Edmund Fanning (July 16, 1769 – April 23, 1841) was an American explorer and sea captain, known as the "Pathfinder of the Pacific."
Born in Stonington in the British Crown Colony of Connecticut to Gilbert and Huldah Fanning,[1] from nearby Groton he went to sea as a cabin boy at the age of 14, and by the age of 24 was captain of a West Indian brig in which he visited the South Pacific for the first time.
A successful trader, Fanning made a fortune in the China trade, killing seals in the South Pacific and exchanging their skins in China for silks, spices, and tea; which he in turn sold in New York City.
(Fanning Island, today known as Tabuaeran, is today part of Kiribati, while Palmyra, claimed by the Hawaiian Government in 1862 and owned for many years by a Hawaiian family, was purchased in 2000 by the Nature Conservancy for an ongoing study of global warming and its effect on coral reefs.)
His partnership Fanning & Coles built the ship Tonquin in 1807, sailed her around the world several times and sold her for $37,000 to John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company.