A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans (5 page)

It was only a drunken misadventure that finally silenced James Callender forever. On July 17, 1803, his bloated corpse was found floating in three inches of murky water on the James River. His many enemies may have delighted in the irony of his drowning in the muck. But it is a tribute to this unlikely hero of the First Amendment that, in the face of egregious laws, physical intimidation, and prison, it was the only thing that could keep him quiet.

The weary traveler arrived in Russia battered and bloody, his clothes in shreds and his only companion, a dog, dead. For two months he had trudged on foot across the frozen expanses of northern Sweden and Finland with only a wool cloak to protect him from the sub-Arctic winter and an iron will to propel him forward. He still had far to go.

 

Long before Lewis and Clark set out on their historic journey across North America, John Ledyard tried to walk around the world. It was an audacious undertaking by a man “of fearless courage and enterprise,” as Thomas Jefferson described him; a restless wanderer propelled by the romance of discovery. Already he had circumnavigated the globe as part of Captain James Cook's famed third voyage, and in the process became the first American to see Hawaii, Alaska, and the Pacific Northwest. “Behold me the greatest traveler in history,” he wrote, a bit immodestly. “An eccentric, irregular, unafraid, unaccountable, curious & without vanity, majestic as a comet.”

In the end Ledyard fell short of his quest, intercepted in Siberia by order of Catherine the Great and escorted out of Russia. Still, he managed to traverse a third of the earth's land mass (though not all on foot)—a feat that inspired the Lewis and Clark expedition two decades later. And ultimately, his failure didn't matter. It was Ledyard's bold adventures and ambitious dreams, of which there were many, that left a resounding legacy. “[He] forged a new, American archtype,” writes his biographer James Zug: “the heroic explorer.”

The wanderlust that would define John Ledyard's life was evident early, when he dropped out of Dartmouth College after his first year and took a dugout canoe on a solo journey down the Connecticut River. It was a foolhardy venture for the inexperienced young man to explore a river no one had been recorded running before, and it nearly cost him his life when the canoe capsized close to the fifty-foot drop of Bellows Falls. Just before he was sent hurtling over, the sputtering youth was pulled to safety by villagers along the shoreline and resumed his adventure embarrassed but unbowed.

Ledyard returned home to Connecticut restless and without any real prospects. After a failed attempt to become a minister, he joined the crew of a merchant vessel that sailed to Europe, Africa, and the West Indies. “I allot myself a seven year's ramble more,” he wrote to his cousin, “altho the past has long since wasted the means I had, and now the body becomes a substitute for Cash and pays my travelling expenses.”

Unsatiated when he returned—it had only been a year into his “ramble,” after all—Ledyard joined another crew and sailed to England in 1775. There he either enlisted with, or was forced into,
¹
the British army. He wrote that he “was ordered to Boston in New England [during the American Revolution]: to this your memorialist objected being a native of that country & desired he might be appointed to some other duty, which ultimately was granted.” He was allowed to switch from the army to the navy and became a marine. It was in that capacity Ledyard sailed with Captain James Cook on one of the greatest voyages of discovery the world had ever known.

Cook had already completed two exploratory ventures around the globe, but this, his third, would be the most ambitious by far—the longest circumnavigation in history, and the one upon which he would meet his demise. The goal was to find the elusive Northwest Passage. But Ledyard saw the voyage as an excellent opportunity to “free himself forever from coming to America as her enemy,” as he put it, as well as a way to satisfy his boundless curiosity.

The expedition set sail from Plymouth, England, on July 12, 1776, just eight days after Ledyard's countrymen declared their independence from Britain. It seems strange that at such a momentous time, a loyal American would be sailing under an enemy flag as a British marine, but Ledyard saw no incongruity. “For no State's, no Monarch's Minister am I,” he later declared, “but travel under the common flag of humanity, commissioned by myself to serve the world at large.”

