Robert Peary in naval uniform

Robert Edwin Peary (May 6, 1856 – February 20, 1920) was an American explorer who claimed to have been the first person, on April 6, 1909, to reach the geographic North Pole -- a claim that has subsequently attracted much criticism. Download high resolution version (700x1121, 146 KB)Robert Peary, north pole explorer Source: NOAA Photo Library File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Download high resolution version (700x1121, 146 KB)Robert Peary, north pole explorer Source: NOAA Photo Library File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... is the 126th day of the year (127th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1856 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... is the 51st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... is the 96th day of the year (97th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... This is about the geographic meaning of North Pole. ...

Peary's life

Early years

Peary was born in the town of Cresson, 80 miles east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1856. He moved to Maine, attended Portland High School, was a graduate of Bowdoin College, where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He was commissioned a Civil Engineer Corps Officer in the United States Navy October 26, 1881. With his wife, Josephine Diebitsch Peary, he had two children: Marie Peary and Robert Edwin Peary, Jr. During the Arctic expeditions, both Peary and his fellow explorer Matthew Henson fathered children with Inuit women, two of whom were brought to the attention of the American public by S. Allen Counter, who met them on a Greenland expedition. Cresson is a borough located in Cambria County, Pennsylvania. ... This article is about the U.S. State. ... Official language(s) None (English and French de facto) Capital Augusta Largest city Portland Area  Ranked 39th  - Total 33,414 sq mi (86,542 km²)  - Width 210 miles (338 km)  - Length 320 miles (515 km)  - % water 13. ... Portland High School is a public high school in Portland, Maine (Cumberland County) which educates grades 9–12. ... Bowdoin College, founded in 1794, is a private liberal arts college located in the coastal New England town of Brunswick, Maine. ... Delta Kappa Epsilon (ΔΚΕ; also pronounced D-K-E or Deke) is the oldest secret college mens fraternity of New England origin. ... The Civil Engineer Corps (CEC) is a staff corps of the United States Navy. ... USN redirects here. ... is the 299th day of the year (300th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1881 (MDCCCLXXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Matthew Alexander Henson (August 8, 1866 – March 9, 1955) was an American explorer and long-time companion to Robert Peary; amongst various expeditions, their most famous was a 1909 expedition which claimed to be the first to reach the Geographic North Pole. ...

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First Arctic expeditions

Peary made several expeditions to the Arctic, exploring Greenland by dog sled in 1886 and 1891 and returning to the island three times in the 1890s. Twice he dared to cross northwest Greenland over the ice cap, discovering Navy Cliff. He intermittently indicated that Greenland's northern tip (still called Peary Land, though other explorers had reached it earlier) was not attached to Greenland, but the supposedly separating "Peary Channel" was actually a fjord. (Thus, the United States's claim to Peary Land was relinquished in 1917 in the Virgin Islands treaty.) The red line indicates the 10°C isotherm in July, commonly used to define the Arctic region border Satellite image of the Arctic surface The Arctic is the region around the Earths North Pole, opposite the Antarctic region around the South Pole. ... Dog sled A dog sled (or dogsled) is a sled pulled by one or more dogs used to travel over ice and through snow. ...

Unlike most previous explorers, Peary studied Inuit survival techniques, built igloos, and dressed in practical furs in the native fashion both for heat preservation and to dispense with the extra weight of tents and sleeping bags when on the march. Peary also relied on the Inuit as hunters and dog-drivers on his expeditions, and pioneered the use of the system (which he called the "Peary system") of using support teams and supply caches for Arctic travel. His wife, Josephine, accompanied him on several of his expeditions. He also had 8 toes amputated but bravely kept exploring. For other uses, see Inuit (disambiguation). ... Igloo An igloo (Inuit language: iglu, Inuktitut syllabics: ᐃᒡᓗ, house, plural: iglooit or igluit), translated sometimes as snowhouse, is a shelter constructed from blocks of snow, generally in the form of a dome. ...

Peary's eternal fame

His 1898-1902 expedition was darkened by this incident and by an unfounded attempt to put forth a 1899 visual discovery of "Jesup Land" west of Ellesmere, leading to his allegation that this was his sighting of Axel Heiberg land prior to its discovery by Norwegian explorer Otto Sverdrup's expedition, a claim now universally rejected. However, the genuine achievements of this remarkable expedition were weightier. The gold medals of the American Geographical Society and Royal Geographical Society of London honored Peary's tenacity, his excellent mapping of his considerable real discoveries, as well as his entry into exploration's Valhalla through his never questioned and ever unique discovery in 1900 of the northernmost land on earth, Cape Jesup at the north tip of Greenland. Peary also achieved an equally undoubted farthest north for the western hemisphere in 1902 north of Canada's Ellesmere Island.

