Charles Lanman

June 14, 1819 (age 75)

Monroe, Michigan, United States

At sixteen Lanman entered an East India mercantile house in New York City, where he remained ten years. During this period he began exploring places in the eastern part of the United States, then more difficult of access, which have since become well-known vacation resorts. He was one of the first to use the canoe as a pleasure craft. He also began exhibiting paintings and sketches from nature in oil and although only an amateur was elected an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1846. Two of his books, Essays for Summer Hours (1842) and Letters from a Landscape Painter (1845), appeared before he returned to Monroe, Michigan, in 1845, to take charge of the Monroe Gazette. The next year he became associate editor of the Cincinnati Chronicle, and in 1847 returned to New York to take a place on the editorial staff of the Express. During these years he continued his fishing trips and explorations on foot, on horseback, and in canoes, which carried him through the Mississippi Valley, the region of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence, and over the whole of the Appalachian system from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf states. From time to time he gathered his magazine articles into volumes: A Summer in the Wilderness (1847), A Tour to the River Saguenay (1848), Letters from the Alleghany Mountains (1849), and Haw-ho-noo, or Records of a Tourist (1850). The popularity of these volumes resulted in several reprints in England and America. A selection from them, and from his uncollected contributions to periodicals, was published in London under the title Adventures in the Wilds of America (1854) and reprinted with additions in Philadelphia (two volumes) in 1856. In 1849 he was appointed librarian of the War Department at Washington. He resigned his office in 1850 to become private secretary to Daniel Webster. The fruit of this intimacy was the valuable, anecdotal Private Life of Daniel Webster (1852), first published the previous year as a pamphlet, with the title, Personal Memorials of Daniel Webster. Lanman reëntered public life in 1853, and from 1855 to 1857 was librarian and head of the returns office in the Interior Department. In 1859 he first published his well-known Dictionary of the United States Congress, revised at frequent intervals and finally taken over by the government and published by Congress as a document. After the author had been paid a regular royalty of one dollar a copy for a number of years, Congress deprived him of his rights under the copyright law; and he was unable to obtain any redress. He was librarian of the House of Representatives in 1861, and edited the Journal of Alfred Ely, A Prisoner of War in Richmond (1862). He again became head of the returns office in the Interior Department in 1865. The next few years were spent in literary work at his home in Georgetown, interspersed with frequent fishing and exploring trips. He published a Life of William Woodbridge (1867) and Red Book of Michigan (1871). He was appointed American secretary of the Japanese legation in 1871, and held that position eleven years. As a result of this connection he edited the volume, The Japanese in America (1872), to which he contributed sections on "The Japanese Embassy, " "The Japanese Students, " and "Japanese Poetry. " He was assistant assessor of the District of Columbia in 1885, and librarian of the Washington city library in 1888. The remainder of his life was spent in his Georgetown home, writing and painting.

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Leading Men of Japan: With an Historical Summary of the Empire (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from Leading Men of Japan: With an Historical Sum...)

Dictionary of the United States Congress

( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

The Red Book of Michigan; A Civil, Military and Biographical History. by Charles Lanman.

A Summer in the Wilderness Embracing a Canoe Voyage Up the Mississippi and Around Lake Superior

(SAINT LOUIS, June, 1846. The River Queen, as Saint Louis ...)

SAINT LOUIS, June, 1846. The River Queen, as Saint Louis is sometimes called, is looked upon as the threshold leading to the wild and romantic region of the Upper Mississippi. It was founded in the year seventeen hundred and sixty-four, by two Frenchmen, named Laclade and Chouteau, who were accompanied by about thirty Creoles. The first steamer which landed here came from New Orleans in the year eighteen hundred and nineteen; but the number now belonging here is rated at three hundred, many of which are unsurpassed in speed and splendor of accommodations. The population of this city amounts to forty thousand souls. It is elevated some eighty feet above the low-water mark of the Mississippi, and from the river presents a handsome appearance. The old part of the town is inhabited by a French population, and is in a dilapidated condition; but the more modern portion is distinguished for its handsome streets, and tastefully built mansions and public buildings. Fronting the levee or landing are several blocks of stone stores, which give one an idea of the extensive business transacted here. On one occasion I saw this wharfing ground so completely crowded with merchandise of every possible variety, that travellers were actually compelled to walk from the steamboats to the hotels. This city is the home market for all the natural productions of a wilderness country extending in different directions for thousands of miles, and watered by several of the largest rivers in the world. Its growth, however, has been somewhat retarded by the peculiar character of its original inhabitants. The acknowledged wealth of many of its leading men can only be equalled by their illiberality and want of enterprise. But time is committing sad ravages among these ancient citizens, for they are, from age and infirmities, almost daily dropping into the place of graves. Under the benign influence of true American enterprise, this city is rapidly becoming distinguished for its New England character, in spite of the retarding cause alluded to above, and the baneful institution of Slavery. In fine, it possesses, to an uncommon degree, all the worthy qualities which should belong to an enlightened and eminently prosperous city.

Recollections of Michigan

(At some point in the 1840s, Charles Lanman walked away fr...)

