Speaker 1: Personology is a production of I Heart Radio. Matthew Henson
Speaker 1: was an American explorer and is best known for being
Speaker 1: the first person to have reached the geographic North Pole.
Speaker 1: He was a leader in seven expeditions to the Arctic.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Cat Long, science editor at Mental
Speaker 1: Flaws and host of the podcast The Quest for the
Speaker 1: North Pole. Today we're going to talk about Matthew Henson,
Speaker 1: who was born in August of eighteen sixty six in
Speaker 1: Maryland to actually free black Americans before the Civil War,
Speaker 1: which is already interesting and unusual in and of itself.
Speaker 1: So maybe we could talk a little bit about what
Speaker 1: we do know of his early family life. There are
Speaker 1: actually some conflicting accounts, believe it or not. Henson wrote
Speaker 1: a book about their achievement of reaching the North Pole
Speaker 1: after they did that in nineteen o nine, and he
Speaker 1: had a very brief discussion of his young life. He,
Speaker 1: like you said, was born right after the Civil War
Speaker 1: in Maryland and Charles County, Maryland, which during the Civil
Speaker 1: War was a slave area. Maryland was a border state,
Speaker 1: part of the state was free, part of the state
Speaker 1: still held slaves. So he was born into a really
Speaker 1: tumultuous time period. It's hard to say exactly how that
Speaker 1: shaped him, but I think it must have, especially that
Speaker 1: his parents were free. They were never enslaved people, and
Speaker 1: I believe they were farmers or worked in kind of
Speaker 1: a rural economy. But when he was really young, either
Speaker 1: he ran away from home because he had a cruel stepmother,
Speaker 1: or he and his family moved to Washington, d c.
Speaker 1: And there he went to school for a period of time.
Speaker 1: Important also to note that his mother died when he
Speaker 1: was seven. I mean that is a significant and traumatic
Speaker 1: loss for anyone, and even in those days when one
Speaker 1: was more likely to die young, still a big loss,
Speaker 1: and left the father to ultimately remarry and have a
Speaker 1: stepmother to whom it seems he was not as close
Speaker 1: or as comfortable with. He did have an older sister
Speaker 1: and two younger sisters. And also important is to know
Speaker 1: that while it was unusual and as you said, a
Speaker 1: tumultuous time to be free and black and living in Maryland,
Speaker 1: they were subjected to attacks by the Clue Klux Klan
Speaker 1: and other white supremacist groups who were intent on terrorizing
Speaker 1: people who were formerly free, and that must have also
Speaker 1: been difficult and traumatic. That's a scene that we see
Speaker 1: in a biography that was written with Matthew Henson by
Speaker 1: Bradley Robinson UM in the sixties forties. There was one
Speaker 1: in the sixties two that took heavily from that, but
Speaker 1: I think it was maybe in the forties or fifties,
Speaker 1: and that was not uncommon in Maryland. From what I understand,
Speaker 1: it seems to me likely that he would want to
Speaker 1: have gotten away from that kind of persecution, and so
Speaker 1: he eventually made his way to Washington, D C. He
Speaker 1: did say in his nineteen o nine twelve Sorry book
Speaker 1: after he went to the North Pole that he attended
Speaker 1: the m Street School, which was a really well known,
Speaker 1: really respected school for African American students, and it was
Speaker 1: run by a number of really progressive African American educators UM,
Speaker 1: which is kind of exciting. It was a really good
Speaker 1: thing for him to have gone to that school. Was
Speaker 1: that school in Washington, d C. Or in Georgetown? At
Speaker 1: the time, Georgetown was a separate part from Washington, D C.
Speaker 1: The two cities were right next to each other, and
Speaker 1: they were a bit separated, but they did eventually join together.
Speaker 1: So I think it is in Washington d c though,
Speaker 1: and do we know anything about the kind of student
Speaker 1: that he was, I mean, realizing that he was only
Speaker 1: able to stay in school limited time, but in this school.
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to find any information about it.
Speaker 1: I have looked into it, because he does speak at
Speaker 1: times in his later writing about poetry, about Dickens, about
Speaker 1: books that he really liked to read, which, again it's
Speaker 1: hard to say for sure, but maybe he picked up
Speaker 1: from one of these progressive educators at the m Street
Speaker 1: School a love of reading or literature, or just an
Speaker 1: interest in the world beyond his own life. So it's
Speaker 1: hard to say what kind of student he was, but
Speaker 1: he was at least very curious and at least very adventurous,
Speaker 1: because he did then join the crew of a ship
Speaker 1: called the Katie Hines. He made his way to Baltimore
Speaker 1: and signed up as a cabin boy on this ship
Speaker 1: to go back for one second, because so he's in school,
Speaker 1: but his father dies and he has to actually go
Speaker 1: live with an uncle. And that's important just because at
Speaker 1: a young age he's cut loose, right. He doesn't have
Speaker 1: parents anymore really officially, and the uncle did pay for
Speaker 1: a few years of his education, but he also died,
Speaker 1: so in a sense, I just think it's important to
Speaker 1: understand that he had this childhood of frightening things going
Speaker 1: on in terms of attacks on the family. Then he
Speaker 1: loses his mother, then he loses his father, Then he
Speaker 1: lives with his uncle, who also dies, and so he
Speaker 1: doesn't have continued parental let's say, guidance or support. He's
Speaker 1: forced at a pretty early age to leave education and
Speaker 1: to strike out on his own. I think that is
Speaker 1: part of his character. He was always a very kind
Speaker 1: of going against the grain person. I mean, being a
Speaker 1: polar explorer. To begin with this like pretty unusual, but
Speaker 1: you know, when you think of like, what are these
Speaker 1: early roots of independence to the level that you are
Speaker 1: intent on being in some very difficult environment that no
Speaker 1: one has ever gone to before. He came from a
Speaker 1: difficult environment and at a pretty early age was jettisoned
Speaker 1: into the world, and you could say forced to make
Speaker 1: way on his own, to be an explorer of the
Speaker 1: world on his own. But you could also say there
Speaker 1: clearly was something about it that he easily adapted to
Speaker 1: and even embraced that, as you said, went with his character,
Speaker 1: went with his temperament, right, And one thing that kind
Speaker 1: of struck me is that, as you mentioned, he did
Speaker 1: not have a very stable family life when he was younger.
