A Gold Brick

Robert E. Peary expected glowing accolades and worldwide fame for being first at the North Pole. But a New York physician named Frederick Cook said he had been first. Peary sensed his glory being snatched from his grasp—and mounted a relentless campaign in the press to prove his claim. And Henson? He supported his longtime expedition leader—though Peary didn’t return the favor. He had no more use for his loyal assistant after they returned from the Arctic for the last time. In this episode, we unravel Peary’s and Cook’s controversial claims and recognize Henson as one of history’s most important and innovative polar explorers.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
The Quest for the North Pole is a production of
I Heart Radio and Mental Floss. On most days of
the year. In the early nineteen hundreds, Battle Harbor on
Labrador's Rugged Coast is pretty quiet. The busiest this cod
fishing station gets is when a big catch of fish

(00:23):
comes in and the air buzzes with excitement and activity.
Is the hall as broad Ashore. But in September nine,
a buzz of a different kind fills the salty air.
The tiny village population three hundred finds itself at the
center of a media frenzy it hasn't seen before or since.

(00:45):
Against a backdrop of fishing boats bobbing expectantly in the harbor,
dozens of reporters wearing hats and long thick coats to
guard against the chill, have descended on the wooden dock
waiting for a press conference with Robert E. Peary. These
men have one goal to get the scoop from Perry
on the historic first conquest of the North Pole, and

(01:09):
they want to know if Perry believes another explorer, Frederick A. Cook,
has beaten him to it. Perry's assistant, Donald Baxter McMillan
later sums up what so many are thinking geographers, scientists,
students of Arctic literature. All had questioned the possibility of
ever reaching the pole, And two men within five days

(01:31):
of each other, we're claiming to have done that very thing.
Was this a practical joke? For Peary, the situation is
deadly serious, though he tries not to show it. A
few weeks earlier, while still in Greenland, he had learned
that Cook was claiming he'd reached the North Pole on
April twe almost a full year before Peery himself reached it.

(01:57):
By coincidence, Cook had arrived in the Shetland Islands and
sent word of his conquest to newspapers only about a
week earlier, on September one, five days before Perry made
his announcement from the telegraph office in Indian Harbor, Labrador.
As Peri's controversial news bounces from one tiny telegraph office

(02:18):
to another before finally reaching newspapers, it begins to seem
like Cook has stolen not just Peri's thunder. His claim
of being first to the poll threatens to nullify Perry's
entire Arctic career and his shot at fame. But in
front of the media, Peery appears confident in his success.

(02:40):
A reporter asks how he felt upon reaching the top
of the world. Pierry stands up, shoulders back, and in
a steady voice, answers, can't you imagine how a man
feels after spending twenty three years of the best years
of his life, who had given parts of his body
the body God gave him, and accomplishing his ambition when

(03:03):
he attains it. The room falls silent. Meanwhile, Battle Harbor's
telegraph operator is overwhelmed with messages from news organizations, all
demanding Peri's comment on Cook. Perry is determined to fight
for his honor. To the New York Times, which paid
four thousand dollars for his story, Peery writes, do not

(03:26):
trouble about cook story or attempt to explain any discrepancies
in his statements. The affair will settle itself. He has
not been at the poll on April one, or at
any other time. He has simply handed the public a
gold brick. The next day, the New York Times publishes
a front page article presenting both explorers stories and Peri,

(03:50):
accusing Cook of giving the public a bait and switch.
By the time the Roosevelt reaches Sydney, Nova Scotia. The
Cook Pery controversy is the leading topic of the day,
McMillan wrote. Later, newspaper readers received thousands of postcards in
the mail asking them are you for Cook or Perry.
Reporters found each of the explorers for proof of his claim,

(04:13):
while newspapers fanned the controversy. Though they couldn't have foreseen
this turn of events, Peery and Cook are now locked
in a fierce battle for the title of first man
at the North Pole. When they returned to the United
States after their Arctic adventures, they trade insults in the
press and muster their influential supporters to argue their cases.

(04:36):
Other explorers and scientists scrutinize their records and choose sides.
In this episode, we'll see why everyone was asking not
just who reached the pole first, but whether either of
them had reached it at all. From Mental Floss and

(05:02):
I Heart Radio, this is the Quest for the North Pole.
I'm your host, Cat Long, Science editor at Mental Loss
and this is episode seven. A gold brick. September nine

(05:25):
wasn't the first time Frederick A. Cook and Robert E.
Peary had cross paths. Born in tiny Hortonville, New York.
In eighteen sixty five, Cook moved from his hometown near
the Delaware River to New York City to attend medical school.
He supported his studies with a milk delivery business he
ran with his brother Theodore. Around eighteen ninety, he opened

(05:47):
his own medical practice, but he didn't have many patients.
When he read in the New York Herald the Robert
Peery was planning an expedition to northern Greenland for the
summer of eight he to offer his services. Peery hired
him as a surgeon on the trip. Cook was charismatic, amiable,

(06:08):
and a good doctor, but neither Peery nor his senior assistant,
Matthew Henson, were impressed with his wilderness skills. He was,
to put it bluntly, a hot mess, according to Henson's
biographer Bradley Robinson. On a hunt, Cook scared away the
reindeer by complaining too loudly. On a different hunt, he

(06:29):
missed his target and shot a hole through the side
of a whale boat. When Cook asked to accompany Henson
on one of his walrus hunts, in which one wrong
move could mean being stabbed by a tusk, Henson turned
him down. If dr Cook was to have a gun
in his hand, Matt preferred not to be nearby, his
biographer wrote, Following his expedition with Peery, Cook headed all

(06:53):
the way south, he signed up as a surgeon on
the Belgian and Arctic Expedition, lasting from eight the first
of what historians later dubbed the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration.
Among his crewmates was the Norwegian explorer Roald Amondson, who
later became the first European to sail the entire Northwest

