Hall

Hall, CHARLES FRANCIS, Arctic explorer, born in Rochester, New Hampshire, in 1821, was successively a blacksmith, journalist, stationer, and engraver, and, becoming interested in the fate of the Franklin expedition, devoted his leisure to gathering information about Arctic America. He made two search expeditions, in 1860-62 and 1864-69, living alone among the Eskimo, and bringing back some relics and the bones of one of Franklin's company; and in 1871 he sailed in command of the government ship Polaris, on an 'expedition to the North Pole.' He took his vessel for 250 miles up the channel leading from Smith's Sound, and on 29th August reached 82° 16' N.—at that date the highest northern latitude ever reached; then turning southward, he went into winter-quarters at Thank God Harbour, Greenland (81° 38' N.). Here, on his return from a sledge expedition to the north, he was taken suddenly ill, and died 8th November 1871; over his grave a grateful epitaph was placed by the British polar expedition in 1876. His companions left Thank God Harbour in August 1872. In October, through the ice-anchor slipping, nineteen men were left with stores on a floe, and only after severe sufferings were they rescued by a sealer off the Labrador coast in the following April. The leaking Polaris was beached on Littleton's Island, and in June 1873 the party set out for Upervilik in two boats which they had constructed; they were ultimately picked up by a Dundee whaler near Cape York. The charts published by the expedition are often incorrect and misleading, but among the valuable results of Hall's work were the exploration of the West Greenland channel, and the extension of Greenland and Grinnell Land a degree and a half north. Hall published Arctic Researches, and Life among the Esquimaux (1864); and from his papers largely was compiled the Narrative of the Second Arctic Expedition (Washington, 1879).