JOHN

See also:

• LLOYD, EDWARD (1845— )
• LLOYD, WILLIAM (1627–1717)
• LLOYD, WILLIAM WATKISS (1813–1893)

LLOYD

See also:

• STEPHENS, ALEXANDER HAMILTON (1812-1883)
• JOHN LLOYD STEPHENS (1805–1852)

STEPHENS (1805–1852)  , American traveller, was born on the 28th of November 1805, at Shrewsbury, New Jersey . Having been admitted to the bar, he practised for about eight years in New York City . In 1834, the state of his health rendering it advisable that he should travel, he visited Europe, and for two years made a tour through many countries of that Continent, extending his travels to Egypt and Syria . On his return to New York he published in 1837 (under the name of " George " Stephens) Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land . This work was followed next year by the publication of Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia and Poland . In 1839 Stephens arranged with Frederick Catherwood of London, who had accompanied him on some of his travels, and illustrated the above-mentioned publications, to make an exploration in Central America, with a view to discovering and examining the antiquities said to exist there . Stephens, meantime, was appointed to a mission to Central America . The joint travels of Stephens and Catherwood occupied some eight months in 1839 and 1840 . As the result of these researches Stephens published in 1841 Incidents of Travels in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan . In the autumn of 1841 the two travellers made a second exploration of Yucatan, and a work followed in 1843—Incidents of Travel in Yucatan . This work describes the most extensive travels executed till that date by a stranger in the peninsula, and, as the author claims, " contains account of visits to forty-four ruined cities or places in which remains or vestiges of ancient populations were found." It enjoyed a wide popularity, and Stephens was urged to prose-cute his researches of American antiquities in Peru, but was disinclined to so distant an expedition . He became a director of the newly-formed American Ocean Steam Navigation Company, which established the first American line of transatlantic steamships .

He visited

Panama to reconnoitre the ground with a view to the construction of a railway across the isthmus, and, first as vice-president and then as president of the Panama Railway Company, spent the greater part of two years in superintending the project . His health was, however, under-mined by exposure to the climate of Central America, and he died at New York on the loth of October 1852 .