(07:15):
Passage and the first person to stand at the South Pole.
Though he failed to win over Pierry in Henson, Cook's
reputation as a bold adventurer was growing. In three he
attempted to climb Mount McKinley, now called the Nali, which,
at twenty thousand, three hundred and ten feet in elevation,

(07:36):
is North America's highest mountain. While he had to settle
for circumnavigating its base, Cook gave lectures to mountaineering clubs
upon his return to New York and impressed the right
people like Robert Pierry. Cook soon gathered around him a
coterie of well connected comrades to support his adventures. The

(07:56):
Cook's group was more democratic and focused on research then
the Periarctic Club, which existed to fundraise. Cook's group, called
the Explorers Club, included fellow explorer and author Henry Collins Walsh,
Adolphus Greeley and David Brainerd of the notorious eighty one
Greeley Expedition, and Frank Chapman, then the Associate Curator of

(08:18):
Birds and Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History.
In nineteen o six, accompanied by members of the Explorers Club,
Cooke returned to Alaska. This time he claimed to have
made the first ascent of Denali, but this may have
been a case of Cook's daring ambition overshadowing his skills.
Members of his own climbing team later said that they

(08:41):
didn't get anywhere near the top, and the photographic evidence
Cook revealed from the expedition wasn't sufficient to decide the case.
But it didn't matter. Cooke had earned the public's recognition.
With his new status as an audacious outdoor hero, he
set his sights on the North Pole. A Florida casino

(09:03):
magnate named John R. Bradley agreed to give Cook ten
thousand dollars, which would be roughly two dred and eighty
one thousand today to organize a big game hunting trip
to Greenland, which Cook would use as a starting point
for a push to the Pole. The expedition just Cook
at eleven crew members aboard a former fishing schooner named

(09:24):
for Bradley, who would join them in Newfoundland, departed from Gloucester, Massachusetts,
on July three. Unlike Robert Pierry's departure, complete with boat
parades and thousands of cheering fans, hardly anyone noticed Cook leaving.
An Arctic expedition had been born without the usual clamor.

(09:45):
Cook wrote in My Attainment of the Poll is account
that argues his case and takes numerous swipes at Perry.
Prepared in one month and financed by a sportsman whose
only mission was to hunt game animals in North No
press campaign heralded our project. No government aid had been asked,

(10:05):
nor had large contributions been sought from private individuals to
purchase luxuries for a pullman jaunt of a large party.
Pollward here was nonsense, and Perry's idea of a pare
down expedition taken to the extreme. Cook wrote that he
wasn't even sure he'd actually try for the pole until
he got to Greenland, but just in case, he brought

(10:28):
a long wood for sledges, appropriate clothing, and one thousand
pounds of pemmican manufactured by Armoring Company of Chicago. One
resource he didn't bring was a trusted companion like Matthew
Henson who could accompany him to the poll. Basically, he
was just gonna wing it. They initially followed the American

(10:50):
route to Cape York in northwest Greenland. They paused at
inuite villages along the Greenland coast to hunt Walrus's seals
and ducks. But while Bradley was mainly interested in the game,
Cook's dreams of making history took shape as the little
schooner pulled into a harbor at Anoatok, the northernmost village
in Greenland. Normally there were hardly more than a couple

(11:14):
of tents constituting the village, but now a large group
of families had gathered to initiate the winter bear hunt.
It came strongly to me that this was the spot
to make the base for a polar dash. Here were
Eskimo helpers, strong, hefty natives from whom I could select
the best to accompany me, Cook wrote, with a definite

(11:34):
air of entitlement. Here, by a fortunate chance, were the
best dog teams. Here were plenty of furs for clothing,
and here was unlimited food. These supplies, combined with supplies
on the schooner, would give all that was needed for
the campaign. Nothing could have been more ideal. When Cook

(11:56):
informed Bradley of his plans, the two men parted ways.
Bradley left Cook with supplies from the ship and one
of the ship's crew, a German assistant named Rudolph Franca.
Cook obtained the rest of his equipment with the help
of the Innuit. He instructed them in making sledges out
of the tough hickory planks he brought on the Bradley,
and they hunted an astounding number of animals for winter

(12:19):
provisions and for the pole journey in spring. From August
seven to May nine. According to Cook, they captured two thousand,
four hundred and twenty two birds, three hundred and eleven
Arctic hares, three hundred and twenty foxes, thirty six reindeer,
twenty two polar bears, fifty two seals, seventy three walruses,

(12:43):
twenty one nar Walls, three Belugas, and two hundred and
six Muskoks. Cook, Franca and nine Inuit assistants departed a
Noah Talk on February. They drove a convoy of eleven
dog sleds, weighed down with six thousand pounds of equipment

(13:03):
and provisions. Instead of heading north through Kane Basin and
up Kennedy Channel towards Cape Sheridan, as naires and period
had done, Cook traveled west, crossing Smith's Sound to Ellesmere Island.
His rationale was that he could replenish the food supply
for his party and dogs by hunting game in the

(13:23):
valleys west of Ellesmere, which Auto spare Drop had mapped
in his extensive explorations at the end of the nineteenth century.
They could also lay caches of supplies for Cooke's return journey.
The party continued across the island towards Greeley Fiord, which
connected with the head of Nonsen Sound. The sounds other

(13:44):
end met the Arctic Ocean at Cape Thomas Hubbard, a
few hundred miles west from Cape Sheridan along the coast
of Ellesmere Island. There, Cook decided to split up the
party and make a break for the pole. He chose
two young Inuit, it took a shoe and a ella,
and paired down his gear to only the barest minimum
of food, shelter, clothing, and navigational equipment to sustain them

(14:08):
for eighty days. They left land on March eighteenth, with
a journey of five hundred miles ahead of them. Unlike Peery,
Cook didn't send advance parties ahead of his own sledge
to build igloos and lay down supplies at the end
of each march. The three men had to build shelter
and tend to their gear and dogs. Yet they clocked

