8. The untimely poisoning of Charles Francis Hall.

On 8th November 1871 a man died of arsenic poisoning. The loss of the knowledge he carried left a gap in the world. His untimely death prevented him preparing what would have been a detailed account of the Franklin expedition based on his five years of living with the Inuit and collecting their testimonies. It also put an end to the attempt on North Pole by the American Polaris expedition. Today in 2019, almost a century and a half later, I sit in a rain-swept cottage in the Preseli Mountains of Wales trying to reconstruct what this man should have written in the 1860’s.  But some of his data is lost, much has been edited and things not understood left out and worst of all, some key fragments of data were never fully recorded by him but only briefly mentioned.   One cannot do the job anything like as well as he could have. But today what survives still provides some of the best evidence of what happened to the lost Franklin expedition of 1845.

The man who died was big, ebullient, physically strong, enthusiastic and stubborn.  He did not die easily for it took the poison two weeks to kill him Loomis, 1971). His ignominious and untimely death has resulted in his being poorly known today.  But he died leading an American expedition to the North Pole. He had the confidence and approval of the 18th President of the United States of American – Ulysses S. Grant. He did not have the advantage of a good education but made his own way in the world. His name was Charles Francis Hall. What is left of his work is a somewhat chaotic mish mash of fragments compiled in a vast volume at the request of the American Congress by a Professor J.E. Nourse in 1879.  Today researchers visiting his notebooks (housed at the Smithsonian Institute) are finding important new pieces of information that he collected but were omitted because Professor Nourse did not understand them.

Hall was an American blacksmith, engraver, printer, newspaper publisher and polar explorer who made three expeditions to the Arctic. The first two were in search of survivors from the lost Franklin expedition. Hall believed that God wanted him to find and bring back some survivors of the Franklin expedition who might still be living with the Inuit.

His first expedition lasted two years and three months from May 29th 1860 until September 13th 1862 and resulted in his book ‘Arctic Researches’. It was on this first expedition that Hall met two Inuit who would become his friends and constant companions for the rest of his life. They were Too-koo-li-too and Ebierbing, whom he renamed ‘Hannah’ and ‘Joe’.

The second expedition lasted five years and three months, from June 30th 1864 to September 26th 1869. Upon his return he became immediately involved in preparations to lead the American North Polar Expedition of 1871 aboard the United States steamship Polaris.  His case was that exploration of the world for promoting science and commerce had been mainly carried out by the governments of the Old World, in particular England. The only charts of the known world used by American navigators were all foreign.  The entire coast of the North American continent from Bering Strait to Labrador, had been discovered, explored and surveyed by the British government, except for a small portion explored by Hall himself. He gave the English credit for finding the Arctic whaling grounds which were a major source of commerce for America.

On September 26th 1869 Hall had landed at New Bedford after an absence of five years. The civil war was over. He brought with him Ebierbing, Too-koo-li-too and their young son Punnie. They proved to be popular attractions at his public lectures. He immediately plunged into a series of lectures in which he proposed an expedition to the North Pole. Hall had become famous and at one of his lectures both the US President and Vice President attended. Next he went to Washington to petition for the expedition.

Hall offered his friend Whaling Captain S.O. Budington the command of the expedition which was accepted. But the Committee on Appropriations delayed their decisions. As July approached, it looked as if the Polaris expedition would not leave. Budington accepted command of a whaler for a July cruise as he had a living to make. On July 2nd the Appropriations Committee acted and awarded the Polaris Expedition US$50,000. The Senate and the House confirmed the decision on July 9th. Hall received a letter of appointment as commander from President Grant dated July 20th 1870.

Although the primary objective of the expedition was to reach the North Pole, a scientific program of observations along the route was planned by the National Academy of Sciences and the Smithsonian Institution. These two organisations were put in charge of the scientific program including the appointment of the scientific staff.

In July 1870 Lady Jane Franklin travelled to Cincinnati for four days to meet with Hall. Together with Hall they crossed the river and met with the aged parents of President Grant. They spent their time together discussing the Franklin expedition. Hall promised Lady Franklin that after the Polaris Expedition, he would return to King William Island to seek the buried records and log books of the lost expedition. Unfortunately the Polaris expedition would prove a disaster. Relationships on board turned acrimonious and Hall was poisoned probably by some of his crew.  So he did not produce the awaited volume with all his information on the lost Franklin expedition and Hall never returned to King William Island in search for the lost records.

