Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. I love a little
Speaker 1: unsolved historical murder. They're fun, they are there's always fun speculation.
Speaker 1: That's how I got drawn into Charles Francis Hall's story.
Speaker 1: But it turns out his story is just so much
Speaker 1: more than that one because we don't actually even know
Speaker 1: if he was murdered, but also because he was a
Speaker 1: character with differing opinions of what he was like. He
Speaker 1: was definitely driven and determined, very independent, and without any
Speaker 1: real experience, he started mounting expeditions to the Arctic. He
Speaker 1: was inspired by expeditions like Sir John Franklin's push to
Speaker 1: find the Northwest Passage. But unfortunately he repeated the pattern
Speaker 1: of doom when he made a try for the North Pole.
Speaker 1: Although it wasn't a case or the entire expedition was lost,
Speaker 1: he was the only one from that expedition to die,
Speaker 1: and that has left historians with a mystery for the
Speaker 1: last one hundred and fifty years. And we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about all of that today. Charles Francis Hall was
Speaker 1: born in eighteen twenty one, either in Vermont or in Rochester,
Speaker 1: New Hampshire. Most accounts put Rochester as his birthplace, but
Speaker 1: his wife once mentioned in writing that he had really
Speaker 1: been born in Vermont, but the family moved to New
Speaker 1: Hampshire when he was still a baby. This kind of
Speaker 1: uncertainty is something that really dogs Hall's life story and
Speaker 1: ultimately his death. He didn't get a lot of formal
Speaker 1: education and became a blacksmith's apprentice at a young age,
Speaker 1: but he didn't stay with the blacksmith trade. He moved
Speaker 1: around a lot on his own from a fairly young age,
Speaker 1: but we don't know a lot about his early life history.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit clearer in eighteen forty nine when
Speaker 1: he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and by that point he
Speaker 1: was already married to a woman named Mary Anne, although
Speaker 1: we don't know a whole lot about her either. In Cincinnati,
Speaker 1: Hall started his own business making seals and engraving plates,
Speaker 1: and then in the eighteen fifties, Hall became a newspaper publisher,
Speaker 1: running the Cincinnati Occasional and the Daily Press. Because of
Speaker 1: his paper, Charles Francis Hall found a passion in reading
Speaker 1: about stories of exploration when they went to press. He
Speaker 1: became especially interested in the reports of Arctic exploration and
Speaker 1: efforts to find the Northwest Passage. Became especially interested in
Speaker 1: the stories of the eighteen forty five Franklin expedition, in
Speaker 1: which the entire team was lost. By eighteen fifty seven,
Speaker 1: Hall was collecting all the information he could about Arctic
Speaker 1: exploration and John Franklin's expedition, as well as others, basically
Speaker 1: anything that could be connected to any of these subjects,
Speaker 1: and he was lucky that there was a lot of
Speaker 1: news coverage of all this. The media ran a lot
Speaker 1: of stories around the one hundred and twenty nine people
Speaker 1: who had died on Franklin's quest, and all of this
Speaker 1: reading inspired Hall to start exploring for himself. This was
Speaker 1: a very bold move. He didn't have any experience in
Speaker 1: such things. Everything he knew regarding the Arctic and exploring
Speaker 1: it he had learned from reading about it. Listen. Reading
Speaker 1: is fundamental and it's a great way to learn things,
Speaker 1: but there was no practical experience involved. But in all
Speaker 1: of his readings he had come across rumors that there
Speaker 1: were survivors of the Franklin Expedition, and he was determined
Speaker 1: that he was the guy who was going to find them.
Speaker 1: Bodies from the Franklin Expedition, discovered in eighteen fifty nine
Speaker 1: on King William Island did not convince him. Hall believed
Speaker 1: there were still survivors and that he could find them.
Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty, Hall met with Henry Grinnell, the found
Speaker 1: of the American Geographical and Statistical Society, who had given
Speaker 1: funds to previous Arctic expeditions. Grinnell helped Hall connect with
Speaker 1: various whaling companies so that he could arrange for the
Speaker 1: ships to take him as a passenger. On these whaling vessels,
Speaker 1: Hall traveled to Baffin Island and started a two year
Speaker 1: exploration expedition of his own. Baffin Island is a nine
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty mile or fifteen hundred kilometer long island
Speaker 1: in northern Canada which sits across Baffin Bay from Greenland.
