# Quirky individuals in history

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-individuals-in-history/852705>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [April 28, 2020, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-individuals-in-history/852705 "2020-04-28T02:10:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-individuals-in-history/852705/1 "2020-04-28T02:10:22Z")

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I’m thinking of less-than-famous people who were both unusual and notable in various ways. Here are a couple I’ve run across:

**John Ledyard** (1751 - 1789):  
Born in Connecticut  
Attended Dartmouth briefly - ran away in a dugout canoe he build himself  
Impressed into the British Navy  
Sailed with Capt James Cook on his 3rd voyage of exploration  
First US citizen to set foot on what is now the US west coast  
Wrote the first book protected by copyright in the US  
Set off on an overland exploration of Alaska and the western US that began by crossing Russia (he was stopped by order of Catherine The Great)  
Died in Cairo by accidentally poisoning himself with sulfuric acid (ouch)

**Harman Blennerhassett** (1765 - 1831):  
Born into a wealthy English-Irish family  
Married his niece (!)  
Emigrated to the US in 1796  
Built a grand mansion on an island in the Ohio river (at a time when no building within a week’s travel was much more than a log cabin)  
Fell in with Aaron Burr’s goofy schemes to form a separate southwestern country  
Was captured and held in prison on charges of treason supported by Thomas Jefferson  
Was freed when Burr was acquitted  
Tried his hand at running a Mississippi cotton plantation (failed)  
Lost his fortune, returned to England and died on the island of Guernsey