Happily the notebooks and journals of the Franklin search were not lost. Hall brought them with him intending to work them up in the long dark Arctic night.  But he sensed trouble brewing and at Disco Island he put them ashore for safety. His journal and notebooks for the Polaris expedition were mysteriously lost after his death, presumably so his critical comments of the trouble makers and a possible murder charge would not surface afterwards.

Hall’s surviving papers were purchased from his family by the Navy Department under an Act of Congress approved on June 23rd 1874.  Some were used by Admiral Davis to prepare the Polaris account ‘Narrative of the North Polar Expedition’. The bulk of the manuscripts dealt with his second expedition. This account was prepared by Professor J.E. Norse – ‘Narrative of a second Expedition’.

Lady Franklin had recommended Doctor David Walker as Chief Scientist as he had recently returned from McClintock’s ‘Fox’ Expedition where he had been surgeon-naturalist. Hall wrote in support of Walker. Unfortunately the Secretary of  the Smithsonian favoured 24 year old German Dr Emil Bessels because he had better qualifications than Walker. He had a medical degree from Heidelberg University and had he gone on to study zoology at Jena and Stuttgart, followed by an Arctic expedition to Spitzbergen.

The expedition was to prove a disaster. The seeds of this lay in part in Hall.  He was not a well educated man and very conscious of this fact, in particular he was sensitive about his lack of scientific training. Because of this he submitted to the choice of scientists made by the scientific committee. This led to incompatibility, hatred and finally his poisoning.  In his first two expeditions he was essentially alone in the Arctic and lived with the Inuit, adopting their lifestyle.  The Polaris expedition was quite different as a major government funded expedition with 27 officers and seamen as well as two Inuit couples and their four children as listed below.

OFFICERS

Captain Charles Francis Hall – Commander

Captain Sidney O. Budington – Sailing Master

Captain George E. Tyson – Assistant Navigator

H.C. Chester                           First Mate

William Morton                      Second Mate

Emil Schuman                         Engineer

Alvin Odell                              Assistant Engineer

Walter Campbell                      Fireman

John Booth                               Fireman

John Herron                               Steward

William Jackson                       Cook

Nathaniel Coffin                       Carpenter

SCIENTIFIC STAFF

Emil Bessels                             Surgeon and Chief of Staff

R.W.D. Bryan                           Astronomer and Chaplain

Frederick Mayer                        Meteorologist

SEAMEN

Herman Sieman                        Joseph Mauch

Frederick Anthing                     G.W.Lindquist

J.W.C.Kruger                            Peter Johnson

Henry Hobby                             Frederick Jamka

William Nindemann                  Noah Hayes

INUIT

Ebeierling                                   Hunter and dog driver

Too-koo-li-too                                 Translator

Punny                                         Their child

Hans Hendrick                           Hunter and dog driver

His wife and three young children

The non-Inuit crew totalled 27 men, plus the two Inuit couples and their four children being a total of 35.

Before Polaris departed New York, a reception was held by the American Geographical Society for Hall, Ebierbing, Too-koo-li-too and some of the expedition’s officers. Hall spoke and expressed his interest in the Arctic as:

‘The Arctic Region is my home. I love it dearly, its storms, its winds, its glaciers, its icebergs, and when I am there among them, it seems as if I were in an earthly heaven or a heavenly earth.’

The ship sailed down the Potomac to Brooklyn Navy Yard on June 10th 1871. She would carry stores for two and a half years. She called at New London and then Newfoundland. Greenland’s mountains were sighted on July 27th. Stops were made at Disco Island, Upernavik, one more stop, and Tasiussaq. For six days after leaving Tasiussaq, Polaris had great success reaching the mouth of Smith Sound in three days.  This is the entrance to a 300 mile long passage between Ellesmere Island and Greenland. Polaris steamed uninterrupted along this channel to reach her furthest north on August 30th at latitude 82 degrees 11 minutes north. She was at the north end of the channel with the ice covered Lincoln Sea ahead of her – the first ship to reach such a northerly latitude.

