John Charles Fremont

We have discussed John Charles Fremont before in this blog but we will go into a bit more detail this time in context.  Fremont was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1813.  In 1818 his mother, brother and sister moved to Charleston, South Carolina where he grew up in genteel poverty

Fremont developed into a handsome young man who had a real love of danger, a flair for self-dramatization and a talent for attracting influential friends.  One of these friends paid for much of Fremont's education.  At the age of 25, Charles became a second lieutenant in the US Topographical Corps where he gained a reputation as a wilderness surveyor and mapmaker. 

As a young officer, Fremont attracted the attention of Thomas Hart Benton, one of the most powerful men in American politics at that time.  Fremont met Benton's 15 year old daughter, Jesse and the two fell in love.  Despite the parents very impassioned objections, they were married secretly in the fall of 1846. 
Benton forgave his new son-in-law and became his patron and protector, getting him an appointment as chief of an expedition map the new Oregon Trail.

Fremont had two main objectives in 1842.  One was to make the first accurate map of the Oregon Trail.  The second was to promote westward emigration.  He was joined on his expedition by a famous legendary frontiersman, Kit Carson.

Next time...on the trail with Carson and Fremont
______________________________

Today in Pioneer History:  On March 23, 1839, the initials "O.K." are first published in The Boston Morning Post. Meant as an abbreviation for "oll korrect," a popular slang misspelling of "all correct" at the time, OK steadily made its way into the everyday speech of Americans.