New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1912. First Edition. An unusually fine copy. Henson (1866-1955) became Peary’s valet on a canal survey trip to Nicaragua in 1887-1888, and accompanied Peary on trips to the arctic in 1891. He became indispensable to Peary on these expeditions, particularly for his resourcefulness in equipment handling. It took Peary and Henson eighteen years of Arctic expeditions to gather the expertise to reach the Pole, and return. On an 1891 expedition they proved that Greenland was an island. On April 6, 1909, Peary, Henson and four Inuit made it to the North Pole; with Henson planting the American flag. It took the expedition five months to return and send the message by cable, “Stars and Stripes nailed to the North Pole -- Peary.” Dr. Frederick Cook claimed to have reached the Pole earlier, but a commission of the National Geographic Society credited Peary, a process that became necessary once again in the 1980s when an astronomer charged that Peary missed the mark, not an unlikely scenario in the days before radio and GPS receivers. In 1989 the National Geographic Society once again endorsed the claim of Peary’s expedition, but this is a controversy that is not likely to ever completely disappear. When Peary and Henson returned from the North Pole many were unable to accept this black man as a hero.

[Book #20600P]