Speaker 1: It's massive and Hall was hoping to find survivors of
Speaker 1: the Franklin expedition there. Although that did not happen, he
Speaker 1: did find various artifacts from the much earlier travels through
Speaker 1: the area led by Martin Frobischer in the fifteen seventies. Specifically,
Speaker 1: he found some evidence that Frobisher had tried to mine gold,
Speaker 1: and for clarity, because I didn't put this in the outline,
Speaker 1: he was just like wandering in the wilderness looking. He
Speaker 1: was following up on clues and meeting with indigenous peoples
Speaker 1: and stopping at forts and stuff and being like do
Speaker 1: you think and going on that information. But he really
Speaker 1: was being incredibly brazen in all of this. Hall returned
Speaker 1: home in eighteen sixty two and wrote a book titled
Speaker 1: Arctic Researches and Life among the Eskimo, being the narrative
Speaker 1: of an expedition in search of Sir John Franklin in
Speaker 1: the years eighteen sixty, eighteen sixty one and eighteen sixty
Speaker 1: two that was published in eighteen sixty five, and he
Speaker 1: explains in the opening of the book that the day
Speaker 1: that he finished writing it, like literally as it's going
Speaker 1: to press, he was leaving for another expedition, having prepared
Speaker 1: by learning to live among the indigenous population of the
Speaker 1: area to get a fuller understanding than most explorers could.
Speaker 1: He wrote, quote, I enter upon this undertaking with lively
Speaker 1: hopes of success. I shall not like previous explorers, set
Speaker 1: my foot on shore for a few days or weeks,
Speaker 1: or like others, journey among men whose language is to
Speaker 1: me unintelligible. I shall live for two or three years
Speaker 1: among the Eskimo and gain their confidence, and I have
Speaker 1: the advantage of understanding the language and of making all
Speaker 1: my wishes known to them. Obviously, the word Eskimo is
Speaker 1: outdated language, but were including it in direct quotes rather
Speaker 1: than subbing it out. Yeah, it's also spelled in a
Speaker 1: way it looks very French. Ho. Those wishes were the
Speaker 1: same as on his earlier trip. He wanted to find
Speaker 1: survivors of the Franklin expedition, and this journey was more
Speaker 1: than twice as long as the first. It took five years.
Speaker 1: He started at Hudson Bay's north during his year's long
Speaker 1: expedition of the area, making his base in Nauyat, which
Speaker 1: was referred to as Repulse Bay. He did learn a
Speaker 1: lot about Franklin's expedition and even found some of their belongings.
Speaker 1: Up to this point, he had believed rumors that some
Speaker 1: of the party had survived, but it appears that his
Speaker 1: finding of these relics, as well as listening to the
Speaker 1: accounts from the indigenous people of the area who had
Speaker 1: seen the Franklin group. This all led him to conclude
Speaker 1: that there had been no survivors after all. With Hall
Speaker 1: on that second trip, we're two interpreters that are usually
Speaker 1: described as into it. They are called Joe and Hannah.
Speaker 1: So their real names are a little bit tricky because
Speaker 1: they are written in different ways at different times, and
Speaker 1: they're transliterated by English speakers. The most common ones look
Speaker 1: like and I'm not even going to claim that I
Speaker 1: have this pronunciation, Pervic and Tukulito. Tukalito is the wife
Speaker 1: who was like the interpreter and really kind of helped
Speaker 1: facilitate with people that were not speakers of their language,
Speaker 1: and she has been listed by a lot of other names,
Speaker 1: so it's very unclear how she got this particular name.
Speaker 1: But I think all of this comes down to why
Speaker 1: people started calling them Joe and Hannah, or why they
Speaker 1: started asking people to They had been on other expeditions
Speaker 1: and had helped other people, but they lived with Hall
Speaker 1: in the US after he returned from his first expedition,
Speaker 1: so they had spent two years with him, and they
Speaker 1: were surely part of why he felt so confident in
Speaker 1: his preface to his book, stating that he understood indigenous
Speaker 1: culture and that he knew that he could live among
Speaker 1: the people of the Arctic, and all of the white
Speaker 1: people who were exploring into this territory were doing so
Speaker 1: through the labor of indigenous people who were acting as
Speaker 1: their like, their guides and their interpreters and all of that.
