Nov 30, 2006 - Sale 2095

Sale 2095 - Lot 50

Price Realized: $ 5,280
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
IMPORTANT LETTER FROM A MURDERED ARCTIC EXPLORER HALL, CHARLES F. Autograph Letter Signed, to Arctic philanthropist Henry Grinnell, outlining a plan for an expedition to the North Pole. 4 pages, folded 8vo sheet. Washington, 19 February 1870
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planning for the first american attempt to reach the north pole.
". . . My general plan for my Polar voyage is briefly to have 2 small vessels one a steam propeller of 150 tons, but the same with complete sail rig, the other a top-sail schooner of 125 tons & both vessels with 24 hands all told. My route would be into Josef's Sound & thence as sea & land would permit up toward the Pole. After getting the vessels as far as practicable, I should then secure them in harbor making the rest of the distance by dogs & sledges. The object of this voyage is of 3 fold Character. 1st for geographical discoveries; 2nd for Science; & 3d for Commerce. The finding of new Whaling grounds which must likely lie in the route I propose would of course result beneficially to Commerce. My Sea Masters, of course, would be well experienced Arctic Whalers, the policy having been adhered to by Parry, Franklin, Ross & Kane & other Arctic Explorers . . . In three to five years, I doubt not, with the same aid & protection of High Heaven as on my 2 previous Arctic Voyages I would fully accomplish the determination of my burning soul, which determination my dear Mr. Grinnell, you know to be to put my foot on the North extremity of the axis of the globe . . ."
Hall would indeed receive Congressional financing to stage the voyage and reached Greenland on board The Polaris in September 1871. The expedition, however, was doomed from the start. Disagreements among the crew and a power struggle for command ensued. In November of that year, Hall was poisoned to death by arsenic (according to modern scholarship). The expedition continued but proved unsuccessful, with the ship stuck in the pack and much of the crew stranded in drifting ice.