to drive them out, and he joined with the settlers against them and defeated them. The Americans declared themselves independent, and made Frémont governor. He was sent to Congress as senator from California in 1850. He was the Republican candidate for the presidency in 1856. In the Civil War he served for two years as a major-general. He also was governor of Arizona from 1878 to 1881. He died at New York, July 13, 1890. His services as an explorer were rewarded by a gold medal from the king of Prussia, with the founder's medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London and with membership in the Geographical Society of Berlin. See Life by Mrs. J. C. Frémont, the brilliant daughter of the famous Senator Benton of Missouri.
Fremont, Ohio, city, county-seat of Sandusky County on Sandusky River, 30 miles east of Toledo. It is in the center of an agricultural, oil and natural-gas region. Agricultural implements, cutlery, machinery, electro-carbons, woolens, beet-sugar, doors, sashes etc., are manufactured here. The city has good public schools, business colleges, a normal school and Birchard Public Library, founded by an uncle of President Hayes. Fremont has all the equipment of a progressive city, is served by three railroads, and has steamer-connection with all important ports on Lake Erie, with which it conducts much business. The city occupies the site of a tradingpost established in 1785, and was given its present name in 1850 in honor of J. C. Frémont. Population 9,939.
French, Alice, American authoress, known also by her pen-name, Octave Thanet, was born at Andover, Mass., March 19, 1850, and educated at Abbott Academy there. She began to write about 1878, her earliest productions being short stories illustrating western and southern life, with which she is familiar. Her chief books are Knitters in the Sun; Stories of a Western Town; The Heart of Toil; etc.
French and Indian Wars, 1689-1763. Under this term are included the four intercolonial wars of the 17th and 18th centuries in America, known as King William's War, Queen Anne's War, King George's War and the specifically-entitled French and Indian War — all of them conflicts with the French and Indians of Canada (New France). The last of the series, however (which is coincident with the Seven Years' War in Europe), is especially characterized in the American colonies by the designation of the French and Indian War, which comprised the period between 1755 and 1763.
This grand struggle was inevitable from the conflicting character of the respective governments. England had settled the eastern coast, and claimed the territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The French had occupied the valley of the St. Lawrence, and, exploring westward along the Great Lakes, had followed the Wabash and Illinois Rivers to the Mississippi and thence down the great valley to the Gulf. These explorations were carried on chiefly by the Jesuit missionaries, who with unflagging energy and at the greatest personal risk, pushed far into the wilderness to establish missions among the Indians. In 1673 Father Marquette, a missionary, and Joliet, a trader, together passed down the Wisconsin River to the Mississippi and thence down that river to the Arkansas. La Salle, the most indefatigable of these explorers, received from the French king a tract of land adjoining Fort Frontenac, in recognition of his services in exploring Lakes Erie and Ontario. He then pushed westward through the Great Lakes, explored the Illinois and descended the Mississippi to the Gulf. On the line of these explorations the French had, in 1750, established 60 small military and trading-posts, stretching along the lakes and down the Maumee, the Wabash, the Illinois and the Mississippi to New Orleans. They had also traversed the country to the headwaters of the Ohio. They had thus taken formal possession of this vast country, while but little had been done in the way of colonization.
Thus far no conflict had occurred, because the English had not yet pushed their way west of the Alleghanies upon disputed territory. But in 1749 a corporation called The Ohio Company received from the king a grant of land west of the Alleghanies, along the Ohio, and opened traffic with the Indians. The French promptly resented the infringement upon their claims. The governor of Canada sent 300 men into the valley, who drove off the traders. In 1753 the French built three forts at Presque Island on Lake Erie, Fort Bœuf a short distance south and Fort Venango on the Allegheny River. Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia sent George Washington, then 21, with a message to the French General St. Pierre, in command of these forts, setting forth the claim of Virginia to the territory west of the Alleghanies and remonstrating against its occupancy by the French. Washington was courteously received, but the French commander positively declined to consider the claims of Dinwiddie. In 1754 the Ohio company built a blockhouse on the present site of Pittsburg. This was soon captured by the French, who proceeded to build Fort Duquesne on the same site. Meantime a force of 600 Virginians under Colonel Fry, Washington being second in command, were on their way to the same point. While en route Colonel Fry died, leaving Washington in command. At Great Meadows, within 50
