John Lloyd Stephens
John Lloyd Stephens was an influential American travel writer and explorer, born in 1805 in Shrewsbury, New Jersey. He received a classical education and graduated from Columbia College at the young age of thirteen. Although he initially pursued a career in law, Stephens soon found himself drawn to travel, embarking on extensive journeys across Europe, the Middle East, and Central America. His travels inspired him to write several notable works, including *Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land* and *Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan*, both of which became popular for their engaging and whimsical narrative style.
Stephens was also involved in politics, serving as a delegate to the New York Constitutional Convention and proposing a conciliation court. In addition to his literary contributions, he played a significant role in the early development of the Panama Railroad Company. Despite facing health challenges from an accident and later liver disease, he continued to work and travel until his death on October 10, 1852. Stephens is remembered as a pioneering figure in American travel literature, whose insightful observations and adventures continue to resonate with readers and historians alike.
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John Lloyd Stephens
Explorer
- Born: November 28, 1805
- Birthplace: Shrewsbury, New Jersey
- Died: October 12, 1852
- Place of death: New York, New York
Biography
John Lloyd Stephens, known as the first American travel writer, was born in 1805 in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, and largely reared and educated in New York. After an early classical education, he entered Columbia College at the age of thirteen and graduated in 1822. He attended the Tapping-Reeve Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, and then returned to New York City and worked for attorney George W. Strong until he passed the bar in 1827.
Filled with wanderlust, he soon found that legal work bored him, and in 1834 he gladly followed his doctor’s advice to travel abroad for his health. Stephens spent time in London and France and visited Germany, Italy, Greece, Russia, Turkey, and Poland. Rather than returning to New York when expected, he instead set out for Egypt and explored the Nile River, eventually traveling to Gaza in Arabia and then to Jerusalem. He did not return home to New York until 1836.
During his trip, the American Monthly magazine published a number of his letters, and their popularity inspired Stephens to write a longer account of his voyages. Much of the subsequent book, Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land, was serialized in a variety of periodicals, and the book later was published in two volumes in 1837. Stephens followed the success of his first book almost immediately with a second travel book, Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland published in 1838; this book also proved highly successful.
A well-known Democrat from his days as a lawyer, Stephens was sent on a diplomatic mission to Central America by President Martin Van Buren in 1839. During this mission, he traveled widely among the ruins and deserted pyramids and cities of Guatemala, Honduras, and the Yucatan Peninsula. He was accompanied by English artist Frederick Catherwood, who would illustrate the resulting book, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, published in two volumes in 1841. He and Catherwood later made a second voyage and published Incidents of Travel in the Yucatan in 1843. All of Stephens’s travel books became extremely popular due to his lighthearted and whimsical style; some experts complained of his methods, however, noting that he cared less for archaeology than he did for his feelings about the ruins he explored.
Stephens’s popularity was such that in 1846 he was asked to act as a delegate for the New York Constitutional Convention for both the Whig and Democrat parties. As a politician, his primary accomplishment was proposing the creation of a conciliation court; his proposal later was adopted by New York City lawmakers. As a known explorer and traveler, the Ocean Steam Navigation Company hired him in 1847 to work as a promoter and director of the company. In 1849, he began working with William H. Aspinwall and Henry Chauncey in the Panama Railroad Company, which aimed to build a railroad that stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean across the Isthmus of Panama. While arranging the project in Bogota, Columbia, he injured his spine in an accident while traveling on a mule.
Stephens continued his work, but his injury ruined his health and restricted his mobility. He continued to travel, including trips to Jamaica and additional trips to Panama to supervise railroad work. However, in 1852 he fell ill from liver disease, and the best-selling travel author died on October 10, 1852.