The last communication with Polaris was when she left Tasiussaq.  In these pre-radio days nobody expected to hear from her for some years. Winter 1871-72 passed, then winter 1872-73.  In Spring 1873 news was expected as the ship did not carry enough stores for a third winter in the Arctic. On May 6th 1873 the world was shocked by a telegram from the United States consul in St. John’s stating that 20 (it later proved to be 19) members of the expedition had been picked up by a sealing ship from an ice floe drifting at Grady Habour, Labrador and that Captain Hall had died.

A Board of enquiry was set up presided over by Secretary of Navy George Robeson.  A story of disasters soon emerged. After two days a search for Polaris was organised and the sealing ship that had rescued the members of the expedition  (the Tigress) was chartered and a small naval vessel the ‘Juanita’ would accompany her.  Former Polaris crewman Captain George Tyson was Ice Master and Acting Lieutenant aboard Tigress.

It was found that very early on the Polaris voyage, Hall began to experience trouble with the two Germans – Chief Scientist Emil Bessels and meteorologist Frederick Meyer. Relations between Hall and the two German scientists deteriorated steadily. Charles Francis Hall was a great bear of a man who was self made and confident in his strength and abilities. He had demonstrated these by his years alone in the Arctic living amongst the Inuit with his two close companions and translators Too-koo-li-too and Ebierbing. He had great energy and enthusiasm for the Arctic and led by example. At the time of the Polaris expedition he was 50 years old and very much at his peak – a very formidable man.

In contrast Dr Emil Bessels was physically a very small man who was only 24 years old at the time of the expedition.  Bessels evidently had a high opinion of himself, his abilities and his qualifications.   He and Hall were in many ways opposites and incompatible.  Hall took to publically humiliating Bessels in front of the expedition and called him ‘the little German dancing master’.  Bessels regarded Hall as an ignorant man without scientific training who should not be in charge of the scientific work.

By the time the ship reached St John’s, Newfoundland, the two German scientists were resisting his authority. Matters came to a head when Hall, in command of the expedition, asked meteorologist Frederick Meyer to be his secretary especially to keep the expedition diary. Meyer refused and threatened to leave the ship at Disko Island. Bessels took his side, also threatening to leave and take all eight German crewmen with him. Hall had little choice but to back down and cancel his request to Mayer.

At Disko, Polaris was joined by her supply ship Congress. Captain Newport of Congress together with the Reverend Doctor Newman came aboard Polaris to discover that Bessels and Meyer were openly refusing to carry out the orders of Hall. The latter appealed to Captain Newport for help. This resulted in Captain Newport addressing the crew on Naval discipline before they left Disco. Bessels in his book did not mention the dispute with Hall but described Captain Newport’s address as:

‘His heinous intentions of giving a speech was barely comprehensible ……… But the words flowed slowly; long pauses for effect separated them and their content was meagre in amount. At a lectern or a public meeting the speaker would have effectively been shouted down, but here one had to listen with a pleasant expression to the utter nonsense as he admonished us to be well behaved and virtuous.’

With this trouble at Disco Island, Hall decided to leave his precious Franklin notebooks and papers ashore for safety.  At Upernavik Hall addressed the assembled ships company and mentioned Bessels behaviour. Joseph Mauch wrote in his journal that Captain Hall made some remarks insulting Dr. Bessels most severely….He accused him of having tried to make disturbances amongst the ships company and told him he would report to the authorities at home on the doctor’s conduct.

The two German scientists both regarded Hall as an ignorant man unfit for leadership because of his lack of education and scientific training. Hall’s rank of Captain was purely honorary.  Bessels probably deeply resented Hall’s dressing him down in front of the crew.  Without Hall he probably thought he would make a great leader for the expedition and there is some evidence that he tried to do this after Hall’s death but he lacked the support of Captain Budington.

