American Traveler

by Zug, James

• ISBN13: 9780465094059
• ISBN10: 0465094058
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-03-15
• Publisher: Basic Books

Summary

Called a "man of genius" by his close friend Thomas Jefferson, John Ledyard lived, by any standard, a remarkable life. In his thirty-eight years, he accompanied Captain Cook on his last voyage; befriended Jefferson, Lafayette, and Tom Paine in Paris; was the first American citizen to see Alaska, Hawaii, and the west coast of America; and set out to find the source of the Niger by traveling from Cairo across the Sahara. His greatest dream, concocted with Jefferson, was to travel alone around the world and cross the American continent from the Pacific Northwest to the Atlantic. Catherine the Great dashed that dream when she had him arrested in deepest Siberia and escorted back to the Polish border. Ledyard wrote the definitive account of Cook's last voyage and his death at the hands of Hawaiian islanders, and formed a company with John Paul Jones that launched the American fur trade in the Pacific Northwest.Before the Revolution, Americans by and large didn't travel great distances, rarely venturing west of the Appalachians. Ledyard, with his boundless enthusiasm and wide-ranging intellect, changed all that. In lively prose, journalist James Zug tells the riveting story of this immensely influential character -a Ben Franklin with wanderlust-a uniquely American pioneer.

Author Biography

James Zug has written for The Atlantic Monthly and Outside, and is the author of Squash: A History of the Game. He attended Dartmouth College, where he first became acquainted with legendary alum John Ledyard. Zug lives in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Prologue	p. XIII
Ocean's Briny Waves-A Connecticut Childhood	p. 1
Saucy Enough-Dartmouth	p. 9
Before the Mast-A Sailor and a Marine	p. 25
Their Native Courage-Shipping with Captain Cook	p. 35
Dancing Through Life-Polynesia	p. 51
Soothed a Homesick Heart-The Search for the Northwest Passage	p. 73
Grief on Every Countenance-Death on the Beach	p. 91
Not Short of Mutiny-Coming Home	p. 107
Crooked Billet-Chasing the Fur Trade	p. 117
Bought for a Bagatelle-An American in Paris	p. 139
More Shirts than Shillings-Walking the World	p. 161
Double Relish-Siberia	p. 183
Common Flag of Humanity-Banished	p. 203
I Go Alone-Grand Cairo	p. 219
Epilogue	p. 229
Acknowledgments	p. 237
A Note on Sources	p. 239
Notes	p. 245
Credits	p. 273
Index	p. 275
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