Great Americans: Matthew Henson at the North Pole

On April 6, 1909, Robert Peary and Matthew Henson planted an American flag at the North Pole alongside four Inuit men. But who reached the site first? Peary, a white naval officer and the expedition’s leader, claimed victory for himself, writing in his journal, “The pole at last! The prize of three centuries, my dream and goal for twenty years, mine at last!” But Henson, Peary’s African American assistant and partner, later disclosed that he had driven the lead sledge, breaking the trail and arriving before Peary.

Peary got the glory and in 1920 was buried in Arlington with full military honors. Two years later, the National Geographic Society erected a white granite gravesite monument in the shape of a globe. An inscription at its base reads “Discoverer of North Pole.” Henson lived another 35 years and was buried in New York’s Woodlawn Cemetery.

Born in rural Maryland in 1866, Henson grew up on the site of a former slave market. His parents were sharecroppers and died when he was young. Around age 12, Henson headed to Baltimore, where he got work as a cabin boy and traveled the world. In 1888, while ashore and working in a Washington, D.C., hat shop, he met Robert Peary. A civil engineer for the U.S. Navy, Peary was heading on a privately funded survey trip to Nicaragua and searching for a valet. Henson agreed to come. The trip was such a success that they began plotting a joint excursion to the frozen north.