Speaker 1: He lost his parents, he moved around, another uncle passed
Speaker 1: away who was taking care of him, but he did
Speaker 1: find this father figure. I think he was kind of
Speaker 1: looking for father figures when he signed up on the
Speaker 1: crew of the Katie Hinds with Captain child He describes
Speaker 1: Captain Childs as someone who cared for him, who helped
Speaker 1: teach him about the world, and really became like this
Speaker 1: person and who he looked up to. So he was
Speaker 1: on this ship and with Captain Childs four or five years.
Speaker 1: This is during his teen years, correct, right. I believe
Speaker 1: Captain Childs passed away in eighteen seventy eight, and that
Speaker 1: would have made Matthew Henson about eighteen ish. That must
Speaker 1: have been a huge blow to him because he had
Speaker 1: spent his really formative years with him going where he
Speaker 1: went on a ship, which is a very enclosed atmosphere
Speaker 1: to begin with, and it really did kind of throw
Speaker 1: him for a loop because after that he traveled around
Speaker 1: a little bit. He wasn't really sure what he wanted
Speaker 1: to do. He started working, I think for a ceiling
Speaker 1: enterprise at Newfoundland. He kind of moved around, so he
Speaker 1: was a little at loose ends. Although before we leave
Speaker 1: his time on the boat, Captain Childs taught him to
Speaker 1: read and write. I mean he had only had a
Speaker 1: limited amount of education in school. Captain Childs also encouraged
Speaker 1: him or worked with him on reading and writing, and
Speaker 1: they went to ports all over the world, which, again
Speaker 1: in terms of what drives someone to become an explorer, he,
Speaker 1: as you said, in these formative years, he went to China, Japan,
Speaker 1: and Africa and the Russian Arctic seas. This is a
Speaker 1: form of exploring or seeing the world at a very
Speaker 1: young and formative age with somebody who does take on
Speaker 1: a father figure sort of role, and that seems likely
Speaker 1: to be formative, also formative. To go back one more second,
Speaker 1: it's reported that he or he reported, I think, at
Speaker 1: age ten, going to a ceremony that honored Abraham Lincoln,
Speaker 1: who was known at that point to have worked on
Speaker 1: preserving the Union during the Civil War and had issued
Speaker 1: the proclamation that freed slaves in the occupied Confederate States,
Speaker 1: and he heard Frederick Douglas, an escaped slave and renowned
Speaker 1: orator of the time. Time and a leading community member
Speaker 1: for the black community, and that seems to have made
Speaker 1: a real impression. There's no doubt that his time with
Speaker 1: the ship must have broadened his horizons as well as
Speaker 1: hearing these speakers. I've always kind of wondered, like how
Speaker 1: much Captain Child's taught him to read and write if
Speaker 1: he had been at school. I kind of have wondered
Speaker 1: about that. There's a little bit of disagreement in the
Speaker 1: historical sources, but there's no doubt that Henson learned from
Speaker 1: Captain Childs, and he really became this person that guided
Speaker 1: his life in a way that a parent would have.
Speaker 1: And I think it was really formative for him during
Speaker 1: his teenage years when he really didn't have any roots
Speaker 1: anywhere else. He kind of was a little bit of
Speaker 1: a rolling stone. I guess you could say, right right,
Speaker 1: It's almost like learning a trade, which in those days
Speaker 1: the idea of apprenticeship, and that is how you learned
Speaker 1: to have the vocation that Captain Childs showed him, how
Speaker 1: he sailed the world. Do we know anything more about
Speaker 1: the ways in which you may have been affected by
Speaker 1: hearing Frederick Douglas speak. To be honest with you, I'm
Speaker 1: actually not familiar, just because I try to stick with
Speaker 1: what I can verify from Henson's own writings, and there
Speaker 1: aren't that many of them. And I feel that some
Speaker 1: of his later biographers embellished a lot of the details
Speaker 1: of his life. And that may have been because they
Speaker 1: wanted to portray Henson as a unique and heroic figure,
Speaker 1: which he was anyway, but they may have, you know,
Speaker 1: larded it a bit. So it's hard for me to say,
Speaker 1: we don't know for sure about that because he didn't
Speaker 1: make reference to that. It's kind of the hard thing
Speaker 1: we have about Henson's life, I feel is that he
Speaker 1: didn't leave a lot of writing behind. I mean, he
Speaker 1: only did write one book. One of the reasons he
Speaker 1: wrote only one book is because, jumping ahead a little bit,
Speaker 1: Robert Perry after their North Pole expedition prohibited members of
Speaker 1: the expedition from writing books. Perry wanted to be the
Speaker 1: only one who had the book deal and sort of
Speaker 1: was the only one who was permitted to do a
Speaker 1: lecture tour and kind of publicized the things. So we
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of personal memoirs from Henson, although
Speaker 1: I wish we did, because he had a fascinating life,
Speaker 1: so shades of the suppression to come before we get there.
Speaker 1: He is then working at a Washington, d C. Clothing
Speaker 1: store in November eight when he meets Commander Robert Perry.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about that meeting
Speaker 1: and how it would come to be that Perry would say, okay,
Speaker 1: work with me. Yeah. I think this is one of
Speaker 1: the most serendipitous meetings in the history of exploration because
Speaker 1: it was totally unexpected. Because Henson, after he left the
Speaker 1: Katie Hines and Captain Childs had passed away, he moved
Speaker 1: in with his sister in Washington, d C. And started
Speaker 1: working at this hat shop um or a furrier sort of.