The 1905-06 expedition

Peary's next-last expedition was supported by a $50,000 gift by George Crocker. Peary's new ship Roosevelt battled its way through the ice between Greenland and Ellesmere Island to an American hemisphere farthest north by ship. The 1906 "Peary System" dogsled drive for the pole across the rough sea ice of the Arctic Ocean started (as it would again in 1909) from the north tip of Ellesmere at 83° north latitude. The parties made well under 10 miles a day until they became separated by a storm, so Peary was inadvertently (unlike 1909) without a companion sufficiently trained in navigation to verify his account from that point northward. With insufficient food and with the negotiability of the ice between himself and land an uncertain factor, he made the best dash he could and barely escaped with his life off the melting ice. On April 20th, he was no further north than 86°30' latitude ^[1] yet he claimed to have the next day achieved a Farthest North world record at 87°06' and returned to 86°30' without camping, an implied trip of at least 72 nautical miles (83 statute miles) between sleeps, even assuming undetoured travel. A nautical mile is a unit of distance, or, as physical scientists like to call it, length. ... A mile is any of several units of distance, or, in physics terminology, of length. ...

After returning to the Roosevelt in May, Peary in June began weeks of further agonizing travel by heading west along the shore of Ellesmere, discovering Cape Colgate, from the summit of which he claimed in his 1907 publications ^[2] he had seen a previously undiscovered far-north "Crocker Land" to the northwest on June 24th and 28th of 1906. Yet his diary for this time and place says "No land visible" ^[3] and Crocker Land was in 1914 found to be non-existent by Donald MacMillan and Fitzhugh Green. On December 15, 1906 the National Geographic Society, which was primarily known for publishing a popular magazine, certified Peary's 1905-6 expedition and Farthest with its highest honor, the Hubbard Gold Medal; no major professional geographical society followed suit.

The final 1908-09 expedition

For his final assault on the pole, he and 23 men set off from New York City aboard the Roosevelt under the command of Captain Robert Bartlett on July 6, 1908. They wintered near Cape Sheridan on Ellesmere Island and from Ellesmere departed for the pole on February 28-March 1, 1909. The last support party was turned back on April 1, 1909 in latitude no greater than 87°45' north. (The figure commonly given, 87°47', is based upon Bartlett's slight miscomputation of the distance of a single Sumner line from the pole.) On the final stage of the journey towards the North Pole only five of Peary's men, Matthew Henson, Ootah, Egigingwah, Seegloo and Ooqueah, remained. On April 6, he established Camp Jesup allegedly within five miles of the pole. In his diary for April 7 (but actually written up much later when preparing his journals for publication), Peary wrote "The Pole at last!!! The prize of 3 centuries, my dream and ambition for 23 years. Mine at last..." New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... Captain Robert Bartlett Captain Robert Bartlett Captain Robert Abram Bartlett was a notable ice navigator and Arctic explorer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ... is the 187th day of the year (188th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Cape Sheridan is the northeastern point of Ellesmere Island, Canada, located at 82°27N 61°27W, on Lincoln Sea in the Arctic Ocean, at a distance of 820 km to the North Pole. ... Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. ... is the 59th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 60th day of the year (61st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... is the 91st day of the year (92nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Thomas Hubbard Sumner (20 March 1807 – 9 March 1876) was a sea captain during the 19th century. ... Matthew Alexander Henson (August 8, 1866 – March 9, 1955) was an American explorer and long-time companion to Robert Peary; amongst various expeditions, their most famous was a 1909 expedition which claimed to be the first to reach the Geographic North Pole. ... Seeglo was an Eskimo that accompanied Robert Peary on his final quest for the North Pole. ... is the 96th day of the year (97th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Camp Jesup was the name of the camp that Arctic explorer Robert Peary established in the vicinity of the North Pole on April 6, 1909. ... April 7 is the 97th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (98th in leap years). ...

Honors and legacy

The monument for the memory of Robert Peary]at Cape York,Greenland.

