American military general and explorer who began mapping the Oregon Trail in 1842 and reached California in December of 1845. He was elected one of the first two U.S. Senators from California in 1850. He was known as “The Pathfinder,” as it was said that, “From the ashes of his campfires have sprung cities.”
He was the son of a French émigré teacher and painter of frescos, and a mother who was a member of the Virginia Aristocracy. His mom had made a socially good marriage at 17 to a 60-year-old businessman. Ten years later she fell in love with the 5′ 2″ Charles Fremon. When her husband found out, he threatened to shoot Fremon, whereupon the lovers fled to Savannah, Georgia, where John Charles was born. He later anglicized the name to Fremont.
Some of his drive may well have come from the stigma of his birth as he was labeled “the French bastard.” He went West as an army engineer and later became a governor the California Territory, then a senator when California became a state. He married Jessie, a 17-year old daughter of a Senator, and became the first Republican candidate for the Presidency, losing the election to Buchanan.
Fremont rose to a major-general in his life, and died on 13 July 1890 in New York, New York.
Link to Wikipedia biography