(14:31):
one hundred miles and crossed the Big Lead, the treacherous
expanse of water and shifting ice that had held Perry
up for nearly a week, in just five days. Cook
spurred on his Inuit companions by fudging their position. Both
a wella and ittook a shoe were sure of a
constant nearness to land. Cook wrote, because of the native

(14:54):
panic out of its reassuring site, I encouraged this daily
chance of s being new Land, as I did concerning
every other possible sign of land further northward. I knew
that only by encouraging a delusion of nearness to land
could I urge them ever farther in the face of
the hardships that must inevitably come. Cook may have thought

(15:17):
he was fooling them, But the new Weeks surely new land.
When they saw it. They could tell the difference between
land and some clouds or an expanse of ice. This was,
after all, their neck of the woods. And what's more,
Cook believed he did spot a new land mass he
named Bradley Land between eight four eight five parallels, which

(15:40):
it turns out didn't exist. Cook's ploy to deceive his
companions and his apparent willingness to lie about their position,
would come back to haunt him. The trio pushed on
as days stretched into the polar spring. In mid April.
Cook's navigational readings suggested that the pole was near. He wrote,

(16:04):
climbing the long ladder of latitudes, there was always the
feeling that each hour's work was bringing us nearer the pole,
the poll which men had sought for three centuries, and
which fortune favoring should be mine. On April one, Cook
believed he had reached his destination. My relief was indescribable.

(16:26):
He wrote, the prize of an international marathon was ours.
Pinning the stars and stripes to a tent pole. I
asserted the achievement in the name of the ninety millions
of countrymen who swear fealty to that flag. Before he
could share the news of his feet, Cook and his
team had to survive the trip home. This proved to

(16:48):
be more difficult than anything they had encountered so far.
Drifting ice slowed their progress and diverted them from their
planned route of return, and they were forced to spend
the dark pole Older winter of nineteen o eight nineteen
o nine in a cave on Canada's Devon Island, just
north of Lancaster Sound. Polar bears stalked them closely. They

(17:13):
endured storms and ran out of food several times, only
to be rescued from starvation by the fortunate capture of
a hare or bird. When Cook it took a shoe
and Alulla did manage to sledge their way back to
a Noah Talk. In April nineteen o nine, he ran
into Harry Whitney, the American big game hunter who had

(17:34):
come up with perious supply ship the previous year. He
told Whitney of his claim and desperate journey. After several
days of rest, Cook and an Inuit companion, departed by dogs,
led to the Danish outpost of Upernibuk, about seven miles
to the south, the fastest way of getting back to
his own civilization and to spread the word of his conquest.

(17:58):
But an explicable lee, he left the proof of that
conquest behind. The journey, Cook wrote, involved difficulties and risk,
the climbing of mountains and glaciers, the crossing of open
leads of water late in the season when the ice
is in motion and the snow is falling, and the
dragging of sledges through slush and water. Mr Whitney, in

(18:20):
view of these dangers, offered to take care of my instruments,
notebooks and flag, and to take them south on his ship.
Cook arrived a new Parentavook on May and remained there
until he could board a steamer to Copenhagen in late August.
On the way, he sent a telegram from the Shetland Islands.
On September one, reached North Pole April one, discovered land

(18:45):
far north, returned to Copenhagen by steamer Hans Agel. Frederick Cook,
the new York Tribune splashed Cook's triumph across its front
page the following morning. For several days, Frederick was the
uncontested discoverer of the holy Grail of the Arctic. As
they neared Copenhagen, Cook was mobbed by reporters in Danish

(19:09):
dignitaries congratulating him on his success. Telegrams and letters poured in.
European Royalty, British journalists, and US officials met Cook as
he debarked from the steamer. I became a helpless leaf
on a whirlwind of excitement, Cook wrote. Then Pieris telegram

(19:30):
came through. Let's take a break here. We'll be right back.
On September, the New York Times ran with the headline

(19:54):
Peery discovers the North Pole after eight trials in twenty
three years. A week earlier, though the competing New York
Herald had gone with the North Pole as discovered by
doctor Frederick A. Cook. The closer Perry's ship, the Roosevelt
got to New York, the more Peery realized that Cook's
story wasn't going away. He and Matthew Henson may have

(20:18):
found Cook's claim ludicrous, but the world at large didn't
Parry was greeted by crowds at the ports the Roosevelt
pulled into, but Cook had his own fans. Thousands of
New York City came out to catch a glimpse of
the charismatic doctor they believed was the first man to
set foot at the North Pole. The press couldn't get

(20:40):
enough of him. He spent hours with reporters, regaling them
with stories of his polar plate. Newspapers in Pennsylvania, New York,
and Ohio ran a pole about which explorer people believed
actually reached the North Pole first. The majority of readers
had sided with Cook initial. Cook was unfazed by Perry's announcement.

(21:03):
He was apparently happy to hear that another American had
reached the North Pole, or perhaps discovered some unknown land
for the benefit of the United States. There is glory
enough for all, he told reporters. Peery and his wealthy
backers felt exactly the opposite way. With his rival's account

(21:23):
gaining momentum, Peery realized his future, his fame, and his
legacy were now in jeopardy. He is under assault because
Frederick Cook has claimed to have reached the Pole a
year earlier, so Peery is desperate and furious because he

(21:43):
believes that Frederick Cook, you know, has stolen the glory.
That's Susan Kaplan, a professor of anthropology and the director
of the Pierry McMillan Arctic Museum at Bowden College. I
mean Frederick Cook had been celebrated in Denmark, where he
had announced that he had gotten to the poll in
Peery claimed to get there in nine and so you

(22:08):
know where Peery was ready to come back and just
be showered with celebration. He came back to this country
into controversy. So I think that there was a lot
of anger and turning inwards that he did. As the
controversy boiled, the Peri Arctic Club challenged Cook's claims and

(22:32):
hinted that Perry had proof of his life. Late in September,
Thomas Hubbard, one of the club's officers, sent a letter
to the press concerning Dr Cook. He said, let him
submit his records and data to some competent authority, and
let that authority draw its own conclusions from the notes
and records. What proof Commander Peery has that Dr Cook

(22:54):
was not at the poll may be submitted later. The
New York Times would had paid handsomely for Peri's scoop
painted him as a trustworthy and accomplished explorer. The Times
article from September seven contrasted Peri's highly publicized quest for
the poll with Cook's under the radar expedition and abrupt announcement.

