Polar Pathways: Robert E. Peary's Arctic Expeditions
1905- The Party
Captain Bob Bartlett sitting on the pipe rail
of the Roosevelt
“[L]et us look at the personnel of the party whose
home for an uncertain length of time, in the ice of the Polar Sea, was to be
the good ship Roosevelt. First the captain Robert A. Bartlett, sailing
master and ice navigator… Blonde, smooth-shaven and close-cropped, stockily
built and clear-eyed, he had already been farther north in these regions than
any of the other Newfoundland ice masters, and his youth, ambition, and the
Bartlett blood all counted in his favour. Moses Bartlett, mate, a second cousin
of the captain, was… George A.
Wardwell, chief engineer, was a native of Bucksport, Maine... John Murphy,
boatswain… Murtaugh J. Malone, assistant engineer, was a native of Portland,
Maine… Dr. Louie J. Wolf, surgeon of the expedition, was a native of
Oregon… Ross G. Marvin, secretary and assistant, was a native of Elmira,
N. Y., a graduate of Cornell University… Charles
Percy, my steward, was a native of Newfoundland… Matthew Henson, my
personal attendant… in my employ in one capacity or another most of
the time since I took him to Nicaragua with me in 1888, and a member of all
of my Arctic expeditions, his qualities and capabilities were fully known.” -
Robert E. Peary in Nearest the Pole, published in 1907
"Captain Bob Bartlett sitting..." 1908-1909, Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum Collections