It was not just the two German scientists that caused Hall trouble. At St. John’s he also had cause to reprimand Captain Budington for raiding the store of provisions. Captain Budington was a personal friend of Hall who had known him in the Arctic whaling grounds.  He was a proven whale catcher of many years experience. But also at Disko it was discovered that Captain Budington was secretly drinking liquor. Budington proved surly to Hall’s command and was evidently having difficulties with his responsibilities for the expedition and finding solace in alcohol. It was not until after Hall’s death that the reason for the drinking emerged. Captain Budington a few hours after Hall’s death, met seaman Henry Hobby on deck and told him that ‘We are all right now. You shan’t be starved to death’. This remarkable statement clearly reveals Budington’s fear. As a whaling captain of many years experience he was afraid to push the ship so far into the ice that the Polaris expedition might become trapped and repeat the experience of the Franklin expedition where everyone died after the ships became trapped in the ice.  This fear was no doubt behind his drinking.  It was not a false fear either as after Hall’s death Budington failed to work the ship south through the ice and so she was lost. Budington’s caution was completely incompatible with the ideas of a man like Hall, who as highly confident in his own ability and with his loyal Inuit friends capable of travelling and living anywhere in the Arctic.

Hall was well aware of Budington’s reluctance to venture too far north. Captain Tyson testified in the enquiry that the day they put into Thank God Harbour, Hall called a meeting of officers to discuss whether to take the ship further north. Captain Budington had exclaimed that he would be damned if he would move from there. It was not his intention to go north if he could help it. Hall overruled him and did steam westward towards the northern tip of Ellesmere Island, but after only a few miles the ship was caught in ice and carried back the way she had come.  A small harbour was found and they planned to winter there.

Although it did not emerge during the enquiry, during the spring after Hall’s death, Captain Budington approached Captain Tyson and suggested that they beach the ship and winter ashore, so that in the following spring they might travel with the boats to be ‘rescued’ by whalers. In this manner all would be safe and they would collect their pay without risk.  Budington did in fact do this. But he did it without attempting to rescue 19 expedition members who at the time were adrift on an ice flow.

Hall named the small harbour found within Robeson Strait on the coast of Greenland ‘Thank God Harbour’. It lay on a 12 mile wide coastal plain. There Hall set out on what would be his last trip on October 10th 1871 to explore the route northwards in his attempt on the pole for the next year. He was accompanied by First Mate Chester and the two male Inuit Ebierbing and Hans.  They took only one sledge and set out to the north-east along the edge of the mountains that bordered the coastal plain. On the second day Hall sent Hans back to bring up a second sledge, more dogs and equipment. The party returned on October 24th. They had reached a high mountain and Hall and Chester climbed it to get a splendid view of Robeson Strait and Ellesmere Island on the opposite side. They could see that the latter ended in a Cape some 60 miles from them and they concluded rightly that they were looking at the north-western tip of an island.

Hall and his party then returned to the ship.  They were first met by fireman Walter Campbell to whom Hall said he was tired but very well. At the observatory they were joined by Emil Bessels, then meteorologist Frederick Mayer and seaman Noah Hayes. Nearer the ship the party were joined by Captain Budington, Tyson and Morton who were supervising the banking of snow against the ship. Hall said he was never better in his life and that he had enjoyed the sledge journey and would be setting off shortly on another journey to the north. Hall also said he thought the pole could be approached from along the shore just explored. Hall then boarded the ship along with Ebierbing, Chester, Campbell and Morton.  On entering the cabin, without taking off his furs he asked the steward for coffee that was provided and drunk, while Morton helped him take off his wet boots. Hall later commented that the coffee was very sweet.

Arsenic is reputed to have a very sweet flavour along with a weak smell like garlic. The poisoning of Hall was a very shameful, secretive, horrible and protracted affair that lasted two weeks. It proved very hard to kill a great vibrant bear of a man like Hall who at the age of 50 years, and being highly active and strongly motivated, was still in his prime.  It seems that the coffee had contained a first and massive dose of arsenic. It was the only thing he ingested before his fatal illness.

Hall then got up to change his shirt and remarked that he felt sick and got into bed. When seaman Morton returned a little while later Hall was vomiting. The old sailor was alarmed and asked what was the matter and Hall replied that nothing was wrong just a foul stomach. Dr Bessels arrived and Hall requested an emetic but the doctor refused. Captain Budington then arrived and Hall told him he would be going north again in a few days.   Dr Bessels later told the court of enquiry that Hall told him he had been sick and had a pain in his stomach.  Hall then became comatose with an irregular pulse. After 25 minutes he recovered consciousness. Bessels noted that his left arm and left side including his face and tongue were paralysed. He told the crew and the enquiry that he thought Hall had suffered an ‘an apoplectic insult’ or stroke.

