PART II. 



JOHN CHARLES FREMONT. 



CHAPTEK I. 



FREMONT'S YOUTH AND FIRST EXPEDITIONS. 



JOHN CHARLES FREMONT was born in Savannah, 

 Georgia, in January, 1813. He was the eldest son 

 of a French emigrant of the same name, who had 

 fled to the New World from the destructive and 

 terrific storms of the first French Revolution, and 

 Ann Beverly Whiting, a native of Gloucester county, 

 Virginia, whose family, belonging to the most 

 respectable and aristocratic circle in the State, was 

 related to that of George Washington. Fremont's 

 father died in 1818, and the widowed mother then 

 removed to Charleston, South Carolina, which city 

 was destined to be the scene of the youthful sports 

 and studies of one of the boldest and most gifted of 

 American Explorers. 



Fremont's first opportunities of mental improve- 

 ment were obtained in the office of Mr. Mitchell, a 



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