John Ledyard's Journey through Russia and Siberia, 1787–1788: The Journal and Selected Letters

1. A Biographical Sketch

1 A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH JOHNLEDYARD in all probability was the first explorer who came to consider himself a native son of the North American continent and a citizen of the young United States of America. Indeed, in the same month that the Declaration of Independence was signed he made his debut as explorer on Captain James Cook's third voyage to the Pacific. During his brief lifespan he embarked upon three exploratory expeditions, of which only the first, the voyage of 1776-80 with Captain Cook to the North Pacific, could be called successful. Ledyard's effort to reach the northwest coast of America by way of Siberia and Kamchatka in 1787-88 met with disaster. His subsequent expedition to Africa to explore the middle and upper reaches of the Niger River was cut short in January 1789 by his death in Cairo at the age of thirty-seven. Despite his misfortunes, his experiences were unique for a young American. Ledyard was the first American known to have been in the Pacific area and to have seen Hawaii and Alaska, the first to encounter Russians in the North Pacific, and the first to visit Siberia. John Ledyard was born in November 1751 in Groton, Connecticut . His grandfather, also John Ledyard, had emigrated from Bristol, England, to Long Island in 1717. However, the rest of s 4 INTRODUCTION Ledyard's ancestors were of Massachusetts Puritan stock.I His father, again John Ledyard, was a sea captain engaged in the West Indies trade. To him and his wife, the former Abigail Hempstead, were born six children, only four of whom lived past infancy. John was the eldest of the six. Born three years after him was a cousin, Isaac Ledyard (1754-1803), who was to remain his lifelong friend and correspondent. After his father's death in 1762, young Ledyard went to live at his grandfather's house in Hartford and attended grammar school there. He later worked in the Hartford law office of his uncle, Thomas Seymour, but felt no inclination for this kind of life. As the eldest son of an eldest son, John would receive a standard portion of the inheritance of his grandfather, still living at the time. However, the deed of inheritance became lost, his grandfather decided to divide up his fortune otherwise, and young Ledyard received next to nothing from the estate. This circumstance threw him upon his own resources in choosing a vocation. Ledyard did not discover his direction in life until on his voyage with Captain Cook he became aware of the tremendous commercial possibilities in the Pacific.2 Soon after the death of old John Ledyard in 1771, Dr. Eleazar Wheelock, founder of Dartmouth College and a friend of his late grandfather, urged young Ledyard to come to Dartmouth and train to be a missionary to the Indians. Willing enough to explore this possibility, Ledyard set out in April 1772 for the newly established school in Hanover, New Hampshire. However, he did not long remain a conscientious student. Wanderlust often got the better of him, and he spent much of that year in the wild country north and west of Hanover, learning the languages and customs of the Iroquois. Although Ledyard in his journal only once mentions his encounters with the Indians at Dartmouth (Journal; p. 146), one can conclude from reading his Siberian 1. Augur, Passage to Glory, pp. 4-5. For further information on the Ledyard family, see Charles Moore, "John Ledyard the Traveller," New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, 7 (Jan. 1876) :3-8. 2. For more on Ledyard's early life, see biographies by Sparks, Munford , and Augur listed in the Bibliography. A Biographical Sketch 15 papers that the knowledge he picked up of Indian vocabulary, manners, and life enabled him to make valid and astute comparisons between what he called "Tartars" of America and of Asia. True to his restless nature, Ledyard decided by April 1773 that he had had enough of school. Just after the ice had gone out on the Connecticut River, he hollowed out a long dugout canoe and Boated away from Dartmouth College.3 Narrowly missing catastrophe at Bellows Falls, in due time he reached his relatives' home on the banks of the Connecticut near Hartford. A character sketch of Ledyard during his college days at Dartmouth was later drawn by James Wheelock, son of the founder: As a scholar while he...