PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION.

Not long after the death of JOHN LEDYARD, the traveller, some progress was made in collecting materials for an account of his life by his relative, Dr. Isaac Ledyard, of New York. The biographer's task was never begun, however, and the project was abandoned; but the papers procured for the purpose have been preserved by the family of Dr. Ledyard, and have furnished the facts for much the larger portion of the present narrative. Researches have also been made in other quarters, and important original letters obtained. Particular acknowledgment is due to Mr. Henry Seymour, of Hartford, Connecticut, for the aid he has rendered in this respect. All the papers that have been used are entitled to the credit of unquestionable authenticity.

Wherever it could be done, without deviating too much from a regular and proportionate train of events, the traveller has been allowed to speak for himself. His manner of thinking,

as well as of acting, was so peculiar, that a true picture of his mind and genius, his motives and feelings, could not be exhibited in any other way with so much distinctness, as through the medium of his own language. Free and full selections from his manuscript Letters and Journals are interspersed. His incessant activity, want of leisure, and few opportunities of practising composition as an art, afford an apology for the imperfections of his style, which the candid reader will regard in the favorable light it deserves. His diction is never polished, and his words are not always well chosen; but his ideas are often original, copious, well combined, and forcibly expressed.

In executing this work, the only aim has been to bring together a series of facts, which should do justice to the fame and character of a man, who possessed qualities and performed deeds, that rendered him remarkable, and are worthy of being remembered. If the author has been successful in this attempt, he is rewarded for the labor it has cost him.

OCTOBER, 1827.

SOON after the first publication of this Memoir, it was ascertained that a portrait of Led

yard existed in Stockholm, painted by Breda, an artist of celebrity, who had known Ledyard in London. The picture was seen at Stockholm, by an American traveller, in possession of the artist, who was then far advanced in life. It is doubtless the same that is mentioned by Ledyard as his "Swedish portrait," and which he pronounces to be "not only a perfect likeness, but a good painting." An effort was immediately made to procure this picture, or a copy; but, on inquiry, it was found that the artist had died, his pictures had been sold and dispersed, and no one could tell into whose hands this portrait had fallen. It is therefore probably lost to the world, as few persons now living could identify it.

JOHN LEDYARD.

CHAPTER I.

Birth and Parentage.

Early Education. - Enters Dartmouth College. His Fondness for Theatrical Exhibitions while at College. Travels among the Indians of the Six Nations. His Return to College. - Constructs a Canoe, and descends the Connecticut River in it alone to Hartford. Dangers of the Passage.-His Enterprise compared to that of Mungo Park on the Niger.

JOHN LEDYARD, the celebrated traveller, was born in the year 1751, at Groton, in Connecticut, a small village on the bank of the River Thames, opposite to New London. The place of his birth is but a few hundred yards from Fort Griswold, so well known in the history of the American revolution.

His grandfather, named also John Ledyard, came in early life to America, and settled at