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Hall Land

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Hall Land is a peninsula in far northwestern Greenland . It is a part of the Northeast Greenland National Park . Hall Land is one of the coldest places in Greenland.

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38-452: Hall Land was named after Charles Francis Hall , leader of the 1871 Polaris expedition . The last live caribou reported from Northern Greenland were seen in Hall Land in 1922. They were most likely Peary caribou that had strayed across the channel from Ellesmere Island . Hall Land is located to the northeast of Daugaard-Jensen Land and the southwest of Nyeboe Land . It is surrounded to

76-572: A large quantity of arsenic in the last two weeks of his life. Little is known of Hall's early life. He was born either in Rochester, New Hampshire , or in the state of Vermont before moving to Rochester at a young age, where he was apprenticed to a blacksmith at a young age. In the 1840s, he married and drifted westward, arriving in Cincinnati in 1849, where he went into business making seals and engraving plates. He later published his own newspaper;

114-476: A cairn or in Sir John Franklin's grave. He acquired a small schooner, Triumver , which he renamed Endeavour , but a series of delays, ill-health and inadequate funds saw the expedition abandoned early in 1862, before it could leave Liverpool . Snow then proposed another overland expedition from Canada and travelled to New York, where he was soon in contact with Charles Francis Hall , who had been exploring

152-666: A hotel in 1840. He also ran a club in Italy but these enterprises failed. Returning prematurely to England due to ill health. He made an attempt to organise a return to Australia with three other young people including his younger sister and her husband (his wife's brother) but failed, and he was convicted of swindling in 1842 and jailed for a year. After his release, the Snows became reconciled with his stepfather and they spent some years in Europe, where William Parker Snow worked for some time as librarian at

190-516: A mariner, but spent his final years as a market gardener in Victoria, Australia. On 7 January 1850, Snow was working as a writer in New York when he claimed to have had a paranormal vision of the whereabouts of the missing Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin . He immediately wrote to Lady Jane Franklin with a plan for a search. Consequently, she made him the civil officer of her expedition on board

228-642: A much smaller expedition departed in the whaler Monticello . During this second expedition to King William Island , Hall found remains and artifacts from the Franklin expedition, and made more inquiries about their fate from natives living there. Hall eventually came to believe that the stories of survivors were unreliable, either by the Inuit or his own readiness to give them overly optimistic interpretations. On July 31, 1868, while in Repulse Bay , Hall shot Patrick Coleman,

266-425: A professor at Dartmouth College , made an expedition to Greenland to exhume Hall's body. To the benefit of the professor, permafrost had preserved the body, flag shroud, clothing, and coffin. Tests on tissue samples of bone, fingernails and hair showed that Hall died of poisoning from large doses of arsenic in the last two weeks of his life. This diagnosis is consistent with the symptoms party members reported. It

304-516: A second expedition to seek more clues on the fate of Franklin, including efforts to find any of the rumoured survivors or their written records. The first attempt, using the 95-ton schooner, USRC  Active , was abandoned, probably owing to lack of finances caused by the American Civil War and a troubled relationship with his intended second-in-command, William Parker Snow . Finally, in July 1864,

342-614: A successful book, A Two Years' Cruise off Tierra del Fuego, the Falkland Islands, Patagonia and in the River Plate: A Narrative of Life in the Southern Seas , in 1857, but ultimately lost a lengthy legal case for compensation for wrongful dismissal against his former employers. He correctly predicted that the society's method of operation would result in a massacre by the natives. He became reconciled with his former employer's successor,

380-493: A whaler in his party, claiming that Coleman, himself unarmed, was attempting mutiny. Other whalers in the party claimed the attack occurred because Hall was angry that Coleman was interviewing local Inuit without his permission. Coleman died two weeks after being shot, during which Hall expressed remorse and tried to heal him. Hall was never tried for Coleman's murder: the Canadian government considered it under American jurisdiction and

418-439: Is possible that Hall treated himself with the poison, as arsenic was a common ingredient of quack medicines of the time. Loomis considered it possible that he was murdered by one of the other members of the expedition, possibly Bessels, though no charges were ever filed. Most recently, the emergence of affectionate letters written by both Hall and Bessels to Vinnie Ream , a young sculptor they both met in New York while waiting for

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456-815: The Cincinnati Occasional , later renamed the Daily Press . Around 1857, Hall became interested in the Arctic and spent the next few years studying the reports of previous explorers and trying to raise money for an expedition, intended primarily to learn the fate of Franklin's lost expedition . Hall went on his first expedition by gaining passage on the George Henry , a whaler commanded by Captain Sidney O. Budington out of New Bedford . They got as far as Baffin Island , where

494-645: The Dutch East Indies . He was flogged twice a week by one of his captains which made him resolve to leave the merchant navy. Snow spent a brief period in the Royal Navy on board the Cherokee class brig-sloop HMS Griffon and was one of the prize crew of the slaver Don Francisco captured off Dominica in 1837. Snow married a London housemaid, Sarah Williams, in 1839 and was consequently ostracised by his family. The couple emigrated to Melbourne where they managed

