"I Have Made Four Voyages to Canton:" Benjamin Bowen Carter, Chinese Bibliophile
Benjamin Bowen Carter, son of a Providence, Rhode Island, printer, was introduced to the study of languages at an early age, and by the time he was a student at Brown (Class of 1786), he was able to correspond with his classmates in Latin. Carter went on to a training in medicine and became a physician, practicing first in rural Connecticut. Country life evidently did not suit him and he turned to a life at sea as ship's physician and supercargo. He made four voyages to China in the early 19th century, spending a few year's residence in Canton, where he established a claim to being the first American to learn Chinese.