Speaker 1: So like, regardless of his own feeling about this like,
Speaker 1: they were the ones that were doing a lot of
Speaker 1: the work. He could not could not have lived among
Speaker 1: the indigenous people had they not been with him. And
Speaker 1: he just showed up and said, I'm gonna live with
Speaker 1: you and learn all your stuff. Now work. There was
Speaker 1: a troubling incidence on Hall's second expedition, which gives some
Speaker 1: insight into his personality and behavior. He had not been
Speaker 1: able to get funds to finance his own ship for
Speaker 1: the voyage, so he had hitched rides with whaling vessels.
Speaker 1: He also sometimes made contracts with whaling vessels to borrow
Speaker 1: men from their crews. Several years into the second expedition,
Speaker 1: in the autumn of eighteen sixty seven, he did just that.
Speaker 1: By March, he and the borrowed crew as well as
Speaker 1: his guides, were back at Repulse Bay for the summer.
Speaker 1: During the spring, Hall became convinced that some of the
Speaker 1: whalers were undermining him and even verging on mutiny. He
Speaker 1: shot one of the men, Patrick Coleman, who then died
Speaker 1: a very slow death over the course of two weeks.
Speaker 1: Hall's journal from this period does not mention this, there's
Speaker 1: just a gap of several weeks in the journal, but
Speaker 1: his out of the Expedition, which was published after his death,
Speaker 1: does mention it. It is unclear where the information in
Speaker 1: this published account, which is quite detailed, came from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there has even been some speculation that an editor pieced
Speaker 1: things together and that it's not actually Hall's account, but
Speaker 1: we don't know. When Hall returned to the US, he
Speaker 1: had to answer for the shooting theoretically, but it actually
Speaker 1: got tangled up in red tape. So at that time,
Speaker 1: the area that Hall had been exploring was not part
Speaker 1: of Canada, So the British and Canadian governments did not
Speaker 1: want to get involved with the incident, and the US
Speaker 1: didn't seem to think that it had any reason to
Speaker 1: get involved in something so far away from its jurisdiction,
Speaker 1: so Hall was never charged, although it doesn't appear that
Speaker 1: there was also ever any mutiny afoot, So it seems
Speaker 1: like he really had this irrational thought that he acted
Speaker 1: on and killed a man, and nothing was ever done
Speaker 1: in terms of consequences. We don't know if Patrick Coleman
Speaker 1: ever actually did anything to provoke Hall, or if Hall
Speaker 1: just perceived that he had. But this whole incident really
Speaker 1: evidences a dark side of Charles Hall, who was described
Speaker 1: by some people as volatile and obsessed with the Franklin expedition.
Speaker 1: He had called finding the survivors or evidence of what
Speaker 1: had happened to them his mission. We'll talk about Hall's
Speaker 1: next plan after his second expedition after we pause for
Speaker 1: a quick sponsor break. After returning home and accepting that
Speaker 1: everyone from the Franklin expedition had died, Hall's explorer impulse
Speaker 1: was not diminished in the least. He had merely shifted
Speaker 1: focus to reaching the North Pole himself. This is something
Speaker 1: that some accounts suggest he started really thinking seriously about
Speaker 1: during that second expedition. Charles Francis Hall's earlier efforts had
Speaker 1: gained him a little bit of attention and notoriety, and
Speaker 1: he managed to get President Ulysses S Grant and a
Speaker 1: number of Congressmen interested in his North Pole plan. He
Speaker 1: wanted to run a full expedition himself with his own
Speaker 1: ship and not have to depend on making deals with
Speaker 1: whaling ships to travel, and in eighteen seventy Hall got
Speaker 1: his financing. The US Congress granted him fifty thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: which was quite a lot of money to mount an
Speaker 1: expedition to the North Pole. The undertaking was under the
Speaker 1: jurisdiction of the US Navy and the National Academy of Sciences,
Speaker 1: and this was the first Arctic expedition that the US
Speaker 1: government fully funded. Hull was given command of a ship
Speaker 1: named the Polaris for the journey. This had been a
Speaker 1: steamer used by the Union in the US Civil War.
Speaker 1: It was given a makeover and reinforced so that it
Speaker 1: could withstand the cold of the Arctic. Although he may
Speaker 1: not have wanted to work through the whaling industry for
Speaker 1: travel anymore, Charles Hall hired a captain from the whaling
Speaker 1: industry who he had sailed with on his two prior
Speaker 1: expeditions to captain the Polaris. That was Sydney Buddington. On
Speaker 1: June twenty ninth, eighteen seventy one, the Polaris left New
Speaker 1: York City for Connecticut and then set sail from New London,
Speaker 1: Connecticut on July third, eighteen seventy one. The Polaris next
Speaker 1: stopped in Greenland to pick up supplies, sled dogs, and guides,
Speaker 1: and once it was fully outfitted with its crew, the
Speaker 1: USS Polaris had thirty three people aboard. Eight of these
Speaker 1: are once again described as Eskimo in accounts of the day.
