Mungo Park (September 11, 1771 – 1806) was a Scottish explorer of the African continent. He was credited as being the first Westerner to encounter the Niger River.
Mungo Park was born in Selkirkshire, Scotland at Foulshiels on the Yarrow Water, near Selkirk , on a tenant farm which his father rented from the Duke of Buccleuch. He was the seventh in a family of thirteen. Although tenant farmers, the Parks were relatively well-off –- they were able...
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Mungo Park (September 11, 1771 – 1806) was a Scottish explorer of the African continent. He was credited as being the first Westerner to encounter the Niger River.
Mungo Park was born in Selkirkshire, Scotland at Foulshiels on the Yarrow Water, near Selkirk , on a tenant farm which his father rented from the Duke of Buccleuch. He was the seventh in a family of thirteen. Although tenant farmers, the Parks were relatively well-off –- they were able to pay for Park to have a good education, and Park's father died leaving property valued at £3,000. The Parks were Dissenters, and Park was brought up in the Calvinist tradition.
Park was educated at home before attending Selkirk grammar school, then, at the age of fourteen, he was apprenticed to a surgeon named Thomas Anderson in Selkirk. During his apprenticeship, he made friends with Anderson's son Alexander and became acquainted with his daughter Allison, who would later become his wife.
In October 1788, Park started at the University of...
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