However, back in , when the intrepid Dartmouth College drop-out managed to walk through Scandinavia in the dead of winter, the last unknowns were still earthbound. Ledyard was born in to a pair of first cousins who had to run away from their homes in Groton, Conn. After his father died at sea, Ledyard went to learn business from his paternal grandfather—but the two were a mismatched pair. Snubbed in the will, Ledyard headed north to the new Dartmouth College, which was not yet two years old.
The entire institution consisted of only three log cabins buried in the rustic Hanover, N. But Ledyard sought to spice up life at the Big Green. He nettled the college president with cheeky requests for fencing lessons, and he audaciously organized a camping trip through knee-deep snow in the middle of winter. Ledyard fled the college by taking a homemade canoe down the treacherous Connecticut River. This undignified departure closed the door on a ministerial career, but, as Zug rightly points out, Ledyard would never have lasted long in such a strict, ordered profession.
He joined a sea voyage to England in , deserted, and was pressed into service in the Royal Navy as the Revolutionary War loomed on the horizon. Encounters with the natives usually involved gift exchanges, celebrations, and, of course, sex. In many cases, the island women would have sex for trinkets and clothes; when the ships reached the frigid Alaskan waters, some men had trouble staying warm in their few remaining clothes.
Ledyard was infected. The captain took a possessive attitude toward the rank farm animals stowed on board. At Moorea in the Pacific, Cook became furious after two goats were stolen, rampaging through a village and burning down huts. In Alaska, he encountered an outpost of Russian traders who introduced him to otter furs, which would become his own lifelong obsession.
(mh=jO-O_GvB9qI5dt9m)3.jpg "Model Hooker in Zug")
Feeling trapped in the rigid military, Ledyard deserted when his unit was stationed in Long Island for the Revolution. Having quickly spent his navy pay, the poor Ledyard wrote a popular memoir of his voyage with Cook in an effort to drum up support among potential donors for a fur-trading expedition. Ledyard stirred up an interested group, but corruption abounded and Ledyard was cut out of the loop. One of his partners fled the U.
