Henson's Relationship with Captain Robert Bartlett

Captain Robert Bartlett (1875-1946) is another major figure in the story of Matthew Henson. Bartlett was the Captain of the Roosevelt, the ship that made the journey to the Arctic two times with Peary's expeditions to find the North Pole. In the 1905 expedition, the group blazed a trail to within two hundred miles of the North Pole, the closest anyone had come to the North Pole at this point. With the second journey to the North Pole in 1908-09 Bartlett was with Peary when they made it fifty miles closer. The work needed to break the ice and snow between camps was backbreaking. Bartlett assisted with this task to the last camp.

Peary had been sending teams back down the trail to the ship until there were just two teams left, Peary's and Bartlett's. Once both groups were at the camp, Bartlett assumed that Peary would choose him to continue on to the North Pole. Confident he would be chosen to Continue with Peary leaving Henson to head back to the ship, the "bitter disappointment" came. Peary said that because Henson could handle the dogs and sledges so well he and the four Eskimos would be of more use to him. Only in his writings did Bartlett show his disappointment in not making it to the North Pole, "he did not hold a grudge and remained fiercely loyal to Peary" to the end of his life.


Image Caption: This photograph titled "Peary & Bartlett, Battle Harbor" of Captain Robert Bartlett and Robert Peary standing a a ship, presumably the Roosevelt in Battle Harbor, Labrador circa 1909 after returning from the North Pole Expedition, courtesy of the Library of Congress.