ADOLPHUS GREELY

'Adolphus Washington Greely' (1844 - 1935) was an American Polar explorer.

Born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, he entered the United States Army at the age of seventeen, after having been rejected twice before, and achieved the rank of Brevet Major by the end of the Civil War.Greely joined the regular Army in 1866 as a Second Lieutenant of Infantry. In 1873, Greely was promoted to First Lieutenant and In 1878 he married Henrietta Nesmith.
In 1881, First Lieutenant Greely was given command of the Lady Franklin Bay expedition, whose purpose was to establish one of a chain of meteorological-observation stations as part of the (first) International Polar Year. Greely was without previous Arctic experience, but he and his party were able to discover hitherto many unknown miles along the coast of northwest Greenland. The expedition also crossed Ellesmere Island from east to west and Lt. James B. Lockwood and David L. Brainard achieved a new "farthest north" record of 83°24'.
Two relief ships failed to reach Greely's party encamped at Fort Conger on Ellesmere Island. Thanks to the persistence of Greely's wife, Henrietta, the search was never abandoned. The ship called ''Bear'', built in Greenock, Scotland, first used as a whaler, was purchased by the U.S. to rescue the Greely party. By the time the Bear and the ship Thetis arrived on June 22, 1884 to rescue the expedition (which by then had painstakingly relocated to Cape Sabine) 19 of Greely's 25-man crew had perished from starvation, drowning, hypothermia, and in one case, gunshot wounds from an execution ordered by Greely.
Greely and the other survivors were themselves near death; one of the survivors died on the homeward journey. The returning survivors were venerated as heroes, though the heroism was tainted by sensational accusations of cannibalism during the remaining days of low food. The story of this remarkable journey has been published numerous times, the most definitive of which is ''Abandoned: The Story of the Greely Arctic Expedition 1881-1884'', written by Alden Todd.
In June of 1886, Greely was promoted to Captain after serving twenty years as a Lieutenant and in March of 1887, President Grover Cleveland appointed Captain Greely Chief Signal Officer of the U.S. Army with the rank of Brigadier General.
During General Greely's tenure as Chief Signal Officer]] of the Army, the following military telegraph lines were constructed, operated and maintained during the Spainish American War: Puerto Rico, 800 miles ; Cuba, 3,000 miles ; The Philippine Islands, 10,200 miles. In connection with Alaska, then General Greely had constructed under very adverse conditions a telegraph system of nearly 4,000 miles, consisting of submarine cables, landcables and wireless telegraphy, the later covering a distance of 107 miles, which at the time was of installation was the longest commercial system regularly working in the world.
In 1905 A. W. Greely accepted the honor of serving as The Explorers Club's first president.
In 1906 Greely found himself serving as military commander over the emergency situation created by the San Francisco earthquake. In 1908, Greely retired from the Army as a Major General, having been promoted to that rank in 1906.
In 1915, Greely invited the Italian polar geographer Arnaldo Faustini to the United States for a lecture tour.
He was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1935.
Greely attended the First Presbyterian Church, Newburyport.

Contents

Works

Sources

Works

★ ''Three Years of Arctic Service'' (1886)

★ ''Handbook of Alaska'' (rev. ed. 1925)

★ ''The Polar Regions in the Twentieth Century'' (1928).

Sources

★ Naesmyth.com

★ Family Tree

★ Antarctic Ships

★ U.S.R.C ''Bear''

★ Columbia Encyclopedia: Adolphus Washington Greely

★ Arlington National Cemetery Website: Adolphus Washington Greely (engl.)

★ Adolphus Washington Greely

★ Henrietta Hudson Cruger Nesmith, wife of Adolphus W. Greely

★ Army Medal of Honor

★ Genealogy of the Greely -- Greeley Family by George Hiram Greeley Boston,MA 1905

★ ''Abandoned: The Story of the Greely Arctic Expedition 1881-1884'', Alden Todd, ISBN 1889963291

★ Michael Robinson, ''The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture'' (Chicago, 2006)