The REALs of a Dream: Admiral Robert Peary & Matthew Henson

 Peary entered the U.S. Navy in 1881 to pursue a naval career, however, was granted leaves of absence for Arctic exploration. In 1886, with his African American associate, Matthew Henson, he traveled inland from Disko Bay over the Greenland ice sheet for 100 miles, reaching a point 7,500 feet above sea level. During his expedition of 1893–94, he again sledged to northeastern Greenland—this time in his first attempt to reach the North Pole.

By 1909, it was almost universally accepted that Peary and his team became the first explorers to reach the North Pole. However, the 1980s examination of his 1908–09 expedition diary and other newly released documents cast doubt on whether he had actually reached the pole. Through a combination of navigational mistakes and record-keeping errors, Peary may actually have advanced only to a point 30–60 miles short of the pole. The truth remains uncertain.

Matthew Alexander Henson (1866—1955), orphaned as a youth, went to sea at the age of 12 as a cabin boy on the sailing ship Katie Hines. Later, while working in a store in Washington, D.C., he met Peary, who hired him as a valet for his next expedition to Nicaragua (1888). Impressed with his ability and resourcefulness, Peary employed him as an attendant on his seven subsequent expeditions to the Arctic. Henson’s account of the journey, A Negro Explorer at the North Pole, appeared in 1912. The following year, by order of President William Howard Taft, Henson was appointed a clerk in the U.S. Customs House in New York City, a post he held until his retirement in 1936.