Peary's lobbying ^[4] early headed off an intention among some congressmen to have his claim to the pole evaluated by explorers. As eventual congressionally recognized "attainer" of the pole (not "discoverer" in deference to 1908 North Pole claimant Frederick Cook's supporters) Peary was given a Rear Admiral's pension and the thanks of Congress by a special act of March 30, 1911. In the same year, he retired to Eagle Island, located on the coast of Maine, in Freeport. (His home there is now a Maine State Historic Site.) Civil Engineer Peary received honors from numerous scientific societies of Europe and America for his Arctic explorations and discoveries. He died in Washington, D.C., February 20, 1920 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Matthew Henson was reinterred nearby on April 6, 1988. Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 403 pixelsFull resolution‎ (3,456 × 1,740 pixels, file size: 4. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 403 pixelsFull resolution‎ (3,456 × 1,740 pixels, file size: 4. ... Cape York is cape at the north-west coast of Greenland, in northern Baffin Bay. ... Frederick Cook in arctic gear Frederick Cook on South Michigan Avenue in Chicago A photo from Cooks 1909 arctic expedition, which he alleged was taken at or near the North Pole Frederick Albert Cook (June 10, 1865 - August 5, 1940) was an American explorer and physician. ... The term Rear Admiral originated from the days of Naval Sailing Squadrons, and can trace its origins to the British Royal Navy. ... is the 89th day of the year (90th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Eagle Island is a State Historic Site in the United States state of Maine. ... Official language(s) None (English and French de facto) Capital Augusta Largest city Portland Area  Ranked 39th  - Total 33,414 sq mi (86,542 km²)  - Width 210 miles (338 km)  - Length 320 miles (515 km)  - % water 13. ... Freeport, Maine Freeport is a town located in Cumberland County, Maine. ... is the 51st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... is the 96th day of the year (97th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ...

The Liberty ship SS Robert E. Peary, the destroyer USS Peary (DD-226) the cargo ship USNS Robert E. Peary (T-AKE-5), and Knox-class frigate USS Robert E. Peary (FF 1073) were named for him. The Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum at Bowdoin College is named for Peary and fellow Arctic explorer Donald B. MacMillan. The Liberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during World War II. They were cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. ... SS was the Liberty ship which was built in the shortest time. ... USS McFaul underway in the Atlantic Ocean. ... USS Peary (DD-226) was a Clemson-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War II. She was named for Robert Edwin Peary. ... USNS (T-AKE-5) will be a Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship in the United States Navy. ... Bowdoin College, founded in 1794, is a private liberal arts college located in the coastal New England town of Brunswick, Maine. ...

Peary was the author of several books, the most famous being Northward over the Great Ice (1898) and The North Pole (1910). The movie Glory & Honor by Kevin Hooks (2000) effectively dramatizes his hellish 1909 journey to the vicinity of the pole. Even explorer A.Greely who with the majority of explorers came (after initial acceptance) to doubt Peary's reaching 90°, correctly notes that no arctic expert questions that (unlike Cook) Peary courageously risked his life travelling hundreds of miles from land and that he reached regions adjacent to the pole.

In his book Ninety Degrees North, polar historian and author Fergus Fleming describes Peary as "undoubtedly the most driven, possibly the most successful and probably the most unpleasant man in the annals of polar exploration." He was also one of the most intelligent, bold, and able. His skills with the instruments and the mathematics of surveying ensured that all of his genuine exploring discoveries are placed beyond doubt by his records of celestial observations in connection with magnetic variation determination and finding longitude by application of spherical trigonometry via logarithms. Spherical triangle Spherical trigonometry is a part of spherical geometry that deals with polygons (especially triangles) on the sphere and explains how to find relations between the involved angles. ... In mathematics, if two variables of bn = x are known, the third can be found. ...

Inuit descendants

Some modern critics of Peary focus on his treatment of the Inuit, including a boy named Minik Wallace. With Inuit women, Peary and Henson both fathered children outside of marriage. This fact was brought up by Cook and his followers during Peary's lifetime, and would have damaged his advancement if it had been accepted, especially since Peary appears to have started his relationship with his Inuit wife "Ally" when she was 14 years old, while his prime financial backer was New York philanthropist Morris K. Jesup, a major force in the founding of Anthony Comstock's New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Numerous explorers knew of these matters right along but had no wish to mention them publicly, which would endanger either their financial backing from scandal-shy geographical societies or their own Inuit relationships, e. g., explorer (and first Peary biographer) Fitzhugh Green's, with Peary's Ally in 1914. However, by the 1960s the truth was widely acknowledged. Peary’s son Kali was eventually brought to the attention of the broader American public by S. Allen Counter, who met him on a Greenland expedition. The "discovery" of these children and their meeting with their American relatives were documented in a book and documentary titled North Pole Legacy: Black, White and Eskimo. Minik Wallace (c1890 – October 29, 1918) was an Inuit who was brought to the US from Greenland along with five other Inuit in 1897 by Robert Peary // Early Years Minik was raised in Greenland in a band of Inuit. ... Portrait of Anthony Comstock Anthony Comstock (March 7, 1844 - September 21, 1915) was a former United States Postal Inspector and politician dedicated to ideas of Victorian morality. ...

