Explorer; born in
Groton, Conn., in 1751; was educated at Dartmouth College for a missionary to the Indians, and spent several months among the Six Nations.
Having a resistless desire for travel, he shipped at New London as a common sailor, and from
England accompanied
Captain Cook in his last voyage around the world as corporal of marines.
He vainly tried to set on foot a trading expedition to the northwest coast of
North America, and went to
Europe in 1784.
He started on a journey through the northern part of
Europe and
Asia and across
Bering Strait to
America in 1786-87.
He walked around the whole coast of the
Gulf of Bothnia, reaching
St. Petersburg in the latter part of March, 1787, without money, shoes, or stockings.
He had journeyed 1,400 miles on foot in less than seven weeks. Thence he went to
Siberia, but was arrested at Irkutsk in February, 1788, conducted to the frontiers of
Poland, and there dismissed with an intimation that if he returned into
Russia he would be hanged.
The cause of his arrest was the jealousy of the Russian-American Trading Company.
Going back to
London,
Ledyard accepted an offer to engage in the exploration of the interior of
Africa.
He left
England in June, 1788, and at
Cairo, Egypt, was attacked by a disease which ended his life, Jan. 17, 1789.