Next morning (October 25th) Ebierbing visited Hall who told him that last evening he was very sick. He had taken only a cup of coffee and soon became very sick and vomiting. He asked Ebierbing if he had had any bad coffee. Hall told him there was bad stuff in the coffee and he could feel it after a while burning his stomach. He said the coffee was too sweet for him. Ebierbing had made him coffee in the past but Hall said he had never before had coffee like it.

On October 26th Hall ate some preserved fruit but his temperature was fluctuating and Dr Bessels gave him an injection of quinine to stabilise it. On October 27th Halls appetite improved but a numbness in his tongue returned. Bessels injected more quinine and Hall was clear headed all day. On October 28th at 3.00.pm Hall jumped out of bed shouting that Budington and Tyson were going to shoot him. He suffered a dementia where he saw blue flames and vapours associated with people. Hall became aware that he was been poisoned and at various times he accused most people aboard as being responsible. But he viewed Dr Bessels as the leader of a conspiracy. Hall was aware that he might not survive as he told Too-koo-li-to that if he died she was to look after his papers and give them to Secretary Robeson.

From October 29th to 31st Hall refused all medical treatment from Dr Bessells and continued to refuse it until November 4th. From November 1st to 3rd Hall was much improved, stronger in body and clearer in mind. On November 4th Hall allowed Dr. Bessels to treat him again. On the same day Captain Tyson wrote:

‘Captain Hall very bad again. He talks wildly – seems to think someone means to poison him; calls for first one then another, as if he did not know who to trust. When I was in he accused xxxxx and xxxx of wanting to poison him. When he is more rational he will say ‘If I die, you must still go to the pole,’ and such like remarks. It’s a sad affair; what will become of this expedition if Captain Hall dies, I dread to think.’

On November 5th and 6th Hall was again treated by Dr. Bessels. Hall was up and about and went up on deck. He ate heartily. On November 7th at 1.00 am Hall suffered a relapse. He was comatose throughout the day, but became conscious briefly in the late afternoon. On November 7th Hall died at around 3.25.am.

Although quinine was used to alleviate high fevers, after the first injection by Dr Bessels it is unknown why he continued as Hall was then without fever.  The Captain’s clerk Joe Maunch who had studied pharmacology told Henry Hobby of a strange smell in Hall’s cabin. During his illness Hall had accused the cook of poisoning his food and had Chester and others taste it before he ate it. For a time he kept his own tinned food under lock and key and allowed only Morton and Too-koo-li-too to prepare it for him. However his main suspicions and fears that someone was poisoning him were directed at Dr Bessels. When Bessels administered medicines, Hall had insisted that someone else try them first.

The carpenter made a coffin for Hall’s body. It took the crew two days to dig a grave ashore in the frozen ground.  Hall was buried on 11th November at Thank God Harbour.

In August 1968 Hall’s grave was opened by a four man team led by biographer Chauncey Loomis in order to conduct an autopsy (Loomis, 1971). The body was found to be partially decomposed and a finger nail, a length of hair and a triangular fragment of skull were collected for investigation. The samples were submitted to Toronto’s Centre for Forensic Sciences.  The fingernail produced the best results and showed that Hall had an intake of considerable amounts of arsenic in the last two weeks of his life. The tip of the fingernail contained 24.6 parts per million arsenic and the base 76.4. Assuming a normal growth rate of 0.7mm per week then the high arsenic intake occurred during the last two weeks of Hall’s life.

The enquiry held in Washington by the Secretary of the Navy George Robeson was something of a whitewash and found in favour of Dr Bessels and his interpretation that Hall had died of apoplexy. However it seems that Hall likely ingested a massive dose of arsenic in the oversweet coffee that he drank immediately on his return to the ship.  From 29th October to 4th November Hall, believing that Dr Bessels was poisoning him, banned him from his bedside.  During that time Hall made an almost miraculous recovery.  However when he again received the medical attentions of Dr Bessels, he again became ill and died. It is possible that more arsenic rather than quinine, was administered in the injections that were no longer necessary as his temperature fluctuations had ceased. Three of Bessel’s actions are suspicious. First he refused Hall an emetic that might have purged the arsenic from his system. Second because he continued to give unnecessary injections of quinine. Third because he would not allow Captain Budington to take the medications he administered to Hall first to demonstrate that they were safe. In his book (an account of 536 pages), published in 1879 in German (republished in English in 2016), Bessels very briefly described Hall’s illness and death in a single paragraph of ten lines in a chapter called ‘Hall’s sledge trip’. Hall was aware that he had been poisoned and accused Bessels of leading a conspiracy against him. However in his book Bessels only comment on the poisoning is:

‘Hall suffered temporarily from serious mental derangements which at times degenerated into mild delirium. He believed somebody was trying to kill him; that somebody wanted to stab, poison or shoot him.’

