Anne Beverley, Mr. Fremont's mother, was but six months old when her father died. When her stepmother died, she went to reside with her sister Catherine, the wife of a Mr. Lowrey, one of the oldest families in Virginia, and the proprietor of the whole of Back River. This change of home was one of the results of the angry litigation which had been going on between the children of Thomas Whiting and Mr. Cary, in consequence of their ineffectual efforts to get from him their respective shares of their father's estate, and which had made Mr. Cary's house an unpleasant home for all who were interested in a distribution of the property.

Anne being the youngest, was most defenceless in the hands of Mr. Cary, and instead of being an heiress she found herself at an early age, almost dispossessed of a large proportion of the ample heritage which had been left her. When she had reached the age seventeen, her sister, Mrs. Lowry,* desiring to provide for her against what in those days and in that circle was deemed the greatest of all calamities, poverty, arranged a marriage for her with Major Pryor, also of Gloucester county, who was very rich and very gouty, and sixty-two years of age; just forty-five years her senior.

Aside from the fatal disparity of years, Major Pryor, lacked refinement and sensibility, and was in every respect repulsive to the young creature, who was sacrificed to him. Anne resisted the importunities of her

*Mrs. Lowrey is still living, and although eighty-five years of age, is in the enjoyment of good health and unimpaired faculties. Her first husband was a Lieutenant Stevenson of the Continental army, and a relative of Andrew Stevenson minister to England in 1836.

sister as long as she could, but finally, overcome by a sense of her homeless and dependent condition, which were constantly pressed upon her consideration, the despairing orphan yielded to her venerable suitor, and became Mrs. Major Pryor. Marriage only increased her regret for the sacrifice to which she had submitted. She became melancholy; shunned the gay society and habits of life to which her husband was addicted, and thus dragged out twelve long years of wedded misery. By this time, as they were childless, both had become convinced that the happiness of neither would be promoted by continuing to live longer together, and they separated. As both had influential friends, the legisla ture of the State, which happened to be in session, promptly sanctioned their separation, by passing an act of divorce. Not long after both married again, Mrs. Pryor to Mr. Fremont, and Major Pryor, in the 76th year of his age, to his housekeeper. This connexion of course gave great dissatisfaction to the Whitings, who were one of the most aristocratic families in Virginia, and could not understand how any person who earned his bread, especially by teaching, could be a gentleman. But Mrs. Pryor having taken their advice once, as to her first marriage, the folly of which she had expiated by many long years of gilded wretchedness, determined in this instance to act for herself, and to give her heart with her hand, to one whom she esteemed worthy of both. She had some means, and he had talents, and both had courage, and they did not feel called upon at the expense of their own happiness to spare that family pride, which had not spared the gentle orphan twelve years before, when she was helpless and dependent.

After their marriage, in the gratification of an interest which Mr. Fremont in common with most cultivated Europeans felt in the American Indians, and which the remnants of his wife's fortune enabled him to indulge, they travelled for several years in the Southern States, where large tracts of country were still occupied by the aboriginal tribes.

The means of communication in that country then were very rude, and they travelled as was the custom of the day, when means permitted, with their own carriage, horses, and servants, stopping where convenience of towns and dwellings required, and not unfrequently passing the night in Indian villages or by a camp-fire. It was during one of these excursions that they chanced to pass the night at the inn in Nashville where occurred the personal encounter between Gen. Jackson and Col. Benton-well remembered in that country-the balls from whose pistols passed through the rooms in which they happened to be sitting. And it was during a temporary halt at Savannah, in Georgia, in the progress of the same expedition, on the 21st of January, 1813, that Mrs. Fremont gave birth to their eldest child and son, John Charles Fremont, the subject of this memoir, who, with his father's name, seems to have inherited also his nomadic instincts.

The second child, a daughter, was born in Tennessee, and the youngest, a son, in Virginia; shortly after which, Mr. Fremont's preparations to return to France were defeated by his death, which occurred in the year 1818. At this time, an elder brother, Francis was in Norfolk, with his family. He had emigrated early from St. Domingo. The loss of his eldest son, a boy of sixteen, who was killed by the bursting of a gun at a fourth of July

celebration in Norfolk, saddened the place to him, and he returned with his family to France. He had been anxious to take with him his brother's family, and made it a point with his widow to accompany him. Her decided refusal to leave her own country, occasioned an alienation between them also, and she was left to herself with the usual defenceless lot and narrow circumstances which are not the most uncommon heritage of widows and orphans.

Of the brother's family, which returned to France, we have no knowledge, except of the recent death of a daughter named Cornelia, in a convent in South America. The widow, with her young family now removed permanently to Charleston, South Carolina.

At an early age the eldest boy, with whose future fortunes we are more particularly concerned, entered the law office of John W. Mitchell, Esq., one of the prominent citizens of Charleston. Here he gave such evidence of intelligence and industry as greatly to interest Mr. Mitchell, who found pleasure in directing the capacity he seemed to possess, and devoted many of his leisure hours to young Fremont's instruction. The lad's vigorous application required more time than Mr. Mitchell had at his disposal, and, in prosecution of the plan he had formed for him, he placed him under the instruction of Dr. John Roberton, a Scotch gentleman, who had been educated at Edinburgh, and who had established himself as a teacher, principally of ancient languages, at Charleston.

A brief but interesting memorial of this part of young Fremont's life from Dr. Roberton himself, who, though bending under the weight of some seventy winters, still

continues in the faithful exercise of his profession at Philadelphia, is preserved in the preface to an excellent interlinear translation of Xenophon's Anabasis which was published by him some six years ago. In the course of it he refers especially to the intellectual and personal habits of Fremont, while under his charge, and commends them to his pupils, to whom the book is dedicated, as pre-eminently worthy of imitation.

"For your further encouragement," he says, "I will here relate a very remarkable instance of patient diligence and indomitable perseverance:

"In the year 1827, after I had returned to Charleston from Scotland, and my classes were going on, a very respectable lawyer came to my school, I think some time in the month of October, with a youth apparently about sixteen, or perhaps not so much (14), of middle size, graceful in manners, rather slender, but well formed, and upon the whole what I should call handsome; of a keen, piercing eye, and a noble forehead, seemingly the very seat of genius. The gentleman stated that he found him given to study, that he had been about three weeks learning the Latin rudiments, and (hoping, I suppose, to turn the youth's attention from the law to the ministry) had resolved to place him under my care for the purpose of learning Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, sufficient to enter Charleston College. I very gladly received him, for I immediately perceived he was no common youth, as intelligence beamed in his dark eye, and shone brightly on his countenance, indicating great ability, and an assurance of his future progress. I at once put him in the highest class, just beginning to read Cæsar's Commentaries, and although at first inferior, his prodigious memory and enthusiastic