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John Charles Fremont and the exploration of the American West - USA Yesterday - Biography
USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Sept, 2003 by Gerald F. Kreyche
The reprimand caused Fremont to be transferred to a command in Virginia, but, unable to get along with his boss, Gen. John Pope, he asked the President to be relieved of duty. Lincoln was only too happy to oblige, and Fremont reentered civilian life. In 1864, he again was offered the presidential nomination, but declined. Lincoln won, but assassination soon followed.
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Fremont set out to make money, but his Mariposa gold venture was having problems. Business never was his forte, and he made some bad investments, went broke, and survived economically only with Jessie's writing as their main means of support. He sought the governorship of the Territory of Arizona as a means of income and was appointed to that office in 1878. The salary was $2,000, a pittance to a man who had been a millionaire. His backers and constituency, however, gradually became disillusioned with him, complaining that he was too busy with other interests and neglected his post. They pressured him to resign, and he did so at age 68 on Oct. 11, 1881, then moved back East.
The year 1887 saw him in even greater need of money, and he thought he might capitalize on his memoirs if they were published. After all, this is what Grant did, enabling that former general to pay off his debts. (Grant died from cancer almost immediately after finishing his recollections.) Some of Fremont's memoirs were published, but they never brought in the expected large sums of money. A fickle public had lost its fascination with the Wunderkind.
Back East, the explorer's health was deteriorating, and doctors felt that a move to California might improve his condition. With Jessie's influence, but without her husband's knowledge, he was reduced to accepting charity in tire form of free railroad transportation. They spent two years in California before deciding to return East.
Ever active, Jessie quietly lobbied for her husband to be restored to his old Army rank so that he could receive a $6,000 pension for his services. In this she was successful. Ironically, it was just a few months after this act of recognition that in New York on July 13, 1890, Fremont died of peritonitis, or perhaps a bleeding ulcer.
In a simple funeral ceremony, his body was buried in a donated plot in Piermont, N.Y. In an act of generosity, Congress voted Jessie a $2,000-per-annum widow's pension. She lived another 12 years in a Los Angeles house that was donated by a ladies' club. When she died, her ashes were sent to be interred with her husband's remains at Piermont.
What can one say about John Charles Fremont? In his time, he was the greatest explorer of the American West and opened its vistas not only to ordinary, grateful pioneers, but to all who savored this country's geographical largesse. Truly, his wife's words best describe his accomplishments as an explorer: "From the ashes of his camping sites have sprung cities." Still, it also must be conceded, sic transit gloria mundi (so passes away the glory of the world).
Gerald F. Kreyche, American Thought Editor of USA Today, is emeritus professor of philosophy, DePaul University, Chicago, Ill.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Society for the Advancement of Education
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