Rather oddly the chapter contains three extracts from Hall’s lost diary as well as a summary of Hall’s last trip. Yet this diary was apparently lost with all of Hall’s papers a year later. Presumably Bessels had used Halls diary after his death, in the year before it was lost.

Later in his book, Bessels gives another insight to Hall’s death. When describing the very narrow escape of 19 members of the expedition  led by Captain Tyson who later became separated from the ship and were stranded on an ice floe for six months, he wrote:

‘On 30 January, almost at the end of his tether under the stress of hunger, cold, and the responsibility he felt for keeping the entire group alive, despite the machinations and lack of cooperation from the men, Tyson wrote a sort of last will and testament:

Now as death is liable to all men and especially to one in my situation I wish here to make a few remarks which whether I live or die I sincerely hope will come to light. I here brand Sailing Master and Ice Pilot  Sydney O. Budington  as a villain, a liar, a thief, a coward and a drunkard and now has, I fear, added murder to his many crimes.’

Bessels next claimed:

‘This last accusation is to the effect that Budington had murdered Hall; a few days before Hall set off on his last sledge trip Budington had predicted “the damn old son of a bitch will die soon….” ’

Here Bessels story has changed dramatically. Now he is admitting that Hall was murdered but misinterprets Captains Tyson’s desperate remarks about being abandoned on an ice floe to imply that Budington murdered Hall. Tyson and his party of 19 spent six months drifting south on ice floes under extreme conditions with little hope of survival. They had seen their ship steam past them without attempting to look for them or rescue hem.  Captain Tyson’s charge was that Budington by neglecting them had murdered them.  They were eventually rescued after the ice flows had all but disappeared, by a Newfoundland sealing vessel.

When their ship passed them it was in a sinking condition and had no anchors or boats left aboard. It had been leaking badly for the past few months.  It was kept afloat only by using 9 tons of coal a day to keep the pumps working. When Budington beached the ship, there were only 6 tons of coal left aboard and cabin partitions had also been burned to keep the engines running. Budington ran the ship aground to stop it from sinking but made no attempt at rescue.  He and others aboard had concluded that the 19 stranded on the ice were dead.

The enquiry into the failure of the expedition revealed that shortly after the death and burial off Hall, his opponents expressed relief or joy.  The first of these was Captain Budington who a few hours after Hall’s death met seaman Henry Hobby on deck and told him that ‘We are all right now. You shan’t be starved to death’.   This remarkable statement clearly reveals Budington’s fears. As a whaling captain of many years experience he was afraid to penetrate so far into the ice that the Polaris expedition might become trapped and repeat the experience of the Franklin expedition.  This fear was no doubt behind his drinking.

Seaman Noah Hayes reported that while working with Dr Bessels in the observatory, he found Bessels very light-hearted and said that Hall’s death was the best thing that could happen to the expedition.

Meteorologist Frederick Meyer spoke out saying that Hall had consulted with the sailors and not the officers, so that the sailors had command of the expedition.  With Hall’s death this could not continue.

After Hall’s death a paragraph of instructions for the expedition came into force. It stated:

‘Mr. Budington shall, in case of your death or disability, continue as the sailing and ice-master, and control and direct the movements of the vessel; and Dr. Bessels shall, in such case, continue as chief of the scientific department, directing all sledge journeys and scientific operations.  In the possible contingency of their non-agreement as to the course to be persued, then Mr. Budington shall assume sole charge and command, and return with the expedition to the United States with all possible dispatch.’

