Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1920-03-18
Some Facts About Admiral Peary.

WORDS reported 10 the CfViilZed world
for the first time this GROWING
achievement of three centuries of ef-
fort:
"Indian Harbor, via Cape Ray. N. F.,
Sept. 60 the Associated Press. New
York:
Stars and Stripes nailed to North
Pole. PEARY.
Peary's actual attainment OF the
Pole had been just five months before,
on April 6, 1909.
When this dispatch came, the world
was, quite unknown to Peary, already
praising DR.. Frederick A. Cook as the
discoverer. Only four days previous
to the Peary announcement, Cook, who
was on his way back to Copenhagen
on board a Danish steamer, had tele-
graphed the claim that he reached the
Pole on April Fl, l9O8-nearly a year
ahead of Peary.
While DR.. Cooks claim did not go un-
questioned from the first, he had for
four days at least been widely ac-
claimed as the discoverer of the pole
With Peary's message there arose one
of the greatest controversies Of al
ages over the honor of actual discov-
cry. There can be none who has for
gotten the dispute. Peary's asser-
ton were not seriously questioned
but among newspaper readers there
came to be two great camps, for and
against Cook
Peary with his record of seven sue
cessful trips to the Arctic, his official
standing in the United States Navy
and in scientific circles, easily held the
commanding position in the controver-
sy. But it was only after the scientific
bodies one by one had sifted the evil
dence and pronounced Cooks claims
unfounded that Peary's title as dis
coverer of the Pole was really won.
The bitterness Of this episode is on
one item in the price which Peary paC
for the immortal fame that is now &C
knowledged to be his. He spent prac-
tically all he had in money, gave all
that was in him for hard work and
suffered all the human frame could
endure from hunger, cold and disap-
pointment. He spent upward of $780,
600, and several times he barely es-
capped the death which in various
forms had been the fate of more than
700 explorers before him.
The first step that led Peary toward
the Pole was taken in Washington one
day when he walked into a book stora
to browse and picked up a fugitive
account of Greenland. BE became
an Unsuitable reader of the subject
of the Arctic.
He was then 80 years old. He was
born in Cresson. Pa, in 1856. His ia
ther died when he was years old and
his mother took him to Portland
Maine, where he spent his boyhood.
roaming about Casco Bay. He went
to Bowdoin College, won fame there
as runner and jumper and stood
IN the honor column of scholarship
1t was little later that he had gone to
Washington to work as craftsman
in the Coast and Geodetic Survey Of
hces. He spent his spare time study
ing civil engineering and passed in that
branch into>the naval service. He
became Lieutenant Peary, u. S. N.
His first assignment was to the trop,
les. He was leader of the survey
ing for the Nicaraguan canal route. II
was when he returned to Washington
that he fell upon the book about
Greenland, and thereafter virtually
consecrated himself to polar expora-
ton.
Obtaining leave from the naval
service, he led an expedition into
Greenland to determine the extent OF
this mysterious land. He determined
its insularity, discovered and named
many Arctic points, which today are
FAMILIAR names-such as independence
Bay Melville Land and Heilprin Land
and in one of his later voyages he dis
covered the famous meteorities which
he brought back to civilization. On
OF them, weighing so tons, is the won
der OF visitors TO the Museum of Nat.
ural History in New York.
Between voyages Peary resorted to
the lecture platform to raise funds for
further exploration. In one instance
he delivered l68 lectures in e6 davs
raising $4,000.
On his sixth voyage, with the Pole
in view, he had to give up because
both of his feet became frozen. AL
though he had reached the most
northerly land in the world-namine
! LII [ Mnrric