(23:18):
The next day, the paper fully shifted to team Perry.
An article revealed that Cook had given a lecture in
front of the King of Denmark and the Danish Geographical
Society about killing bears with slingshots and a boat that
hadn't appeared in previous versions of the story. The Times
wrote that Cook's lecture proves conclusively that his claim to

(23:40):
have reached the North Pole belongs to the realm of
fairy tales. Meanwhile, The New York Herald went all in
for Cook. It had reportedly paid the enormous sum of
twenty four thousand dollars for his exclusive that's almost seven
hundred thousand dollars today. The Herald serialized cook story on

(24:00):
its front page for two weeks straight and illustrated it
with his photographs, maps, and flattering portraits of the explorer.
The National Geographic Society, one of Perry's sources of funding,
employed a subcommittee to examine the evidence. With so much
time and money invested in the expedition, they demanded answers.

(24:24):
Cook's lack of evidence didn't help his case. He had
left all of the instruments and notebooks he had in
Greenland with the wealthy hunter Harry Whitney. When Perry's ship,
the S. S. Roosevelt, returned to Greenland in August nine,
Whitney asked for a ride home, and, as Henson wrote
in a diary entry dated August nine, the Commander will

(24:48):
not permit Mr Whitney to bring any of the doctor
cook effects aboard the Roosevelt, and they have been left
in a cash on shore. Cook's case was further weakened
by it took a shoe and owela that two a
New Week guides who had traveled with him the previous year.
When Henson and Donald Baxter McMillan heard about Cook's claim
of the poll they tracked them down to ask them

(25:10):
about the expedition. Henson spoke to the guides and innuctitude.
According to the men, Cook never reached his destination. Henson
recounted the conversation in his diary. Professor McMillan and I
have talked to his two boys and have learned there
is no foundation in fact for such a statement. And
the captain and others of the expedition have questioned them,

(25:33):
and if they were out on the ice of the
Arctic Ocean, it was only for a very short distance,
not more than twenty or twenty five miles. The boys
are positive in this statement, and my own boys, utah
and Quia, have talked to them also and get the
same replies. It's a fact they had a very hard
time and were reduced to low limits, but they have

(25:55):
not been any distance north. Let's paw u to note
that Utah Uquia and the other Inu Wheat were adults,
not boys. Henson, despite his interest in a new white culture,
sometimes referred to the new Wheat as uncivilized. He viewed
them as less evolved than Americans, though perhaps not as

(26:17):
condescendingly as Perry did. One difference between the two explorers
is that Henson believed the Innu Wheat were honest, while
Perry trusted their honesty mostly when it benefited him. Later,
Henson told reporters that the two guides never lost sight
of land, which meant they couldn't have traveled as far

(26:38):
north as Cook claimed in his account of the expedition,
published in four McMillan says the same thing. Perhaps surprisingly,
people accepted Henson's account and the testimony of a touk
Ashu and a Willa. It was a time when the
word of a white man always superseded that of a
black or indigenous man. But Nson's reputation as Perry's loyal

(27:02):
and honest assistant may have swayed public opinion, and his
history with the New Wheae people also made his story convincing.
His good relations with the community were well known, and
he confirmed with The New York Times that he personally
knew the two young men Cook took with him up north.
And maybe Henson's account was taken at face value because

(27:23):
a white man's reputation rested on it. Plus Cook didn't
have anyone else to back him up. While discrediting Cook,
Perry may have thought that his own records and journal
entries would support his claim of the poll. Unfortunately for him,
his proof wasn't much stronger. Here's Edward J. Larson, historian
and author of To the Edges of the Earth nine,

(27:46):
The Race for the Three Polls and the climax of
the age of exploration. One of the big problems with
exploration back then would since you didn't have, you know,
satellites to tell you where you are, only your accomplishments
were based on your work, and of course people could
question your word. And so Amondson and Shackleton and even

(28:10):
Scott these people, and I could keep naming others. These
people always brought along independently credible Europeans of cultural status
and dependability that if they separately calculated the location, you
could trust him. Terry never had anyone like that. He

(28:32):
always only had people along who couldn't calculate, who didn't
have authority. Matthew Henson was an amazing guy, but he
wasn't scientifically credible in that world. Terry's critics and even
some of his supporters questioned why he chose Henson over
Captain Robert Bartlett to accompany him to the poll. Bartlett

(28:56):
was a skilled navigator, tough and searless, the passic image
of the hearty explorer destined for greatness. He broke trail
over hundreds of miles of featureless ice for Pierry's team
on the North Pole journey. He would have been an
admirable choice for the Polar Party. But if Perry had

(29:16):
been concerned that he wouldn't make it to the Pole
and that his only option was to fudge his evidence,
Bartlett would have found him out. So Peery may have
chosen to bring equally tough companions because they wouldn't question
his calculations. And that's why in the end, all of
his claims were based on his own words, and that

(29:38):
word was often doubted. And there may have been another
more nefarious reason, which will get to in a moment.
At any rate, even without hard evidence, Pierry held onto
the public's favor. In a subcommittee of the National Geographic
Society announced that they had found nothing that contradicted his claim.

