Posts Tagged ‘Exploration’
Ballou, Maturin Murray (“Lieut. Murray,” “Frank Forester”)
by Mary Malloy (2000) [BALLOU, MATURIN MURRAY], “LIEUT. MURRAY,” “FRANK FORESTER” (1820-1895). An influential publisher of American periodicals, Maturin Murray Ballou was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He traveled extensively and entered the literary world by writing descriptive letters of his adventures for publication in local newspapers. The editor and/or publisher of ten periodicals, including the Boston…
Read MorePorter, David
by Udo Nattermann (2000) PORTER, DAVID (1780-1843). The son of a veteran of the American Revolution, David Porter was born in Boston and grew up in Baltimore. He began his naval career as a midshipman in 1798 and became master commandant in 1806. In the War of 1812, Porter was captain of the frigate Essex (1799)…
Read MoreYang, Jeffrey
by Jaehyun Jeong (2015) YANG, JEFFREY (1974-) Jeffrey Yang is an American poet, translator, and editor best known for his books of poetry An Aquarium (2008) and Vanishing-Line (2011). Born in Escondido, California, Yang attended the University of California San Diego. With an initial interest in pursuing the sciences, Yang graduated with a double major in Animal Physiology/Neuroscience and English…
Read MoreWilkes, Charles
by Jason Smith (2013) WILKES, CHARLES (1798-1877). Charles Wilkes was an American naval officer, hydrographer, and writer. He commanded the United States Exploring Expedition, 1838 to 1842, wrote its five-volume Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition (1844), edited the expedition’s eighteen scientific volumes, and wrote the last of these, Hydrography (1861). He is also known…
Read MoreSymmes, John Cleves, “Captain Adam Seaborn”
by Richard J. King [SYMMES, JOHN CLEVES], “CAPTAIN ADAM SEABORN” (1780-1829). Some scholars believe that “Captain Adam Seaborn,” the author of this fictional, first-person narrative, is the pseudonym of army officer and amateur geographer Captain John Cleves Symmes (1780-1829). Symmes claimed that the earth was hollow and accessible by “holes in the poles,” basing his…
Read MoreSmith, John
by R. D. Madison (2000) SMITH, JOHN (1580-1631). Although born in Lincolnshire, England, Captain John Smith initiated many traditions in American literature, among them geography, autobiography, and history. A True Relation (1608), his earliest account of his experiences in the Chesapeake Bay region of Maryland and Virginia, is the first book in English written entirely in…
Read MoreReynolds, J. N.
by Peter F. deCataldo (2000) REYNOLDS, J[EREMIAH]. N. (1799?-1858). Details of the life of J. N. Reynolds are sketchy, and his lingering reputation today is mainly the result of his influence upon major works of Edgar Allan Poe (The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym [1838]) and Herman Melville (Moby-Dick [1851]). Reynolds, who was born in Cumberland…
Read MoreNorris, Frank
by Donald Yannella (2000) NORRIS, [BENJAMIN] FRANKLIN] (1870-1902). Although his short life was adventurous enough, including trips to Africa’s Transvaal and Cuba during the Spanish-American War, Frank Norris’ disposition to set two of his less successful novels partly at sea probably arose from his familiarity with the San Francisco Bay Area, where his family settled in…
Read MoreMorrell, Benjamin
by Haskell Springer (2000) MORRELL, BENJAMIN (1795-1839). Benjamin Morrell, sealing captain and explorer, was born in Rye, New York, the son of a shipbuilder. His early experiences included being twice captured by the British during the War of 1812 and spending over two and a half years in prison. Subsequently, he made a number of deep-sea…
Read MoreMorrell, Abby Jane
by Haskell Springer (2000) MORRELL, ABBY JANE [WOOD] (1809-l???). The cousin and second wife of Captain Benjamin Morrell, Abby Jane Wood married the captain when she was fifteen. She accompanied him on the last of his four voyages of commerce and exploration, in the schooner Antarctic (1829-1831). Apparently emulating his account of his ventures in his…
Read MoreJennings Jr., John Edward (“Bates Baldwin”)
by Debra Glabeau (2000) [JENNINGS, JOHN EDWARD, JR], “BATES BALDWIN” (1906-1973). John Edward Jennings Jr., historical novelist, was born in Brooklyn, New York. The son of a surgeon, he began his seafaring in 1925 as a foremast hand aboard a tramp steamer traveling in the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Jennings attended the Colorado…
Read MoreHowells, William Dean
by Udo Nattermann (2000) HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN (1837-1920). A native of Ohio, William Dean Howells began to work in his father’s printing shop at age nine. A self-taught student of languages and literature, he early entered a career in journalism. After writing a campaign biography of Abraham Lincoln, Howells was appointed American consul to Venice, where…
Read MoreHemingway, Ernest Miller