Speaker 1: Two were the Inuit couple that he had already been
Speaker 1: friends with and had been using his guides, and also
Speaker 1: their son. There was also another Indigenous couple in their kids.
Speaker 1: There were four children in total on this expedition, three
Speaker 1: little girls ages ten, eight and three, and the boy
Speaker 1: was six years old. Later there was a fifth child
Speaker 1: because one of the couples had a baby during the expedition,
Speaker 1: which was a boy who they named Polaris. In addition
Speaker 1: to Buddington, the ship had a doctor Emil Bessels and
Speaker 1: an astronomer named rd. W. Bryan. Where was also a
Speaker 1: meteorologist named Friedrich Meyer. Emal Bessels in particular is important
Speaker 1: to the story. He was only twenty four when the
Speaker 1: Polaris expedition began, but he was already very accomplished. He
Speaker 1: had graduated from medical school at eighteen in Heidelberg, Germany,
Speaker 1: where he was born in eighteen forty seven, and the
Speaker 1: Polaris was not his first Arctic expedition. He had visited
Speaker 1: the island of Spitzbergen on a previous undertaking. As kind
Speaker 1: of a fun side note, the archipelago, which was called Spitzbergen,
Speaker 1: is now Svalbard where the global seed Vault is. The
Speaker 1: island itself is still called Spitzbergen. Back to Bessels, he
Speaker 1: had also served as a field surgeon in the Franco
Speaker 1: Prussian War, so he had a lot of life under
Speaker 1: his belt before he ever stepped onto the Polaris. The
Speaker 1: leader of his prior Arctic expedition, a doctor Peterman, gave
Speaker 1: Bessels the highest praise and endorsement. Initially, this trip seemed
Speaker 1: to go very well. Haul and his party got farther
Speaker 1: north than any non indigenous people had, reaching eighty two
Speaker 1: degrees twenty nine minutes north latitude. That was the farthest
Speaker 1: a ship had gone that was recorded in Western history.
Speaker 1: But the situation on the ship was not as great
Speaker 1: as those auspicious beginnings might have suggested. It appears that
Speaker 1: Charles Hall was in conflict with two key members of
Speaker 1: the team, Buddington, who many people said he was friends with,
Speaker 1: and a Meal Bessels. In October, the Polaris and its
Speaker 1: crew prepared for a long winter stuck in the ice.
Speaker 1: They had come up against ice as they approached the
Speaker 1: Lincoln Sea, and they found a harbor on the northern
Speaker 1: shore of Greenland that Haul dubbed Thank God Harbor. In
Speaker 1: early October, Hall set out from the ship on a
Speaker 1: sledge to do some exploring. When Hall returned from his
Speaker 1: scouting trip after two weeks on October twenty fourth, he
Speaker 1: sought the comfort of a warm cup of coffee, and
Speaker 1: after he drank it, he became sick, very sick. He
Speaker 1: experienced painful symptoms, including partial paralysis and dementia, and Bezels
Speaker 1: initially took care of him, believing he had a stroke.
Speaker 1: Bezels recorded in his notes that Hall got slowly better
Speaker 1: the next day and that they gave him quote warm
Speaker 1: mustard foot baths and cold compresses placed on his head
Speaker 1: and neck, and as he started to recover, Hall also
Speaker 1: started talking about going on another sledge trip, and he
Speaker 1: also wanted to know if the crew had been following
Speaker 1: his instructions to prepare the ship for winter. But Hall
Speaker 1: fell into what Beseel said was delirium and then became
Speaker 1: suspicious that someone on the ship was trying to kill him.
Speaker 1: He thought that he had been poisoned, and he said
Speaker 1: so many times. Actually he didn't want anyone to help him.