Controversy

Peary's claim to have reached the North Pole has been subject to doubt for a number of reasons. He had no sooner returned from the Arctic before he learned that Frederick Cook was also claiming to have reached the pole the previous year. Cook's claims were quickly dismissed after he submitted to the scientific community alleged 1908 North Pole logs that were obvious frauds ^[5]. Cook also was met with skepticism since his claim of being the first to climb Mt. McKinley in 1906 was found to be a hoax ^[6].

A few weeks before Cook's pole pretension was rejected by a Danish panel of explorers and navigational experts, Peary (who did not make Cook's mistake of submitting to international neutrals or to explorers) saw his claim certified by the National Geographic Society whose chief Gilbert Grosvenor had persuaded the National Academy of Sciences not to get involved. Despite internal council splits (which only became known in the 1970s) the Royal Geographical Society of London gave Peary its gold medal in 1910. Neither the American Geographical Society nor any of the geographical societies of semi-arctic Scandinavia has recognized the North Pole claim. This article is about the organization. ... The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 with the name Geographical Society of London for the advancement of geographical science, under the patronage of King William IV. It absorbed the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa (founded by Sir Joseph... The American Geographical Society (AGS) was founded in 1851 in New York City, New York as a non-profit organization with the goal of increasing worldwide knowledge of geography. ... For other uses, see Scandinavia (disambiguation). ...

The party that accompanied Peary on the final stage of the journey included no one who was trained in navigation and could independently confirm his own navigational work, a point exacerbated by Peary's omission to produce records of observed data for steering: for the direction ("variation") of the compass, for his longitudinal position at any time, or for post-Bartlett Camp zeroing-in on the pole either latitudinally or transversely ^[7]. Magnetic declination. ... Longitude is the east-west geographic coordinate measurement most commonly utilized in cartography and global navigation. ... This article is about the geographical term. ... Longitude is the east-west geographic coordinate measurement most commonly utilized in cartography and global navigation. ...

The last five marches when Peary was accompanied by a navigator (Capt. Bob Bartlett) averaged no better than 13 miles/march northing. But once the last support party turned back at "Camp Bartlett" from where Bartlett was ordered southward, at least 135 nautical miles (155 statute miles) from the pole, Peary's claimed speeds immediately double for the five marches to Camp Jesup, and then go to double that during the 2½ day return to Camp Bartlett, at which point his speed henceforth slows drastically compared to that pace. Peary's account of a beeline journey to the pole and back — which would have assisted his claim of such speed — is contradicted by companion Henson's account of tortured detours to avoid "pressure ridges" (ice floes' rough edges, often a few meters high) and "leads" (of open water between those floes). The conflicting and unverified claims of Cook and Peary prompted Roald Amundsen to take extensive precautions in navigation during his Antarctic expedition so as to leave no room for doubt concerning his 1911 attainment of the South Pole, which (like Robert Scott's a few weeks later in 1912) was supported by the sextant, theodolite, and compass observations of several other navigators. See Polheim. Matthew Alexander Henson (August 8, 1866 – March 9, 1955) was an American explorer and long-time companion to Robert Peary; amongst various expeditions, their most famous was a 1909 expedition which claimed to be the first to reach the Geographic North Pole. ... Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (July 16, 1872 – c. ... For other uses, see South Pole (disambiguation). ... Scott of the Antarctic redirects here. ... A sextant is a measuring instrument generally used to measure the angle of elevation of a celestial object above the horizon. ... An optical theodolite, manufactured in the Soviet Union in 1958 and used for topographic surveying. ... This article is about the navigational instrument. ... Polheim, Home of the Pole, was Roald Amundsens name for his camp (the first ever) at the South Pole. ...

Some polar historians believe that Peary honestly thought he had reached the pole. Others have suggested that he was guilty of deliberately exaggerating his accomplishments. The latter class of skeptics are assisted by the fact that at the alleged victory moment Peary stopped writing in his diary until return to Bartlett Camp and permanently stopped conversing with Henson. Cthers have suggested that any hint that Peary did not reach the pole must be the work of pro-Cook conspirators who are simply out to discredit Peary, though no current leading explorer or scientist who is skeptical of Peary's pole claim believes in Cook's.

