Matthew Alexander Henson
The North Pole Explorer
August 8, 1866 – March 9, 1965
Matthew Alexander Henson was born in a one-room log hut on a farm near what is now Nanjemoy, Charles County, Maryland, in 1866, the year following the Civil War. He received primary education at the N Street Elementary School in Washington, D. C., and at thirteen signed on as a cabin boy on the Katie Hines in Baltimore. A dozen voyages took him around the world; he then worked as a porter in a hat store in Washington, D. C. where he met Lt. Robert E. Peary hired him as a man-of-all-work for an expedition to Nicaragua to survey for the Interoceanic Canal Commission. He was soon promoted to be Peary’s assistant.
Peary asked Henson to accompany him on his 1887 expedition to the Artic, and Henson also went on Peary’s next six expeditions, culminating in the discovery of the North Pole on April 6, 1909. Henson became fluent in the Eskimo language, was a great favorite with the Eskimos, and trained them for expeditions. He broke huskies in, drove sled teams adeptly, and prepared trails for then Commander Peary, at times preceding him by as much as five days. Henson saved Peary’s life, at least, three times: from a wild musk ox attack, from starvation, and from gangrene by amputating his frozen toes. At Peary’s direction, Henson planted the American flag at the North Pole after Peary was unable to walk, and Eskimo guides Ootah, Egingwah, Seeglo, and Ooqueah witnessed the event.
On his return to the United States, Henson lectured and authored a book, A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. In 1913, while he was employed in a Brooklyn, New York warehouse, he was finally recognized for his role in the North Pole discovery, In 1914, President Taft appointed him as a messenger in the New York Collector of Customs Office from which Henson retired in 1936 at age 70.
Special awards and recognition: 1937- lifetime member into Explorers Club; 1945-special medal from Congress; 1949-Department of Defense citation for his contributions to Artic and Polar exploration; 1954-invited guest of President Eisenhower on 45th North Pole discovery anniversary.
Matthew Alexander Henson died in 1955 and was buried in New York, the last surviving member of Peary’s expedition to the North Pole. In 1988 he was reinterred in Arlington Cemetery in Washington D. C. Mattew Henson is the grandnephew of Josiah Henson.
Note: Excerpt from the June 5, 1987, AAHS program honoring the descendants of Henson to Charles County
Additional Resources
The Official Biography of Matthew Henson by Bradley Robinson and Matthew Henson
” Josiah and Matthew Henson and The Explorers Club”, May 14, 2021 Lew Toulmin, PhD, FRGS Josiah and Matthew Henson and The Explorers Club – Montgomery Community Media (mymcmedia.org)
