George Washington De Long (22 August 1844 – ) was a
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
officer and explorer who led the ill-fated
''Jeannette'' expedition of 1879–1881, in search of the
Open Polar Sea
The Open Polar Sea was a hypothesized ice-free ocean surrounding the North Pole. This unproved and eventually-disproved theory was once so widely believed that many exploring expeditions used it as justification for attempts to reach the North P ...
.
Career
''Jeannette'' expedition
In 1879, backed by
James Gordon Bennett Jr.
James Gordon Bennett Jr. (May 10, 1841May 14, 1918) was publisher of the ''New York Herald'', founded by his father, James Gordon Bennett Sr. (1795–1872), who emigrated from Scotland. He was generally known as Gordon Bennett to distinguish him ...
—owner of the ''
New York Herald
The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the '' New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''.
Hi ...
''—and under the auspices of the United States Navy, Lieutenant Commander De Long sailed from
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
on the ship with a plan to find a way to the
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Ma ...
via the
Bering Strait. As well as collecting scientific data and animal specimens, De Long discovered
three islands and claimed them for the United States in the summer of 1881. The government did not endorse this claim, and the islands are under Russian jurisdiction.
The ship became trapped in the ice pack in the
Chukchi Sea
Chukchi Sea ( rus, Чуко́тское мо́ре, r=Chukotskoye more, p=tɕʊˈkotskəjə ˈmorʲɪ), sometimes referred to as the Chuuk Sea, Chukotsk Sea or the Sea of Chukotsk, is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is bounded on the west ...
northeast of
Wrangel Island
Wrangel Island ( rus, О́стров Вра́нгеля, r=Ostrov Vrangelya, p=ˈostrəf ˈvrangʲɪlʲə; ckt, Умӄиԓир, translit=Umqiḷir) is an island of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. It is the 91st largest island in the w ...
in September 1879. It drifted in the ice pack in a northwesterly direction until it was crushed in the shifting ice and sank on , in the
East Siberian Sea
The East Siberian Sea ( rus, Восто́чно-Сиби́рское мо́ре, r=Vostochno-Sibirskoye more) is a marginal sea in the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the Arctic Cape to the north, the coast of Siberia to the south, the New ...
. De Long and his crew then traversed the ice pack to try to reach
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part ...
pulling three small boats.
After reaching open water on September 11 they became separated and one boat, commanded by Executive Officer
Charles W. Chipp, was lost; no trace of it was ever found. De Long's own boat reached land, but only two men sent ahead for aid survived. The third boat, under the command of Chief Engineer
George W. Melville, reached the
Lena Delta
The Lena (russian: Ле́на, ; evn, Елюенэ, ''Eljune''; sah, Өлүөнэ, ''Ölüöne''; bua, Зүлхэ, ''Zülkhe''; mn, Зүлгэ, ''Zülge'') is the easternmost of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean ...
and its crew were rescued. Melville later found and brought to the U.S. the ships log books which now sit in the U.S. National Archives.
Death
De Long died of starvation near Matvay Hut,
Yakutia
Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia),, is the largest republic of Russia, located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of roughly 1 million. Sakha comprises half of the area of its governing Far E ...
. Melville returned a few months later and found the bodies of De Long and his boat crew. Overall, the doomed voyage took the lives of 20 expedition members, as well as additional men lost during the search operations. De Long's death – and that of the other men – was assumed to have occurred at or about the end of October.
Legacy
In 1890, the officers and men of the United States Navy dedicated the
Jeannette Monument
The Jeannette Monument is the largest monument in the United States Naval Academy Cemetery. It memorializes the 1881 loss of while exploring the Arctic ice. ''Jeannette'', with a crew of 33, collapsed and sank under surging ice in the summer of ...
, a granite-and-marble monument designed by
George P. Colvocoresses—a cross with carved icicles hanging from it that sits atop a cairn. The -high structure is in the
United States Naval Academy Cemetery
The United States Naval Academy Cemetery and Columbarium is a cemetery at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
History
In 1868 the Naval Academy purchased a 67-acre piece of land called Strawberry Hill as part of their effort ...
overlooking the
Severn River.
Union veterans in the
Kingdom of Hawai‘i
The Hawaiian Kingdom, or Kingdom of Hawaiʻi ( Hawaiian: ''Ko Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina''), was a sovereign state located in the Hawaiian Islands. The country was formed in 1795, when the warrior chief Kamehameha the Great, of the independent islan ...
on September 23, 1882, named the post of the
Grand Army of the Republic
The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army (United States Army), Union Navy ( U.S. Navy), and the Marines who served in the American Civil War. It was founded in 1866 in Decatur, ...
there after him.
Two United States Navy ships have been named after George W. De Long. In addition to the
De Long Islands, the
De Long Mountains in northwest
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U ...
, and the
De Long Fjord in Greenland bear his name.
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:De Long, George W.
19th-century American naval officers
1844 births
1881 deaths
American polar explorers
Burials at Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx, New York)
Deaths by starvation
Explorers of the Arctic
Jeannette expedition
Military personnel from New York City
Shipwreck survivors
United States Naval Academy alumni
United States Navy officers