APPENDIX E 



Captain Palmer's Sealing Voyages of 1820-21 and 1821-22 



Several pages could be written on the American and British controversy on the discovery 

 of the Antarctic Peninsula, but this is not our purpose. As one outstanding American 

 geographer, the late S. Whittemore Boggs of the U.S. State Department, wrote: 



". . . Palmer has assumed the most prominence among early American sealers in 

 Antarctica mainly because first-hand evidence of his accomplishments has been pre- 

 served and has been available to the student of the Antarctic for several years. How- 

 ever, it is just as likely that any of the other sealers in the South Shetlands in the 

 1820-21 season undertook similar, and possibly even more creditable, exploratory 

 cruises than did Palmer in the Hero, but because their logbooks, diaries, and other 

 first-hand accounts have been lost or destroyed, these other men must remain In the 

 background." 



Without question, the name "Palmer's Land" was affixed to the Peninsula by the early 

 geographers, led by Powell of England in 1822. 



Both Professor William Hobbs and Colonel Lawrence Martin have presented the case 

 for Captain Palmer, basing their claims on the November 17, 1820, cruise of Palmer from 

 President Harbor to Yankee Harbor and return. Colonel Martin advances the theory that 

 the Hero went to Deception Island down its west coast and up around to the entrance of 

 the harbor created by the breached crater of this volcanic island. Martin then believes that 

 Palmer cleared Deception Island and steered south by one-half east and reached the coast 

 of Trinity Island some forty miles away, discovered the eastern entrance to Orleans Channel, 

 found this strait literally filled with ice and returned across Bransfield Strait to Livingston 

 Island. 



But to return to the first claims for the discovery of the Peninsula, Congressman J. N. 

 Reynolds, in his historic report to the Secretary of the Navy in 1828, wrote: 



"On the northern part of Palmer Land, and in latitude 66° OS' S., and about 63° W. 

 longitude, Captain Pendleton discovered a bay, clear of ice, . . . but did not ascertain 

 its full extent south." 



Edmund Fanning, in his "Voyages Around the World," describes the sailing of this 

 1820-21 fleet from Stonington, and wrote: "From Captain Pendleton's [the senior com- 

 mander's] report as rendered on their return, it appeared that while the fleet lay at anchor 

 in Yankee Harbor, Deception Island, during the season of 1820 and 21, being on the 

 look-out from an elevated station, on the mountain of the island during a very clear day 

 he had discovered mountains (one a volcano in operation) in the south; this was what 

 is now known by the name of Palmer's Land. . . . To examine this newly discovered land. 

 Captain N. B. Palmer, in the sloop Hero, . . . was despatched . . ." 



Captain Palmer's logbook is evidence enough of where he sailed, and the confusion be- 

 tween the 1820-21 season in the South Shetlands and that of the following year is here 

 most evident. It was not until the succeeding year (1821-22) that the Stonington fleet went 

 to Deception Island and used it as its base. The sealers' logbooks show this conclusively and, 

 further, upon the return of the fleet in 1822, the following report appeared in the April 24, 

 1822, issue of the New London Gazette: 



"We have been favored with interesting particulars respecting a Southern Continent 

 by Capt. Nathaniel B. Palmer of the sloop James Monroe, lately arrived at Stoning- 

 ton from the South Shetlands. Capt. Palmer proceeded in the James Monroe from 



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