ROBERT PEARY

Discoverer of the North Pole

On April 6, 1909, an expedition of men fought through the harsh cold to find the actual location of the North Pole. It was their third attempt at finding it and they were overjoyed, for it had been a long-elusive dream of many to accomplish this goal. Peary announced it to the world on September 6, 1909, but then found out that Frederick Cook had just announced the same claim. Though an examination of all available records was made and proclaimed Peary the one true discoverer, this remains even today the largest geographical controversy of all time.

Robert Edwin Peary was born in Cresson, Pennsylvania, on May 6, 1856. An 1877 graduate of Bowdoin College, he joined the U. S. Navy as a civil engineer, eventually rising to the rank of Rear Admiral. After distinguishing himself in tropical assignments, including the surveying of a possible canal route through Nicaragua, Peary turned his sights to the arctic. In 1888 he married Josephine Diebitsch, who shared his ambition and many journeys. In fact, their first child was born in Greenland in 1893. Peary led four expeditions to northern Greenland between 1886 and 1900, proving that Greenland was an island, not a continent. Accompanying him was his wife and the Frederick Cook mentioned above.

Having succesful experience at the rigors of arctic exploration, Peary set his sights on finding the North Pole. 756 people had died trying to do it. The person who achieved this, he realized, would become a very famous person, and be remembered in history for a long, long time. This appealed to Peary very much. As his assistant, he chose a young black man, Matthew Henson, who was to prove essential to the expedition. Those two men along with four Inuits were the party who made the 130-mile last leg of the journey to the North Pole itself.

On April 6, 1909, the party reached the North Pole. It took five months for them to get to a place where they could send a message to the world - "Stars and Stripes nailed to the North Pole - Peary." Controversy arose over Cook's claim, although he lacked any real proof. Some claimed there was a racial bias against Peary because his assistant was black. A National Geographic Society committee recognized Peary's claim. Then in the 1980's the controversy arose again, based on calculations made from Peary's navigational notes. The National Geographic Society again endorsed Peary's claims in 1989, as the navigational notes were determined to be from a previous expedtion.

After his return, he developed an interest in airplanes, particularly their potential for use in exploration and the military. When World War I began, Peary was named chairman of the National Committee on Coast Defense, due to his previous work on such an enterprise. In 1917, he was found to be suffering from anemia, which was an incurable disease. He died on February 20, 1920 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.