Humanity's ambassador was in for an extraordinary trip: a four-year, 80,000-mile odyssey that took him from the beautiful beaches of Tahiti to the frozen Arctic. Along the way he met native peoples whose lives and customs fascinated him, and upon whom he looked with the kind of respect that was rare for the age. Many joyfully greeted the Cook party, though some in time turned on them with savage ferocity.
²
Beautiful women gave themselves freely to the fair-haired Ledyard, and on more than one occasion left him with a wicked case of the clap.

During the journey, Ledyard became the first American citizen to visit Alaska and Hawaii, and described how it felt to be the first to step foot upon the west coast of the North American continent. “Though more than two thousand miles distant from the nearest part of New England I felt myself plainly affected: All the affectionate passions incident to natural attachments and early prejudices played round my heart, and indulged them because they were prejudices. It soothed a home-sick heart, and rendered me very tolerably happy.”

The pelts the expedition collected in the Pacific Northwest and then sold in China at exorbitant prices inspired Ledyard with dreams of a lucrative fur trade in the East. The idea eventually became an obsession, and Ledyard later formed various partnerships with Revolutionary financier Robert Morris and naval hero John Paul Jones to establish a trading company. Nothing ever came of the efforts, but James Zug and others credit Ledyard's ambition for the eventual launch of the China trade and the opening of the Pacific for the United States.

After four years at sea and a world of discovery (though not of the Northwest Passage), Ledyard and the other surviving members of the Cook expedition returned to England in October 1780. A year later the navy sent him to America, where he promptly deserted and set about documenting his grand adventure in the popular book
A Journal of Captain Cook's Last Voyage.
The work is notable for the relatively enlightened and balanced accounts of the native cultures Ledyard encountered, as well as for establishing the size of North America for the first time. It also inspired American copyright protection after Ledyard asked the Connecticut assembly for “the exclusive right of publishing this said Journal or history in the State for such a term as shall be thot fit.” (Ironically, the book was heavily plagiarized from other sources.)

By 1784, Ledyard was off to Europe again. A master of self-promotion, he took to calling himself “John Ledyard the Traveler,” and cut a rather eccentric figure with his exotic clothes (which he could ill afford) and his sometimes manic disposition. But it was his intellect that most impressed people. Thomas Jefferson, then serving as U.S. ambassador to France, called him “a man of genius” and “a person of ingenuity and information. Unfortunately,” he added, “he has too much imagination.” Yet in spite of that express reservation, it was Jefferson who enthusiastically backed Ledyard's most outlandish ambition of all: to walk around the world. The plan was to go from Europe through Siberia and then across North America. It was the opportunity to explore his native land that seemed to excite Ledyard most:

At the end of November 1786, John Ledyard the Traveler set out on his quixotic march. The first leg of his journey was miserable. “Never did I adopt an Idea so fatal to my happiness,” he wrote after the brutal two-month trek through northern Sweden and Finland in the bitter cold. Yet he was unstoppable. “The bruises, the sleeplessness, the dirty-fingernail poverty, the sweat and mud-soaked clothes were real,” James Zug writes of Ledyard's astonishing resilience. “Yet it was if his sufferings were happening to another person. Staggeringly buoyant, he brushed aside his pains and talked of trying again. He would leave on a moment's notice. He would promise a new destination, despite the lack of money, clothes, prospects or good sleep. His imagination remained unassailable.”

Ledyard was without a doubt stalwart, but by the time he reached St. Petersburg in March 1787, it was clear that his dream would have to be modified. The vast stretches of Siberia that lay before him would take years to walk, and Ledyard lacked the money to support such an extended venture. Instead, he would travel in a Russian coach known as a
kibitka
. “Kabitka travelling is the remains of Caravan travelling,” he wrote. “It is your only home—it is like a ship at sea.”

During the next four months Ledyard covered most of Russia's enormous expanse, more than five thousand miles since he left St. Petersburg. He was now tantalizingly close to the Pacific Ocean, just five hundred miles away, and the next leg of his journey across North America. But in the frontier town of Yakutsk, three hundred miles below the Arctic Circle, he was stopped in his tracks. Winter made it impossible to go any farther. And it wasn't just the elements that conspired against him. Catherine the Great, empress of Russia, had denied Ledyard passage through her realm when he applied for a passport, and he had defied her. Now he had to pay the price. On February 1, 1778, while waiting for the winter weather to pass, he was arrested in the town of Irkutsk, ordered to be escorted under guard back across Siberia, and left at the Polish border with the warning never to return to Russia. Ledyard's wandering spirit flagged under confinement.