(30:01):
Several members of Congress introduced bills to promote Perry to
rear admiral and honor his discovery of the North Pole.
On March third leven, the House passed Senate bill sur
conforming his promotion, and the next day President Taft signed
it into law. Perry's story had received the government stamp

(30:23):
of approval, and it looked as though he could finally
bask in the blated glory of his accomplishment. But the
case wasn't closed just yet. There was still a third
party vying for a piece of the recognition. Perry refused
to share his own assistant, Matthew Henson, We'll be right back.

(31:02):
As newspapers pitted Cook against Pie, Henson was largely left
out of the narrative. Reporters described him as Pierrie's valet,
and the public mistakenly assumed him to be a servant
with a small to non existent part in conquering the poll.
When books and newspapers incorrectly described Henson as his quote

(31:23):
colored valet instead of his senior assistant, Perry made no
effort to correct them. In reality, Henson had played a
monumental role. He was Pieri's second in command, serving as
a crucial conduit between the Inwhite and the rest of
the team. He was also the only non in New
White explorer to accompany Peery all the way to the

(31:45):
North Pole. According to some accounts, Henson may have actually
arrived at the poll before Pery after overshooting the journey,
but getting the public to consider a black man reaching
that milestone in an arrow, and scientists doubted black people's
ability to withstand cold temperatures was unlikely justifying his presence

(32:07):
in the Polar Party was hard enough. From the moment
Perry announced his discovery of the poll, his decision to
bring Henson along was scrutinized. We mentioned earlier that Perry
might have had his reasons to avoid taking a skilled
navigator with him to the poll. Now the racist public
couldn't understand why he would choose a black man to

(32:29):
accompany him on the final leg of his journey instead
of any one of the five white men who were available.
In their eyes, not having another white man at the
poll to back up his story tarnished his credibility. Some
relied on common racist stereotypes to rationalize the choice. They

(32:50):
viewed Perry's own description of his party as loyal and
responsive to my will as the fingers of my bright hand,
as evidence that Henson was except only submissive to his commander.
Perry addressed this question in his book The North Pole,
Its Discovery in nineteen o nine under the auspices of
the Perio Arctic Club. He started by praising his assistant

(33:14):
for his experience and mastery of the elements. At this time,
it may be appropriate to say a word regarding my
reasons for selecting Henson as my fellow traveler to the
pole itself. Perry wrote in this selection, I acted exactly
as I have done on all my expeditions for the
last fifteen years. He has, in those years always been

(33:35):
with me at my point farthest north. Moreover, Hanson was
the best man I had with me for this kind
of work, with the exception of the Eskimos, who, with
their racial inheritance of ice technique and their ability to
handle sledges and dogs, were more necessary to me as
members of my own individual party than any white man

(33:55):
could have been. But period didn't stop there. Instead of
dismissing Henson's racist critics, he added fuel to their fire
and contradicted himself while doing so. He continued. The second
reason was that while Henson was more useful to me
than any other member of my expedition, when it came

(34:17):
to traveling with my last party over the polar ice,
he would not have been so competent as the white
members of the expedition in getting himself and his party
back to the land. If Henson had been sent back
with one of the supporting parties from a distance far
out on the ice, and if he had encountered conditions
similar to those which we had to face on the

(34:38):
return journey in nineteen o six, he and his party
would never have reached the land. While faithful to me
and when with me, more effective in covering distance with
a sledge than any of the others. He had not
as a racial inheritance the daring and initiative of Bartlett

(34:58):
or Marvin mc milon or bore Up. I owed it
to him not to subject him to dangers and responsibilities
which he was temperamentally unfit to face. So was Henson
the best man for this kind of work where someone
who couldn't be trusted purely because of his race to

(35:19):
find his way home. If Peery truly believed that Henson
was less motivated and competent than his white team members,
then choosing to explore the Arctic with him for nearly
two decades wouldn't make much sense. Here's what Susan Kaplan
has to say. I think what we learned in talking

(35:40):
to the New Weed and in reading some of the
journals is that Robert Bartlett was a terrible dog sled driver,
where Matthew Henson was an expert. So there's also the
factor of skill. What Peery did was he was sort
of watching how people were forming as they were relaying

(36:02):
supplies back and forth across the Polar Sea, and in
the end he picked the most talented inu Wheat. He
then had them look and pick the strongest dogs from
all these teams. And if he was going to choose someone,
it makes sense that he's going to choose Matthew Henson

(36:25):
because of Matthew Henson's ability to communicate with the in
New Wheat, their respect of him, and Matthew Henson's traveling abilities,
which are all characteristics that Bartlett did not have. Donald
McMillan painted a similar picture of how Perry viewed his
right hand man, the expedition member who had to turn

(36:49):
back from the quest early due to frostbite, recalled a
moment inside the S. S. Roosevelt as Peary was preparing
to set off on his journey. He carefully weighed the
value of each man for the dash to the pole.
A knock on my door, Perry entered and sat down
on my bunk. He spoke of Bartlett, of Ross Marvin,

(37:10):
of George Borup, of the surgeon John Goodzell, of the
part each one was to play in this my last attempt.
When each man has fed me and my men up
to a certain point within striking distance of the poll,
their work is done. They shall be no longer needed.
Perry sat there thinking for a moment, and then added,

(37:32):
but Henson is not to return. I can't get along
without him. I think that here is the greatest compliment
that Perry has ever paid to any man. Perry knew
matt Henson's real worth, and so did we from the
day we joined the ship at the foot of East
twenty three Street in New York. Matthew Henson went to

(37:53):
the poll with Peerry because he was a better man
than any one of us. Many accounts of Henson, including McMillan's,
described him as friendly, hard working, and kind. Henson certainly
faced more pressure to be agreeable than his white peers.
Here's James Edward Mills, a freelance journalist, independent producer, and

(38:15):
faculty assistant at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at
the University of Wisconsin and the author of the adventure
Gap Changing the Face of the Outdoors. The Innuit people
described him as Henson the kind one you know, so
whether he was doing it for show or not. You know,
people who had no vested interest in allowing him to