532-621: The Falkland Islands on 24 October 1854. His most important achievement was discovering the location of the Tierra del Fuego native Jemmy Button in November 1855. Disagreements with the society's management saw him sacked by the newly arrived missionary George Pakenham Despard in September 1856. In the aftermath, his wife suffered a nervous breakdown from which she never recovered. Snow published

570-501: The George Henry was forced to spend the winter. Local Inuit told Hall about relics of Martin Frobisher 's mining venture at Frobisher Bay , to which Hall traveled to inspect these items. He was assisted by his newly recruited Inuit guides, husband and wife Ipirvik and Taqulittuq . Hall also found what he took to be evidence that some members of Franklin's lost expedition were still alive. On his return to New York, Hall arranged for

608-531: The Harper Brothers to publish his account of the expedition: Arctic Researches and Life Among the Esquimaux . It was edited by William Parker Snow , equally obsessed by Franklin's fate. The two eventually came to a disagreement, owing mostly to Snow's slow editing. Snow later claimed that Hall had used his ideas for the search for Franklin without giving him due credit. Over the course of 1863, Hall planned

646-544: The USS ; Polaris . The party of 25 also included Hall's old friend Budington as sailing master, George Tyson as navigator, and Emil Bessels as physician and chief of scientific staff. The expedition was troubled from the start as the party split into rival factions. Hall's authority over the expedition was resented by a large portion of the party, and discipline broke down. Polaris sailed into Thank God Harbor —present-day Hall Bay—on September 10, 1871, and anchored for

684-568: The ketch Prince Albert that explored the Boothia Peninsula for any sign of the missing expedition between June and September 1850, without success. On his return, Snow wrote Voyage of the Prince Albert in Search of Sir John Franklin , which Lady Franklin used to promote further expeditions. Unable to secure a position on any of the other expeditions then searching for Franklin, late in 1852

722-571: The American government entirely ignored the matter. Two days after Coleman's death, the whaling ships Ansel Gibbs and Concordia arrived in Repulse Bay. The remaining four whalers deserted to these ships while Hall stayed with the Inuit. Hall's third expedition was of an entirely different character. He received a grant of $ 50,000 from the U.S. Congress to command an expedition to the North Pole on

760-501: The Baths of Lucca in Tuscany. Here he wrote his first book, a guide to the baths, in 1846. On returning to England, he performed editorial and transcription work for William Johnson Neale and Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay . A sister, Ellen Susannah Snow, became Mrs John Williams and died late in 1841 or early in 1842, aged about 16. A brother, George Henry Joel Snow (c. 1826–1904) was also

798-469: The Canadian Arctic in much the way Snow had earlier planned. They planned another expedition while Snow edited Hall's account of his expedition, Arctic Researches and Life Amongst the Esquimaux , for the publishers Harper Brothers . Lack of finances and disagreements between the two men saw their expedition with its own 95-ton schooner Active aborted, and Hall left with a small, land-based expedition on

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836-674: The Polaris to be outfitted, suggests a possible motive for Bessels to eliminate Hall. Books Journals William Parker Snow William Parker Snow (27 November 1817 – 12 March 1895) was an Arctic explorer, writer and mariner. He wrote several books on his expeditions including the Voyage of the Prince Albert under Sir John Franklin . He served as captain on the Allen Gardiner on its voyage to Patagonia in 1855. William Parker Snow

874-574: The Snows sailed for Melbourne, where he organised a new expedition intending to cross the Pacific and pass eastwards from the Bering Strait . He purchased the 15- ton cutter Thomas in Melbourne for his expedition. Early June 1853, with A. Drummond Fenwick "next to himself in command" so far as Sydney, his steward and his wife, Snow left Melbourne for Sydney from where, after further alterations were made to

912-488: The South American Missionary Society, in the mid-1880s. In 1857, Lady Franklin employed Snow as a travelling lecturer in support of her expedition using the auxiliary steamship Fox , which returned with confirmation of the tragic fate of the missing expedition in 1859. Snow immediately promoted a new expedition seeking the lost expedition's scientific records that were believed to have been buried under

950-511: The coffin of the President, some interesting relics of Sir John Franklin's ill fated expedition. They consisted of a tattered leaf of a Prayer Book, on which the first word legible was the word "Martyr," and a piece of fringe and some portions of uniform. These suggestive relics, which are soon to be buried out of sight, were found in a boat lying under the head of a human skeleton." While living in New York, Snow compiled his most successful book, on

988-445: The crew and the Inuit guides abandoned ship for the surrounding ice while 14 remained aboard. Polaris was run aground near Etah and crushed on October 24. After wintering ashore, the crew sailed south in two boats and were rescued by a whaler, returning home via Scotland. The following year, the remainder of the party attempted to extricate Polaris from the pack and head south. A group, including Tyson, became separated as

