Lincoln Ellsworth | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Linn Ellsworth May 12, 1880 (1880-05-12) |
| Died | May 26, 1951(1951-05-26) (aged 71) New York City,New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Exploration |
| Parent(s) | James Ellsworth Eva Frances Butler |
Lincoln Ellsworth (May 12, 1880 – May 26, 1951) was an Americanpolar explorer, engineer, surveyor, and writer. He led the first Arctic and Antarctic air crossings.[1]
Linn Ellsworth was born in Chicago, Illinois on May 12, 1880.[2] His parents were Eva Frances (née Butler) andJames Ellsworth, a wealthy coal mine owner and financier.[2][3] He was named Linn after his uncle William Linn, but changed his name to Lincoln when he was a child.[4]
His mother died in 1888.[4] Ellsworth and his sister moved toHudson, Ohio to live with his grandmother.[2][4] He attended theWestern Reserve Academy in Hudson andThe Hill School inPottstown, Pennsylvania.[3][5] He took two years longer than usual to graduate, before entering theSheffield Scientific School atYale University.[3] His academic performance was poor, and he subsequently enrolled atColumbia University School of Mines and studied civil engineering.[3][2] He joined the fraternity of Delta Psi (St. Anthony Hall) at Yale in 1900 and Columbia in 1901.[2]
After dropping out of college in 1903, Ellsworth climbed theAndes with a fraternity brother.[2][6]
Ellsworth was a surveyor and engineer with a team conducting the first Canadian Grand Pacific Railroad survey from 1902 to 1907.[1][2] He worked the winter of 1904 in his father's coal mine.[2][4] In 1905, he worked as an assistant engineer of a gold mine inTeller Alska.[4] In 1906, he returned to his father's coal mine, working as an engineer.[4] He then worked as an engineer in Alaska and Canada from 1907 to 1924, including spending three years with the United States Biological Survey, gold prospecting along thePeace River, and working on a railroad over theRocky Mountains in Alaska.[1][6][4][5]
DuringWorld War I, he served in theUnited States Army and trained as an aviator.[1][6] Elsworth led the trans-Andean topographic survey from theAmazon River basin to the Pacific Ocean in Peru forJohns Hopkins University in 1924.[1][6]
Ellsworth joined the first expedition to try to fly over theNorth Pole in 1925.[2] His father spent US$100,000 ($1.79 million in 2024) to fundRoald Amundsen's 1925 attempt to fly fromSvalbard to theNorth Pole. Amundsen, accompanied by Lincoln Ellsworth, pilotHjalmar Riiser-Larsen, flight mechanicKarl Feucht, and two other team members, set out in twoDornier Wal flying boats, the N24 and N25, in an attempted to reach the North Pole on May 21. When one airplane lost power, both made forced landings and, as a result, became separated. It took three days for the crews to regroup and seven takeoff attempts before they could return N25 to the air 28 days later. Ellsworth senior died in Italy on June 2, 1925, while waiting for news of his lost son.
In early March 1926, under the headline "Across the Pole by Dirigible",The New York Times announced the Amundsen-Ellsworth Expedition.[7]A long article in the same edition (byFitzhugh Green, one of Byrd's navy colleagues) was headed "Massed Attack On Polar Region Begins Soon."[7] Ellsworth accompanied Amundsen on his second effort to fly over the Pole in theairshipNorge, designed and piloted by the Italian engineerUmberto Nobile, in a flight fromSvalbard toAlaska. On May 12, theGeographic North Pole was sighted.
Ellsworth made four expeditions to Antarctica between 1933 and 1939 using as his aircraft transporter and base, a former Norwegian herring boat that he namedWyatt Earp after his hero.[8] The aircraft, namedPolar Star, was aNorthrop Gamma outfitted with skis.
On November 23, 1935, Ellsworth discovered theEllsworth Mountains ofAntarctica when he made a trans-Antarctic flight fromDundee Island to theRoss Ice Shelf. He gave the descriptive nameSentinel Range, which was later named for the northern half of the Ellsworth Mountains. During the flight, his aircraft ran out of fuel, forcing a landing near theLittle America camp established byRichard Byrd. Because of a faulty radio, he and his pilot,Herbert Hollick-Kenyon, were unable to notify authorities about the landing. The two men were declared missing, and the British research shipDiscovery steamed out fromMelbourne, Australia[9] to search for them. The two men were discovered on January 16, 1936, after almost two months alone at Little America.[10] They returned to New York City on April 6, and their support shipWyatt Earp arrived separately two weeks later.[11]
Ellsworth received honorary degrees from Yale University andKenyon College.[5] In 1927, theBoy Scouts of America made Lincoln Ellsworth anHonorary Scout, a new category of Scout created that same year. This distinction was given to "American citizens whose achievements in outdoor activity, exploration, and worthwhile adventure are of such an exceptional character as to capture the imagination of boys..."[12]The Boy Scout's Book of True Adventure, Fourteen Honorary Scouts, includes an essay "The First Crossing of the Polar Sea" by Lincoln Ellsworth.[13]
In 1928, Ellsworth was awarded aCongressional Gold Medal that honored both his 1925 and 1926 polar flights.[14] He received the Hubbard Gold Medal from theNational Geographic Society in 1936 for his Antarctic expedition and aerial survey.[6] He received a second Congressional Gold Medal in 1936 for "his claims on behalf of the United States of approximately 350,000 square miles in Antarctica and for his 2,500-mile aerial survey of the heart ofAntarctica."[14][6] In 1937, he was awarded thePatron's Medal of theRoyal Geographical Society for his improvements in the technique of polar aerial navigation.[15][6]
TheAmerican Museum of Natural History created the Lincoln Ellsworth exhibit about his Arctic and Antarctic voyages in 1933; it remains open to the public as of 2024.[16] The former Antarctic baseEllsworth Station was named after him.Ellsworth Land,Mount Ellsworth, andLake Ellsworth, all in Antarctica, are all named for Lincoln Ellsworth.[1][17] TheUnited States Postal Service issued acommemorative stamp in his honor in 1988.[18] In 1919, the high school athletic teams ofHudson High School inHudson, Ohio, were nicknamed "The Explorers" after Ellsworth.[19] Hudson’s Ellsworth Hill Elementary is also named after him.[19]
On May 23, 1933, Ellsworth married naturalist and historian Mary Louise Ulmer of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[2][6] The couple met while taking flying lessons in Switzerland.[2] They had no children.[5] They lived at 35 East 76th Street in New York City and in theSchloss Lenzburg castle in Switzerland, bequeathed to Ellsworth by his father.[2][5]
He was a trustee of theAmerican Museum of Natural History and was also a major benefactor of the museum.[6] He also served on the board of trustees of Western Reserve Academy from 1926 to 1951.[5]
Ellsworth died of heart failure at his home in New York City on May 26, 1951, at the age of 71.[2][20][6] He was buried in Hudson, Ohio.[5]