Speaker 1: He died on November eighth, eighteen seventy one, and he
Speaker 1: was buried in a shallow grave on Greenland Shore. Beseels
Speaker 1: wrote in his notes his account of the final days
Speaker 1: of Charles Hall, noting his diagnosis that he had a
Speaker 1: stroke and then probably a second stroke after he had
Speaker 1: over exerted himself. In a moment of feeling better. Beseels
Speaker 1: described how very difficult it was for the men to
Speaker 1: dig a grave in the hard ground, and that it
Speaker 1: had taken all night for several men to dig a
Speaker 1: hole just two feet deep. Hall's death left Buddington in
Speaker 1: charge initially. Once the ice had cleared, efforts were made
Speaker 1: to go on with the mission, but the ship was
Speaker 1: having leakage issues and the weather wasn't cooperating. Once again,
Speaker 1: the Polaris was stuck in the ice in August of
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two, and it stayed there, drifting along with
Speaker 1: the ice field with no power to steer. In October,
Speaker 1: as things grew uncertain as to whether the ship could
Speaker 1: survive the shifting ice and the pressure on it, Buddington
Speaker 1: told the crew that they needed to move everything overboard
Speaker 1: along with the smaller boats. Many members of the crew
Speaker 1: and the guides and their families were off the ship
Speaker 1: on the ice when a gap suddenly formed and the
Speaker 1: Polaris and the people outside of it who were on
Speaker 1: an ice floe were separated. The Polaris was at the
Speaker 1: mercy of the wind and currents when it pulled away
Speaker 1: from the spot where it had lodged in the ice,
Speaker 1: and it vanished, leaving the crew on the ice flow
Speaker 1: with really little hope. Yeah, they thought the Polaris was lost.
Speaker 1: The nineteen people who were on the ice stayed on
Speaker 1: that ice floe with no means of controlling it as
Speaker 1: it floated around for more than six months. Finally, on
Speaker 1: April thirtieth, eighteen seventy three, after almost two harrowing years
Speaker 1: at sea and one hundred and ninety six days, of
Speaker 1: that were spent on an ice flow. The floating were
Speaker 1: rescued when a ceiling ship known as the Tigris happened
Speaker 1: upon them. All of them survived, which seems miraculous, but
Speaker 1: we really have to note that it's truly because their
Speaker 1: Inuit guides had taken care of everyone. They were fishing
Speaker 1: and hunting from the FLOE's edge to keep everyone fed,
Speaker 1: and according to the account of doctor Bessel's, who was
Speaker 1: on the Polaris when the ship and the ice floe
Speaker 1: were separated when the ice flow, survivors later saw the
Speaker 1: Polaris at shore as they had been rescued and were
Speaker 1: brought to land. Some of them had initially wondered why
Speaker 1: the rest of the crew had not come to their rescue,
Speaker 1: because from that vantage point it looked like the ship
Speaker 1: was okay, but it actually was not. It had several
Speaker 1: structural issues. Parts of it at that point were missing,
Speaker 1: and it just could not have done so. Although the
Speaker 1: group on the ice floe had believed the Polaris to
Speaker 1: be lost again, it was not. Buddington had run it
Speaker 1: aground close to Etta Greenlands after he and the crew
Speaker 1: had furiously worked to keep it together just long enough
Speaker 1: to get to land. Buddington and the remaining crew wintered
Speaker 1: near Cairn Point. When spring arrived, a whaling vessel from
Speaker 1: Scotland named the ravenscregg rescued the Polaris crew in Melville Bay,
Speaker 1: where they had traveled in small rudmentary boats that they
Speaker 1: made from pieces of the Polaris. Buddington made it to Washington,
Speaker 1: d c. With the remaining crew. That's another instance where
Speaker 1: we need to note that they also survived because in
Speaker 1: it who were living in that area where they went
Speaker 1: aground took care of them. They did not serve on
Speaker 1: their own. There was a Navy Board of Inquiry mounted
Speaker 1: in June eighteen seventy three to investigate what had happened
Speaker 1: to Charles Francis Hall. Although some of the people from
Speaker 1: the ice flow testified that Hall was adamant that he
Speaker 1: had been poisoned and that there was no accounting for
Speaker 1: who had touched Hall's coffee before it reached him. Hall's
Speaker 1: death was ruled as the result of an apoplectic seizure,
Speaker 1: which is another name for as. The official report stated
Speaker 1: that quote from personal examination of all the witnesses and
Speaker 1: from their testimony is given we reached the unanimous conclusion
Speaker 1: that the death of Captain Hall resulted naturally from disease
Speaker 1: without fault on the part of anyone. Not everyone shared
Speaker 1: that opinion, and we'll talk about one of the people
Speaker 1: who gave his opinion on the matter to the press
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy three, after we pause or a sponsor break.
