ROBERT E. PEARYRobert E. PearyTHREETheNorth Pole! One white man, a negro, and four Eskimos treading where never before had trodden human foot! And Old Glory flying free at the top of the world! That was on April 6, 1909. After years of such effort as only those can appreciate who have struggled with the frozen North, Robert E. Peary had reached the goal of which he had dreamed for a quarter of a century. The thought, the plan, the untiring effort, were all his, and now the everlasting glory and honor of the achievement were to be his also.Robert E. Peary is a man peculiarly fitted by nature to be the discoverer of the North Pole. He was born in Pennsylvania on May 6, 1856. He comes of an old family of Maine lumbermen, an active, adventurous, outdoor stock of French-Anglo-Saxon origin. His father died when he was three years old, and his mother moved to Portland, Maine, where the boy grew up with the sea and its swimming, rowing, and sailing on one side of him, and the woods and fields to stimulate his love for nature on the other.He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1877, second in a class of fifty-one. In college, besides being a brilliant student, he was a good athlete, being especially proficient in running, jumping, and walking. After graduating he was first a land surveyor, and then in 1879 secured a place in the Coast and Geodetic Survey at Washington. Then he was appointed a member of the Navy Department of Civil Engineering, with the rank of lieutenant. In the first year of his service (1881) he saved the government nearly thirty thousand dollars on a pier that he built at Key West, Florida. He was then sent to Nicaragua as sub-chief of the Interoceanic Canal Survey. There he learned to manage men; he gained experience in equipping expeditions, in making camp under adverse conditions, in traversing wild and unexplored country.It was in 1885, on his return from Nicaragua, that the idea of Arctic exploration first came to him. He managed to secure leave of absence, and sailed in May, 1886. On this voyage he penetrated over a hundred miles into the interior of Greenland. Six years later he proved that Greenland was an island by crossing it and reaching its northern end.After that he continued his explorations, in 1906 reaching 87° 6´, the “farthest north” anyone had yet gone, and in 1909 he reached the Pole. Here is how Peary describes his feelings after he knew that he had succeeded:“But now,” he writes in his book, “The North Pole,” “while quartering the ice in various directions from our camp, I tried to realize that, after twenty-three years of struggles and discouragement, I had at last succeeded in placing the flag of my country at the goal of the world’s desire. It is not easy to write about such a thing, but I knew that we were going back to civilization with the last of the great adventure stories,—a story the world had been waiting to hear for nearly four hundred years, a story that was to be told at last under the folds of the Stars and Stripes, the flag that during a lonely and isolated life had come to be for me the symbol of home and everything I loved—and might never see again.”By special act of Congress Peary was promoted to the rank of rear admiral and received the thanks of Congress. He has been awarded the premier medal of every prominent geographical society in the world.
ROBERT E. PEARY
ROBERT E. PEARY
TheNorth Pole! One white man, a negro, and four Eskimos treading where never before had trodden human foot! And Old Glory flying free at the top of the world! That was on April 6, 1909. After years of such effort as only those can appreciate who have struggled with the frozen North, Robert E. Peary had reached the goal of which he had dreamed for a quarter of a century. The thought, the plan, the untiring effort, were all his, and now the everlasting glory and honor of the achievement were to be his also.
Robert E. Peary is a man peculiarly fitted by nature to be the discoverer of the North Pole. He was born in Pennsylvania on May 6, 1856. He comes of an old family of Maine lumbermen, an active, adventurous, outdoor stock of French-Anglo-Saxon origin. His father died when he was three years old, and his mother moved to Portland, Maine, where the boy grew up with the sea and its swimming, rowing, and sailing on one side of him, and the woods and fields to stimulate his love for nature on the other.
He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1877, second in a class of fifty-one. In college, besides being a brilliant student, he was a good athlete, being especially proficient in running, jumping, and walking. After graduating he was first a land surveyor, and then in 1879 secured a place in the Coast and Geodetic Survey at Washington. Then he was appointed a member of the Navy Department of Civil Engineering, with the rank of lieutenant. In the first year of his service (1881) he saved the government nearly thirty thousand dollars on a pier that he built at Key West, Florida. He was then sent to Nicaragua as sub-chief of the Interoceanic Canal Survey. There he learned to manage men; he gained experience in equipping expeditions, in making camp under adverse conditions, in traversing wild and unexplored country.
It was in 1885, on his return from Nicaragua, that the idea of Arctic exploration first came to him. He managed to secure leave of absence, and sailed in May, 1886. On this voyage he penetrated over a hundred miles into the interior of Greenland. Six years later he proved that Greenland was an island by crossing it and reaching its northern end.
After that he continued his explorations, in 1906 reaching 87° 6´, the “farthest north” anyone had yet gone, and in 1909 he reached the Pole. Here is how Peary describes his feelings after he knew that he had succeeded:
“But now,” he writes in his book, “The North Pole,” “while quartering the ice in various directions from our camp, I tried to realize that, after twenty-three years of struggles and discouragement, I had at last succeeded in placing the flag of my country at the goal of the world’s desire. It is not easy to write about such a thing, but I knew that we were going back to civilization with the last of the great adventure stories,—a story the world had been waiting to hear for nearly four hundred years, a story that was to be told at last under the folds of the Stars and Stripes, the flag that during a lonely and isolated life had come to be for me the symbol of home and everything I loved—and might never see again.”
By special act of Congress Peary was promoted to the rank of rear admiral and received the thanks of Congress. He has been awarded the premier medal of every prominent geographical society in the world.