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Borup's grave in Ossining's
historic Dale Cemetery. |
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George Borup
September 2, 1885–April 28, 1912
"Watch ye stand fast in the Faith Quit ye like men be strong." |
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See larger
image. |
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2003
From: William Reynolds <wjrprezhistorian@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Borup
Dear Mr. Robinson,
I have taken this photo of Borup's grave. The Executive Director of the
Ossining Historical Society Museum tells me that the USS Roosevelt's bell
was once part of the headstone marking Borup's final resting place. It
was removed for fear of vandalism, and the Historical Society's Board of
Trustees voted to donate the bell to the NYC Explorers Club Museum in
NYC.
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Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003
From: William Reynolds <wjrprezhistorian@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Borup
Dear Mr. Robinson,
I am sending to you, as promised, photos of Borup's grave in Ossining's
historic Dale Cemetery.
Would you consider doing an article on Borup and the Peary expedition for
my magazine? I am the Editor of 'Here At Home In Ossining & Briarcliff
Manor' magazine. Thank you in advance.
William Joseph Reynolds
PO Box 166
Scarborough, NY 10510-0666
(914)-941-7068
Fax: (914)-941-9063
office e-mail: cortmag@aol.com
personal e-mail: wjrprezhistorian@yahoo.com |
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GEORGE BORUP, THE EXPLORER
by Robert E. Peary
In the spring of 1908, a young man in a gray suit, accompanied by his
father, came to see me at my New York Hotel. I had seen the father
several times before this, when he had called to urge upon me the
qualifications of his son to become a member of the North Polar
expedition of the Peary Arctic Club, which was then being organized to
sail during the approaching summer.
The father told me how the boy was his only son, whom he held dearer
than all else on earth, that membership in an Arctic expedition would
be about the last thing he himself would wish for him, but that it was
the boy's heart's desire, and if it was possible, he intended for him
to realize it.
He had already told me that the boy was a sound, clean healthy fellow,
one of Yale's athletes; that he had lost his mother in early years;
that he was now at work in the shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad at
Altoona, intending to learn the profession of railroading from the
bottom up; and that the boy was in every sense a man, and a gentleman.
Long experience with applications of earnest young men to become
members of my Arctic expeditions had led me to be not
over-enthusiastic in regard to prospective candidates, and more than
this, the personnel of the expedition which I was then organizing was
essentially complete.
But the boy before me was of a different type from most applicants.
His face was honest, manly and true, if I read aright, and he
impressed me as a boy with a man's earnestness and steadfastness of
purpose.
Before the interview ended, I had told George Borup that he could
consider himself as a member of my party.
There was no lack of preparatory expedition work for him as well as
for the other men already selected and he was soon in the midst of it.
I found him an enthusiast and worker, and what was absolutely
essential, a reliable man. When I sent him for information, I knew
that I should get all there was to be had.
When I assigned him to look after certain details of the work of
assembling supplies and equipment, I felt that the work would be done
as I had intended.
Then came the final days at Sydney, Cape Breton, when the Roosevelt
steamed out for her northern quest, and Borup's father and the members
of my own family accompanied us as far as the entrance of the Harbor,
returning from there on the tug which piloted us out.
I recall clearly the picture of Borup and his father seated shoulder
to shoulder and hand in hand on the quarter-deck of the Roosevelt as
we steamed down the Harbor, and their farewell as the tug left us.
Such was the beginning of my acquaintance and association with George
Borup, "The Arctic Tenderfoot."
I shall not attempt here to give an analysis nor an epitome of Borup's
character, or his Arctic life, or attempt to write his memorial.
With his other friends, much of that has already been done.
But as I look back over the four years that have elapsed since that
first meeting, there rise before me numbers of characteristic
vignettes of Arctic experiences and vicissitudes, in which Borup
played a part or was the central figure.
During the upward voyage his keen delight in every new feature carried
me back across the years, and I lived over again those days when I saw
for the first time the wonder of the midnight sun and the savage
splendor of the heart of the Arctic.
When we reached the Eskimos it is hard to say which was most
delighted, he or they, for his boyish good-fellowship and his athletic
strength won their simple hearts completely, and he became the fast
friend of all my Eskimo allies, men, women and children.
During this time he experienced perhaps the tensest physical
excitement and the deepest thrill of his life, and his description of
his first walrus hunt will long remain a boy's classic.
