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

Bibliography

BmLIOGRAPHY WORKS ON LEDYARD A number of biographies and specialized studies of Ledyard have been written in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The starting point for those interested in Ledyard's life has usually been Jared Sparks's biography, The Life of John Ledyard, the American Traveller , 1st ed. Cambridge, Mass., 1828; 2nd ed. Boston, 1847; 3rd ed. Boston, 1864. Sparks had access to all the Ledyard papers that were generally known at the time of the first edition. The more recent biographies of J. K. Munford, John Ledyard, an American Marco Polo, Portland, Ore., 1939; and Helen Augur, Passage to Glory: John LedyauJ:s America, New York, 1946, lack a balanced, scholarly approach . Several brief sketches of Ledyard's life are unreliable and of poor quality: Samuel Schmucker, The Life of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane and of Other Distinguished American Explorers, Philadelphia, 1871, pp. 261-329; Agnes Laut, Vikings in the Pacific, New York, 1905, pp. 242-62; Henry Beston, The Book of Gallant Vagabonds, New York, 1925, pp. 1-55; and Don Carlos Seitz, Uncommon Americans, Indianapolis , 1925, pp. 231-41. The best recent biographical study of Ledyard is that by Sinclair H. Hitchings, which is included in the introduction to Munford's careful edition of John LedyartI:s Journal of Captain Cook's Last Voyage, Corvallis, Ore., 1963, pp. xxi-xlix. Among the more specialized studies of Ledyard is a short article by Eufrosina Dvoichenko-Markov entitled "John Ledyard and the Russians ," Russian Review, 11 (Oct. 1952): 211-22. This focuses partic- 266 Bibliography ularly on the Siberian journey and Ledyard's encounters with Russians in the North Pacific in 1778-79. Another recent article, by E. M. Halliday, deals almost exclusively with Ledyard's voyage with Captain Cook: "Captain Cook's American," American Heritage, 13 (Dec. 1961): 60-72, 84-87. An informative article regarding Ledyard's family and ancestry has been written by Charles B. Moore: "John Ledyard, the Traveller," New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, 7 (Jan. 1876): 2-8. The latest study on Ledyard, which centers around the significance and extent of his anthropological observations, is that of Sanford H. Bederman, The Ethnological Contributions of John Ledyard, School of Arts and Sciences Research Papers, NO.4, Georgia State College, Atlanta, 1964. Ledyard's year at Dartmouth College has been treated in "A Wayward Freshman," Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (Feb. 1963), pp. g-12ff. WORKS BY OTIIER AMERlCAN TRAVELERS TO SmERIA A small number of important and interesting accounts have been written by Americans who visited Siberia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first known American after Ledyard to visit Siberia was the Rhode Islander John D'Wolf, who traveled by land from Okhotsk to St. Petersburg in 1807. D'Wolf, a sea captain, followed in reverse the route planned by Ledyard twenty years earlier. Except during his trip from Okhotsk to Irkutsk, he proceeded in haste and made few observations. He wrote up his journey over fifty years later: A Voyage to the North Pacific and a Journeythrough Siberia, Cambridge, Mass., 1861. Also see his narrative in W. H. Munro, Tales of an Old Sea Port, Princeton, 1917, pp. 97-201. In the years 1812-14 globe-trotter Peter Dobell traveled from Kamchatka to St. Petersburg. Dobell, born in Ireland, lived during his youth in Pennsylvania, later became a Russian citizen, and died in St. Petersburg . His account of his trip, Travels in Kamtschatka and Siberia with a Narrative of a Residence in China, was published in London in 1830. On both Dobell and Ledyard see Albert Parry, "The First Americans in Siberia," Travel, 87 (June 1946): 18-22, 32. Most Americans who visited Siberia in the last third of the nineteenth century were geologists, naturalists, arctic explorers, and during the 1890'S a number of overland travelers on the newly built Trans-Siberian Railroad. Brief sketches of these visitors and their accounts (if any) are given in Anna M. Babey, Americans in Russia: 1776-1917. A Study of the American Travellers in Russia from the American Revolution to the Russian Revolution, New York, 1938. From the Crimean War (1853-56) to the Bolshevik Revolution three Bibliography 267 Americans whose writings were later published stand out as keen observers of Siberia: Perry McDonough Collins, George Kennan, and Jeremiah Curtin. Collins, a California businessman, crossed the Russian Empire from St. Petersburg in 1856 to voyage down the Amur River and investigate the...