Robert Edwin Peary

The American explorer Robert Edwin Peary (1856-1920) is famous for his discovery of the North Pole; he was one of the last and greatest of the dog team-and-sledge polar explorers.

Robert Peary was born in Cresson, Pa., on May 6, 1856, but he lived in Maine after the death of his father in 1859. Entering Bowdoin College in 1873, Peary studied civil engineering. An outstanding student of strong, independent judgment, he graduated in 1877.

After working as a county surveyor in Maine and a draftsman in Washington, D.C., Peary passed the civil engineering examinations of the U.S. Navy and was commissioned in 1881. In 1884-1885 he worked on the ship canal survey in Nicaragua, but while there his interest was attracted to the Arctic. He made a brief reconnaissance trip to the Disko Bay area of Greenland in 1886, but his professional duties returned him to Nicaragua for 2 more years. Then, from 1888 to 1891, while engaged in naval engineering along the Eastern seaboard, he prepared for more Arctic work.

In June 1891 Peary, his young wife, and five others, including Matthew Henson, Peary's assistant in all his subsequent Arctic expeditions, and Frederick A. Cook, the party's surgeon and ethnologist, left New York for Greenland. Before returning home in 1892, Peary made a 1,300-mile trek to northeastern Greenland, discovering new land and indicating the insularity of Greenland. Popularly acclaimed for these achievements, Peary was able to organize and finance another Greenland expedition, which began in 1893 and lasted until 1895. This time he attempted additional explorations, but severe weather and illness prevented success. He returned home with two of the three huge meteorites he had discovered (the third was recovered after trips in 1896 and 1897) and with revised plans on polar travel.

Peary's next Arctic journey, from 1898 until 1902, represented his first serious effort to reach the North Pole. He labored and suffered mightily in organizing and conducting this expedition, but he failed to get close to his objective. A major reason for this was the fact that he had eight toes amputated in 1899, although he continued in the field and reached 84°17′N in 1902 before being forced back.

Now realizing the need to reach higher latitudes by ship before embarking with sledges, Peary raised sufficient money to have a ship, the Roosevelt, constructed, and he set out in July 1905 on his seventh expedition. Reaching the north coast of Grant Land and wintering there, Peary and his support party set out with sledges in March 1906. After several weeks of arduous travel over broken ice, the party, weak and exhausted, reached 87°16′N but was forced to turn back with its goal less than 175 miles away.

In July 1908 Peary embarked on what he knew would be his last polar attempt. Accompanied by able assistants and well-equipped, well-trained Eskimos, Peary led a party of 24 men, 19 sledges, and 133 dogs northward from Cape Columbia. His plan called for various support parties to break the trail and carry additional supplies for the main party of six, which alone would cover the last few miles to the pole. On April 1, near the 88th parallel, the final support party turned back, and Peary, Henson, and four Eskimos went on, reaching 90°N on April 6, 1909.

Peary returned to announce his discovery, only to learn that 5 days previously Cook had proclaimed a 1908 visit to the pole. Peary, always austere and direct in manner, minced no words in challenging the authenticity of Cook's claims. In the bitter controversy that followed, the general public often sided with Cook, whose unheralded expedition had dramatic appeal over the carefully planned and officially sponsored labors of Peary. In succeeding years, however, Peary's claims were validated and recognized by Congress and the major geographic societies of the world, whereas Cook's claims, always dubious, did not receive official sanction and suffered from the exposure of additional Cook frauds.

Peary spent his final years as a champion of aviation and the need for greater military preparedness. He died in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20, 1920.

Further Reading

Peary's own books are Northward over the "Great Ice" (1898); Nearest the Pole (1907); The North Pole (1910); and Secrets of Polar Travel (1917). The best biographies of Peary are William Herbert Hobbs, Peary (1936), and John Edward Weems, Peary: The Explorer and the Man (1967). See also Donald B. MacMillan, How Peary Reached the Pole: The Personal Story of His Assistant (1934). The considerable literature on the Peary-Cook controversy is capably reviewed in John Edward Weems, Race to the Pole (1960). □

PEARY, ROBERT EDWIN 1856-1920

Admiral and arctic explorer

Background

Born in Cresson, Pennsylvania, Robert Edwin Peary studied civil engineering at Bowdoin College in Maine, graduating in 1876. In 1879 he joined the U.S. Coast and Geodetic service as a draftsman, and he signed up with the navy as a civil engineer in 1881. In 1884 and 1885 he was sent with a navy expedition to survey prospects for an interoceanic canal in Nicaragua, where he devised locks of a great height for the proposed channel. He returned to Nicaragua in 1887 in charge of new canal surveys. When Congress finally opted for a Panama site in 1902, Peary's surveys were forgotten.