Speaker 1: The shop did a number of things, was kind of
Speaker 1: a haberdasher, and he was a clerk there. And so
Speaker 1: one day Robert Peary walked in and one story says
Speaker 1: he was looking for a son helmet because he was
Speaker 1: on his way to Nicaragua to scout for a canal,
Speaker 1: which eventually became the Panama Canal. But at the time
Speaker 1: the Navy was considering sites in Nicaragua, so Parry was
Speaker 1: on his way because he was a civil engineer in
Speaker 1: the Navy to do some scouting and he needed an
Speaker 1: assistant of Valet. So the other clerk at bh Stein Medicine,
Speaker 1: Son said, well, I have my coworker here, Matthew Henson.
Speaker 1: He's been all around the world. He's a very capable man.
Speaker 1: Why don't you talk to him? And so they seem
Speaker 1: to have really hit it off, which is incredible. And
Speaker 1: Henson must have impressed Perry with his resourcefulness, his practical
Speaker 1: skills and things like carpentry, sailing, seamanship, things like that.
Speaker 1: And I feel that they must have had kind of
Speaker 1: a connection over being curious about the world, about being
Speaker 1: ambitious and curious, and that combination really kind of colored
Speaker 1: their relationship from then on. So Henson and Perry went
Speaker 1: to Nicaragua. They you know, it was their only warm
Speaker 1: weather expedition together. And when they got back, Perry again
Speaker 1: was working for the navy, and Henson kind of did
Speaker 1: a couple of odd jobs, but then Perry eventually got
Speaker 1: him a job at the Naval Yard of Philadelphia. From
Speaker 1: there they embarked on a number of polar expeditions. Because
Speaker 1: Perry was pretty obsessed with making his mark in the world.
Speaker 1: I mean, really, that was the driving thing in his life.
Speaker 1: And he wanted fame. He wanted his name out there,
Speaker 1: and polar exploration or some sort of feat in the
Speaker 1: Arctic was his ticket to that um in his mind.
Speaker 1: So by the time that Henson and Perry met, Arry
Speaker 1: had already been in Greenland once and he did an expedition.
Speaker 1: There was kind of a finding mission. He did a
Speaker 1: little bit of exploring, but was kind of getting his
Speaker 1: bearings and figuring out, like, Okay, now that I know
Speaker 1: this about Greenland, what do I really want to do
Speaker 1: here that's going to get me the fame that I crave.
Speaker 1: So Henson, having proven his worth on his Nicaragua expedition,
Speaker 1: went with Perry to Greenland, to the Arctic, to other
Speaker 1: parts of the Arctic for the next twenty years on
Speaker 1: seven expeditions. Perry had eight expeditions to the Arctic and
Speaker 1: Henson was on the latter seven of them. They spent
Speaker 1: eighteen years on expeditions together. Yeah, and in the most
Speaker 1: brutal conditions you can imagine two and oftentimes it was
Speaker 1: just that two of them. So it was a very
Speaker 1: close working relationship. But at the same time, Perry was
Speaker 1: quite driven again by his own sense of fame and accomplishment,
Speaker 1: and I think that prevented him from being completely warm
Speaker 1: and completely a friend to Henson. So it remains sort
Speaker 1: of you work for me as the relationship, and I
Speaker 1: am the leader director of this, and sometimes it was
Speaker 1: the two of them. Sometimes he recruited people familiar with
Speaker 1: the area. And what is amazing is that Henson really
Speaker 1: learned the language and learned the ways, it sounds like
Speaker 1: more so than Perry. Absolutely. Yeah, let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break here. We'll be back in a moment. Perry often
Speaker 1: hired the same Inuit people. He visited a particular village
Speaker 1: frequently on subsequent expeditions and tended to hire the same
Speaker 1: people since they knew each other they'd worked together, but
Speaker 1: he never really became involved with them. He always looked
Speaker 1: at them as servants, helpers, employees. They had specific and
Speaker 1: very important jobs. They drove dogs, LEDs, which is extremely complicated,
Speaker 1: and so Perry really relied on them, But he also
Speaker 1: thought of himself as sort of they're kindly father slash
Speaker 1: employer slash leader. Henson, on the other hand, really took
Speaker 1: to their culture. It's exciting to kind of learn how
Speaker 1: he was instructed by a lot of the indigenous hunters
Speaker 1: and dog drivers in this particular village. They kind of
Speaker 1: took Henson under their wing a little bit because I
Speaker 1: think he showed that he was genuinely interested. His curiosity
Speaker 1: went beyond place and mission. It went to the people
Speaker 1: and the culture and a willingness to learn and absorb.
Speaker 1: And he was the only one who learned how to
Speaker 1: drive the dogs LEDs in the group that was not
Speaker 1: intuit and how to train the dog teams in that way,
Speaker 1: that really speaks to a curiosity dry of an empathy
Speaker 1: in the direction of other people and other cultures, sort
Speaker 1: of like an anthropologist in a way. He was definitely
Speaker 1: interested in them and on a very genuine person to
Speaker 1: person level, which is extremely uncommon between explorers who, for
Speaker 1: lack of a better term, kind of parachute in to
Speaker 1: do their mission and then leave. So for that reason,
Speaker 1: Henson is unique and I think that makes him a
Speaker 1: really interesting figure. And not only did he show that
Speaker 1: he was genuinely interested in the folks there, but they
Speaker 1: looked at him as a unique person. They gave him
Speaker 1: a name, which is sort of their way of bringing
Speaker 1: the person into their culture, into their lives, and in
Speaker 1: English it means the kind one. They called him Matthew
Speaker 1: the kind one, and they gave Perry a nickname two.
Speaker 1: But it was basically like Perry the man, Perry the
Speaker 1: leader kind of person, wasn't really wasn't really like indicative
Speaker 1: of his his friendliness. But the other thing is like,
Speaker 1: it takes a really long time to learn how to
Speaker 1: drive dogs. Well, I mean, it is really hard, and
Speaker 1: the dogs have their own minds. They just decide where
Speaker 1: they want to go, and you have to just kind
Speaker 1: of go with them and try to steer them in
Speaker 1: the right way. And they're quite wild and they kind
Speaker 1: of have to work out their own hierarchy among themselves.
