Contains 13 handwritten letters from Mrs. Jessie Benton Frémont to Mr. Thomas Starr King, all dating from around 1861.

Jessie Benton Frémont (May 31, 1824 – December 27, 1902) was an American writer and political activist. She was the daughter of Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton and in 1841 married Lieutenant John C. Frémont. In 1849 she moved to San Francisco, California where her husband was already living. They had a house in San Francisco's Black Point area (now known as Fort Mason), where they lived and raised their children, moving between San Francisco, St. Louis and Washington D.C. numerous times in the 1850s and 1860s. Jessie wrote popular accounts of her husbands explorations and political exploits, earning extra money for their family in this fashion. Jessie was fiercely anti-slavery and anti-Secession, and played a vital role in the Soldier's Relief Society in St. Louis and the Western Sanitary Commission. She lived for a time in Mariposa, prompting her to speak about the need to federally protect Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley (the Yosemite Grant Act was signed by Lincoln in 1864). She died in Los Angeles, California in 1902.

1.0 folder (13 letters, 2 newspaper clippings, 1 envelope)

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Collection open for research.