John Ledyard - Captain Cook's third voyage, The fur trade, Overland around the world, African expedition

Explorer and adventurer, born in Groton, Connecticut, USA. He joined a British regiment and sailed with Captain James Cook (1776–80). Back in London, he refused to fight against the American colonists so he spent two years confined to barracks (1780–2). He had seen the possibility of a fur trade in NW North America and spent several years unsuccessfully trying to organize expeditions there. In 1786 he conceived the notion of walking across Siberia, but after setting out from St Petersburg (1787) he was stopped by officials (under order from Empress Catherine) at Irkutsk, Siberia (1788). He returned to London, and the next year died in Cairo while planning an expedition to the sources of the Niger R.

Ledyard was born in Groton, Connecticut, the oldest son of John and Abigail (Hempstead) 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 19 years old), arriving on April 22, 1772.

Captain Cook's third voyage

In June 1776, Ledyard joined Captain James Cook's third and final voyage as a British marine. 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.

Still a marine in the British Navy, Ledyard was sent to North America to fight in the American Revolution. 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 Macao, he lobbied during the early 1790s 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.

Ledyard left the United States in June 1784 to find financial backers in Europe.

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. 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 January 10, 1789.

Selected works

The Last Voyage of Captain Cook: The Collected Writings of John Ledyard, ed.