Speaker 1: And to be able to do this well as someone
Speaker 1: who didn't grow up obviously having the skill or being
Speaker 1: taught the skill over many years when he was younger,
Speaker 1: is really an amazing feat. And so in addition to
Speaker 1: the dog driving, like you said, he learned how to
Speaker 1: speak Inuktitut, which is the native language in that area.
Speaker 1: By doing so, I think ingratiated him even further into
Speaker 1: the community, and it showed the new wheat there that
Speaker 1: he was serious, he was someone who could be trusted,
Speaker 1: someone who respected them, and of course it then gave
Speaker 1: the native people they're more confidence in helping Perry. I mean,
Speaker 1: Henson was really a liaise on between the Hinu wheat
Speaker 1: and the white people on the expedition, and he performed
Speaker 1: a really important role in that way. To speak for
Speaker 1: a moment about his personal life before this, he did marry.
Speaker 1: He married Eva flint In, but it sounds like his
Speaker 1: being off and exploring basically dissolved the marriage because they
Speaker 1: divorced In he later married. He later married Lucy Ross
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh seven. But somewhere in here he's gone
Speaker 1: for much of the time on these Arctic explorations. He
Speaker 1: is not having children with either wife, and he takes
Speaker 1: a Innuit wife or at least a partner, and does
Speaker 1: have a child. He apparently had a relationship with the
Speaker 1: new Wheat woman over a number of expeditions, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't just, you know, a one and done scenario, for
Speaker 1: lack of a better word. He really cared for her,
Speaker 1: and I believe when I was speaking with the director
Speaker 1: of the Perry McMillan Arctic Museum, she said, at some
Speaker 1: point this woman died and Henson was just devastated. I
Speaker 1: don't know much about her, but we do know more
Speaker 1: about his son that he had with this woman. Did
Speaker 1: she die when he was still with her? I thought
Speaker 1: that basically when he left the region, that was it
Speaker 1: and he never saw her again or the sun. But
Speaker 1: I was unaware if she died while he was still there.
Speaker 1: That was my inference, because he didn't go back to
Speaker 1: the Arctic after they achieved what they went to achieve
Speaker 1: in reaching the North Pole. Neither Perry nor Henson ever
Speaker 1: returned to Greenland or that part of the Arctic. So
Speaker 1: my impression was that she must have died while he
Speaker 1: was there or during the period of years where he
Speaker 1: was going there regularly. Both he and Robert Perry also
Speaker 1: had an involvement with a woman. Both of them had sons.
Speaker 1: Actually Perry had two sons, but one passed a way
Speaker 1: I think when he was young. So Perry's son was
Speaker 1: named Kelly and Henson's son was named a Knockock. And
Speaker 1: they grew up in their community, but they looked a
Speaker 1: little different from some of the other people in their community,
Speaker 1: and so they wanted to know more about their biological fathers.
Speaker 1: The people in the community were quite willing to share
Speaker 1: stories about them. I mean it was no secret, but
Speaker 1: they had never met any of their family from the
Speaker 1: United States before, and so that became something that the
Speaker 1: two sons really really wanted to do, or they really
Speaker 1: really wanted to learn more about their families and their
Speaker 1: fathers as well. So unfortunately, the two sons did not
Speaker 1: meet their fathers when they were alive, but they did
Speaker 1: go to the United States eventually thanks to the efforts
Speaker 1: of Harvard neurologists named s Ellen Counter, who was a
Speaker 1: really interesting polar explorer and figure, and he brought the
Speaker 1: two wings of the Perry and Henson families together in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties. And it was a really amazing story.
Speaker 1: But it brings up a lot of questions about, you know,
Speaker 1: what these kids were thinking in their lives, you know,
Speaker 1: knowing that they had fathers but they were so far
Speaker 1: away and that they may never meet them. But it
Speaker 1: sounds like in some ways they were remembered by the people,
Speaker 1: at least certainly Henson was as heroic and kind. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the expedition. I mean, there were many expeditions.
Speaker 1: As you said, there were seven expeditions, but ultimately the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen o nine expedition, which was Perry's eighth attempt
Speaker 1: to reach the North Pole, and it was a large expedition.
Speaker 1: This is the one, right, This is the one where
Speaker 1: ultimately they did reach the North Pole. They got close
Speaker 1: to the North Pole. Yeah, they thought they reached the
Speaker 1: North Pole. They thought they did, right. That is an
Speaker 1: important distinction, I guess. Yeah. In the expedition was the
Speaker 1: Cherry on the Sun Day. Because Perry and Henson had
Speaker 1: spent two decades getting to this point. I mean every
Speaker 1: time they went to the Arctic, they learned something new,
Speaker 1: they scouted new roots, they acquired the services of certain people,
Speaker 1: and they set the groundwork for it each time. So
Speaker 1: in nineteen o eight they had a pretty clear idea
Speaker 1: of what they wanted to do. So they left New York.
Speaker 1: They traveled north. They stopped off in Newfoundland to get
Speaker 1: some supplies and um they eventually made their way to
Speaker 1: this particular village called Eta in Greenland, where they picked
Speaker 1: up their innuitae helpers. They had like a whole community
Speaker 1: with them. They had like twenty two Innuite men, seventeen
Speaker 1: Innuit women, ten children, two hundred forty six dogs, tons
Speaker 1: of whale meat, tons of walrus meats. It sounds like
Speaker 1: moving a village. It almost was, because Perry hired the
Speaker 1: men to drive the dogs and scout the roots and
Speaker 1: be the guides. But he also hired the men's wives too,
Speaker 1: soak clothes to tan hides of the animals that they caught.
