6 NEAREST THE POLE 



becoming later House Surgeon at St. Vincent's Hospital, 

 Portland, Oregon, and still later Assistant Attending 

 Physician at the Cornell University Medical College, and 

 of the outdoor medical dispensary of Bellevue Hospital. 



Ross G. Marvin, secretary and assistant, was a 

 native of Elmira, N. Y., a graduate of Cornell 

 University, 25 years of age, 6 feet tall, and weighed 

 160 pounds. Subsequently he had three years of naval 

 training on board the school ship St. Mary's. 



Charles Percy, my steward, was a native of New- 

 foundland, 54 years of age, 5 feet 10 inches high, and 

 weighed 180 pounds. He had previously made a 

 summer voyage as far north as Cape Sabine in my 

 ship the Diana in 1899, and later had spent two 

 years with Mrs. Peary and myself at Cape Sabine, from 

 1900 to 1902. Subsequently he had been in my em- 

 ploy as resident in charge of Eagle Island. 



Matthew Henson, my personal attendant, was a 

 coloured native of the District of Columbia, 39 years of 

 age, 5 feet 6% inches high, and weighed 145 pounds. 

 In my employ in one capacity or another most of the 

 time since I took him to Nicaragua with me in 1888, 

 and a member of all of my Arctic expeditions, his qual- 

 ity and capabilities were fully known. 



The crew and firemen, with the exception of 

 one of the latter, Charles Clark, a native of Massa- 

 chusetts, were natives of Newfoundland, of the 

 usual type of sailors and sealers common to that island. 

 One of the firemen had been with me on the Eagle in 

 1886, and previously to that had been on one of 

 the whalers in search of the Greely party in 1883. 

 Another fireman had been north with me in the Hope 