(38:36):
pull the wool over their eyes or the seal bowl
to make a pun. He didn't pull them a very
at least he was wildly successful at pulling them if
it was an act. But I mean, but frankly, I
don't think that in that situation it would be really hard.
I think, you know, to put on a cheerful face
that wasn't genuine under those circumstances. Another more sinister factory

(39:00):
have motivated Perry to bring him to the North Pole
over his white crew members. Peery was determined to be
the first person to conquer the poll and honor. He
didn't plan on sharing with the five other people with him.
By being the only white man in the party, he
may have betted on the public viewing him as the

(39:20):
one true conquering hero. Here's kaplan. He had done all
the planning, and this was his idea, and so he
wanted the glory. That's the ego that worked into the story.
There has been a lot of discussion about the makeup

(39:41):
of the North Pole team. In the end, it was
Peery and Hansen and four in New Wheat and all
the other in New Wheat and Western crew were sent
back to the base camp after the had done a
certain number of relays and left cashes of food and

(40:04):
equipment on the sea ice so that Peery's team could
use them and not have to carry all those supplies
with them. And there's been a great deal of discussion
about why he sent Robert Bartlett, who was captain of
the Roosevelt, and why he sent Bartlett back, and some

(40:28):
people feel it's because Bartlett was not an American, he
was a Newfoundlander, and that Peery did not want a
white person who was not from the United States at
the North Pole. Other people feel that perhaps Bartlett would
know if they weren't at the North Pole, with Peery

(40:49):
said they were. But there is also that sense that
Peery wanted to be the lone white Westerner at the pole.
Contrast that racially tinged hunger for glory with Hinson's possible
reasons for seeking the poll. Here's James Edward Mills. I
want to believe that Himston was doing it share adventure

(41:11):
because it apparently wasn gonna get any credit for it.
But for Perry, it was all about the credit. That's
what was motivating him. And I think that that's how
at least for me personally. You know, I think that
when you had that as your primary coal you're not
going to be successful in the greatest scheme of things. Yeah. Sure,
you might put your flag on the top, you might
be able to you know, get your picture of the

(41:32):
paper and so forth, but you start to live with yourself.
And I think that, um, that to me is a
failing of a lot of people who do great things
early in life or at at some point in their lives,
and they basically spent the rest of their lives living
up to that. And typically you failed because I mean,
how do you maintained that for the rest of your life?

(41:53):
Because we all get old, we all get infirmed. You know,
I kind of got the impression because I mean, Henson lived,
you know, almost thirty years longer than Perry did, and
I want to believe that it was his good attitude
that made that possible. Perry's lust for fame didn't end
when he took the poll. Back at home, Perry went

(42:13):
out of his way to keep Henson and the rest
of the party out of his spotlight. If any expedition
members wanted to capitalize on their experiences on the journey.
They needed to get Perry's approval first, and meanwhile, Henson
did whatever he could to make a living. Henson had
taken one and twenty photographs on the expedition, and he

(42:35):
turned all of them over to Perry as part of
their partnership agreement. Originally, Perry was supposed to pay for
any pictures he wanted to feature on his lecture tour
and give back the rest. While he did return the
photos he didn't use, he never paid for the ones
he kept, despite Henson's many letters requesting restitution. Henson also

(42:59):
requested to in his own lecture tour, but Peery never responded,
so Henson signed on with an agent and began giving
talks in northeastern cities. In October nine nine, as he
was planning his first event, Peery sent a telegram to
Henson asking him to stop sharing pictures from the expedition.
His white benefactors already didn't approve of his decision to

(43:22):
have a black man accompany him to the poll, and
Pierry wanted the controversy to go away. Keeping Henson out
of the public eye was one way to make that happen.
At a lecture in Syracuse, New York, on March tenth,
Henson revealed to a local reporter that he hadn't heard
as much as a peep barring the telegram asking him

(43:44):
not to pursue the lectures from his former commander since
the Roosevelt had arrived in New York the previous October.
Henson expressed disappointment at having seemingly been forgotten, but Henson's wife, Lucy,
who was with her husband at the lecture venue, really
lit into Perry. She told Syracuse's Post Standard regarding what

(44:08):
Mr Peerry has done for Matt since they returned from
the poll, just one word can express that nothing. Mr
Peerry has dropped Matt entirely, and has held no communication
with him or done a single thing in recognition of
his twenty three years of faithful service, to say nothing
of Matt having saved Mr Peery's life on more than

(44:28):
one occasion. It seems to me that such treatment is
not fair, she continued. So far as Mr Peery knows
or cares for all the interest he's shown, Matt might
be starving to death. I doubt if Mr Peerry knows
where Matt is at present, and such quick ingratitude, perhaps
I should not use so strong a word, even if

(44:50):
his treatment of Matt does warrant it is pretty hard.
Probably Mr Peery, who was getting all the glory any
one man can reasonably hope to get in his lifetime,
has no time to think of Matt, to who much
of the success of the expedition was due. With few
other options, Henson took odd jobs to get by, working

(45:12):
at the post office and as a handyman in a
Brooklyn garage. In President William Howard Taft learned of his
troubles and signed an executive order appointing him as a
messenger and then as a clerk at the U. S
Custom Service. For the next twenty three years, he worked
on the third floor of the Customs House in Lower Manhattan. Meanwhile,

(45:36):
the white members of the North Pole Expedition were showered
with praise. Perry and the others received awards and were
honored at ceremonies that Henson couldn't even attend because of
his race. Donald McMillan, who became Henson's close friend, and
a few accomplices, allegedly tried to sneak Henson into a
New York event by disguising him as an Arab dignitary.

