John C. Fremont (WPA)

 

Peter Van Valkenburgh

  1870 - 1955 (biography)

1939  

lithograph 

13 1/8 x 8 1/2" image 

pencil signed at lower right corner 

about 28 impressions 

dated 1939 under the signature on the stone; blindstamp of the California Federal Art Project in lower right corner 

WPA Graphics Achenbach Collection 65.37.962 

ivory wove Warren's Oldstyle 

published 

California Federal Art Project WPA 

AFAE207 

$300.00 

John Charles Frémont, surveyor, explorer, mapmaker, soldier and statesman, was born in Savannah, Georgia on January 21, 1813. Frémont spent his childhood in Charleston, South Carolina and was educated in the Scientific Department of the College of Charleston between 1829 and 1831.

In 1841 Congress appropriated money for a survey of the Oregon Trail and named Lt. John C. Frémont to head the expedition. He was guided by Kit Carson and assisted in mapmaking by Charles Preuss. Frémont led five expeditions to explore the West between 1842 and 1853.

Robert Stockton promoted Frémont to the military commandant and civil governor of the Territory of California in 1847, and that same year Frémont purchased a large track of land in California. As a result of the California Gold Rush, he became very wealthy because his land holdings.

In 1850, John C. Frémont was one of the first two senators from California and, in 1856, he became the first presidential candidate for the anti-slavery Republican Party losing to Democratic candidate, James Buchanan. During the Civil War, President Lincoln made Frémont a Major General in the Union Army and Commander of the Western Federal Army. He was again nominated for President in 1864 and was appointed the 5th territorial governor of Arizona, serving in that position between 1878 and 1881.

Frémont died in New York City on July 12, 1890, and is buried in Rockland Cemetery, Nyack, New York.