James Cook grocer and haberdasher William Sanderson. Historians have speculated that this is where Cook first felt the lure of the sea while gazing out of the shop window. After 18 months, not proving suitable for shop work, Cook travelled to the nearby port town of Whitby to be introduced to friends of Sanderson's, John and Henry Walker. The Walkers, who were Quakers, were prominent local ship-owners in the coal trade. Their house is now the Captain Cook Memorial Museum. Cook was taken on as a merchant navy apprentice in their small fleet of vessels, plying coal along the English coast. His
Valentine Seaman Valentine Seaman Valentine Seaman (April 2, 1770 - July 3, 1817) was an American physician who introduced the smallpox vaccine to the United States and mapped yellow fever in New York City. His contributions to public health also include women's education in nursing and midwifery. Seaman was born in 1770 in New York. His family were Quakers. His father, Willet Seaman, was a descendant of Captain John Seaman, who sailed to North America from Brightlington, England, in 1620, settling thereafter in Hempstead, Long Island. Seaman began his studies in medicine in New York under Nicholas Romayne, one of the founders