“Loose your liberty but once for one hour, ye who never lost it, that ye may feel what I feel,” he wrote. “Altho' born in the freest Country of the World, Ideas of its exquisite Beauties & of its immortal Nature that I had never before. Methinks every Man who is called to preside officially over the Liberty of a free People should once—it will be enough—actually be deprived unjustly of his Liberty that he might be avaricious of it more than of any earthly possessions.”

An ordinary man might have taken a good long rest after traveling fifteen thousand miles over mostly inhospitable terrain, but not John Ledyard. Almost as soon as he returned to London, one and a half years after he began his walk, he was enthusiastically planning an expedition to Africa with the famed naturalist Joseph Banks and other esteemed members of a society known as the African Association. It would be the ultimate adventure into regions thus far unexplored. Yet despite his pretense of vigor, Ledyard was not a well man. And he seemed to sense that this would be his last journey. His friend Henry Beaufoy, a member of the African Association, recalled his words of farewell:

John Ledyard never did make it out of Africa. Indeed, his last great venture had barely begun when, on January 10, 1789, he succumbed to dysentery at age thirty-seven. Perhaps Jefferson was right when he said Ledyard had too much imagination, but that's what made him uniquely American. “It is that overflowing, unmanageable, penetrating, elastic imagination which places him at the core of a nation's psyche,” writes James Zug. “Too much imagination is the American ethos.”

“Nature never intended me for obscurity,” Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte announced to her father in 1815. Although she may have been a bit premature in that assessment, largely forgotten as she is today, few at the time would have disagreed. The beautiful native of Baltimore, Maryland, achieved the fame she craved when she married Jérôme Bonaparte, younger brother of the soon-to-be emperor Napoléon. Entry into the imperial family banished all the young woman's fears of anonymity and allowed her to bask in worldwide celebrity. Unfortunately, it was quickly doomed, as the union clashed with Napoléon's own ambitions.

Elizabeth met Jérôme in September 1803, when the dashing but spoiled lieutenant in the French navy visited Baltimore during a tour of the American East. The attraction was immediate, and the couple soon made plans to wed. The only hitch was Elizabeth's father William, one of Baltimore's wealthiest citizens, received an anonymous letter detailing Jérôme's “profligate” ways. He had “ruined” many a young lady, the letter warned, and would marry Elizabeth only “to secure himself a home at your expense” until he returned to France, after which time he would “laugh at your credulity.” Needless to say, William Patterson found this somewhat disturbing. He cancelled the wedding and sent Elizabeth away to stay with relatives in Virginia.

Love wasn't quenched so easily, however. Elizabeth pined for her prince, declaring that she “would rather be the wife of Jérôme Bonaparte for one hour than the wife of any other man for life.” Her father relented when Elizabeth threatened to run away with Jérôme, and the couple was married on Christmas Eve. The mayor of Baltimore, James Calhoun, performed the civil ceremony, and John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States, performed the religious rite. In a bow to contemporary French fashion, the bride wore a rather flimsy wedding dress that one guest noted “could have been put in [his] pocket.”

The newlyweds were eagerly received in the highest social circles, while the masses who read of the couple's every move in daily newspaper reports clamored to get a glimpse of them. They were stars, and Elizabeth certainly dressed the part. The revealing French fashions she had previewed at her wedding both shocked and titillated. At a party given for the couple in Washington, D.C., for example, she wore a gown described by one guest as “so transparent that you could see the color and shape of her thighs, and even more!” Another wrote that “her appearance was such that it threw all the company into confusion, and no one dared look at her but by stealth.” Elizabeth ignored all warnings that her unconventional fashion sense would adversely affect her social standing, believing instead that the bold styles, combined with her notoriety, would gain her entrée almost anywhere. She was right. “Knowing how important these public occasions were,” writes historian Charlene Boyer Lewis, “Elizabeth never shrank from the attention, as well-mannered ladies were supposed to do, and she always carefully dressed for them. Her clothing helped her maintain the celebrity status that she not only loved, but also considered a necessary part of her life.”

