Description:

Arctic Exploration 16 - Silverplate Wood "Sled" Inkstand commemorating the 1877 Arctic Expedition

Inkstand, 6.25" x 3.25" x 1.25". Silverplate and wood forming a sled. Engraved at top above and below the 2" x 2" opening for a square-based ink bottle, "A RELIC OF THE / ARCTIC EXPEDITION / 1877." Original patina. Fine condition.

Captain Henry W. Howgate (1834-1901), Chief Disbursing Officer in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, headed the 1877-1878 Preliminary Polar Expedition, which was a scientific venture to help establish relationships with the Esquimaux and set the foundation for the whaling industry.

An excerpt from Polar Colonization: The Preliminary Arctic Expedition of 1877 by Henry W. Howgate: "A number of public spirited and generous citizens of the United States, having faith in the success of the Colonization plan as a means of Arctic Exploration, and believing in its ultimate approval by Congress, in substantial accordance with the bill reported favorably from the Committee on Naval Affairs of the House of Representatives at the last session of the Forty-fourth Congress, contributed from their private means a sufficient sum for the purchase and outfit of a small vessel to be sent to the Arctic seas for the purpose of collecting such supplies during the ensuing winter as might be useful for the main expedition of 1878, if that expedition should be authorized. It was at first intended to limit the mission of this vessel to the collection of material only, but the opportunity for scientific investigation was so inviting, and the added cost incurred thereby so very trifling in comparison with the results to be attained, that space was made on board for two observers and their necessary apparatus."

The schooner Florence left New London, Connecticut, on August 2, 1877, reaching the winter harbor Annanactook, Cumberland Sound (66ÎçN), on October 6, 1877. While at Annanactook, naturalist Ludwig Kumlien and meteorologist Orray Taft Sherman engaged in scientific work, assisted by local Esquimaux. The Florence was unable to leave Annanactook until early July, and when it did embark, on July 5, 1878, it was pressed ten miles east by ice floe before making Kickatiue Island. The expedition arrived in Godhavn Harbor on July 31st. There, Florence Capt. George Emory Tyson learned that the government expedition steamer they were expecting to join forces with to establish polar colonization, captained by Henry W. Howgate, had not been authorized. The Florence sailed home August 22nd, reaching Boston harbor on October 30, 1878.

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