Matthew Henson: The Ignored Hero

Matthew Henson, (1866 – 1955)
American Arctic Explorer, engineer

Matthew Henson met Commander Robert E. Peary in 1888 and joined him on an expedition to Nicaragua. Impressed with Henson’s seamanship, Peary recruited him as a colleague. For years they made many trips together, including Arctic voyages in which Henson traded with the Eskimos and mastered their language, built sleds, and trained dog teams. In 1909, Peary mounted his eighth attempt to reach the North Pole, selecting Henson to be one of the team of six who would make the final run to the Pole. Before the goal was reached, Peary could no longer continue on foot and rode on a dog sled. Various accounts say he was ill, exhausted, or had frozen toes. In any case, he sent Henson on ahead as a scout. In a newspaper interview Henson said: “I was in the lead that had overshot the mark a couple of miles. We went back then and I could see that my footprints were the first at the spot. Henson then proceeded to plant the American flag.
Although Admiral Peary received many honors, Henson was largely ignored. He was an African-American in a time when his country would not acknowledge his great achievement. He spent most of the next thirty years working as an obscure clerk in a federal customs house in New York. In 1944 Congress awarded him a duplicate of the silver medal given to Peary. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower both honored him before he died in 1955.