George W. De Long
| George W. De Long | |
|---|---|
 De Long in 1879 | |
| Born |
August 22, 1844 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died |
October 31, 1881 (aged 37) Siberia, Russia |
| Buried | Woodlawn Cemetery |
| Branch | United States Navy |
| Years | 1865–1881 |
| Rank | Lieutenant commander |
| Commands held | USS Jeannette |
George Washington De Long (August 22, 1844 – October 31, 1881) was a United States Navy officer and explorer. He led the ill-fated Jeannette Expedition of 1879–81 in search of the Open Polar Sea.
Biography
Born in New York City, he was educated at the United States Naval Academy and graduated in 1865.[1] In 1879, backed by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., owner of the New York Herald newspaper, and under the auspices of the US Navy, Lieutenant Commander De Long sailed from San Francisco on the ship USS Jeannette with a plan to find a quick way to the North Pole via the Bering Strait.[2]
As well as collecting scientific data and animal specimens, De Long discovered three islands and claimed them for the U.S. in the summer of 1881.[2] The U.S. government did not endorse this claim; as such the islands are under Russian jurisdiction.
The ship became trapped in the ice pack in the Chukchi Sea northeast of Wrangel Island in September 1879. It drifted in the ice pack in a northwesterly direction until it was crushed in the shifting ice and sank on June 12, 1881 in the East Siberian Sea. De Long and his crew then traversed the ice pack to try to reach Siberia 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 and its crew were rescued.[2]
De Long died of starvation near Matvay Hut, Yakutia, Siberia. 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 twenty expedition members, as well as additional men lost during the search operations.[2]
Namesakes
Three U.S. Navy ships have been named USS DeLong. In addition to the De Long Islands, the De Long Mountains in northwest Alaska are named for him.
In 1890, the officers and men of the U.S. Navy dedicated the Jeannette Monument, a granite-and-marble monument designed by George Partridge Colvocoresses—a cross with carved icicles hanging from it that sits atop a cairn. The 24-foot (7.3 m)-high structure is in the U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery overlooking the Severn River.
Dates of rank
- Midshipman – 1 October 1861
- Passed Midshipman – 24 September 1865
- Ensign – 1 December 1866
- Master – 12 March 1868
- Lieutenant – 26 March 1869
- Lieutenant Commander – 1 November 1879
Bibliography
- George W. De Long, The voyage of the Jeannette : the ship and ice journals of George W. De Long, lieutenant-commander U.S.N. and commander of the Polar expedition of 1879-1881, edited by his widow, Mrs. Emma J. (Wotton) De Long (1883)
- John Muir, The cruise of the Corwin : journal of the Arctic expedition of 1881 in search of De Long and the Jeanette (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1917)
- Emma Wotton De Long, Explorer's Wife, introduction by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1938)
- Leonard F. Guttridge, Icebound: The Jeannette Expedition's Quest for the North Pole (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1986) ISBN 0-87021-330-X.
- Michael Robinson, The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture (Chicago, 2006)
- John Wilson Danenhower, The Narrative of the Jeannette (Boston, 1882)
- Melville, In the Lena Delta (Boston, 1885)
- Edward Ellsberg, Hell on Ice: the Saga of the Jeannette (New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1938)
- Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the U.S.S. Jeannette (New York, Doubleday, 2014)
