Customer Reviews

Jessie Benton Fremont: A Woman Who Made History

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After reading about Jessie Fremont one can only hope that her explorer-soldier-politician husband John Fremont appreciated what a devoted wife he had. With her pen (and in person when necessary) she was his constant defender, supporter, and chronicler. An ambitious, prideful woman, she worked tirelessly for her husband to further his interests, which for a woman in the 19th-century was the best way to promote her own.

She was the daughter of Thomas Hart Benton, Senator from Missouri; when she was 17 she eloped with Fremont. A year later Fremont led his first western expedition that took him and his men from St. Louis to the Columbia River and south through California to the Spanish Trail and home again, an incredible journey that also included the questionable winter crossing of the Sierras. Jessie helped him write the official report. Fremont would go on 4 additional exploring expeditions (the fifth a totally irrational attempt to cross the San Juans in Colorado in mid-winter, a complete failure), and Jessie would help craft all the reports for her husband. She also wrote many of his official letters. She was a constant defender of his mistakes and failings, like that fifth expedition and his unsuccessful bid for the Presidency in 1856. After the Civil War (a failure militarily for Fremont) he got involved in the railroad business and subsequently, through bad dealings and bankruptcy, lost everything. The Fremonts were in dire straits the rest of their lives. After Fremont died in 1890, Jessie was able to get by on a widow's pension and on the generosity of the women of Los Angeles who presented her with a house to live in. She died in 1902.

Phillips was Jessie's first biographer to have access to many of the letters Jessie wrote, and she quotes from them liberally, sometimes for whole pages. But she is too uncritical of Jessie and is unwilling to explore her motivations beyond the obvious. It's not quite hagiography, but it's Jessie Fremont only in the good light. It was first published in 1935. A more recent biography and one that IS more critical (but honest) is Pamela Herr's, which I would recommend over this book.