Speaker 1: There were in eighteen seventy three some suspicions about what
Speaker 1: had actually happened to Hall and whether he had met
Speaker 1: with foul play. On Sunday, September twenty third, eighteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: the New York Herald ran the headline the Story of
Speaker 1: the Ice, and featured a very lengthy writeup of everything
Speaker 1: that had happened to the Polaris team, and it opened
Speaker 1: with a statement from doctor Bessel's that reads quote, we
Speaker 1: are much to find from the American papers that several
Speaker 1: rumors of mischievous tendency, which I must characterize as silly
Speaker 1: and absurd, have been put into circulation concerning the expedition,
Speaker 1: and particularly concerning the death of Captain Hall. It is
Speaker 1: just possible that the government at Washington would prefer that
Speaker 1: we reserve what we have to say for a graver occasion.
Speaker 1: But we must emphatically contradict the statement that Captain Hall
Speaker 1: died any other than a natural death. He died of apoplexy.
Speaker 1: He was ill about a fortnight. He appeared in perfect
Speaker 1: health when entering the voyage. I noticed nothing unusual in
Speaker 1: his health up to the period of his illness. The
Speaker 1: rumors that he was poisoned are too absurd to be
Speaker 1: seriously entertained. The rumor may have been founded on the
Speaker 1: hallucinations of the raving patient. So doctor Bessel's thought that
Speaker 1: the deceased Charles Hall started a rumor that he was poisoned,
Speaker 1: and that rumor was definitely swirling. And in that same
Speaker 1: article there was a damning statement from Inspector H. Kerrit Smith.
Speaker 1: He was the man in charge of the government's storehouse
Speaker 1: at Greenland, where the Polaris stocked up, and he had
Speaker 1: some thoughts about the vibe of the group. He told
Speaker 1: the Harold's reporter his concerns about what might have happened
Speaker 1: to Hall. According to the write up, Smith was not
Speaker 1: surprised when he heard that Hall had died. He told
Speaker 1: the Harold quote, I pitied him from the bottom of
Speaker 1: my heart. To me, he imparted the source of all
Speaker 1: his troubles, and a more distracted man I have seldom seen.
Speaker 1: My house was open to all the officers of the expedition,
Speaker 1: and I had, of course every opportunity to learn both
Speaker 1: sides of the story. When Smith was questioned about the
Speaker 1: group dynamics in play among the officers on the voyage,
Speaker 1: he told the reporter quote, Buddington was only an instrument
Speaker 1: in the hands of a third party. It was not
Speaker 1: long before I discovered a very bitter feeling existed on
Speaker 1: the polaris. And although Buddington was a stone the cause
Speaker 1: of the quarrel, that there was in the background a
Speaker 1: far more dangerous element who contend against. As Smith's statement continues,
Speaker 1: it sounds like conflict began over whether scientific work should
Speaker 1: take precedence over the objective of reaching the pole. He said, quote,
Speaker 1: as far as I could learn, no trouble manifested itself
Speaker 1: until the coast of Greenland was reached. Now it was
Speaker 1: pretty well understood that Captain Hall was not a scientific
Speaker 1: or highly educated man, though perfectly competent to command such
Speaker 1: an expedition that was entrusted to him. Doctor Emil Bessel's
Speaker 1: was chief of the scientific Corps and mister Frederick Meyers,
Speaker 1: the meteorologist, and to these gentlemen Captain Hall looked for
Speaker 1: assistance in carrying out the great object of the expedition.
Speaker 1: From what I heard, however, he was disappointed in the direction.