(46:00):
While white society and Peary himself failed to recognize or
honor Henson's achievements, the African American community hailed him as
a hero. Upon his return from the Arctic, black leaders
held a glamorous dinner in his honor at Tuxedo Hall
in Midtown Manhattan. More than two hundred people attended. Peary

(46:21):
sent a congratulatory telegram from Maine. Henson was given a
diamond studded gold Tiffany watch inscribed with the initials M. A. H.
Nineteen o nine. The guests enjoyed a sumptuous dinner including
blue point oysters, kennebec salmon, tenderloin of beef, numerous side dishes,
and sorbet allah Henson. Speeches were made celebrating his achievement.

(46:45):
The dinner's host, the powerful federal official Charles w Anderson, announced,
whatever may be said in the controversy as to which
white man discovered the pole, there is not a shadow
of a doubt as to which black man got there.
When it was his turn to speak, Henson reflected on
the criticisms he faced before his journey. When I went

(47:05):
to Greenland, they said I never would come back. They
told me I couldn't stand the cold, that no black
man could. I said I was willing to die if
necessary to show them I survived, all right, And here
I am. Here's Susan Kaplan. The irony here is that
once the North Pole crew returned to Canada and then

(47:30):
the United States, the racism in this country was such
that Matthew Henson did not get the recognition that he
absolutely deserved. And Peery can be faulted in that he
did not insist that Matthew Henson got that recognition. So

(47:50):
they had an interesting relationship. I can't say that they
had a warm relationship, at least not from anything that
we've been able to discover. You know, they were not
best friends, but certainly Peery did resuspect him and rely
on him. Their relationship remained frozen, pardon the pun, until

(48:13):
Peery's death on February at age sixty four. In the
days that followed, the New York Times ran several stories
dedicated to his life and legacy. There was an outpouring
of adulation from his peers, including polar explorers Ernest Shackleton
and Villamour Stephenson. Stephenson said Peery was easily the foremost

(48:36):
of all polar explorers, both north and south. President Waldrow
Wilson also expressed his admiration in a condolence telegram to
Peery's widow, Josephine. He wrote, Mrs Wilson joins me and
extending our warmest sympathy to you and your children, and
the death of your distinguished husband made the memory of

(48:57):
his intrepid and indefatigable efforts and cause of science do
much to assuade your grief. Peary was given a hero's
burial at Arlington National Cemetery with a level of grandeur
The Times called unusual. His casket, draped with the American
flag that flew at the North Pole, was sent off

(49:18):
by a naval firing squad and bugler. Honorary pall bearers
included the US Vice President, the Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, the French ambassador to the US, Villamour Stephenson,
Alexander Graham Bell, and North Pole expedition members Donald McMillan
and Robert Bartlett. Notably, Henson was not among them, or

(49:41):
at least not mentioned in the many news reports. Peary's
legacy had been encoded in United States history. After his death,
newspapers and the white public forgot about Henson, but his
African American supporters never did. Henson retired from his customs

(50:02):
house job in nineteen thirty six on a clerk's pension
of eighty seven dollars and twenty seven cents a month.
Adjusted for inflation, that would be worth roughly one thousand,
five hundred fifty dollars a month or eighteen thousand, six
hundred dollars a year today. African American leaders petitioned Congress

(50:22):
multiple times to recognize Henson's polar accomplishments with an appropriate pension. Characteristically,
Henson responded to their efforts by saying, I could use
the money. I think that I deserve it, but I
will never ask the government nor anybody else for anything.
I have worked sixty of the seventy years of my life,

(50:43):
so I guess I can make out on the eight
seven twenty seven a month pension I've earned. Here. After
several bills were introduced and killed in committee, lawmakers presented
House Resolution one to three eight eight, which would have
secured Henson a gold medal and a pension. The black

(51:03):
leaders who argued for the legislation, pointed out that Peery
had received numerous awards and a generous pension, and if
Henson had been white, he would have already been recognized.
The bill was approved by the House, but didn't make
it past the Senate. As black run newspapers and magazines

(51:24):
covered him. In the decades following the North Pole trip,
his public profile grew. In seven, Henson did receive one
long overdue honor. The Explorers Club elected him to be
their first African American life member. Two years later, the
club extended honorary membership to another integral but overlooked member

(51:45):
of the North Pole Journey, Utah Perry's long time lead
guide and driver in Greenland. In Congress established the Peery
Polar Expedition and Medal to commemorate the expedition of nineteen
o eight to nineteen o nine. According to citations accompanying

(52:07):
the medal, it recognized outstanding service to the Government of
the United States in the field of science and for
the cause of polar exploration and exceptional fortitude, superb seamanship,
and fearless determination on the important and difficult mission of
Perie's five main Western expedition members Donald McMillan, Robert Bartlett,

(52:31):
and Henson were still alive. Ross Marvin had drowned during
the expedition and George Borup had drowned in a boating
accident in nineteen twelve, but only McMillan and Bartlett received
their medals in an event in May aboard Bartlett's schooner,
the F. E. M. Morrissey, since renamed the Ernestina, at

(52:52):
the Boston Army Base. At the ceremony, McMillan said, I
guess Matt will receive his medal by mail. Actually, the
Navy invited Henson to its downtown New York office, where
a captain read a citation and bestowed the medal. Hardly
the grand reception that the other explorers received, but at

(53:16):
least he didn't receive it in the mail. McMillan showed
up again to lobby the Geographic Society of Chicago to
recognize Henson for his polar contributions. He was joined in
the effort by Eugene F. McDonald Jr. The leader of
the Zenith Corporation and an admirer of Henson's. Society honored

(53:38):
the explorer with its gold medal. Henson considered it his
most prize possession. To historically black universities, Morgan State in
Baltimore and Howard University in Washington, d C awarded Henson
honorary master's degrees. He also donated the snowshoes, parka and

(53:58):
sealskin boots he wore on the North Pole journey to
Dillard University, historically black college in New Orleans. The school
showed its gratitude by renaming a hall after him. Here's
Susan Kaplan. Certainly, the other crew members were very concerned
that Matthew Henson was not getting the recognition he deserved,

(54:21):
and many years later a number of them lobby various
geographical societies, and Matthew Henson is while he's still alive,
is awarded many of the medals that the other crew
members had been given that had been denied him. At

(54:42):
long last, Henson's contributions were recognized by the highest office
in the country, President Dwight Eisenhower invited him to the
White House in April in honor of the forty five
anniversary of the North Pole Expedition. An ap photographer was
the are to document the meeting, and an image of

(55:02):
Henson and the President, pointing out the north pole on
a globe was seen in newspapers across the country. In
nineteen fifty four, at age eight, Henson celebrated his exploring
days with one last party. He was among the guests
of honor at the Explorers Club's fiftieth anniversary dinner and
the Grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria in New York.

