John C. Frémont (1813-1890) was born in Savannah, Georgia, and died in New York, New York. He was a military officer, politician, and explorer and mapmaker of the Western United States. Frémont was popularly known as the "Pathfinder of the Rocky Mountains." He participated in the genocide of Native Americans while on expedition in California. He opposed slavery. He served as one of the first U.S. Senators from California from 1850 to 1851 and as the first Republican nominee for President of the United States in 1856. At the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861, he was given command of the Department of the West by President Abraham Lincoln. He retired from the Army in 1864 as a Major General, devoting himself to railroad projects in the West. In 1878, after losing his fortune, he was appointed governor of the Arizona Territory, where he served until 1881. Mary Baker Eddy wrote a sonnet to Frémont in December 1861.

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