The Queen of Wands is Jesse Benton Fremont, the driving force behind John C. Frémont’s career. A prolific writer and political activist, she wrote the Expedition in Oregon and California, which helped to create the push for continental expansion in 1846, and was an anti-slavery, anti-secessionist advocate. She was a patroness of art and literature in San Francisco in the 1860s and hosted SF’s first “literary and political salon” at Porter’s Lodge (Ft. Mason) for Bret Harte, Thomas Starr King, Mark Hopkins, Caleb Fry, Edward D. Baker and Edwin Bryan Crocker.
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