John C. Fremont

Fremont was born in Savannah, Georgia. He served briefly (from 1850 to 1851) as a Senator from California. On January 16, 1847 he was appointed Governor of the new California Territory following the Treaty of Cahuenga which ended the Mexican-American War. In 1856 the new Republican Party nominated him as their first presidential candidate, but he lost (see U.S. presidential election, 1856) to James Buchanan. He served as a general in the American Civil War and was appointed Governor of the Arizona Territory from 1878 to 1881. He died of peritonitis in a hotel in New York, New York.

Four states named counties in his honor: Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, and Wyoming,