel, 78. On his undated notes of the expedition, JCF made an incomplete list of the members of his party, including 11 who are marked with a cross as dead. Spence, Expeditions, vol. 3, 52.
“a perfect skeleton, snowblind, frostbitten and hardly able to stand”: Cathcart to C. J. Colville, February 10, 1849, Spence, Expeditions, vol. 3, 91.
commander ordered rations distributed to John’s men: Richard H. Kern, journal entry, Spence, Expeditions, vol. 3, 97.
“Taos, New Mexico, January 27” . . . “the remembrance of friends”: JCF to JBF, January 27, 1849, JBF, Year of American Travel, 75–86.
they were left to buy their own meals: Richard H. Kern, journal entry, Spence, Expeditions, vol. 3, 97.
“It will not be necessary . . . already written”: JCF to JBF, January 27, 1849, JBF, Year of American Travel, 78–79.
“friends and strangers . . . my going any farther”: Ibid., 81.
“my forehead purple . . . anything said to me”: JCF to JBF, January 27, 1849, JBF, Year of American Travel, 83.
combat her “brain-fever”: Ibid., 84.
“They were an eager, animated set . . . there was no escape”: Ibid., 85.
One of the men in the tents was Collis P. Huntington: Lavender, The Great Persuader, 14.
she sat on the barrel of an old brass cannon: JBF, Year of American Travel, 85.
“The sight of this discouraged . . . go home”: Ibid., 86.
“Of course I was up” . . . “crib for a lady!”: Ibid., 87.
less than two weeks in California: Thompson, Gerald, “Edward Fitzgerald Beale and the California Gold Rush,” 206.
a watch newly encased in gold: Ibid., 207.
gold nuggets dangled from the watch chain: Ibid.
“I was not advised but ordered to go home”: JBF, Year of American Travel, 87.
“In the chronicle of the conquest . . . could name this my saddest”: Ibid., 88.
more than three hundred passengers: Jessie remembered four hundred, but did not record the number until many years later (JBF, Year of American Travel, 88). The author of a letter to the New York Post, who traveled on the ship, made a contemporaneous estimate of three hundred after some got off at San Diego. New York Evening Post, July 30, 1849.
built with berths for something closer to two hundred: Each of the steamers built for the Pacific Mail line contained 50 to 60 staterooms and steerage berths for an additional 150 to 200 people. Kemble, “The Genesis of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company,” 250.
“throng” . . . “was any thing but agreeable”: Unnamed newspaper correspondent, June 20, 1849, New York Evening Post, July 30, 1849.
six feet out of the water: Kemble, “The Genesis of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company,” 250.
“equatorial heat” . . . “heroism of that adventurer”: Unnamed newspaper correspondent, New York Evening Post, July 30, 1849.
“Everybody had a Shakespeare and not much besides”: JBF, Year of American Travel, 92.
“No one knows what business has brought him here”: “The Following Is an Extract,” New York Evening Post, August 14, 1849.
“a low, busy, grating, whispering . . . told me were unusual”: JBF, Year of American Travel, 91–92.
Cadwalader Ringgold, took charge: Ringgold is identified in Steel, T. Butler King of Georgia, 73; the story of avoiding the breakers is told in JBF, Year of American Travel, 92.
CHAPTER TWELVE: JESSIE BENTON FRÉMONT WAS THE BETTER MAN OF THE TWO
on June 4: It was said to be an early-morning arrival that day. “Correspondence of the Evening Post,” New York Evening Post, July 30, 1849.
a new name, San Francisco: So the letter writer to the New York Post called it in June 1849 (ibid.). It would be formally incorporated as the city of San Francisco in 1850.
“a bleak and meagre frontispiece . . . chilling mist”: JBF, Year of American Travel, 97.
“swarmed” . . . “Deserted ships of all sorts were swinging with the tide”: Ibid.
They lingered, ate: “Correspondence of the Evening Post,” New York Evening Post, July 30, 1849.
“so hard was the work”: Ibid.
“salt pork, tin kettles, tools, and India rubber contrivances”: Ibid.
“The mere landing of the passengers . . . pretty sure not to come back”: JBF, Year of American Travel, 98.
“the attacks of innumerable fleas” . . . “hills are all alive”: Taylor, Prose Writings of Bayard Taylor, 112.
“wooden sheds, mud huts and streets” . . . “tin plate”: “Correspondence of the Evening Post,” New York Evening Post, July 30, 1849.
its crew brought back word that John was alive: JBF, Year of American Travel, 95; Spence, Expeditions, vol. 3, xxiii.
“club of wealthy merchants”: JCF, Year of American Travel, 100.
“beautiful garden . . . Scotch gardener”: Ibid., 99.
English brand name Broadwood: Ibid.
“there daily blows a hurricane”: “Correspoondence of the Evening Post,” New York Evening Post, July 30, 1849.
“Every man carried his code” . . . “in a state of chaos”: Crosby, Memoirs of Elisha Oscar Crosby, 42.
his proclamation called on Californians: Crotty, “The California Constitutional Convention of 1849.”
Portsmouth Square . . . at three o’clock: “Large and Enthusiastic Mass Me
eting,” Alta California, June 14, 1849.
a thousand feet from the house: The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco identifies the location of Leidesdorff’s former house as the corner of Montgomery and California streets, roughly two-tenths of a mile from Portsmouth Square.
the two military officers who had traveled on the Panama were his aides: Steel, T. Butler King of Georgia, 73.
“with his accustomed eloquence and ability”: “Large and Enthusiastic Mass Meeting,” Alta California, June 14, 1849.
speakers also included . . . William M. Gwin: Ellison, “Memoirs of Hon. William M. Gwin.”
dreamed of returning to Congress as one of California’s first United States senators: So reported a correspondent named Freaner, in the New York Evening Post, August 14, 1849. Gwin said he had revealed his goal to Stephen A. Douglas while the two men watched the inauguration of President Taylor in Washington on March 4, 1849 (Ellison, “Memoirs of Hon. William M. Gwin”).
“understand the wants and necessities . . . patriotism and sacrifices”: “Correspondence of the Evening Post,” New York Evening Post, July 30, 1849.
would have been delighted to become governor: A newspaper report before John’s departure named this as his goal (“Intelligence by the Mails,” New York Herald, April 12, 1848). Once a state government was organized, Jessie wrote that “Mr. Frémont could have been either Governor or first Senator,” but that he ultimately chose the Senate for reasons to be later explained (JBF, Year of American Travel, 151).
named Fremont Street: The exact date it was named is not known, but it appeared as the address for a lumberyard in the Alta California, May 27, 1850.
“The Grand Californian Lottery”: “The Grand Californian Lottery,” Alta California, July 26, 1849.
“whiskey, 4th proof brandy” . . . “Penn[sylvania] cheese”: “New Goods Per Brig Col. Fremont,” Alta California, July 2, 1849.
“The mosquitoes . . . know them by experience”: JCF to Benjamin D. Wilson, June 1, 1849, Spence, Expeditions, vol. 3, 111.
“on my account”: Ibid.
from mid-February to mid-April: He reached a California ranch by April 20, 1849. Spence, Expeditions, vol. 3, xxxii.
known as Agua Caliente: JCF to JBF, January 27, 1849, JBF, Year of American Travel, 81.
Imperfect Union Page 43