While Elizabeth's daring dresses created quite a stir in the United States, her marriage had a seismic impact in France. Napoléon, then first consul, was enraged when he heard the news. He had great dynastic plans for his siblings, intending to marry them into some of the royal houses of Europe, and Jérôme had just thwarted his ambitions by taking an American nobody as a wife. He refused to recognize the marriage and ordered his brother home immediately—without Elizabeth. “If he brings her with him,” Napoléon fumed, “she will not set foot on French territory. If he comes alone, I will overlook his error.” Jérôme, every bit as stubborn as his mighty brother, refused his summons.

President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison had anticipated Napoléon's negative reaction to the wedding, and sent diplomatic reassurances that even the president of the United States was powerless to prevent a marriage. The Louisiana Purchase was at stake, and Jefferson could ill afford to alienate the French leader. Meanwhile, Jérôme's brother Lucien sent word that the Bonaparte clan was thrilled with the union. “Tell Monsieur Patterson [Elizabeth's brother] that our mother, myself, and the entire family unanimously and fully approve of the marriage,” he wrote. “The Consul does not agree with us for the moment, but he must be considered the sole dissenting voice in the family.” Napoléon's may have been the lone voice, but it was the only one that mattered. And he was implacable. He would never accept “Miss Patterson,” as he insisted upon calling Elizabeth, and prohibited any French civil authority to recognize the union under penalty of prison.

Jérôme deluded himself into believing that Napoléon's heart would thaw once he met his charming bride. Accordingly, he and Elizabeth, now pregnant, set sail for France in the fall of 1804 after learning that Napoléon had declared himself emperor. They planned to attend his coronation, but their ship was beset by a fierce storm as it left harbor and sank. The couple barely escaped with their lives, and all their wedding gifts and other possessions, including several thousand dollars in gold, were lost. Desperate to share in the glory of the coronation, they hired another brig, but it was turned back by British warships. They missed the ceremony. Finally, William Patterson provided one of his own ships to sail them across the Atlantic. When they arrived in Lisbon, however, an emissary from Napoléon informed them that “Miss Patterson” would not be permitted to disembark on European soil. “Tell your master that
Madame Bonaparte
is ambitious and demands her rights as a member of the imperial family,” Elizabeth reportedly responded—to no avail.

Faced with the emperor's unbending will and far-reaching power, Jérôme and Elizabeth decided that she would sail on to Amsterdam to have the baby, and he would proceed to Milan, where Napoléon was crowning himself king of Italy. There Jérôme would confront his brother. “My good wife, have faith in your husband,” he wrote soothingly. “The worst that could happen now would be for us to live quietly in some foreign country…. My dearest Elisa, I will do everything that must be done.” She never saw him again.

Jérôme had been given a powerful ultimatum: Either renounce his “mistress,” or face ruin. Napoléon threatened to strip his brother of all ranks and titles, remove him from the line of succession, and abandon him to his staggering debts. Furthermore, Jérôme would be banished from France and all its territories (which then included Holland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Portugal), and would never receive another franc from the government or from the Bonaparte family.

Steadfast and true, Jérôme agreed to abandon his wife. The emperor was delighted. “Mon
frère,
” he exclaimed, “there is no fault you could commit that would not be overlooked by your repentance…. Your marriage thus annulled at your own request, I should like to offer you my friendship.” Napoléon gave Jérôme the kingdom of Westphalia to rule, and married him—bigamously—to Princess Catherine of Württemberg.