Speaker 1: The men and the women seemed to have specific and
Speaker 1: important roles and so each kind of fulfilled that role
Speaker 1: in Perry's mission. And of course they wouldn't leave their
Speaker 1: children behind, so of course the kids came along too,
Speaker 1: So it really was like moving a whole community from
Speaker 1: their home village to this totally barren seacoast. None of them,
Speaker 1: I think, were too familiar with it, just because they
Speaker 1: had no real reason to go there from their own village,
Speaker 1: so it really was kind of this slightly unfamiliar territory.
Speaker 1: But they did have enough animals to hunt, they had
Speaker 1: plenty of food, and most of them stayed with the
Speaker 1: ship when they eventually set up their base camp at
Speaker 1: I believe Cape Sheridan, which is one of the northernmost
Speaker 1: points in Canada, meaning like the nearest land to the
Speaker 1: North Pole, which is still over four miles away, So
Speaker 1: they set at their base camp there. They stayed the
Speaker 1: winter and in the spring, Perry and a number of
Speaker 1: his white crew members and Henson and the Inuhite guides
Speaker 1: started doing what was called the Perry system, which was
Speaker 1: this system of relays where a party that included like
Speaker 1: one of the Americans and one of the Inuhite people,
Speaker 1: and maybe like a couple of others, went out a
Speaker 1: certain distance, built an igloo and set out a cache
Speaker 1: of supplies and food, and they did so at like
Speaker 1: certain intervals along the route that Perry had laid out
Speaker 1: on his way to the North Pole. So this would
Speaker 1: basically set the sort of stages of the push for
Speaker 1: the pole, and so Perry didn't need to like spend
Speaker 1: time building the houses. He didn't have to carry anything
Speaker 1: with him, which was also really important because the more
Speaker 1: weight you have on your sledge, the slower you go.
Speaker 1: So he basically just marched several miles head, stopped for
Speaker 1: the night, made camp at the cash of supplies and
Speaker 1: the eggloo that was already there, and then moved ahead
Speaker 1: and moved ahead. So they did so over a number
Speaker 1: of weeks. They had to cross open water, and it
Speaker 1: was extremely dangerous because they never really knew how thick
Speaker 1: the ice was um when it was forming over these
Speaker 1: areas of open water, and at one point Henson fell
Speaker 1: in and it's death within just a few minutes because
Speaker 1: the water is so cold, and it's very difficult to
Speaker 1: get yourself out because your way down with these furs
Speaker 1: and these kind of like heavy clothes. So the head
Speaker 1: in wheat guide, who was named Utak, basically just reached
Speaker 1: into the water and pulled Henson out with just his
Speaker 1: bare hands and saved his life. And that happened a
Speaker 1: couple of times. I think that happened to Perry once,
Speaker 1: and it was not uncommon, but it was extremely scary
Speaker 1: and dangerous when it did happen. I guess it's important
Speaker 1: to remember that part of the I guess claim to
Speaker 1: fame is that this whole thing is so dangerous all around,
Speaker 1: and that it takes such physical ability and stamina to
Speaker 1: even be part of a group that would do something
Speaker 1: like this. Part of the ultimate conflict about who reached
Speaker 1: the North Pole first was that Perry in fact had
Speaker 1: a difficult time and wasn't doing well. Perry had actually
Speaker 1: lost eight of his toes to frostbite on a previous expedition,
Speaker 1: so ever since then he was not real fast on
Speaker 1: his feet. I mean he would kind of shuffle a
Speaker 1: little bit and hobble along. So at times he was
Speaker 1: pulled on his sledge by the dogs while the guides
Speaker 1: and Henson were kind of breaking the trail ahead of them.
Speaker 1: So it was really dangerous. They had storms, obviously, it
Speaker 1: was extremely cold. They you know, just kind of faced
Speaker 1: a test of endurance. So when they got to what
Speaker 1: they believed was the North Pole, it's kind of funny
Speaker 1: that they went through so much hardship. It's hard to
Speaker 1: fathom really over so many years, especially on this particular voyage.
Speaker 1: It was just kind of like we just wanted to
Speaker 1: accomplish what we came here to do. When Perry believed
Speaker 1: he reached the North Pole, he said, it's just so
Speaker 1: simple and commonplace. I can't bring myself to believe. It
Speaker 1: just seems like any other day in the Arctic. But
Speaker 1: they did get to the point where they believed they
Speaker 1: needed to be, and then from that point on it
Speaker 1: was like a race home. They had to go back
Speaker 1: to the iglues that they had stayed in on the
Speaker 1: way up, and by that point the food caches were
Speaker 1: pretty much depleted, so they were in a race not
Speaker 1: just against exhaustion and cold and everything, but they were
Speaker 1: really running out of supplies. So part of the goal
Speaker 1: was to live, to be able to enjoy the fruits
Speaker 1: of your discovery. Absolutely. I mean, that's that's the key.
Speaker 1: It's like I was speaking with a an adventurer and
Speaker 1: mountaineer um for our podcast and he said, you know,
Speaker 1: getting there is only like half of the struggle. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's probably less than half the struggle, because getting back
Speaker 1: is the harder part. Actually, before we before we get
Speaker 1: to the way back, Henston is noted to be said
Speaker 1: at some point that he was in the lead on
Speaker 1: that ultimate trip. As we were pointing out that that
Speaker 1: Perry was off and on a sled or and somewhat behind,
Speaker 1: and that he'd overshot the mark by a couple of miles.
Speaker 1: He quote went back then and could see footprints that
Speaker 1: were his at the first spot. So it sounds like
Speaker 1: he believed that he was the first man literally to
Speaker 1: stand at the north pole. Yeah, he I believe, said
Speaker 1: that in a newspaper interview many years after their expedition.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean that essentially says like if being
Speaker 1: first is the number one claim to fame here, that
Speaker 1: we're all chasing. Henson is saying, I was the first
Speaker 1: one there. And there is a photo of him with
Speaker 1: the Inuit guides on this last stretch, and Perry is
Speaker 1: not in it. No, Perry is taking the picture, which
Speaker 1: is a little bit It's funny because I I noted
Speaker 1: that too. I mean, there are no pictures at least
Speaker 1: that I'm aware of, of Perry at the North Bowl,
Speaker 1: but there are um a number of pictures that Perry
Speaker 1: took with his Kodak camera of Henson and the four guides.
