Gagemeister, Leontii

Gagemeister, Leontii Andrianovich 

Born 1780; died 1834. Russian navigator, explorer of the Pacific Ocean, and captain first class.

During 1806-07, Gagemeister completed a voyage on the sloop Neva from Kronstadt across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans to Russian America. From 1808 to 1809 he explored the coast of Alaska and completed a voyage to the northern Pacific Ocean, returning by way of Siberia to St. Petersburg in 1810. From 1812 to 1815 he was chief of the Irkutsk Admiralty; construction of the first vessels to sail on Lake Baikal began under his direction. As commander of the Russian American Company’s ship Kutuzov from 1816 to 1819, Gagemeister completed his first voyage around the world, stopping in Russian America. He circumnavigated the globe a second time on the sloop Krotkii between 1828 and 1830, discovering the Menshikov Atoll in the Marshall Islands and determining the precise locations of a number of other islands. An island and a strait near Alaska were named in honor of Gagemeister.