Strangers – Today

Frederick Marryat, July 10, 1792 – August 9, 1848

Frederick Marryat was a British naval officer and author. He entered the Royal Navy as a midshipman in 1806, at the age of 14. Marryat served for nearly two and half decades, including during the War of 1812, and rose to the rank of captain. Near the end of his military career, Marryat began writing and pursued his literary endeavors full time following his retirement from the Royal Navy. He published a number of popular nautical adventure novels, as well as several children's books. Marryat's visit to the Athenaeum came during a two-year trip to America, which resulted in his travelogue Diary in America (1839). The Athenaeum holds in its collections early editions of this and multiple other works by Marryat. The Record of Strangers indicates that Marryat visited the Athenaeum multiple times over the years.

Portrait courtesy of the Library of Congress — Source — Source — Source

Louis Laurent Marie Clerc, December 26, 1785 - July 18, 1869

Laurent Clerc was a pioneer in the education and public perception of deaf and nonverbal individuals in the United States. Although he was born and lived in France until 1815, he has been called "The Apostle of the Deaf in America". Clerc founded the oldest existing school for the deaf in North America, now known as the American School for the Deaf, in Hartford, Connecticut. Prior to 1821, the school was known as The American Asylum, At Hartford, For The Education And Instruction Of The Deaf And Dumb, as indicated by a note accompanying another one of Clerc's entries in the Record of Strangers. Clerc himself was deaf, and was also without a sense of smell.

Portrait courtesy of Wikimedia Commons — Source — Source

Gilbert Rodman, August 21, 1800 – January 15, 1862

Gilbert Rodman was an American lawyer and bureaucrat. He studied law before setting up a practice in Lancaster, and later in Philadelphia. Rodman rose through the bureaucratic ranks to become Chief Clerk to the Secretary of the Treasury, occasionally acting as Solicitor or Secretary of the Treasury when the office was vacant.

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