Evening star., 1900-12-15
AT TER MANY YEARS
Return of the Relics of the Greedy
Expedition.
BROUGHT BACK BY LIEUT.. PEARY
Pathetic Pictures of the Hardships
OF Arctic Lite.
FOUND Al FORT CONGER

Copyright, 1900 by r. s. Bakerl
Written fol- The Er,nn. Star by Ray Stannard
Last winter there came to New York
number of heavy wooden boxes, iron bound
and water proof. They were directed 10
tn, secretary OF tn, teary Arctic CIuo, ii.
L. Bridgman. and tnoy had come direct
from icy hillside only little more ihdn
eight degrees from the north poIe For
many miles they had been urawn on dos
sledgeS over vast desert-Hke stretches vi
Ice pack. They had been loaded IN Pottfy
ship, the Windwald, then frozen las IN ine
Ice. and finally, after ~ eeks OF sailing, they
had reached New \ orb city. In February,
1900, they were opened IN Mr. Br4us niaa >
home in Brooklyn, In tne presehte Vi d
small company, Of whom the writer was
one.
In the course of Lieut.. Pearys dasn 10
the pole he had reach q, in l>.9. a IN. IN
latitude Sl14"1 EOliu, mdrhed on the maps
Fort Conger." here N 1851 the lALii u'
but iII-faItu Lady rraun.ln bay eNpedHl5h'
un,ier Lieut.. A ". Grey UnOW HeIe IetI
GIeeiy chief Of the mjed STATES -i7l4l
service), had made its headquarters and
from this camp l-l-u-- d. IS L-ch "o1o ia
made a dash tfd tle POI, dttali..h7 a
point which for ; me lme was the iaftheSt
north In this Lar n-..n camp H--~-! ID
his men remained unit ls>', wN-tIne ard
longing for the expected roIef ana nt,.-S
from its protection The little party SCI -ut
southwark in despair over the ice He4uS,
hoping to meet the relief ship which was
to have come long before. TIE horror or
that Journey and the desperate walt Whlcn
followed at Cape Sabine is fami lar arctic
history The winto.' deep, ned. the proN-s-
ions of the little party slowly disappeared
the men began to TAI SICK. and IN MN dIter
month of terrible cod and loneliness added
70 E.i b1pp1pS=pRSS FIndllV the men De-
gan to die. One was shot for steailns p-o-
visions. Finally just as the lte was hick-
ering from those who still IlNed, the rescue
party appeared in June, 1881. one man
oied after he reached the relief ship. and or
all the expedition on.y its c.mrnahder,
Lieut. Greely and six men lived to reach
civilization.
Finding of the Relics
When Lieutenant Peary and his party
reached Fort Conger in 1899 they found II
lust as Lieutenant Greely had left 1t SIX
teen years before. Here Peary found ali
the personal effects of The men as they had
left them when they set out to seek the re-
lief ship. S me of the boxes bore !nscrlp-
tions, often sadly humorous IN the hshl ol
what followed.
m Common, international polar expedi-
ton Lat. s1:14.11 Long. C4 :i5. EfecIs
not very valuable. 'Tis distance lends en-
chantment to the view.
on the trunk of Sergeant Israel of Mich
igan. university man, by the way, ana
an able fellow, who d.ed slarva ion in
his sleeping bag, was written:
Any party visiting ms :. atom in the
future is welcome to the cioIhing, etc, III
the TWO trunks in the west Iean>o. ShJu.u
be very thankful for a return of books and
papers
Private Whisler-he s. died of starva-
tiou--left this word: The owner W IL n t be
a great loser if he never sees what this box
contains. The box he Considers the most
valuable part Of the pr perry
Lieutenant Peary "a hered up all the pri-
vate papers letters ana persona belong .ngs
left in the camp ana paChcd them int box
He careful about these precious
2 r4Gkages. No sealed bundles were pened
no letters read. And thus, seventeen years
after the hands Of those who had written
these old diaries and directed the letters
and packed the pers nal effects nad las,
touched them, they we're being opened in a
quiet Brooklyn parlUr blustery Febru-
ary afternoon.
One of those present at the opening was
j. Z. Kislingbury f Rochester n Y a
brother of Lieut.. Fred F. Kisngbury sec
ond in command of the ill-fa ted expedition.
who had died only few days before the
arrival of the relief party. | shall not soon
forget the tears that streamed d own his
face when the first box was opened and the
yellow packages Were taken out Most of
them We're ted ~ fry VIII twine and
bore the names of their owners outside.
one package c,n,alnaQ little pa r of va ~
shoes tipped up, wrinEled and wrrn at the
toes from the stumbling activity Of me
family pet These had been carried secret
ly, perhaps, for a nan does not easily dis
close such sentiment, thousands of miles
away into the arctic cold to keep alive a
mans love.
Messages From the Dead
There were letters. a few in almost every
package, brown with age. stamped wlth
old green three-cent stamps now obsolete
and many directed to the names of those
long dead Most of the men of the ex-
petition were unmarried and some of these
letters were to their Sweethearts Some of
them have since been delivered to marrlCt
miodie-aged women with children and
some Will never reach their destination
Mr.. Bridgman has used diligence in deir
ering these letters and the task IS not YET
onpleted.
Perhaps the saddest of all the letters IN
the box was one from Mrs Emma W De
Long, written in 1881 TO her husband
Commander George w. De Long of the
Jeanette expedition. This letter was car
rieG north in 1881 by Lieut.. Greely in the
hope that he might get an opportunity To-
deliver IL somewhere in that vast waste OF
Ice. But De Long himself was then dead
in the snow, and his wife's letter has now
been returned, nineteen years later with
seals unbroken, to the writer.
large proportion of the men kept dia
ries. most of them written in little blank
books much worn. One or two We're bound
with sea,skin with the hair outside: others
were written in the form Of letters tc
friends at home and manifo.ded with car
bon paper. Some Of these stopped shor,
OF: in the middle of page. and one actual
ly in the middle of a sentence as II the
order to march had come hurriedly anu