Recent evidence and claims

In 1989, the National Geographic Society (a major sponsor of Peary's expeditions) concluded, based on the shadows in photographs and ocean depth measures taken by Peary, that he was no more than five miles away from the pole. But since Peary's original camera (a 1908 #4 Folding Pocket Kodak) has not survived, and the camera was made with at least six different lenses from various manufacturers, the focal length of the lens -- and hence the shadow analysis which is based upon it -- must be considered uncertain at best. The National Geographic Society has never released Peary's photos for independent analysis. Scientific specialists' reaction to the National Geographic's two dimensional photogrammetry has not been warm ^[8]. This article is about the organization. ...

The latest in Peary advocates' series ^[9] of attempts to generate the proof of his pole claim which he neglected to provide occurred in 2005 when the British explorer Tom Avery and four companions recreated the outward portion of Peary's journey with replica wooden sleds and Canadian Eskimo Dog teams, reaching the North Pole in 36 days, 22 hours – nearly five hours faster than Peary. Avery writes on his web site that "The admiration and respect which I hold for Robert Peary, Matthew Henson and the four Inuit men who ventured North in 1909, has grown enormously since we set out from Cape Columbia. Having now seen for myself how he travelled across the pack ice, I am more convinced than ever that Peary did indeed discover the North Pole." ^[10] But Avery and his team were airlifted off the pole instead of returning by dogsled, a circumstance which allowed his team to carry much less weight in food and supplies than would otherwise have been needed, and much less than Peary took. Tom Avery was born on December 17 1975 in London, England and is an explorer, mountaineer, author and motivational speaker. ... The Canadian Eskimo Dog, otherwise known as the Qimmiq, is a larger breed of Arctic dog commonly found pulling sleds fortheir Inuit counterparts. ...

It has been claimed by supporters of Peary and Henson that the depth soundings they made on the outward journey match recent surveys and so confirm that they reached the pole ^[11]. However, only the first few of the Peary party's soundings, taken nearest the shore, actually touched bottom; thus their usefulness is extremely limited ^[12].

Following the Cook claim's quick collapse among scientists and explorers, Peary's adherents have for a century understandably portrayed Cook's few remaining believers as a quasi-religious cult by quoting a wise 1909 prediction that "there will be a Cook party to the end of time". Has irony come full circle?

Notes

Sources

• Rawlins, Dennis (1973). Peary at the North Pole: fact or fiction?. Washington: Robert B. Luce. ISBN 0-88331-042-2 LCCN 72-097708 LCC G635.P4 R38. 
• Robinson, Michael (2006). The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226721842. 
• Herbert, Wally (July 1989). The noose of laurels: Robert E. Peary and the race to the North Pole. New York, NY: Atheneum. ISBN 0-689-12034-6 LCCN 89-90 LCC G635.P4 H4 1989. 
• Bryce, Robert M. (February 1997). Cook & Peary: the polar controversy, resolved. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books. ISBN 0-689-12034-6 LCCN 96-38215 LCC G635.C66 H86 1997. 
• Fleming, Fergus (Sep 27, 2001). Ninety degrees north: the quest for the North Pole. London: Granta Books. ISBN 1-86207-449-6 LCCN 2004-426384 LCC G620.F54 2001. 

Dennis Rawlins (1937 Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. –) is an American astronomer, historian, and publisher, known [1] for his intellect and acerbic wit. ... The Library of Congress Control Number or LCCN is a serially based system of numbering books in the Library of Congress in the United States. ... Library of Congress reading room The Library of Congress Classification (LCC) is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress. ... Sir Wally Herbert is a British polar explorer, writer and artist. ... New York, New York redirects here. ... The Library of Congress Control Number or LCCN is a serially based system of numbering books in the Library of Congress in the United States. ... Library of Congress reading room The Library of Congress Classification (LCC) is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress. ... Mechanicsburg is a borough located in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. ... The Library of Congress Control Number or LCCN is a serially based system of numbering books in the Library of Congress in the United States. ... Library of Congress reading room The Library of Congress Classification (LCC) is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... The Library of Congress Control Number or LCCN is a serially based system of numbering books in the Library of Congress in the United States. ... Library of Congress reading room The Library of Congress Classification (LCC) is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress. ...

External links

• NY Times, April 6, 1909, Peary Discovers the North Pole After Eight Trials in 23 Years
• Works by Robert E. Peary at Project Gutenberg
• This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.