Robert Peary

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Lore & Background

Robert Edwin Peary was born on May 6, 1856, in Cresson, Pennsylvania. After his father died in 1859, Peary and his mother moved to Portland, Maine. He attended Portland High School, graduating in 1873, then went to Bowdoin College, where he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. He graduated in 1877 with a civil engineering degree. After college, he worked as a draftsman at the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey office in Washington, D.C. He joined the Navy on October 26, 1881, commissioned in the Civil Engineer Corps with the relative rank of lieutenant. From 1884 to 1885, he was an assistant engineer on surveys for the Nicaragua Canal and later became engineer in charge. In April 1886, he wrote a paper for the National Academy of Sciences proposing two methods for crossing Greenland's ice cap. He made his first Arctic expedition in 1886, attempting to cross Greenland by dogsled with Christian Maigaard; they traveled nearly 100 miles due east before turning back due to short food. In November 1887, while surveying for the Nicaragua Canal, Peary met Matthew Henson in a clothing store and hired him as a personal valet. Henson accompanied Peary on every subsequent Arctic expedition. On the 1891–1892 Greenland expedition, Peary took the more difficult northern route. On June 6, 1891, the party left Brooklyn on the SS Kite. In July, the ship's iron tiller broke Peary's lower right leg. He recuperated at a camp called Red Cliff. On May 3, 1892, Peary set out with Henson, Gibson, Cook, and Astrup; after 150 miles, he continued with Astrup. They found Navy Cliff, saw Independence Fjord, and concluded Greenland was an island. They trekked back to Red Cliff on August 6, having traveled 1,250 miles total. During an expedition in 1894, he was the first Western explorer to reach the Cape York meteorite and its fragments. During that expedition, Peary deceived six indigenous individuals, including Minik Wallace, into traveling to the United States with him by promising they would be able to return with tools, weapons and gifts within the year. This promise was unfulfilled and four of the six Inuit died of illnesses within a few months.

Reader's Guide

On his 1898–1902 expedition, Peary set a new 'Farthest North' record by reaching Greenland's northernmost point, Cape Morris Jesup. He also claimed a visual discovery of 'Jesup Land' west of Ellesmere Island in 1899, but this contention has been universally rejected by exploration societies and historians. Peary made two more expeditions to the Arctic, in 1905–1906 and in 1908–1909. During the latter, he claimed to have reached the North Pole. Peary's claim was widely debated along with a competing claim by Frederick Cook, but eventually won widespread acceptance. In 1989, British explorer Wally Herbert concluded Peary did not reach the pole, although he may have come within 60 miles. Peary received several learned society awards during his lifetime, and in 1911 received the Thanks of Congress and was promoted to rear admiral. He served two terms as president of the Explorers Club before retiring in 1911. Peary pioneered the system of using support teams and establishing supply caches for Arctic travel, which he called the 'Peary system.' He was one of the first Arctic explorers to study Inuit survival techniques, building igloos and dressing in practical furs in the native fashion. He relied on the Inuit as hunters and dog-drivers on his expeditions.

Did You Know?

• Peary's lower right leg was broken by a ship's iron tiller in July 1891, but he continued the expedition and his leg mended by February 1892.
• Peary hired Matthew Henson as a personal valet in November 1887 after meeting him in a men's clothing store where Henson worked as a sales clerk.
• During the 1891–1892 expedition, Peary and Eivind Astrup traveled a total of 1,250 miles across Greenland's ice cap.
• Peary deceived six indigenous individuals, including Minik Wallace, into traveling to the United States by promising they could return within a year; four of the six died of illnesses within a few months.
• In 1989, British explorer Wally Herbert concluded Peary did not reach the North Pole, though he may have come within 60 miles.

Naval Career and Arctic Achievements

Robert Edwin Peary's professional trajectory moved steadily from the drafting tables of Washington to the ice fields of the Arctic. After completing a civil engineering degree at Bowdoin College in 1877, he worked briefly as a draftsman for the Coast and Geodetic Survey before receiving his naval commission in the Civil Engineer Corps in October 1881. Early assignments included surveying routes for the Nicaragua Canal, a project ultimately never built. In a 1885 diary entry he recorded his resolve to be the first man to reach the North Pole. That goal propelled a series of Arctic expeditions: a 1886 dogsled trek nearly a hundred miles into Greenland's ice sheet, a 1891–1892 crossing that proved Greenland was an island by reaching Independence Fjord in present-day Peary Land, and a 1898–1902 voyage that set a new Farthest North record at Cape Morris Jesup. Promoted to lieutenant commander in 1901 and commander in 1902, he later served two terms as president of the Explorers Club. In 1911 he received the Thanks of Congress, was promoted to rear admiral, and retired from active service.

The North Pole Claim and Its Aftermath

In April 1909, Peary announced that he had reached the geographic North Pole, a claim that immediately ignited a fierce public debate alongside a competing assertion made by explorer Frederick Cook. For decades the controversy dominated discussions of polar exploration, yet Peary's version gradually won widespread acceptance. He collected numerous awards from learned societies during his lifetime, cementing his public image as the man who had conquered the last great coordinate on Earth. However, the question was never fully settled. In 1989, British explorer Wally Herbert concluded that Peary did not actually reach the Pole, estimating that he may have come within roughly sixty miles of the true point. Today it is considered unlikely that Peary ever stood at the North Pole, transforming his 1909 claim from a celebrated triumph into a complicated chapter in the history of exploration, one that raises questions about early twentieth-century navigation, the reliability of self-reported achievements, and the powerful hold that a single narrative can maintain over public memory.

Matthew Henson and the Inuit

Peary's Arctic work was inseparable from the people who inhabited the regions he explored, and no relationship was more central than his partnership with Matthew Henson. In November 1887, while in Washington seeking a sun hat for a tropical assignment in Nicaragua, Peary met the twenty-one-year-old Henson, a Black man working as a sales clerk with six years of seagoing experience. He hired Henson on the spot as a personal valet, and when Peary later shared his dream of Arctic exploration, Henson became his indispensable field assistant and "first man," accompanying him on every subsequent expedition. Peary was also among the earliest Western explorers to study Inuit survival techniques, knowledge vital for long-distance ice treks. Yet his interactions with indigenous peoples carried a darker dimension. During a 1894 expedition he became the first Westerner to reach the Cape York meteorite and its fragments, which local Inuit had long used to fashion tools. He then deceived six indigenous individuals, including Minik Wallace, into traveling to the United States by promising they could return home with tools, weapons, and gifts within the year. That promise was never fulfilled, and four of the six Inuit died of illness within a few months of arriving.

Formative Years and the Jockey Cap Survey

Robert Edwin Peary's formative years in Maine left a lasting imprint on both his character and his legacy. Born in Cresson, Pennsylvania, in 1856, he lost his father in 1859 and was raised by his mother in the Portland area. He graduated from Portland High School in 1873 and then attended Bowdoin College, where he joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, earned membership in the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, and rowed for the college team. He graduated in 1877 with a degree in civil engineering. In 1878 and 1879, while living in Fryeburg, Maine, he conducted a profile survey from the summit of Jockey Cap Rock, a 360-degree observation that named the larger hills and mountains visible from the peak. After Peary's death in 1920, his boyhood friend Alfred E. Burton suggested the survey be memorialized. The family had it cast in bronze, mounted on a granite cylinder, and erected as a monument in 1938. These early experiences of mapping, observation, and quiet determination in the Maine landscape foreshadowed the methodical, surveyor's mindset he would later bring to the vast and unforgiving terrain of the Arctic.