Jessie Benton Frémont (1824-1902) | 2 Scripts

Giant Sequoia

Far-West Sketches, 1890

When early emigrants poured into California, they were often guided by the published reports of explorer John Charles Frémont. They might have been inspired, however, by Frémont's collaborator, Jessie Benton Fremont who enlivened her husband's reports with editorial skill and a writer's sense of telling detail.

In 1890, Jessie Frémont published a memoir, Far-West Sketches, which was inspired by an 1887 railroad trip to California and features memories of her earlier years here, including this description of an encounter with a giant sequoia.

We had thought nothing could be more nobly beautiful than the forest we crossed the day before, but the new day brought us into enchanting natural parks of grassy uplands and fir and hemlock growths in varying stages; the layered boughs, tipped with the lighter green of the spring growth, rested in tent-like spread on soft young grass and wild flowers. It was all gracious and open and smiling with, at times, a break in the trees giving us a glimpse across the valley below of the near Yosemite range. And in the fresh stir of morning air we laughed and sang and "were glad we were alive," when—
"What is that? Is that?" and hush of wonder and awe subdued us.
There, blocking the way as a light-house might, rose the mighty bulk of a tawny-barked tree over thirty feet in diameter. Solid, straight, uprearing its wonderful column unbroken by any limb for a hundred feet.
Standing apart, with natural clearings round about them, and contrasted by the smiling young firs, they were overwhelmingly grand.
The impression was absolutely new—and without comparison.

Grizzly Bear

My Grizzly Bear, ND

The mighty grizzly bear once roamed California freely, inspiring awe and dread. And no grizzly was feared more than a mother bear protecting her cubs.

Jessie Benton Frémont lived in Bear Valley with her husband, Colonel John C. Frémont in the 1850s. Here, she tells of her excitement—and subsequent fear—after a near run-in with a grizzly bear on an afternoon excursion.

We were growing more and more enthusiastic as glimpes of this rare view came to us. Mr. Frémont told us the distances, which only singularly pure mountain air could have let the eye pierce. "And the ear, too," I said. "We must be three miles from the village and yet how near sounds the barking of that dog!"

Dead silence fell on our animated people. They listened, as the rough, low bark--broader and rougher even than that of a bull-dog--rose again, sounding really close to us.

. . . I was surprised, and not too pleased, to find myself hurried back down the steep, stony peak with only, "It is too late to finish the climb--we must hurry--do not speak--keep all your breath for walking." And hurry we did. I was fairly lifted along. . . . It was no dog, but a grizzly bear that made that warning bark, and we were very close to it.

Frémont and her entourage escaped, inspiring her story "My Grizzly Bear," which touches on the darker side of early California living.