Greenland

Peary's first northern expeditions were to Greenland. In 1886 he set out to cross the island from the western coast on a one-man sled of his own design, achieving greater penetration of the inland ice cap than ever before and greater elevation (2,125 feet). The area he explored around Mount Wistar has ever since been called Peary Land. He realized that a party equipped with snowshoes and skis could use the ice cap as an "imperial highway" to reach the eastern coast. On a second expedition in 1892 he crossed the island northeastward from Whale Sound. This sled trip made him a world figure. Another land crossing in 1895 confirmed that Greenland was an island. On summer trips in 1896 and 1897 he excavated meteorites at Cape York and studied the peculiar wind system of the island.

Still Heading North

Peary was granted a leave from the navy to explore the Arctic from 1898 to 1902. By 1900 he had lost all but two of his toes to frostbite, making all exploration physically difficult for him. In 1900 and 1902 he made two great sledding expeditions northward, reaching Lockwood's Island, thought to have been the northernmost site in Greenland, on 8 May 1900. Realizing there was still more land to the north, he pressed on to Cape Jesup, confirming the glacial origin of so-called floeberg ice, chunks that are too small to be icebergs. In 1902 he tried unsuccessfully for the pole and established a new "farthest north" at 84°17' on 14 April. He was turned back by impossible conditions and returned to naval duty.

The North Pole

Peary had all but given up his dream of reaching the pole, but Robert F. Scott's Antarctic expedition of 1905 encouraged him to try again. He designed a new polar steamship, named the Roosevelt after the exploration-minded American president, to provide a winter base and left on his seventh Arctic expedition on 16 July 1905. The route to the North Pole followed the north coast of Grant Land to Cape Moss and thence across sea ice directly to the pole, some 450 miles further on. On 21 April 1906 a new farthest north was established at 87°6', but the entire party was forced to head south to hunt game to provision the ship. The seventh expedition ended in late autumn 1906 when the Roosevelt was crippled in an ice pack and was forced to head south for repairs. The eighth and last expedition sailed from New York on 6 July 1908. Under Peary's plan there were five cooperating but independent teams, four of which were supporting parties that went back and forth with supplies. The objective was to place the main team on an advanced base at 87°47', 150 miles from the pole. Peary reached the pole on 6 April 1909, and took a comprehensive set of astronomical readings to establish his position. He was made rear admiral by an act of Congress in 1911, but only after submitting to cross-examination by a congressional committee, some of whose members were skeptical of his claims.

Last Years

Peary became an active member of the Aero Club of America and when World War I began in 1914 campaigned tirelessly for the creation of an American air force. He died of pernicious anemia on 20 February 1920.

Sources:

J. Gordon Hayes, Robert Edwin Peary: A Record of his Explorations, 1886-1909 (London: Grant Richards, 1929);

William Herbert Hobbs, Peary (New York: Macmillan, 1936).

Peary, Robert Edwin (1856–1920), American naval officer and Arctic explorer who, for much of the 20th century, was generally acknowledged as being the first white man to reach the North Pole.

Peary was born at Cresson, Pa., and after studying engineering he joined the civil engineer corps of the US Navy in 1881 with the rank of lieutenant. He was always ambitious and in a letter to his mother wrote: ‘remember, mother, I must have fame.’ In 1886 he obtained leave of absence for a trip to Greenland and in 1891 organized an expedition there when he crossed the ice cap and proved for the first time that Greenland was an island. Over the next few years Peary continued his explorations, establishing that a polar ocean lay to the north of Greenland and reaching the highest latitude yet achieved in the western hemisphere. In 1903 he supervised the construction of the Roosevelt, the first ship to be built specifically for Arctic exploration, and in April 1906 reached a latitude of 87° 6- N., beating his previous record by nearly 274 kilometres (170 mls.). In August 1908 the Roosevelt set sail again for Greenland, and in March 1909 Peary and his party set off on sledges to make another attempt to reach the North Pole. This time he apparently believed he had succeeded when with his servant, Matthew Henson, and four Inuit, he reached his goal on 6 April 1909.