Speaker 1: And although Captain Hall, fully realizing the importance of all
Speaker 1: scientific discoveries, was anxious to afford them every facility, he
Speaker 1: was nevertheless bound to maintain his own as commander of
Speaker 1: the expedition. Captain Hall told me in a despondent tone,
Speaker 1: that both Bessels and Meyer carried on their operations without
Speaker 1: regard to his authority. For instance, when Hall requested Meyer
Speaker 1: to take an observation, he refused to do so on
Speaker 1: the ground that he was responsible only to the government
Speaker 1: for his actions. Smith also stated that he thought Bessels
Speaker 1: was using Meyer as his mouthpiece. Smith's concerns about Bessels
Speaker 1: did not stop there. He also told the reporter that
Speaker 1: Bessels knew that as doctor he was indispensable to the crew,
Speaker 1: and that if he left the expedition at any time
Speaker 1: it was at port, many of the men would have
Speaker 1: joined him. He also noted that, in writing letters about
Speaker 1: the expedition to German journals. Bessels called it the Hall
Speaker 1: Bessel's expedition, and he noted that while Hall wanted absolutely
Speaker 1: no alcohol on board, Bessels got a stock of it
Speaker 1: under the auspices of medical supplies, and that he believed Buddington,
Speaker 1: who had been reported as having been drunk on a
Speaker 1: number of occasions on the trip, must have gotten it
Speaker 1: from the doctor. According to Smith, the meteorologist Myers was
Speaker 1: openly and subordinate, so much so that another Navy captain,
Speaker 1: Captain Davenport, got involved while they were docked in Greenland
Speaker 1: to settle the matter, but that after that there were
Speaker 1: a lot of bad feelings toward Hall. Yeah, Hall had
Speaker 1: wanted to put Myers in shackles and keep him on board,
Speaker 1: apparently to do the meteorological work. But like sort of
Speaker 1: in a captive state. So naturally not a lot of
Speaker 1: loving feelings towards that. But we should note this is
Speaker 1: all the account of a third party. But then Smith
Speaker 1: recounted an argument that he had witnessed between Hall and
Speaker 1: Bessel's in his own house, and after that argument, Hall
Speaker 1: gave Smith and his wife four boxes of papers for safekeeping,
Speaker 1: which he said involved information about the Franklin expedition, which
Speaker 1: he was not comfortable taking on the trip. He had
Speaker 1: packed it initially, but then offloaded it in Greenland. These
Speaker 1: papers involved information about members of the Franklin expedition resorting
Speaker 1: to cannibalism, and he did not want them made public
Speaker 1: while Franklin's widow was alive, and Hall seemed to think
Speaker 1: that if he brought those papers on the expedition they
Speaker 1: would be lost forever because something might happen to them.
Speaker 1: Then the really damning statement from Smith came out quote.
Speaker 1: I cannot help thinking that, despite the testimony taking at Washington,
Speaker 1: his death was not the result of natural causes. Everything
Speaker 1: induces to that opinion, for undue influence had been exercised
Speaker 1: over the crew to lessen their respect for her commander,
Speaker 1: and the jealousy of some of Hall's subordinates taking in
Speaker 1: connection with the whole affair, leads me to the conclusion
Speaker 1: that there was bowel play. I think the body of
Speaker 1: Captain Hall, which I have no doubt is still in
Speaker 1: a state of preservations, should be sought after and exhumed.
Speaker 1: Bessel's never fully outran these accusations in the court of
Speaker 1: public opinion. Kind of any time something happened where he
Speaker 1: was written up in the paper it was like and
Speaker 1: suspect of the murder of Captain Hall, but nothing further
Speaker 1: was done regarding the death of Hall. Once the Navy
Speaker 1: Board had made its decision, Bessels went on to work
Speaker 1: at the Smithsonian Institution and he published scientific results of
Speaker 1: the United States Arctic Expedition and other papers about the
Speaker 1: work that he had done on the journey. He died
Speaker 1: at the age of forty after a stroke. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until almost one hundred years after the expedition that questions
Speaker 1: arose once again about what exactly happened to Charles Francis Hall.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen sixties, Dartmouth professor and Arctic historian Chauncey C.
Speaker 1: Loomis started researching the expedition for his book Weird and
Speaker 1: Tragic Shores, The Story of Charles Francis Hall, and Loomis
Speaker 1: wanted the body exhumed. That happened in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 1: Loomis himself went to Greenland for the exenbit and an
Speaker 1: autopsy was performed on the well preserved body. Toronto's Center
Speaker 1: of Forensic Sciences ran neutron activation tests on samples of
Speaker 1: hair and fingernails that were collected. This revealed some very
Speaker 1: interesting information and was even the basis for a paper
Speaker 1: that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy titled an Inquest on the Death of
Speaker 1: Charles Francis Hall. Charles Francis Hall had been given arsenic
Speaker 1: in the last two weeks of his life, and a
Speaker 1: lot of it. Suddenly, Emil Brussels was once again looking
Speaker 1: suspicious as there was arsenic in his medical kit. Remember,
Speaker 1: at this time in history, it was used to treat
Speaker 1: all kinds of things like joint problems in syphilis and
Speaker 1: dry skin. But the doses Hall was given were far
Speaker 1: beyond what would have ever been administered for any medical reason.