When we turned our back upon the little Arctic oasis which is the home
of my Eskimos, and hurling ourselves at the century long "No" of the
Pole, began our long battle with the mighty ice floes of the American
gateway to the Pole, Borup was incessantly alert. The grim struggle
with the ice moved every fibre in him, and I saw that under the boy
exterior there lay true tempered steel, upon which I could rely to the
last iota in an emergency.
During the winter he was always the same, taking the ship's routine
with the greatest zest, and returning from hunting trips in the
darkness and intense cold to tell of his hardships as if they were
mere jokes. If he ever had his blue moments, manlike he kept them to
himself.
In February came the beginning of the strenuous spring sledge work,
the work which was the reason for the entire expedition. From here on
I can give only vignettes.
A few days after the middle of February, as I marched at the head of
my division along the great, broad, white highway of the Arctic
ice-foot stretching westward from the cliffs of Cape Hecla to Cape
Columbia, in the few hours of gray twilight which formed the day at
that season, and in a temperature of fifty-six degrees below zero, I
saw a small cloud, apparently of smoke, approaching rapidly along the
trail.
As it neared me I could make out the smoking heads and shoulders of
dogs under it, and a little later Borup and MacMillan, returning with
light sledges and doubled teams of dogs from Columbia to Point Moss,
pulled up beside me.
They had been traveling at flying speed and were in a glow of
excitement, but two marble white spots on Borup's cheeks told their
story to me, and pulling off my mitten, I applied my warm hand to them
for a few moments until the marble whiteness disappeared and the spots
glowed and became flexible again. It was a most simple and natural act
and yet it appears to have made a great impression upon Borup.
I recall vividly sending Borup to Cape Columbia after we were out on
the sea ice, for an additional supply of alcohol fuel to take the
place of that lost by the smashing of the cans in working through
rough ice. I can feel again the anxiety of those long days of waiting
at the "Big Lead," hourly expecting Borup and Marvin to come in, and
how later, three marches beyond, in sunlight bitter as frozen steel
and with the temperature at the minus 60 mark, he and Marvin came
swinging in in another cloud of frosty smoke, to have us almost
literally fall upon their necks with joy.
I recall how Borup, forcing his team across a lead of open water on a
treacherous bridge of floating ice cakes, single-handed dragged his
frightened team out of the icy waters, and saved them and the precious
sledge load from being lost.
I recall how with every bone and muscle in him sore and aching from
the grueling work, he tooled his heavily loaded sledge across the hell
of the broken ice floes, and kept his place with the experienced
Eskimos in a way that elicited admiration from us all, and would have
brought tears of joy to his father's eyes could he have seen the boy.
I can see him turning back at his farthest, 84° 29', loyal and earnest
in spite of his regret at not going farther, though he had already
made a longer sledge journey over the Polar Ocean than Nansen's from
his ship to his farthest at 86° 14'.
Later, in independent command, he established a depot for me at Cape
Fanshawe Martin, on the northwest coast of Grant Land, and after his
return to the ship, he, in company with MacMillan, made the wonderful
trip to Cape Morris K. Jesup, thence northward out on the sea ice,
where he secured the most northerly tidal observations ever made, and
on the return covered a distance of over 275 miles in eight
consecutive marches.
After this he erected at Cape Columbia (the extreme northern limit of
North America, 413 miles from the Pole) the permanent Expedition
monument and record. This has now become, in a way, Borup's monument.
The day the Roosevelt broke out of her winter quarters at Cape
Sheridan and started south for home, found Borup more homesick,
perhaps, than he had ever been in his life. The "call of the wild,"
the "lure of the Arctic," the imperious obsession this great, dark,
stern, savage Northland, causes in certain temperaments, had captured
him completely, and would have held him firmly, even had his life been
longer than it was.
Of his death, which came as a stunning shock to us all, I can say
nothing. It was one of those things which make us doubt and question
the wisdom of any alleged overseeing or directing power.
In his book "The Arctic Tenderfoot," Borup has left a memorial which
will appeal for generations to young men of adventurous turn of mind.
His life has shown that with clear brain, clean body, a brave heart,
and inability to recognize defeat, a young man may select his own
prize in life and ultimately win it.
Whatever Borup did, he did with all his strength and ability. In no
assignment did he fail.
His work was an invaluable factor in the winning of the North Pole for
the United States. And no one of the splendid fellows who helped make
success possible, stood closer to my heart than George.
In the midst of their sorrow, his friends and relatives have cause for
congratulation and pride, in the fact that ending a clean and earnest
and stainless life at twenty-seven, Borup had already won a reputation
and a place which many men win only at twice his age, and after long
years of hardest work and sacrifice.
ADMIRAL ROBERT E. PEARY.
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