by Bickford Sylvester (2000) HEMINGWAY, ERNEST MILLER (1899-1961). Ernest Hemingway, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in fiction (1952) and the Nobel Prize in literature (1954), grew up in Oak Park, Illinois. Except when rough water forced them to go by train, he and his family crossed Lake Michigan every summer until 1917. In his teens,…
Read MoreHenson, Matthew
by Emma Bonanomi (2021) MATTHEW ALEXANDER HENSON (1866-1955) was a Black American explorer who came to fame after United States Navy Commander Robert E. Peary’s 1908-1909 expedition to the North Pole. He may have been one of the first men to reach the North Pole on April 6, 1909, alongside Peary and Inuit guides Odaq,…
Read MoreHayden, Sterling
by James F. Millinger (2000) HAYDEN, STERLING [RELYEA WALTER] (1916-1986). Born in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, Sterling Hayden quit school at sixteen to join the crew of a sailing ship. He served as seaman aboard fishing vessels and sailing ships out of New England ports from 1932 to 1936, was first mate on Irving Johnson’s…
Read MoreHarlow, Frederick Pease
by Glenn Grasso HARLOW, FREDERICK PEASE (1856-1952). Frederick Pease Harlow was born in Mount Morris, Illinois, on 12 December 1856. He was the youngest son of Frances Ann Winsor and William T. Harlow, an educator and Methodist minister originally from Duxbury, Massachusetts. Harlow’s first experience at sea was on board the coasting schooner David G.…
Read MoreHains, Thornton Jenkins (“Captain Mayn Clew Garnett”)
by Bert Bender (2000) [HAINS, THORNTON JENKINS], “CAPTAIN MAYN CLEW GARNETT” (1866-1953). Named for his maternal grandfather, Admiral Thornton Jenkins, U.S.N., Thornton Jenkins Hains had a career of indefinite length as a working seaman and was licensed in both England and the United States as a navigator for large oceangoing vessels. He began a writing…
Read MoreFanning, Edmund
by Michael P. Dyer (2000) FANNING, EDMUND (1769-1841). Captain Edmund Fanning of Stonington, Connecticut, was the younger brother of naval officer Nathaniel Fanning. In a memorial to the U.S. Congress in 1833, Edmund Fanning urged the legislature to support funding for an exploring expedition to the high southern latitudes and the Pacific Ocean. He gave…
Read MoreDelano, Amasa
by James L. Gray (2000) DELANO, AMASA (1763-1823). Amasa Delano, whose Voyages and Travels (1817) was the source for Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno” (1855), was born in Duxbury, Massachusetts. After serving briefly in the Continental army during the American Revolution, Delano began a lifelong career as sailor, ship captain, and occasional shipbuilder, often in conjunction…
Read MoreCarse, Robert
by Donald P. Curtis (2000) CARSE, ROBERT (1902-1971). A Great Lakes sailor at seventeen, Robert Carse later worked salt water, attaining the position of chief mate. He sailed most of the world and developed a reputation as an expert seaman and maritime historian. Carse claimed to have spent half of his life on water, and…
Read MoreBryant, William Cullen
by Joseph Flibbert (2000) BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN (1794-1878). William Cullen Bryant was born and raised in the back country of western Massachusetts, where an early talent for versifying displayed in religious, sentimental, and satiric poems culminated in the publication in the North American Review of his best-known poem, “Thanatopsis” (1817). Thereafter, editions of his poems appeared regularly,…
Read MoreBrackenridge, Henry Marie
by Philip Barnard (2000) BRACKENRIDGE, HENRY MARIE (1786-1871). Henry Marie Brackenridge, writer, lawyer, legislator, and diplomat, was born in Pittsburgh, the son of well-known writer and jurist Hugh Henry Brackenridge. Most of Brackenridge’s career was devoted to legal work and wide-ranging writings on US. political, territorial, and economic expansion into the trans-Appalachian South and West.…
Read MoreBowditch, Nathaniel
by Daniel Finamore (2000) BOWDITCH, NATHANIEL (1773-1838). Mathematician, navigator, and astronomer, Nathaniel Bowditch authored the book that since 1802 has been the standard reference for celestial navigators worldwide. Schooled only to age ten, Bowditch taught himself mathematics and several foreign languages in the course of his academic pursuits. While on a voyage to Manila in…
Read MoreBishop, Elizabeth
by Hugh Egan (2000) BISHOP, ELIZABETH (1911-1979). Elizabeth Bishop, American poet for whom the coastlines of North and South America served as powerful sources of inspiration, was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her father died when she was eight months old, and her mother, after suffering mental breakdowns, was permanently institutionalized by the time Bishop was…
Read MoreBarker, Benjamin
by Dean DeFino (2000) BARKER, BENJAMIN (1817-18??). Beyond birth records in Salem, Massachusetts, the only documents that survive of Benjamin Barker are twenty short novels published under that name between 1845 and 1847 and one in 1855. Those with authors’ prefaces all indicate that he was living in Salem at the time of their composition.…
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