A week before Peary returned to make public his success Dr Frederick A. Cook (1865–1940), who had accompanied Peary on his 1891 expedition before becoming a distinguished explorer in his own right, reappeared from the Arctic and claimed that he had reached the North Pole on 21 April 1908. He had accompanied an expedition to the Pole in 1907, but as nothing had been heard of him since his departure, it was thought that he had perished. A bitter controversy followed, but in December 1909 a committee of scientists decided Cook's evidence was not sufficient to prove he had reached the Pole, and ruled in favour of Peary. Cook's later life cast further doubts on his veracity; his claim to have climbed Mt McKinley was refuted, correctly as it turned out decades later, by his companion on that expedition; and he also served five years in prison for the fraudulent promotion of an oil company's stock, though he was granted a Presidential pardon for this a few months before he died. Peary, on the other hand, was lauded as a hero. He was thanked by the US Congress for his work and in 1911 was placed on the retired list with the rank of rear admiral.

Examination of Peary's papers when they were made available in 1984 and those of Cook, which were opened to scrutiny for the first time in 1990, probably show that neither reached the North Pole. If this is correct, then the first person to set foot there was Lt-Colonel Joseph Fletcher who climbed out of a US Air Force C-47 plane after it landed at the Pole in 1952. Both Peary and Cook still have their ardent supporters, and their detractors, but it seems likely that their rival claims will never be finally settled.

See also exploration by sea; north-west passage.

Bibliography

Bryce, R. , Cook & Peary: The Polar Controversy, Resolved (1997).

Robert Edwin Peary , 1856–1920, American arctic explorer, b. Cresson, Pa. In 1881 he entered the U.S. navy as a civil engineer and for several years served in Nicaragua, where he was engaged in making surveys for the Nicaragua Canal. He became interested in arctic exploration and made a trip to the interior of Greenland in 1886; later (1891–92), having secured a leave of absence from the navy, he led an expedition to Greenland for scientific study and exploration. Important ethnological and meteorological observations were recorded, a long sled journey to the northeast coast of Greenland was made, Peary Land was explored, and the insularity and approximate northerly extension of Greenland were confirmed.

New expeditions continued the work in 1893–95, and in two summer voyages (1896, 1897) Peary brought back to the United States his noted meteorites. An account of his arctic experiences appeared in Northward over the Great Ice (1898). Granted another leave of absence from naval duty, he again led an expedition (1898–1902), this time to search for the North Pole. He was only able to reach lat. 84°17′N, but he made important surveys of Ellesmere Land and a study of the surface and drift of the polar ice pack. His Nearest the Pole (1907) recorded the events of his 1905–6 expedition, when he attained lat. 87°6′N, which was only c.174 mi (280 km) from his objective.

In 1908, Peary set out on his last quest for the North Pole. From Ellesmere Island, accompanied by Matthew Henson and four Eskimos, he made a final dash for the pole, which he claimed to have reached on Apr. 6, 1909. He announced that he had achieved his goal, but on his return he learned of the prior claim of Dr. Frederick A. Cook , who had been ship's surgeon on Peary's expedition of 1891–92. An extremely bitter controversy followed, with Peary accusing Cook of fraud. Although Cook fought to the end of his life, not without some support, to substantiate his claim, Congress recognized Peary's achievement and offered him its thanks in 1911, the year in which he retired from the navy with the rank of rear admiral. Nevertheless, it remains questionable as to whether Peary reached the exact location of the North Pole, and many polar experts now do not believe either he or Cook did.

Peary's wife, Josephine Diebitsch Peary, 1863–1955, accompanied him on several of his expeditions and gave birth in the arctic to Peary's daughter, Marie Ahnighito Peary. His wife published her experiences in My Arctic Journal (1893).

Bibliography: See his North Pole (1910) and Secrets of Polar Travel (1917); biographies by W. H. Hobbs (1936) and J. E. Weems (1967); D. B. MacMillan, How Peary Reached the Pole (1934); W. R. Hunt, To Stand at the Pole (1982); M. A. Henson, A Black Explorer at the North Pole (1991); R. M. Bryce Cook and Peary: The Polar Controversy Resolved (1997); F. L. Israel, ed., Robert E. Peary and the Rush to the North Pole (1999).

Peary, Robert Edwin (1856–1920) US Arctic explorer. He made several expeditions to Greenland (1886–92), and in 1893 led the first of five expeditions towards the North Pole. He claimed to have reached the Pole in April 1909.

Peary, Robert Edwin (1856–1920) US explorer. He made eight Arctic voyages before becoming the first person to reach the North Pole, on 6 April 1909.