Speaker 1: They're holding the flags of the expedition, the flags that
Speaker 1: Perry brought with him to represent his various sponsors and
Speaker 1: things like that. So then now they're running back and
Speaker 1: it and it's even more difficult. Do they know yet
Speaker 1: that another team that Frederick cooked team is saying no,
Speaker 1: actually we got there first. They have no idea, um,
Speaker 1: and in fact, they feel no pressure from anyone else.
Speaker 1: I mean, they didn't see anybody else there, so right,
Speaker 1: they figured to a team. Okay, no, they were figured
Speaker 1: they were all alone, and uh, they had no idea
Speaker 1: and so um, you know, they weren't really in a
Speaker 1: huge hurry to like rush home and tell everybody. But
Speaker 1: they they definitely like you know, kind of gathered up
Speaker 1: all their equipment. They dropped off their innuite helpers at
Speaker 1: their village, and they paid them with um various goods
Speaker 1: like guns and ammunition and knives and needles and things
Speaker 1: that are are rare in that part of the world.
Speaker 1: And then they just steamed their way home. And their
Speaker 1: first stop was in Newfoundland where the telegraph office was.
Speaker 1: That was like the that was where they told the world.
Speaker 1: But before they got there, they stopped in Eta, where
Speaker 1: they dropped off the Inuit families, and there was a
Speaker 1: hunter there that Perry had dropped off the year before,
Speaker 1: an American hunter named Harry Whitney, who had spent the
Speaker 1: whole winter there like hunting musk ox and polar bears.
Speaker 1: And when Perry returned after having been on the North
Speaker 1: Pole journey, Whitney said, well, there's this other guy here,
Speaker 1: Frederick Cooke, who said he got to the North Pole
Speaker 1: a year before you did. And he just left like
Speaker 1: five days ago or a few days ago to go
Speaker 1: to Europe to um the Shetland Islands where there was
Speaker 1: a telegraph office, and he told the world that he
Speaker 1: had gotten to the North Pole in April of but
Speaker 1: he left all of his records with me, Perry Whitney,
Speaker 1: and so Furry was like, well, I'm your only way
Speaker 1: home and the only way you're going to get on
Speaker 1: my ship is to leave all of Cook's records here.
Speaker 1: So I'm, you know, summarizing the situation, but I think
Speaker 1: that really is illuminating of Perry's sense of competitiveness and
Speaker 1: his addiction to like being first, being the one who
Speaker 1: earned the glory. And let me also add it perhaps
Speaker 1: is a peek into his moral compass as well, that
Speaker 1: what mattered more was being able to claim the victory
Speaker 1: then actually have the victor jury In the words, he
Speaker 1: understood at that point it might not be him, and
Speaker 1: he was willing to do something underhanded to make sure
Speaker 1: that other people didn't know that. He and Henson Um
Speaker 1: and Donald McMillan, who was another person um in Perry's
Speaker 1: expedition crew, spoke with the two in white men who
Speaker 1: had been with Cook in their own language and so
Speaker 1: there was no misinterpretation. And Um they asked him like
Speaker 1: asked them, are you serious, Like did you actually get
Speaker 1: to the north Pole? Like how how do you know
Speaker 1: that you did that? And they said well, you know,
Speaker 1: we went a pretty long ways, but um, we never
Speaker 1: lost sight of land, and you cannot, you know, stay
Speaker 1: withinside of land and still get to the North Pole
Speaker 1: because it's so far away. So Henson, Perry, and McMillan
Speaker 1: at that time were convinced that had not done it,
Speaker 1: and so they really didn't They weren't worried about it.
Speaker 1: They were like, well, you know, there's just no way.
Speaker 1: There's plus, they all already knew Cook. Cook had been
Speaker 1: on at least one of Perry's expeditions about twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: and Henson and Perry were both like, this guy could
Speaker 1: never make it. I mean he just as he's a
Speaker 1: nice guy, he's charming, he's a good doctor, that's why
Speaker 1: he was on the expedition to begin with. But he's
Speaker 1: his wilderness skills are just really some far. So there's
Speaker 1: just no way that he could have done it. So
Speaker 1: they weren't really worried. And by the time they got
Speaker 1: to Newfoundland to telegraph the fact that they had reached
Speaker 1: the pole, they were quite confident that they were the
Speaker 1: first ones at the poll because even though Cook had said,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I got there a year before, they
Speaker 1: were like, we have the eyewitness accounts from the guides
Speaker 1: who were with you saying that it didn't happen. But
Speaker 1: the world at large had already heard that Cook had
Speaker 1: had been there, and so five days later, when Perry
Speaker 1: telegraphed that he had been to the first at the poll,
Speaker 1: people did not know what to think. And um it
Speaker 1: quickly became like a huge battle between Perry's backers and
Speaker 1: Cooks backers, and the media that supported them, and the
Speaker 1: organizations that supported them and everything. And it became a
Speaker 1: huge controversy that even as late as the eighties and
Speaker 1: nineties was still being debated. Let's take a quick break here,
Speaker 1: we'll be back in a moment. Sadly, it seems that,
Speaker 1: as you alluded to earlier, Perry did what many white
Speaker 1: men sadly did, which was to suppress all credit that
Speaker 1: belonged to anyone else in his group. And he very much,
Speaker 1: it seems, did that to Henson very much, made it
Speaker 1: seem as though he it was only Perry and not
Speaker 1: actually Henson. A sad and common historic tale which made
Speaker 1: it difficult for Henson to be recognized for what he
Speaker 1: did for decades. It's a really sad coda to their
Speaker 1: triumph and to their relationship to Perry was so concerned
Speaker 1: with making his name immortal as the first man to
Speaker 1: have reached the North Pole. It really became his singular focus,
Speaker 1: and he made sure that no one else that was
Speaker 1: on the expedition could write a book or publish memoirs
Speaker 1: or do a lecture tour, which was one of the
Speaker 1: main ways that polar explorers made money was showing like
Speaker 1: slides lantern slides of their photographs that they took while
Speaker 1: they were there, and then doing a lecture tour about
Speaker 1: um about their experiences. There was there was an incident
Speaker 1: in which Henson said, I took a number of slides
Speaker 1: there of lantern slides, and I, as directed, gave my
Speaker 1: slides to Parry so he could choose the ones that
Speaker 1: he wanted to use. But then he never paid me
Speaker 1: for them and never gave them back to me, so
Speaker 1: he then, you know, did not have the materials to
Speaker 1: do a lecture tour, even though Henson did do one,
Speaker 1: kind of against Perry's wishes, And when Perry found out,
Speaker 1: he was quite angry and urged him to stop. And
Speaker 1: I think that caused a big rift, not just from
Speaker 1: Perry's point of view, but from Henson's Henson was like,
Speaker 1: I need money more than you do. I have fewer
Speaker 1: opportunities to make a living than you do. And I
Speaker 1: was just as part, a big a part of this
Speaker 1: mission as you were, even though I was not the leader.