This relationship was clarified soon after Hall’s burial at a meeting of Budington and Bessels when they agreed to continue with the aims of the expedition.  Captain Budington was in charge of the ship and expedition and Dr Bessels in charge of the scientific program and the dogs. The two disliked each other and it was not a good working relationship. Bessels regarded Budington as a bore, uneducated in science and uninterested in the aims of the expedition.  Conversely Budington regarded Bessels as an arrogant, intellectual snob, lacking practical experience in the Arctic. Budington and other officers took to stealing the pure alcohol that Dr Bessels had to preserve specimens.  One day Bessels hid in a place he knew Buddingtom had some alcohol and caught him. It was in the cabin used by the Inuit. Budington admitted to the enquiry that he had been caught by Bessels and that he had taken him by the collar and told him to mind his own business.

Both Budington and Bessels had reasons for wanting the death of Hall. Budington feared Halls enthusiasm for the far north might lead to the ship being trapped and the crew dying of starvation.  There was another possible reason. Recently letters have emerged showing that while Polaris was at the Brooklyn naval yard both Hall and Bessels had been visiting a young female sculptor/singer/musician named Vinnie Ream. She had gifted Hall a photo of a statue of Lincoln she had made as well as a bust of Lincoln and other items that Hall used to decorate his cabin. A letter to her from Bessels suggests he became infatuated with the young woman, He would have seen Hall as a competitor. It also emerged that years later Bessels was engaged to a young German lady who died in mysterious circumstances and may have been poisoned.

Only three days after Hall’s death a great storm blew up and Polaris broke out of the ice in the harbour but was then moored to a great iceberg. A second storm arrived four days later and drove the iceberg towards the shore pushing Polaris with it. When it grounded Polaris was partly supported by an ice spur, so that she was on an even keel only at high tide and at low tide the stern dropped and she heeled over to port. The ship remained like this throughout the winter which stressed the hull and caused leaks. The expedition passed the winter with scientific observations.

In the early spring before the ice melted a number of hunting trips were made for musk oxen and Bessels led an exploring team south. Later with the approval of Budington two boat expeditions set out to the north hoping to reach the Pole by open water.  One led by Hubbard Chester returned after only two days having lost their boat and equipment crushed in the ice. The other led by Captain Tyson and including Dr Bessels found their way through leads in the ice round Cape Lupton to Newman Bay. Hubbard Chester set out a second time in a portable canvas boat and also reached Newman Bay. The two parties met and set up camp there for a month. But the sea never opened and the boats had to return to the ship that was now leaking badly.

Captain Budington with a small crew had remained aboard Polaris until the ice opened and the ship was afloat for the first time in six months. The hull of Polaris had been seriously strained by the ice and she was leaking badly, so the mechanical pump was started. In the following weeks Captain Budington tried unsuccessfully to take Polaris around Cape Lupton but failed and returned to Thank God Harbour.  He sent messengers overland to Newman Bay ordering the men to return to the ship. Only Tyson and his party returned.  Chester and his men did not return until two weeks later. Budington then decided to sail south and end the expedition. While they waited for the ice to clear Emil Schumann carved a headboard for Hall’s grave.

On August 12th, Budington took Polaris out of the harbour heading south but the lead did not continue after a few hours sailing. She remained in the ice for another two months drifting slowly southwards with the land about twenty miles away on either side. To hold the leaks the pumps were in action all day consuming 900 pounds of coal a day.

On October 12th in Smith Sound a violent gale from the southwest blew up.   Huge icebergs crashed through the flows around the ship. At 7.30.pm ice pressure raised Polaris up and threw her to port with loud cracking of timbers. Budington ordered everything over the side onto the ice. Provisions, equipment and the two surviving boats, were put overboard including a sealed box with all of Hall’s books and papers as well as many of the records of the scientific work of the expedition. The Inuit all went onto the ice and worked on moving the stores. At 10.00.pm the ice floe broke into pieces and nineteen men women and children and the dogs were carried away and all the paper records, Hall’s papers and the stores were lost. Fourteen men were left aboard the ship, but her ice anchors broke and she was driven away from the floe. Captain Tyson was the senior man on the ice and he used a boat to go out and gather the men from drifting pieces of ice. Then the party huddled together on the main floe to await the passing of the storm.

