George W. De Long

Lieutenant Commander George W. DeLong, USN

George Washington DeLong (August 22, 1844 – October 31, 1881) was a United States Navy officer and ill-fated explorer.

Born in New York City, he was educated at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. In 1879, backed by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., owner of the New York Herald newspaper, and under the auspices of the US Navy, Lieutenant Commander DeLong sailed from San Francisco, California on the ship USS Jeannette with a plan to find a quick way to the North Pole via the Bering Strait.

As well as collecting scientific data and animal specimens, De Long discovered and claimed three islands (De Long Islands) for the United States in the summer of 1881.

The ship became trapped in the ice and eventually was crushed and sank. DeLong and his crew abandoned ship and set out for Siberia in three small boats. After reaching open water, they became separated and one boat was lost; no trace of it was ever found. DeLong's own boat reached land, but only two men sent ahead for aid survived. (See: William Henry Gilder) The third boat, under the command of Chief Engineer George W. Melville, reached the Lena delta and was rescued.

DeLong died of starvation near Mat Vay, Yakutsk, Siberia. Melville returned a year later and found the body of DeLong and his boat crew. Overall, the doomed voyage took the lives of nineteen expedition members, as well as additional men lost during the search operations.

In 1890 the officers and men of the U.S. Navy dedicated a granite-and-marble monument to the memory of Lieut. George Washington De Long and the crew of the USS Jeannette. Lieut. George Partridge Colvocoresses designed the monument -- a cross with carved icicles hanging from it that sits atop a cairn. The 24-foot-high structure is in the U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery overlooking the Severn River.[1]

Two US Navy ships were named USS DeLong in his honor, as were the DeLong Mountains in northwest Alaska.

DeLong and five of his men are buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York.

Publications

• DeLong, The Voyage of the Jeannette, comprising his journals, edited by his widow, Mrs. Emma J. (Wotton) DeLong (1883)
• Michael Robinson, The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture (Chicago, 2006)
• John Wilson Danenhower, The Narrative of the Jeannette (Boston, 1882)
• Melville, In the Lena Delta (Boston, 1885)

External links

• Jeannette Arctic Expedition