While her husband was busy renouncing her in Italy, Elizabeth was stuck at port in Amsterdam. Officials there, fearing the emperor's wrath, refused to let her off the ship, and she was forced to sail to England. There, for the first time in fourteen weeks, she finally touched solid ground. And on July 7, 1805, gave birth to a baby boy she named Jérôme-Napoléon Bonaparte. “Rest assured, your husband will never abandon you,” brave Jérôme wrote. “I would give my life for you alone, and for my child.” The British secretary of legation in the United States, Sir Augustus Foster, later recalled Elizabeth's dramatic declaration that she would rather be the wife of Jérôme Bonaparte for one hour than the wife of any other man for life, and noted wryly, “She did not know she was so near the real event.”

Abandoned by her husband, Elizabeth returned to Baltimore with her baby, who she called Bo. Yet despite her rejection, she retained all her royal pretensions and continued to cultivate her celebrity. She ordered a coach with the Bonaparte family crest painted on its doors, and unfailingly reminded people of her imperial connections. Madame Bonaparte, as she styled herself, still wore her outrageous dresses and remained a sought-after guest. “The state of nudity in which she appeared [at a presidential dinner] attracted the attention of the Gentlemen,” one guest reported, “for I saw several of them take a look at her bubbies when they were conversing with her.”

In 1808, Jérôme, now king of Westphalia and married to Catherine of Württemberg, wrote Elizabeth and asked her to send him their son. She refused. Several years later, he asked again, offering to set Elizabeth up in her own castle. Again she refused, declaring that she would never relinquish her son, adding that Jérôme's kingdom was “not quite large enough to hold
two queens
.” Eventually she accepted a yearly pension from Napoléon, and obtained a divorce from Jérôme in the Maryland legislature. Soon after, Napoléon's empire collapsed and all the ruling Bonapartes were booted from their thrones.

With the collapse of the empire, Elizabeth felt free to return to Europe in 1815. Though once forbidden to step foot on the continent, she was now warmly welcomed by the European elite, and believed she had found her rightful place in the world. “I get on extremely well,” she wrote her father, “and I assure you that altho' you have always taken me for a fool, it is not in my character here. In America, I appeared more simple than I am, because I was completely out of my element. It was my misfortune, not my fault, that I was born in a country which was not congenial to my desires. Here I am completely in my sphere…and in contact with modes of life for which nature intended me.”

For the next twenty-five years, Elizabeth spent most of her time in Europe and became increasingly contemptuous of American mores and culture. In other words, she became French. Surrounding herself with aristocrats, artists, and intellectuals, she reveled in the attention lavished upon her and fancied herself a member of the nobility. She maintained friendly ties with the Bonapartes in exile, as she considered the family connection advantageous for her son, who she believed was born for greatness. And though she continued to call Baltimore home, she returned only occasionally to attend to her financial affairs. It was impossible, she sniffed, “to be contented in a country where there exists no nobility.”

One of Elizabeth's primary obsessions as her son grew older was to marry him into an aristocratic European family. “Bo has rank,” she informed her father. “His name places him in the first society in Europe.” She was devastated, therefore, when she learned in 1829 that the young man had wed a girl from Baltimore. “When I first heard my son could condescend to marry anyone in Baltimore I nearly went mad,” she wrote. Elizabeth's sense of nobility was offended by her son stooping so far beneath him. She had married “the brother of an emperor,” and had not the “meanness of spirit to descend from such an elevation to the deplorable condition of being the wife of an American.” But, she conceded in resignation, she and her son were different people. The young man, “not having my pride, my ambition, or my utter abhorrence to vulgar company,” had the “right to pursue the course he prefers.” She had done all she could “to disgust him with America,” and “give him the ideas suitable to his rank in life.”

Eventually Elizabeth settled back in Baltimore, among the masses she so disdained. She wasn't happy. “There is nothing here worth attention or interest,” she wrote a friend, “except the money market.” She returned to Europe one last time in 1860, when Jérôme died and left no provision for their son in his will. In a celebrated lawsuit against the surviving Bonapartes, she vainly sought to have Bo recognized as a legitimate heir. Defeated, she returned home and settled in a boarding house where she lived as an imperial relic until her death in 1879.