Charles Preuss


George Karl Ludwig Preuss, anglicized as Charles Preuss, was a surveyor and cartographer who accompanied John C. Fremont on three of his five exploratory expeditions of the American west, including the expedition where he and Fremont were the first to record seeing Lake Tahoe from a mountaintop vantage point as they traversed what is now Carson Pass in February 1844. Preuss drew two important maps based on his records from Fremont's first two expeditions.

Pre-Fremont

"Born in Höhscheid in 1803. After studying the science of geodesy, he became a surveyor for the Prussian government. After moving to the United States in 1834 with his wife and children, he worked for the Coast Survey under Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler."

First Two Fremont Expeditions

Preuss and Frémont met in December 1841 when the unemployed Preuss approached Frémont to solicit work. The only work Fremont had at the time was to complete the interpretation of the astronomical observations taken during Fremont's last expedition with Joseph Nicollet. According to Fremont, he had to do most of the work for Preuss, but he still retained Preuss as a topographer on the expedition he was to embark on in the spring of 1842.
"Frémont's sensational report included an excellent topographical map by Charles Preuss, The large sheet, which depicted the routes of both of Frémont's expeditions, was a cartographic milestone. By accurately representing the basic features of the new country, Preuss changed the course of western mapmaking. No longer would cartography be based on myth and speculation."
After completing this map, Preuss was engaged by Congress to create another map. He declined to accompany Fremont on his third expedition and in 1846, Preuss completed the second map, more important for prospective emigrants than the first. On seven sheets he carefully traced the Oregon Trail, using Frémont's narrative to indicate campsites with essential grass, wood, and water and to show distances, climate, and Indian inhabitants. Widely popular among those who took the Platte River road to Oregon and California, this annotated atlas was one of the greatest contributions Frémont and Preuss made to the development of the West."
Congress commissioned to Preuss create a third map in 1848, this time using information from records kept by Lt. Kern who was the topographer on Fremont's third expedition.

Fourth Fremont Expedition and the Pacific Railroad Survey

In 1848 Preuss agreed to accompany Fremont on his fourth expedition, which ended in disaster with the death of 10 men and two more that tried to rescue the group that were caught high in the Rockies during the winter. The remaining men managed to find their way to safety in Albuquerque New Mexico, where word of discovery of gold in California made its way, and in the spring of 1849, Fremont and Preuss proceeded to California, and Preuss worked for Fremont surveying Fremont's Mariposa Land Grant. His health failed him; the cause attributed to heat stroke, and he returned east where he assisted in the preparation of two maps of the 1849-50 Stansbury expedition.
In 1853, Preuss was engaged by Lt.Robert S. Williamson as the draughtsman on the San Francisco to Southern California half of the Pacific Coast portion of the Pacific Railroad Surveys. The expedition sailed from New York City and landed in San Francisco in June, 1853. They surveyed south to the Mohave Desert, and finished in San Diego in December 1853. Preuss's again experienced health issues during the survey, but he managed to complete a map of the expedition.

Commemorations

, located south of Garrison in west-central Utah, is named after him.
His diary of the Fremont expedition was featured on a 2008 episode of This American Life. It contrasted Fremont's exuberance with Preuss' sober, often humorously melancholy opinions of the expedition.
The Army Geospatial Center has mounted a number of plaques commemorating famous topographic engineers. One plaque reads: "George Karl Ludwig Preuss, "Fremont’s Cartographer", 1803–1854. Charles Preuss was born in Hohsheid in 1803. After studying the science of geodesy, he became a surveyor for the Prussian government. After moving to the United States he worked for the Coast Survey under Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler. In 1838, when funds for this Survey ran out, Preuss found himself unemployed. Hassler recommended Preuss to John Charles Fremont, a young 2nd lieutenant who was preparing an expedition exploring the lands between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Preuss was hired on to reduce astronomical observations from this 1839 Nicollet survey. Preuss failed at this but proved himself a fine artist; keeping a daily map of the route. In 1842 Fremont was preparing an expedition out of St. Louis to map the Pacific Northwest and kept Preuss employed. Preuss was 39 by this time, red-faced and ill-humored. They were a badly matched pair, but Preuss played perfect counterpoint to Fremont. If Fremont saw the poetry in the unfolding landscapes around him, Preuss saw precise longitudes and latitudes. Preuss proved to be an important member of Fremont’s expeditions of 1842–44 and 1848 as well. The Fremont/Preuss maps of this period were the basis for all western maps of the following two decades. One author writing on the mapping of the Transmississippi West said, “The 1845 Fremont/Preuss map changed the entire picture of the West, and made a lasting contribution to cartography.”

Publications