(55:26):
His old friend Utah was also invited, but he was
unable to travel due to an illness. The club's annual
banquet had become one of New York City's premier social events.
Stephenson described the scene. Tables are bought up a year
in advance by the friends and admirers of the Exploring Brotherhood.

(55:47):
They do this for many reasons, not the least of
which is to see again the old timers, particularly those
who sit with the speakers of the evening at the
long table on the rostrum. In nineteen fifty four, one
those old timers was Matthew Henson. Stephenson wrote, where Matt
sets among the guests of honor is always one of
the most popular spots of the rostrum. Some of history's

(56:11):
most rugged explorers were in attendance at one point, Henson
shared a lengthy toast in Inuctitute with Peter Frekin, the
towering Danish polar adventurer. Appropriately, the ice and their Scotch
highballs had been chipped from the massive T three iceberg,
where the U S had recently set up an Arctic
research base and flown to New York just for the event.

(56:35):
As Frikan finished his toast, he poked a finger into
a Scotch and flipped out the cubes. I drink it
without ice, he said. Befriended by his new white partners,
respected by his fellow explorers, and honored by the black community,
Matthew Henson left a unique and multifaceted legacy. He died

(56:57):
on March nine, at age eight of a cerebral hemorrhage
at St. Clair's Hospital, Manhattan. Compared to the hero's funeral
pery received, Henson's death was little noticed in white America.
The black community, however, came out in droves to celebrate

(57:17):
his life. His funeral was held at the Abyssinian Baptist
Church in Harlem, of which Henson and his wife Lucy
were longtime members. According to the Amsterdam News, thousands of
people attended the Service led by Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
While eulogizing Henson, Powell compared his achievements to those of

(57:40):
Marco Polo and Ferdinand Magellan. Henson's paul thereers included Peter
Frekin and other members of the Explorers Club. Lacking money
for a grand burial, Lucy had him laid to rest
near her mother in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. In
the decades that fall, load henson supporters continued to fight

(58:02):
for his recognition. His friend and fellow explorer, Herbert Frisbie,
successfully petitioned the State of Maryland to declare April sixth,
nineteen fifty nine, the fiftieth anniversary of the North Pole
Achievement Matthew Alexander Henson Day. In nineteen sixty one, a
bronze plaque honoring Henson at the Maryland State House became

(58:24):
the first state sponsored memorial to an African American person
in Maryland's history. Since then, Maryland has named a state park,
a hiking trail, and multiple schools after the explorer. Perhaps
the most poetic justice for Henson arrived forty five years
after his death. The National Geographic Society awarded Henson the

(58:46):
Hubbard Medal, its highest honor, for his contributions to geographical knowledge.
Way back in nineteen o six, Pierry had been the
Hubbard Medal's inaugural recipient. Back then, President the at Or
Roosevelt personally gave a speech honoring the explorers farthest north.
The ceremony honoring Henson and his long ago triumphs wasn't

(59:09):
as glitzy, but it righted a historic wrong. Even after Peery, Cook,
and Henson were gone, the argument over who reached the
North Pole first wasn't settled. A TV docu drama that
made the case for Cook stirred up the controversy in
the nineteen eighties and forced Peerie's descendants into the conversation.

(59:32):
For decades, they had kept his expedition journals at the
National Archives locked away from curious researchers. In light of
the attack on Peri's legacy, his family begrudgingly made the
papers available to the public. The National Geographic Society commissioned
polar adventurer Wally Herbert to analyze the data, and in

(59:54):
he concluded in a bombshell National Geographic article that Peery
likely hadn't made it to the poll. Cook supporters were ecstatic.
After years it seemed he had finally been vindigated. But
while the National Geographic report didn't look good for Peery,
it didn't confirm Cook's alleged achievement. The case had not

(01:00:18):
been solved. The National Geographic Society then commissioned nonpartisan experts
at the Navigation Foundation to analyze the Perry expedition a
second time in December. They found that Perry's claim was genuine.
But the popular consensus among polar historians today is that

(01:00:39):
Peery came pretty close to the North Pole, definitely closer
than any other explorer had at the time. Well Cook
came nowhere near it. Just how close each of them
were may never be known. It wouldn't be until the
nineteen sixties that anyone could truly, indisputably claim to have

(01:01:00):
the long, hard journey across the ice to stand at
the North Pole. And that person was about as far
from the heroic image embodied by Polar conquerors William Edward Perry,
fritz Off Nonsen, or Robert Peary as can be conceived.

(01:01:34):
The Quest for the North Pole is hosted by me
cat Long. This episode was researched by me and written
by Michelle Bebcheck, with fact checking by Austin Thompson. The
executive producers are Aaron McCarthy and Tyler Clang. The supervising
producer is Dylan Fagan. The show is edited by Dylan Fagan.

(01:01:55):
Thanks to our experts Edward Larson, Susan Kaplan, and James
Edward Mill For transcripts, a glossary, and to learn more
about this episode, visit Mental flaws dot com slash podcast.
The Quest for the North Pole is a production of
I Heart Radio and Mental Flaws. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, check out the I heart Radio app,

(01:02:17):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more

(01:02:41):
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