At some point in the 1840s, Charles Lanman walked away from his career in New York and went fishing. Permanently. Traveling around the western United States—or what we now call the Midwest—by foot, horse, and canoe, he wrote about his adventures for various periodicals and then, in the 1850s, collected those writings into a two-volume work titled “Adventures in the Wilds of the United States and British American Provinces,” and the book from which this eBook is derived titled “Adventures in the Wilds of North America,” published in 1862 in London, which may or may not be the first volume of the two-volume set. Mr. Lanman had a poetical, philosophical point of view as he looked at Mother Nature’s creations and, as a native of Michigan, he waxed especially poetical and philosophical as he described his travels through the Great Lakes region. This eBook is four chapters of the larger book, comprising his travels through the region of the Great Lakes and especially his visit to Michigan, the place of his birth and childhood. It is strangely compelling to read the words of a man bemoaning the loss of wilderness and encroachment of civilization in the middle of the nineteenth century, when Detroit only held fifteen thousand people and Michigan-the-state was barely ten years old. If he saw southeast Michigan now, he would no doubt be horrified. Preparing old books for digital publication is a labor of love at Travelyn Publishing. We hold our digital versions of public domain books up against any others with no fear of the comparison. Our conversion work is meticulous, utilizing a process designed to eliminate errors, maximize reader enjoyment, and recreate as much as possible the atmosphere of the original book even as we are adding the navigation and formatting necessary for a good digital book. While remaining faithful to a writer’s original words, and the spellings and usages of his era, we are not above correcting obvious mistakes. If the printer became distracted after placing an ‘a’ at the end of a line and then placed another ‘a’ at the beginning of the next line (they used to do this stuff by hand you know!), what sort of mindless robots would allow that careless error to be preserved for all eternity in the digital version, too? Not us. That’s why we have the audacity to claim that our re-publications are often better than the originals.

Letters From the Alleghany Mountains (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from Letters From the Alleghany Mountains I can'...)

The Japanese in America

(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

Haw-Ho-Noo, or Records of a Tourist

(Excerpt from statement “To the Public”: The title and tab...)

Canoe Voyage Up the Mississippi and Around Lake Superior in 1846

(Subtitled: A Summer in the Wilderness. From the introduct...)

Personal memorials of Daniel Webster: Including a sketch of his public life and the particulars of his death

Charles Lanman Edit Profile

artist explorer writer

Background

Charles Lanman was a great-great-grandson of James Lanman who came from England to Boston about 1724, and a grandson of James Lanman of Norwich, Connecticut, who was United States senator from 1819 to 1825. The latter's son, Charles James, was one of the earliest emigrant lawyers from New England to the Territory of Michigan, where he married Marie Jeanne Guie, a French woman with Indian blood in her veins. Charles, their son, was born in Monroe, Michigan.

Education

He was sent east in 1829 to his grandfather to be educated, and attended the Plymouth Academy near Norwich until 1835. Later he studied painting under Asher B. Durand.

Career

At sixteen Lanman entered an East India mercantile house in New York City, where he remained ten years. During this period he began exploring places in the eastern part of the United States, then more difficult of access, which have since become well-known vacation resorts.

He was one of the first to use the canoe as a pleasure craft. He also began exhibiting paintings and sketches from nature in oil and although only an amateur was elected an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1846.

Two of his books, Essays for Summer Hours (1842) and Letters from a Landscape Painter (1845), appeared before he returned to Monroe, Michigan, in 1845, to take charge of the Monroe Gazette. The next year he became associate editor of the Cincinnati Chronicle, and in 1847 returned to New York to take a place on the editorial staff of the Express.

During these years he continued his fishing trips and explorations on foot, on horseback, and in canoes, which carried him through the Mississippi Valley, the region of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence, and over the whole of the Appalachian system from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf states. From time to time he gathered his magazine articles into volumes: A Summer in the Wilderness (1847), A Tour to the River Saguenay (1848), Letters from the Alleghany Mountains (1849), and Haw-ho-noo, or Records of a Tourist (1850). The popularity of these volumes resulted in several reprints in England and America. A selection from them, and from his uncollected contributions to periodicals, was published in London under the title Adventures in the Wilds of America (1854) and reprinted with additions in Philadelphia (two volumes) in 1856.

In 1849 he was appointed librarian of the War Department at Washington. He resigned his office in 1850 to become private secretary to Daniel Webster. The fruit of this intimacy was the valuable, anecdotal Private Life of Daniel Webster (1852), first published the previous year as a pamphlet, with the title, Personal Memorials of Daniel Webster.

Lanman reëntered public life in 1853, and from 1855 to 1857 was librarian and head of the returns office in the Interior Department. In 1859 he first published his well-known Dictionary of the United States Congress, revised at frequent intervals and finally taken over by the government and published by Congress as a document. After the author had been paid a regular royalty of one dollar a copy for a number of years, Congress deprived him of his rights under the copyright law; and he was unable to obtain any redress. He was librarian of the House of Representatives in 1861, and edited the Journal of Alfred Ely, A Prisoner of War in Richmond (1862). He again became head of the returns office in the Interior Department in 1865.

The next few years were spent in literary work at his home in Georgetown, interspersed with frequent fishing and exploring trips. He published a Life of William Woodbridge (1867) and Red Book of Michigan (1871). He was appointed American secretary of the Japanese legation in 1871, and held that position eleven years. As a result of this connection he edited the volume, The Japanese in America (1872), to which he contributed sections on "The Japanese Embassy, " "The Japanese Students, " and "Japanese Poetry. " He was assistant assessor of the District of Columbia in 1885, and librarian of the Washington city library in 1888. The remainder of his life was spent in his Georgetown home, writing and painting.