Speaker 1: And so I can't help but think that Henson felt
Speaker 1: quite betrayed, having spent the better part of his life
Speaker 1: helping Perry achieve his goals and then not being recognized
Speaker 1: for that. Henson did publish a memoir in nineteen twelve.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yes, he did publish a memoir in nineteen twelve,
Speaker 1: after Perry had said, Okay, well enough time has passed
Speaker 1: for me to reap the benefits, you can go ahead
Speaker 1: and do yours. So he did. And it's actually a
Speaker 1: really interesting book, you know. I feel like it's even
Speaker 1: though it's not an autobiography as it's sometimes called, it's
Speaker 1: really just a story of Henson and Perry getting to
Speaker 1: the North Pole in nine nine. It does reveal their relationship,
Speaker 1: I think pretty well. And even though Henson is extremely
Speaker 1: loyal and I think doesn't want to bad mouth his
Speaker 1: his boss, if you read between the lines a bit,
Speaker 1: you can kind of see that Henson looks up to
Speaker 1: Perry as as a father figure and is, like I said,
Speaker 1: extremely loyal and will really do anything to help him
Speaker 1: achieve periods goals, including at some level accepting something that sadly,
Speaker 1: I mean really tragically was commonly done. In fact, you know,
Speaker 1: in this in this podcast, I do know to repeatedly
Speaker 1: how often I try to look at a story and
Speaker 1: see a black person, a Hispanic person, a woman who
Speaker 1: was involved in a discovery or creation that is has
Speaker 1: tried to be removed from or sanitized from the credit
Speaker 1: that has just been suppressed. And that seems to have
Speaker 1: really been the case here. And it was really only
Speaker 1: in later years that Henson was recognized for the work
Speaker 1: that he did. It seems in many accounts every bit
Speaker 1: at least as important, if not more in some ways
Speaker 1: than what Perry did. But ironic Lee he wins an award,
Speaker 1: that's the Perry award that he is, you know, a
Speaker 1: late addition to various societies and organizations that he is
Speaker 1: the first black man to be a part of or
Speaker 1: recognized in that way, But well after the time that
Speaker 1: it would have been expected he would be. I think
Speaker 1: Henson was dismissed and erased from the white centered narrative
Speaker 1: of their expedition and later on, and that was a
Speaker 1: lot of Perry's doing. And also the backers of his
Speaker 1: expedition wanted to avoid the questions of race, and they
Speaker 1: called it the racial issue, and so like there was
Speaker 1: a lot of there was a lot of questioning from
Speaker 1: Perry's backers that was which was a group of philanthropists
Speaker 1: called the Perry Arctic Club. Why Perry chose Henson and
Speaker 1: not one of the white members of his expedi Asian
Speaker 1: to go to the North Pole with him to go
Speaker 1: that last leg to the actual North Pole. And Pierry said, well,
Speaker 1: it's because he was the best qualified for the job.
Speaker 1: I mean, he could do everything that I needed him
Speaker 1: to do. And the white members of the crew backed
Speaker 1: that up. They were like, we are not as good
Speaker 1: as you know, We're not as good as Henson, So
Speaker 1: it made sense for him to go. But because he
Speaker 1: was African American, the philanthropists that we're backing Perry were like, well,
Speaker 1: this is bad optics. I mean, this is not a
Speaker 1: good look to have, you know, a black man at
Speaker 1: the pole standing right next to you, you know, just
Speaker 1: to be blunt about it, and I think they had
Speaker 1: a role in erasing Henson from the narrative. However, I
Speaker 1: will say that one thing I discovered, and I think
Speaker 1: that is the general feeling, is that Henson has been
Speaker 1: dismissed from this narrative. He was forgotten, and that is
Speaker 1: true among you know, the dominant narrative. However, I realized
Speaker 1: that Henson was never forgotten by the African American community,
Speaker 1: especially in New York UM where he lived. He was
Speaker 1: honored by the leading African American civic groups by you know,
Speaker 1: religious leaders who were members of of these sort of organizations.
Speaker 1: He was given a gold watch and um, these kinds
Speaker 1: of tokens of their appreciation. He was talked about in
Speaker 1: UM African American media like Essence magazine and the Amsterdam News.
Speaker 1: And Henson was quite active in the community as well. Um,
Speaker 1: he was really well known. He worked after the North
Speaker 1: Pole expedition. He worked as a clerk in the U.