Speaker 1: But even though there had been conflict between the two men,
Speaker 1: it just didn't seem enough to drive someone to murder,
Speaker 1: especially in a scenario where a limited number of people
Speaker 1: are depending on each other for survival. Additionally, Hall had
Speaker 1: his own medical kits, so it is possible that he
Speaker 1: may have overdosed accidentally when he was refusing medical help
Speaker 1: from Brussels, and he may have been self medicating. So
Speaker 1: this mystery percolated on for another four decades until another
Speaker 1: piece of circumstantial evidence was found, and that was an envelope.
Speaker 1: That envelope was from Charles Hall to a young woman
Speaker 1: named Vinnie Reim, was postmarked October eighteen seventy one. That
Speaker 1: envelope was discovered by Rhode Island College professor Russell Potter,
Speaker 1: and Venni Riem was connected to Bessel's romantically, and maybe
Speaker 1: also to Charles Hall. Reem was a well known sculptor,
Speaker 1: and Hall kept a small bust of Abraham Lincoln she
Speaker 1: had given him in his quarters on the Polaris. She
Speaker 1: could potentially be an upcoming episode. Are good, It's what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, because she's very interesting on her own
Speaker 1: outside of any connection to these two men. So the
Speaker 1: idea that perhaps there was a jealousy between these two
Speaker 1: men might lend more gravity to the idea that Bessel's
Speaker 1: was angry enough at Hall to kill him. For example,
Speaker 1: if he suddenly saw a work of art by his
Speaker 1: sweetheart in the Captain's quarters, that may have prompted a
Speaker 1: jealous rage. But that is pure speculation. We will never
Speaker 1: ever know what really happened and how Hall came to
Speaker 1: have so much arsenic in his system. But on the
Speaker 1: official record, Emil Bessel's remains clear of any wrongdoing the
Speaker 1: mystery forever. Uh, do you have listener mail for us? Yes?
Speaker 1: This listener mail comes with a note as to how
Speaker 1: to ensure that I obsess over your email and possibly
Speaker 1: read it on the air. This is the key ingredient
Speaker 1: you can include to make sure that I lose my mind. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is from our listener, Kelsey, who writes hi Ally
Speaker 1: and Tracy. I was just listening to your recent episode
Speaker 1: about Harrison Dyer while eating breakfast and enjoying learning about
Speaker 1: his drama and his tunnels. When Tracy described the truck
Speaker 1: falling into the street near fifteen twelve twenty third Street Northwest,
Speaker 1: and I almost dropped my spoon. That's about three blocks
Speaker 1: from my apartment in the DuPont Circle neighborhood in DC.
Speaker 1: It's kitty corner from my local coffee shop, and I
Speaker 1: have passed by there dozens of times. I had no
Speaker 1: idea there were tunnels under my neighborhood. Proof that history
Speaker 1: is all around, well, perhaps obviously in DC. Thank you
Speaker 1: for continuing to fill my days with fascinating history that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have learned otherwise. Best wishes Kelsey. And then
Speaker 1: Kelsey includes not her own cats, but her friend astroids
Speaker 1: cats Crumble and Waffle, who she considers her nephews. And
Speaker 1: here's what you can do if you want to ensure
Speaker 1: that I lose my mind over your email. These two
Speaker 1: cats look like Devin, which is my very very favorite
Speaker 1: flavor of kitty and was the breed of my beloved
Speaker 1: mister Burns, who has left this earth and is no
Speaker 1: longer pulling people's pants down or turning on stoves. But
Speaker 1: they are absolutely gorgeous. I'm obsessed and I want to
Speaker 1: kiss their faces. So Kelsey and Astrid and Crumble and Waffle,
Speaker 1: thank you for making me smile, because this is some
Speaker 1: cute business. Those giant eyes and those giant ears. I
Speaker 1: love a little crazy rexy baby. If you would like
Speaker 1: to write to us and send us really any cat
Speaker 1: pictures are good. As I've said before, any animals or
Speaker 1: pictures are good. Send me your tarantulas, your snakes, and
Speaker 1: your corvid. Send me your I don't know worms. Do
Speaker 1: people keep earth worms as pets? Probably ants ant farm.
Speaker 1: I'm into it. I love all of it. Send me
Speaker 1: all of it if you would like to do so
Speaker 1: and talk about maybe place ways that our stories have
Speaker 1: intersected with your neighborhood. You can do so at History
Speaker 1: Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also find us
Speaker 1: on social media as mist in History, and you can
Speaker 1: subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in
Speaker 1: History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.