1026-610: The day he died. His efforts met with mixed success and the last two decades of his life were spent in genteel poverty, aided by a small pension and donations from friends. He died at London on 12 March 1895, his Polar Medal being placed on his grave. Snow was a complex person – quick to take offence in the face of authority, litigious and prone to paranoia . These characteristics led to the failure of many of his projects. However, to many observers he genuinely tried to do good for others, often causing himself legal and financial distress. He supported many good causes, including services to

1064-467: The highest elevation of the peninsula, is located at the northeastern end of the range. This Greenland location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Charles Francis Hall Charles Francis Hall ( c.  1821  – November 8, 1871) was an American Arctic explorer , best known for his collection of Inuit testimony regarding the 1845 Franklin Expedition and

1102-478: The military leaders of the Confederate States of America , first published as Southern Generals, Who They Are, and What They Have Done in 1865, being reprinted in at least two revised editions with slightly varying titles including Southern Generals, Their Lives and Campaigns (1866) and Lee and his Generals . Returning to England in 1867, Snow continued writing and publishing on diverse subjects until almost

1140-774: The north by the Robeson Channel of the Nares Strait and to the east by the Newman Bay . Hall Basin , the Petermann Fjord and the Petermann Glacier mark the western limits of Hall Land. To the south and southeast the peninsula is attached to the mainland and its ice cap . The unglaciated Polaris Foreland lies in the northernmost part of Hall Land beyond the Haug Range . 1,094 metres (3,589 ft) high Kayser Mountain ,

1178-547: The pack broke up violently and threatened to crush the ship in the fall of 1872. The group of 19 drifted over 1,500 miles (2,400 km) on an ice floe for the next six months, before being rescued off the coast of Newfoundland by the sealer Tigress on April 30, 1873, and probably would have all perished had the group not included several Inuit who were able to hunt for the party. The official investigation that followed ruled that Hall had died from apoplexy . However, in 1968, Hall's biographer, Chauncey C. Loomis ,

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1216-695: The poor in London and marine safety, including the efforts of Samuel Plimsoll and proposals for harbours of refuge and a system of linked floating relief stations around the globe. Though describing himself as a conservative, he publicly supported many radical causes including that of the Tichborne Claimant, Arthur Orton . His writings, preserved in several public collections including the Royal Geographical Society (London) and Mitchell Library (Sydney), include many valuable observations, especially on

1254-583: The ship's company, including Bessels, of having poisoned him. Shortly thereafter, Hall died on November 8. Hall was taken ashore and given a formal burial. Command of the expedition devolved on Budington, who reorganized to try for the Pole in June ;1872. This was unsuccessful and Polaris turned south. On October 12, the ship was beset by ice in Smith Sound and was on the verge of being crushed. Nineteen of

1292-604: The suspicious circumstances surrounding his death while leading the American-sponsored Polaris expedition in an attempt to be the first to reach the North Pole . The expedition was marred by insubordination, incompetence, and poor leadership. Hall returned to the ship from an exploratory sledging journey, and promptly fell ill. Before he died, he accused members of the crew—the expedition's lead scientist, Emil Bessels , in particular—of having poisoned him. An exhumation of his body in 1968 revealed that he had ingested

1330-535: The vessel, he sailed for the Arctic on 30 June 1853, accompanied by his wife and a crew of four. Storm damage and problems with his men forced him to enter the Clarence River , New South Wales, a month later, and the expedition was ultimately abandoned. On his return to England, Snow became master of the Patagonian Missionary Society 's schooner Allen Gardiner , which sailed for Keppel Island in

1368-552: The whaler Monticello in July 1864. Snow remained in New York writing and lecturing. Snow had presented an interesting relic to be interred in President Abraham Lincoln 's coffin. In the 26 April 1865 New York Herald Page 1 Column 4, was the following article: "Captain Parker Snow, the distinguished commander of the Arctic and Antarctic exploring expeditions, presented to Gen. Dix, with a view of their being interred in

1406-404: The winter on the shore of northern Greenland. That fall, upon returning to the ship from a sledging expedition with an Inuit guide to a fjord which he named Newman Bay , Hall suddenly fell ill after drinking a cup of coffee. He collapsed in what was described as a fit. For the next week he suffered from vomiting and delirium, then seemed to improve for a few days. At that time, he accused several of

1444-587: Was born at Poole , England, on 27 November 1817. He was the eldest son of Lieutenant William John Snow (1788–1827), a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and War of 1812 , and Harriet née Parker (1802–1835), a descendant of Oliver Cromwell . After his father's death in 1827, Snow attended the Royal Naval College at Greenwich . In 1833, he was apprenticed to the merchant marine, making his first two voyages to India and later voyages to New South Wales and

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