Early next morning with the storm over; Tyson scouted the floe and found their ice raft to have a circumference of about four miles. Tyson saw that there was enough open water to get everyone ashore by boat but that ice was drifting down to them.  He urged everyone to leave but the men did not obey him, preferring instead to have a leisurely breakfast and to await the return of the ship. By the time breakfast was over and the boats loaded and the party set off, the ice had closed up and they could no longer reach the shore. They returned to their floe.  Soon afterwards they saw Polaris a few miles to the southeast close to the Greenland shore moving south under both sail and steam. No lookouts were apparent, and she did not see them nor stop and was soon out of sight,

The party remained drifting south on the ice for the next six months. They had travelled about 1500 miles in 196 days by the time they were rescued.  On April 30th 1873, the party was picked up by Captain Isaac Bartlett of the sealer Tigress. They told a tale of hardship and near starvation despite eating the dogs. They were saved several times only by Ebierbing and Hans killing seals and on two occasions a polar bear. As they drifted south their ice floe broke up and they had to move to other floes that became steadily smaller. Fuel was a problem and one of the boats was broken up. Relations were not good as the Germans formed a separate group speaking their own language and Meteorologist Frederick Meyer took charge of them and issued his own orders. All had guns except Tyson and he was unable to enforce his orders.

The nineteen were brought into St John’s on May 12th. On May 27th the party boarded the USS Frolic and were taken to Washington for an immediate enquiry. After two days of enquiry Secretary of the Navy George Robeson chartered the Tigress from her Newfoundland owners and sent the small navy ship Juniata to accompany her. They were to find the Polaris and her missing crew. Captain Tyson sailed aboard the Tigress as Ice Master and Second Lieutenant. The two ships met at Upernavik and then carried out independent searches. Commander Greer took Tigress to the area where Tyson reported last seeing the Polaris. There they found a wooden hut with bunks, mattresses, manuscripts and pieces of ships equipment indicating that the missing crew had wintered there. The Inuit in the area reported that Polaris had been driven aground here and the men set up quarters ashore. In the spring the men had built two boats from wood from the ship and set out southwards. Captain Budington had made the Inuit a present of the hull of Polaris.  But shortly afterwards a gale had driven it from the shore and it had sunk. Greer then sailed along the Greenland coast southwards looking for the missing crew. He did not find them so searched the coast of Baffin Island also unsuccessfully. He then sailed to St. John’s where he learned that the missing crew had been picked up by Scottish whalers and been taken to Great Britain. But they were now on their way home from Dundee. When they arrived they testified at the enquiry.

Their story was that when Polaris broke free, she was leaking badly and the men aboard were very aware that the last two ships boats were on the ice floe. Captain Budington testified that the ship was so badly damaged that he could not attempt a rescue of the stranded party, but had run the ship ashore and moved everyone ashore. During the winter the small party was joined by Inuit and some scientific work was carried out.  In the early spring before the ice melted Dr Bessels made three attempts to go north to Polaris House and beyond.  But he did not have the respect of the Inuit he took with him and had to turn back each time. Once he had to work alone as no-one would stay with him.

At the enquiry, several crew testified that Captain Budington drank on the expedition, along with others. They also testified that he had little enthusiasm for the main objective of the expedition – the attack on the North Pole. Captain Budington may have been a successful whaling captain but he proved quite unsuitable for a serious national scientific expedition the North Pole.

After the expedition was over, Dr. Bessels was given an office in the Carnegie Institution where he worked up the results of the expedition for many years.  Finally he had to be forced out of the building. Years later in Germany he published a book about the expedition and surprised many, because it included passages from Hall’s missing diaries of the Polaris expedition. As the main suspect for poisoning Hall, it may not be surprising to learn that he later probably poisoned his fiancee (see Blog by Russell Potter –‘Visions of the North’).

The untimely death of Hall meant that the huge amount of Franklin data that he had collected from the Inuit was not compiled into a book by him. The efforts of Professor Nourse led to a rambling jumbled compilation. Recent study of Hall’s original notebooks by Captain David Woodman has revealed more information that was omitted by Professor Norse as it was not understood. For example the story of the ‘Black men’, also the report of how ‘Aglooka’ died at the hands of the Kinapoo Inuit near Chesterfield Inlet.  In Victorian England Dr John Rae’s report of cannibalism resulted in a very lengthy tirade from Charles Dickens who blamed it on the Inuit.  As a result the Inuit testimony was ignored for a very long time and it was not taken serious until modern times.

 

QUESTION: Was Hall poisoned by Dr. Bessels or did he poison himself by administering an arsenic medication?