Marguerite Higgins

Jessie Benton Fremont: California Pioneer Marguerite Higgins

Any history of California is incomplete without the story of this dynamic woman who was one of the state's first notable pioneer figures. Jessie Benton Fremont was witty, intelligent, gracious, and beautiful. Along with her husband, John C. Fremont, Jessie was passionate about abolition and together their efforts assured California's admission to the Union as a free state. She authored all her husband's exploratory journals of the West and was intimately involved in his political endeavors as well. Jessie was presented at court in both England and France, lived in pioneer tents during the Gold Rush, had audiences with Lincoln, and acted as army nurse during the Civil War. Her story is written for young people by another dynamic woman, Marguerite Higgins, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author who covered WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.