Matthew henson north pole biography

Starting in early they traveled by dog sled over the frozen sea, but it turned out to be an unusually warm winter and early spring, and they encountered too many stretches of open water to be able to continue. They got to within miles of the Pole, the farthest north any one had reached to that time. Peary and Henson set out again on July 6, on a ship named after the U.

They sailed to Etah in Greenland and took on board 50 Inuit who were to help set up the supply bases on the route to the Pole. They then went to Cape Columbia at the northern end of Ellesmere Island. Peary and Henson set out from there on the morning of March 1, They were accompanied by or met up with various advance teams along the way. It set up its last supply depot miles from the Pole and then headed back for Cape Columbia.

Marvin never made it. One of the Inuit in the party, Kudlukto, said that he had fallen into a stretch of open water and drowned. Years later Kudlukto confessed that he had shot Marvin and dumped his body in the water when he refused to let one of Kudlukto's young cousins ride on a dog sled. He would make the last dash to the Pole accompanied by Henson.

Bartlett was bitterly disappointed, and the next morning walked alone to the north for a few miles as though he would try to make it on his own. He then turned around and headed south. It made sense for Peary to take Henson: he had much more Arctic experience and was an acknowledged master with the dog teams.

Matthew henson north pole biography: Matthew Alexander Henson was an

But there have always been suggestions that Peary sent Bartlett back because he did not want to share the honor of reaching the Pole with anyone else. Given the racial prejudice at the time, Henson and the four Inuit— Ootah, Seegloo, Ooqueah, and Egingwah—did not "count. A couple of days later, on April 3, Henson was crossing a lane of moving ice, and one of the blocks of ice that he was using for support slipped and he fell into the water.

Fortunately one of the Inuit was next to him and was able to pull him out immediately or he would have frozen and drowned. The normal day's procedure was for Peary to leave the night's camp early in the morning and push ahead for two hours breaking the trail ahead. The others would pack up the camp and then catch up with Peary.

Matthew henson north pole biography: Henson was a very capable

Then Peary who at the age of 52 was already suffering from the leukemia that would later kill him would ride in one of the dogsleds while Henson went ahead and broke trail. They would not see each other until the end of the day. On April 6, Henson arrived at a spot that he, just by calculating the distance traveled, thought must be the North Pole.

When Peary arrived 45 minutes later, Henson greeted him by saying, "I think I'm the first man to sit on the top of the world. Peary then attached an American flag to a staff, and the whole expedition went to sleep. At p. It showed that they were 3 miles short of the Pole. After another nap, Peary took another reading and then set out with Egingwah and Seegloo to where he thought the Pole must be— without telling Henson.

They then spent 30 hours in the vicinity of the Pole, and Henson officially raised the flag over what Peary's calculations told him was the North Pole. Whether it really was the Pole or not has been a source of controversy ever since. Peary and Henson and the four Inuit arrived back at the spot where they had left Bartlett at midnight on April 9, an incredible speed—and reached Cape Columbia on April They stayed there until July 17 when the ice had melted enough for the Roosevelt to steam into open water.

They telegraphed news of their triumph from Labrador on September 6, But by that time, the world already thought that Frederick Cook had been the first one to reach the Pole. Peary spent the next few years defending his claims and was eventually vindicated. By the time Henson got back to the United States he weighed pounds his normal weight was poundsand he was forced to spend several months recovering.

For a while, he accompanied Peary on his lecture tours, where he would be exhibited in his Inuit clothes. In he wrote a book about his experiences A Negro at the North Pole. He retired inat which time there was an effort to have him awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, but nothing came of it. As racial attitudes in the United States changed, Henson began to receive more recognition.

Matthew henson north pole biography: Matthew Henson was an African American

In all of the survivors of the North Pole expedition received the Navy Medal, but Henson's was awarded in private. When he went to attend a banquet in his honor in Chicago innone of the downtown hotels would allow him to register because of his race. It didn't take long for Peary to realize Henson's skills and said of him, " Henson has greater than average intelligence, pluck and knows how to do things.

The fact is, for decades after the expedition, history books named Peary as the first man at the Pole. Photographs do show Peary standing alongside his companions sometimes he had to be supported. As a team, their expeditions from — set a new "Farthest North" record by reaching Greenland's northernmost point, Cape Morris Jesup. And they made two more expeditions to the Arctic, in through Throughout their expeditions, Peary took credit for their accomplishments, while Henson built and maintained all the sledges.

