Fremont Memorial

The blue cannon painted among the names is the expedition's twelve-pound mountain howitzer, the gun that nearly kept it home. Frémont requisitioned it in May 1843, and a letter followed from the Topographical Bureau recalling him to Washington; Jessie Benton Frémont kept it from him and sent word to leave at once. The party hauled the howitzer down off Winter Ridge with everything else, past Summer Lake and on into Nevada, and on January 29, 1844, left it in the Sierra snow near the West Walker River. A bronze barrel in the Nevada State Museum is probably it.

What the plaque says

Fremont · Memorial A Memorial to the Personnel of the Second Fremont Exploring Expedition to Oregon and North California The reports of this expedition directed the migration of the western settlement toward the Oregon Country which hitherto had been merely a rendezvous for trappers. On December 16th 1843 the expedition while enroute from the Dalles of the Columbia to Sutters Fort on the Sacramento, struggled from the snowy heights of "Winter Ridge" to the temperate shores of "Summer Lake" via the canyon directly west of this spot and bestowed those names which serve as a permanent reminder of their escape from the snow-bound plateau Bt. Capt. John C. Fremont, U. S. A. Chas. Preuss, Topographer Christopher (Kit) Carson, Scout Thomas Fitzpatrick, Guide Alexander Godey, Hunter Theodore Talbot Alexis Ayot Francois Badeau Oliver Beaulieu Baptiste Bernier John G. Campbell Manuel Chapman Ransom Clark Philibert Courteau Baptiste Derosier Jacob Dodson L. Maxwell Louis Menard Louis Montreuil Samuel Neal Francois Pera Raphael Proue Baptiste Tabeau Charles Taplin Charles Towns Joseph Verrot Tiery Wright Louis Zindel

Where it stands