Born to unmarried parents in 1841 in north Wales and named John Rowlands after his presumed father, Stanley sailed to New Orleans at the age of 18, jumped ship, an was taken in by a cotton broker whose name he later assumed. He fought on both sides in the U.S. Civil War, served in the U.S. Navy, and then began a career as a journalist. He is most well known for searching for and finding the British missionary/explorer, David Livingstone, next to Lake Tanganyika where he was recovering from an illness contracted during his quest to find the source of the Nile River. He had undertaken the search on behalf of New York Herald owner James Gordon Bennett. Stanley returned to England in 1892 and reclaimed his British citizenship. He was elected to parliament in 1895, left politics in 1900, and died in 1904. [See Mount Livingstone in Alberta and Mount Livingstone in British Columbia.