Speaker 1: S Customs Office. So he lived in New York. He
Speaker 1: lived in Harlem, he worked downtown in Lower Manhattan, and
Speaker 1: by all accounts, he was a charming, charismatic, very friendly,
Speaker 1: beloved person and someone who people really respected and really
Speaker 1: thought was an incredible person and role model. And the
Speaker 1: thing that kind of shows this clearly to me is
Speaker 1: that when Perry died in he was given practically like
Speaker 1: a state funeral. I mean it was like the Vice
Speaker 1: President at the time was one of the Paul bearers.
Speaker 1: I mean, every Supreme Court judges, all kinds of you know,
Speaker 1: leading Washingtonians, because Perry lived in Washington, turned out for
Speaker 1: the funeral. There was a big like procession and everything,
Speaker 1: and he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with a
Speaker 1: gigantic headstone that had a big globe on top saying
Speaker 1: like I got to the top of the world. Pretty much.
Speaker 1: This was covered in all the papers. There were obituaries
Speaker 1: and every paper there was, you know, first day, second day,
Speaker 1: third day stories all about it. And in contrast to that,
Speaker 1: when Henson died, he died in in New York. He
Speaker 1: was eighty eight years old old, and he really barely
Speaker 1: got to mention in the New York Times, his hometown paper,
Speaker 1: or any other paper. However, the Amsterdam News, which was
Speaker 1: an African American newspaper, had an account of the funeral,
Speaker 1: which was at the Abbyssinian Baptist Church, which is like
Speaker 1: the main Church in Harlem, and Adam Clayton pell Jr.
Speaker 1: Who was a very prominent minister, did the service and
Speaker 1: over a thousand people attended, and there was a huge
Speaker 1: write up in this paper. And um, one of the
Speaker 1: paul bearers was Peter Frikin, who was a Danish polar
Speaker 1: explorer and one of Henson's closest exploration friends. And I
Speaker 1: believe McMillan was there as well. Um, they were quite
Speaker 1: close as well, because at that point he was a
Speaker 1: member or admitted to the Explorers Club in New York
Speaker 1: and Congress had awarded him the Perry Polar Expedition Medal.
Speaker 1: He was honored and recognized, and you know, very late,
Speaker 1: but but acknowledged in that way. And those people, we're
Speaker 1: part of his community as well. Yes, yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: it's hard for me to accept in a way, but
Speaker 1: he was eventually honored. Um. The reason I say it's
Speaker 1: hard for me to accept because I'm I'm looking at
Speaker 1: the Explorers Club, which grew out of the Peri Arctic Club,
Speaker 1: the very people who sent him up to the Arctic region,
Speaker 1: and it didn't accept Henson as a member until nine
Speaker 1: and he was their first African American member. That was
Speaker 1: twenty years after he had been to the North Pole
Speaker 1: with Perry. Reflection of the continued racial prejudice, right, Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, just based on his own accomplishments and
Speaker 1: his own his own merit, I mean, there should have
Speaker 1: been no question. And similarly, as you're pointing out, though
Speaker 1: he was recognized in the African American community for the
Speaker 1: incredible accomplishments that he did, and in his as you said, burial,
Speaker 1: he it was I think when he and his wife
Speaker 1: were moved to Arlington National Cemetery where Perry is and
Speaker 1: commemorated in that way that I mean, it's incredible that
Speaker 1: the racial prejudice continued to in a way, you know,
Speaker 1: long beyond his death, really deny Henson the kind of
Speaker 1: recognition that he had deserved. Yeah, it was Henson's wish
Speaker 1: that he would be buried next to Perry, and when
Speaker 1: he died, I mean they really, the Henson's did not
Speaker 1: have a lot of money and so when he passed away, Um,
Speaker 1: he was buried in the same plot as his wife's
Speaker 1: mother in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx and just didn't
Speaker 1: have enough money to you know, get anything larger or
Speaker 1: more prominent or whatever, although wood Lawn Cemetery was apparently
Speaker 1: very happy to have him there, and we're kind of
Speaker 1: upset that he got moved in the eighties, But it
Speaker 1: was Henson's wish to be buried next to Perry, and
Speaker 1: that eventually happened through the efforts of s Allen counter Um,
Speaker 1: the Harvard neurologist and polar explorer who you know, wrote
Speaker 1: to the Reggae Administration UM over several years to try
Speaker 1: to get Henson the recognition that he deserved from the
Speaker 1: government um in this way, and eventually that was successful,
Speaker 1: and he is now there next to Perry. Amazing and
Speaker 1: so curious, right that he would want to be next
Speaker 1: to Perry after really what sounds like a conflicted ending
Speaker 1: for their relationship. I think, yeah, it does, But I
Speaker 1: also think it is kind of revealing of Henson's sense
Speaker 1: of loyalty as well. I mean, when you kind of
Speaker 1: take a step back, it's true that Henson had Perry
Speaker 1: to thank for his life of adventure, because he was
Speaker 1: hired by Perry and was his assistant for all of
Speaker 1: those years, and perhaps he felt thankful for that, and
Speaker 1: perhaps he appropriately wanted to go down in history ultimately
Speaker 1: right as his partner. That's possible. Yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: wouldn't be out of out of the question, and I
Speaker 1: think it is really fitting that he's there now. That
Speaker 1: wraps things up for this episode. Thank you to my
Speaker 1: guest cat Long. If you want to know more information
Speaker 1: on Matthew Henson, listen to her podcast History Versus Season
Speaker 1: two The Quest for the North Pole. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to know more about the concepts and Personalogy, you can
Speaker 1: check out my book The Power of Different The Link
Speaker 1: Between Disorder and Genius For psychological advice me take a
Speaker 1: listen to my podcast How Can I Help? And follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Dr Gail Saltz until next time.
Speaker 1: Personalogy is a production of I Heart Radio. The executive
Speaker 1: producers are doctor Gayl Saltz and Tyler Clang. The associate
Speaker 1: producer is Lowell Berlante. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.