John Charles Frémont (January 21, 1813 - July 13, 1890) was an American military officer, politician, and explorer. Fremont was born in Savannah, Georgia. A man of adventure, Frémont led several expeditions into the American West in the 1840s, earning the nickname 'The Pathfinder.' His explorations, documented in reports and maps, significantly contributed to the understanding of the western United States and were instrumental in guiding settlers to the region. Frémont's military career was marked by his role in the Bear Flag Revolt (June 1846), leading to the annexation of California as part of the United States. In politics, he was a prominent figure in the early Republican Party and was its first presidential candidate in 1856, though he was unsuccessful in his bid. His later life was marred by controversy and financial troubles, but his early contributions to the exploration and expansion of the American West cemented his place in U.S. history. He died in 1890 in New York City. More by this mapmaker...

Charles Preuss (1803 - September 2, 1854), or as he was born George Karl Ludwig Preuss, was a German-born lithographer and cartographer who produced several important maps of the American West in the middle part of the 19th Century. Preuss was born in Hohscheid, Germany, where grew up and studied the science of Geodesy. There he also studied lithography with its inventor, Aloys Snefleder. After mastering the art, he worked under the Prussian Government as a mapmaker and surveyor. Preuss immigrated to the United States with his wife and children in 1834. In the United States, he worked at a few minor drafting positions before taking work under Ferdinand Hassler and the U.S. Coast Survey. Hassler introduced Preuss to Captain John Charles Fremont, who was then planning his landmark surveying expedition to the American West. Impressed with Preuss' work, Fremont hired him as the expedition's cartographer. Preuss seems to have been singularly unimpressed with Fremont and the American West, complaining bitterly in his journals about both. He considered Fremont "childish" and the scenery "dull" and "lackluster." Nonetheless, he was convinced to participate in one expedition after another, and the maps he produced, both under Fremont and under Stansbury, were among the most important maps of the region ever drafted. These include, among many others, the first map of the Oregon Trail, the first accurate mapping of the Great Salt Lake, the naming of the Golden Gate, and the first identification of the California Gold region. Preuss's maps influenced North American cartography for the next two decades. Kemble Warren, who assembled Preuss' maps as well as the work of many others into his "General Map" of the American West, said of Preuss, "his skill in sketching topography in the field and in representing it on the map has never been surpassed in this country." Ultimately, despite his many successes, the admiration of his peers, and a life of adventure, Preuss seems to have suffered from chronic depression, apparently the result of sunstroke in California. In September of 1854, he hung himself from a tree limb in Washington, D.C. Learn More...