He trained the other western members of their team.

Matthew henson north pole biography: Matthew Alexander Henson (August 8, –

Henson was fluent in the Inuit language and established a rapport with the native people of the region. Whether or not the team actually reached the North Pole inall members of the expedition—including Henson—were critical to the endeavor. You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States.

Your Profile. He later returned to Washington and worked as a salesclerk at a department store. One of his customers was Robert Peary, who in hired him as a personal valet. At the time, Peary was working on the Nicaragua Canal. Their first Arctic expedition together was in — Henson served as a navigator and craftsman, and was known as Peary's "first man".

Like Peary, he studied Inuit survival techniques. During their —09 expedition to Greenland, Henson was one of the six men — including Peary and four Inuit assistants — who claimed to have been the first to reach the geographic North Pole. In interviews, Henson identified as the first member of the party to reach what they believed was the pole.

The team's claim had gained widespread acceptance, but, inWally Herbert published research that found that their expedition records were unreliable and indicated an implausibly high speed during their final rush for the pole, and that the men could have fallen 30—60 miles 48—97 km short of the pole due to navigational matthews henson north pole biography.

Henson achieved a degree of fame as a result of participating in the expedition, and inhe published a memoir titled A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. As he approached old age, his exploits received renewed attention. Inhe was the first African American to be made a life member of The Explorers Club ; inhe was elevated to the club's highest level of membership.

Inhe and his wife were re-interred at Arlington National Cemetery. Henson was born on August 8,on his parents' farm east of the Potomac River in Charles County, Maryland to sharecroppers who had been free people of color before the American Civil War. To escape from racial violence in southern Maryland, the Henson family sold the farm in and moved to Georgetown, then still an independent town adjacent to the national capital.

His father Lemuel remarried to a woman named Caroline and had additional children with her, including daughters and a son. After his father died, Matthew was sent to live with his uncle, who lived in Washington, D. Georgetown was made part of Washington, DC in The uncle paid for a few years of education for Matthew but soon died. His early years were marked by one especially memorable event.

When he was 10 years old, he went to a ceremony honoring Abraham Lincoln, the American president who had fought so hard to preserve the Union during the Civil War and had issued the proclamation that had freed slaves in the occupied Confederate states in At the ceremony, Matthew was greatly inspired by a speech given by Frederick Douglassan escaped slave and renowned orator, the longtime leading figure in the Black American community.

Douglass called upon Black people to vigorously pursue educational opportunities and battle racial prejudice. At the age of 12, the youth made his way to Baltimore, Maryland, a busy port. He went to sea as a cabin boy on the merchant ship Katie Hines, traveling to ports in China, Japan, Africa, and the Russian Arctic seas. While working at a Washington D.

Learning of Henson's sea experience, Peary recruited him as an aide for his planned voyage and surveying expedition to Nicaragua, with four other men. Peary supervised 45 engineers on the canal survey in Nicaragua. Impressed with Henson's seamanship on that voyage, Peary recruited him as a colleague and he became "first man" in his expeditions.

After that, for more than 20 years, their expeditions were to the Arctic. Henson traded with the Inuit and mastered the Inuit language ; [ 3 ] they called him Mahri-Pahluk. His and Peary's teams covered thousands of miles in dog sleds and reached the " Farthest North " point of any Arctic expedition until In —09, Peary mounted his eighth attempt to reach the North Pole.

The expedition was large, as Peary planned to use his system of setting up cached supplies along the way. When he and Henson boarded his ship Rooseveltleaving Greenland on August 18,they were accompanied by. In February, Henson and Peary departed their anchored ship at Ellesmere Island's Cape Sheridanwith the Inuit men and dogs working to lay a trail and supplies along the route to the Pole.

Peary selected Henson and four Inuit as part of the team of six men who would make the final run to the Pole. Before the goal was reached, Peary could no longer continue on foot and rode in a dog sled. Various accounts say he was ill, was exhausted, or had frozen toes. He sent Henson ahead as a scout. I was in the lead that had overshot the mark a couple of miles.

We went back then and I could see that my footprints were the first at the spot. The claim by Peary's team to have reached the North Pole was widely debated in newspapers at the time, as was the competing claim by Frederick Cook. House of Representatives both credited Peary's team with having reached the North Pole.