Title page,
Ledyard, A Journal of Captain Cook�s Last Voyage to the Pacific Ocean. Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.
John Ledyard (November 1751 � 10 January 1789) was an American explorer and adventurer.
Ledyard was born in Groton, Connecticut, the oldest son of John and Abigail (Hempstead) Ledyard and the nephew of Continental Army Colonel William Ledyard. After his father, a sea captain, died of malaria in the Caribbean, Ledyard's mother and family moved to Southold, Long Island. Three years later Ledyard joined his grandfather in Hartford, Connecticut, where he attended school. His grandfather died just before Ledyard turned 20; perhaps due to Ledyard's profligacy the bulk of the family inheritance was left to a younger brother.
Ledyard briefly attended Dartmouth College (which was then only 3 years old), arriving on 22 April 1772. He left for two months without permission in August and September of that year, led a mid-winter camping expedition, and finally abandoned the college for good in May 1773. Memorably he fashioned his own dugout canoe and paddled it for a week down the Connecticut River to his grandfather's farm. At loose ends, he decided to travel; "I allot myself a seven year's ramble more," he wrote to a cousin. He shipped as a common seaman on a year-long trading voyage to Gibraltar, the Barbary Coast, and the Caribbean. On his next voyage, he jumped ship in England, but was soon impressed and forced to join the British Navy as a marine.
Captain Cook's third voyage
In June 1776, Ledyard joined Captain James Cook's third and final voyage as a British marine. The expedition lasted until October 1780. During these four years, its two ships stopped at the Canary Islands, Cape of Good Hope, the Prince Edward Islands off South Africa, the Kerguelen Islands, Tasmania, New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Tahiti, and then Hawaii (discovered by the expedition). It continued to the northwest coast of North America, making Ledyard perhaps the first U.S. citizen to touch its western coast, along the Aleutian islands and Alaska into the Bering Sea, and back to Hawaii where Cook was killed. The return voyage touched upon Kamchatka, Macau, Batavia (now Jakarta), around the Cape of Good Hope again, and back to England.
Ledyard, John. Rare Autograph letter of the only American to accompany Cook. Ledyard was on Cook's 3rd voyage, witnessing the discovery of Hawaii, and ultimately, Cook's death at the hands of Hawaiian natives. Dated March 12, 1769, Hartford CT. Document signed "John Ledyard" on the verso, ordering 17 pounds and 13 pence to be paid in his favor. 7 1/2 x 6", vgc. His book "Journal of Captain Cook's Last Voyage" was the 1st book in the US to be protected by copyright.
Still a marine in the British Navy, Ledyard was sent to North America to fight in the American Revolution. Instead he deserted, returned to Hartford, and began to write his
Journal of Captain Cook's Last Voyage. It was eventually published in 1783, and was the first work to be protected by copyright in the United States. (It was in fact protected by Connecticut state copyright by special act of the legislature; federal copyright was not introduced until 1790.)
The fur trade
As Ledyard had noticed that sea otter furs from the American northwest commanded extremely high prices in Macau, he lobbied during the early 1780s for the formation of fur-trading companies. Ledyard suggested trading furs for Chinese silk and porcelain, which could then be sold in the United States. Although his abortive partnership with Philadelphia financier Robert Morris was not successful, it did lay the pattern of the subsequent China trade.
Ledyard left the United States in June 1784 to find financial backers in Europe. In Paris he partnered with Captain John Paul Jones; however this venture, too, failed to reach fruition.
Overland around the world
In Paris, Ledyard conceived a remarkably bold scheme of exploration with encouragement from Thomas Jefferson, then American ambassador, and with financial backing from the Marquis de Lafayette, botanist Joseph Banks, and John Adams' son-in-law, William Smith. Jefferson suggested that Ledyard explore the American continent by proceeding overland through Russia, crossing at the Bering Strait, and heading south through Alaska and then across the American West to Virginia.
Ledyard left London in December 1786, and made it most of the way across Russia. He left St. Petersburg in June 1787 to travel through Moscow, Ekaterinburg, Omsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk, and Kirensk, reaching Yakutsk after 11 weeks. Here he stopped for the winter but then returned to Irkutsk to join a larger expedition led by Joseph Billings (of the Cook voyage). However, Ledyard was arrested under orders from Empress Catherine the Great in February 1788, returned to Moscow by approximately his original route, then deported to Poland.
African expedition
Back in London, Ledyard came across the African Association, then recruiting explorers for Africa. Ledyard proposed an expedition from the Red Sea to the Atlantic. He arrived in Alexandria in August 1788, but the expedition was slow to start, and Ledyard died of illness in Cairo, Egypt on 10 January 1789. He was buried in an unmarked grave.
Today a bronze plaque is anchored to a large granite stone along the river bank next to the canoe club that bears his name where Ledyard chopped down that pine tree � it reads:
John Ledyard
In 1773 a freshman at Dartmouth College
on this spot felled a giant pine
from which he made a canoe
and in it descended the river to Hartford, Connecticut.
He was a traveller among the Indians
an associate of John Paul Jones
an officer under Captain Cook
traversing all oceans and penetrating remote lands.
He foresaw and foretold the riches
of the Pacific Coast and the advantages
of commerce with the far east.
When about to cross Africa he died in Egypt
at the age of 37.
He too heard the voice crying in the wilderness
HIS WAS THE DARTMOUTH SPIRIT
Time-Line of the Life of John Ledyard
1751 Born in Groton, Connecticut
1772 Enters Dartmouth College intending to train to be a missionary to Native Americans
April 1773 Quits Dartmouth, escapes down the Connecticut River by canoe
Late 1773 Employed as a sailor on the ship of Captain Richard Deshon, visits Barbary Coast and West Indies
Mid-1776 Enlists as corporal in the British Navy
1776-1780 Takes part in Captain Cook's third voyage to the Pacific--visits South Pacific islands, Alaska, Kamchatka, and south China
October 1778 Meets Russian fur traders at Unalaska Island in first contact between Russians and Americans in the Pacific
February 1779 Captain Cook killed by Hawaiians
November 1785 Begins to plan a voyage across Russia, through Siberia, to Alaska, and across North America to Virginia
February 1786 Thomas Jefferson, U.S. minister to France, begins negotiating with Russian government concerning Ledyard's trip
Winter 1786-1787 Ledyard walks from Stockholm, Sweden, around the Gulf of Bothnia to St. Petersburg--arrives in St. Petersburg in March
June 1787 Departs St. Petersburg for Siberia
September 1787 Arrives in Iakutsk, having hiked, hitched rides, and canoed across Siberia
January 1788 Arrested as a French spy in Irkutsk
March 1788 Deported across the Russian border to Poland
1788 Speculates on the relationship between Asian and American aborigines
June 1788 Leaves London to explore the Niger River in Africa
January 1789 Dies in Cairo, Egypt, at the age of thirty-seven
