Stephens, John Lloyd

Stephens, John Lloyd, 1805–52, American author and traveler, b. Shrewsbury, N.J., grad. Columbia College, 1822. His travels (1834–36) in Europe, the Middle East, and Central America provided the material for a number of studies. By far the best are Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia, Petraea, and the Holy Land (1837) and Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland (1838). The last seven years of his life were devoted to planning the Panama RR.

Bibliography

See A. and M. Sutton, Among the Maya Ruins (1967).

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Stephens, John Lloyd

(born Nov. 28, 1805, Shrewsbury, N.J., U.S.—died Oct. 12, 1852, New York, N.Y.) U.S. traveler and archaeologist. Stephens's travels in the Middle East resulted in two books. With his illustrator friend Frederick Catherwood he embarked for Honduras in 1839 to explore ancient Maya ruins rumoured to exist. At Copán, Uxmal, Palenque, and elsewhere, they identified major new sites. They described their findings in Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan (1841) and recounted a second trip in Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843). Their books created a storm of popular and scholarly interest in the region.

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Stephens, John Lloyd (1805–52) traveler, author, promoter; born in Shrewsbury, N.J. A New York lawyer, he began a series of exotic journeys in 1834 and through his books became known as the "American traveler." He wrote Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea and the Holy Land (1837) and Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland (1838). During 1839–41, he traveled in Central America and Mexico with the English artist Frederick Catherwood. His two books on their travel and discoveries, beautifully illustrated by Catherwood, were among the first to publicize Mayan remains and effectively founded the field of Mayan archaeology. He later promoted both steamboat and railroad companies, notably the Panama Railroad (1849–51). He died prematurely from a disease he contracted in Panama.