John C. Frémont

John Charles Frémont or Fremont (January 21, 1813 – July 13, 1890) was an American explorer, politician, and soldier who, in 1856, became the first candidate of the Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. During the 1840s, when he led five expeditions into the American West, that era’s penny press and admiring historians accorded Frémont the sobriquet The Pathfinder.

During the Mexican–American War, Frémont, a major in the U.S. Army, took control of California from the California Republic in 1846.