Farthest North: The Life and Explorations of Lieutenant James Booth Lockwood, of the Greely Arctic ExpeditionLanman, Charles
History
Farthest North: The Life and Explorations of Lieutenant James Booth Lockwood, of the Greely Arctic Expedition
Lanman, Charles
Arctic regions; Lady Franklin Bay Expedition (1881-1884); Lockwood, James Booth, 1852-1884
Without stopping to discuss the action of Congress or the Government
officials in regard to sending relief to the Greely Expedition, the
writer desires to mention that the names of Senator Joseph R. Hawley
and Representative E. John Ellis, because of their manly action in
Congress in behalf of the suffering explorers, are far more
deserving of places on the charts of the North than those of many
others which have thus been honored. In 1882 a vessel called the
Neptune, Captain William Sopp, was chartered at St. John’s,
Newfoundland, and with a full supply of provisions was dispatched
for Lady Franklin Bay, but failing in her mission returned to
Newfoundland _without leaving_ any of her supplies in the North, but
bringing them all back to St. John’s! In 1883 the steamer Proteus,
Captain Richard Pike, was rechartered at St. John’s, and with a full
supply of provisions sailed for Discovery Harbor, but was crushed in
the ice near Cape Sabine, her crew succeeding in landing in a safe
place a small part of her cargo, some of which was subsequently
utilized by the Greely party.
In 1884 a third rescuing expedition was organized and dispatched for
the relief of the Greely exploring party. That expedition was
composed of a squadron of three ships, the Thetis, the Bear, and the
Alert, under the command of Commander Winfield S. Schley, of the
United States Navy. They left St. John’s on the 12th of May, and,
after the usual tribulations along the western coast of Greenland,
reached the vicinity of Cape Sabine, and discovered the Greely party
at Camp Clay, on Sunday, the 22d of June, seventy-three days after
the death of Lieutenant Lockwood. The discovery was then made that,
out of the twenty-five men connected with the Greely Expedition only
seven were alive, viz., Lieutenant Greely, Brainard, Biederbick,
Fredericks, Long, Connell, and Ellison. As soon as the survivors
could be relieved and transferred to the ships, the remains of the
dead were exhumed with care and taken to the ships for
transportation to the United States, excepting the remains of
Esquimaux Frederick, which were left at Disco.
As the pictures presented by the survivors lying in their camp,
dazed with suffering and surprise and a joy they could not manifest,
and the incidents they subsequently narrated of intense suffering,
can only prove heart-rending to the reader, they will not now be
dwelt upon. The departure of the ships, with their strange list of
dead and living passengers, seemed to enhance the gloom which filled
the sky and rested upon the sea. Their condition was so deplorable,
that a delay of a very few days would have left none to tell the
tale of woe and suffering. At least two could not have lived
twenty-four hours. That this time was gained, under the stimulus of
the twenty-five thousand dollars reward, appears from an article
written by an officer of the Relief Expedition and published in the
“Century” of May, 1885, as follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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