Far-West sketches

the long version

Jessie Benton Frémont (1824-1902), the daughter of a Missouri Senator and wife of explorer John Charles Frémont, first came to California in 1849, when she and her young daughter spent six months at her husband's newly-acquired ranch at Mariposas, 140 miles east of San Francisco. The Frémonts also spent the years 1851-1852 and 1857-1861 at the Mariposas ranch before moving to St. Louis during the Civil War. They returned to California in 1887 and made Los Angeles their home for the rest of their lives. Far-West Sketches (1890) was inspired by Mrs. Frémont's 1887 railroad trip to California, a journey that prompts her to reminiscence about her earlier stay in the state in the 1850s with anecdotes of the minefields, ranching, and a home in the bustling town of San Francisco. The reminiscences center on homemaking and childrearing.