Frederick Schwatka

September 29, 1849 (age 42)

Galena, Illinois, United States

Commissioned as second lieutenant in the 3rd Cavalry, Schwatka served at various army posts throughout the United States. He was admitted to the Nebraska bar in 1875. But it was neither as a lawyer nor as a doctor that he established his reputation. He became interested in exploration, and his adventurous imagination was seized by reports brought from the Arctic regions by Capitan Thomas F. Barry concerning the fate of the famous expedition of Sir John Franklin. For thirty years following the loss of this expedition British and American explorers had sought the bodies or the papers of the Franklin party. Schwatka persuaded the American Geographical Society to organize a new search in the Arctic. The expedition, commanded by Schwatka and William Henry Gilder of the New York Herald, sailed from New York on June 19, 1878, in the Eothen. The explorers did not return for more than two years. During their search in King William Land in 1879-1880 they performed the longest sledge journey then on record, being absent from their base of supplies for eleven months and twenty days and traversing 2, 819 geographical or 3, 251 statute miles. Schwatka's search resolved the last doubts about the fate of the Franklin expedition. He discovered the wreckage of the one untraced ship, located many of the graves of members of the party, gave other mortal remains decent burial, brought back various relics, and established beyond doubt that Franklin's records were lost. "Schwatka's search, " described by Gilder in articles in the Herald, became a popular phrase, and his discoveries were hailed as a triumph of Arctic exploration. In 1885 he resigned from the army and thereafter devoted himself to expeditions and to writing and lecturing. He explored the course of the Yukon River, described in his Along Alaska's Great River (1885) and Nimrod in the North (1885); he commanded the Alaskan expedition launched by the New York Times in 1886 and published his The Children of the Cold (1886); and he later visited northern Mexico and described the Tarahumari Indians of Chihuahua in a volume published posthumously, In the Land of Cave and Cliff Dweller (1893). During the last years of his life he suffered intensely from a stomach complaint which necessitated the use of laudanum. He died in Portland, Oregon, of an overdose of this drug.

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Works

book

The Children Of The Cold

(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

In The Land Of Cave And Cliff Dwellers

(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Report of a Military Reconnaissance in Alaska, Made in 1883

( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

A Summer in Alaska, a Popular Account of the Travels of an Alaska Exploring Expedition Along the Great Yukon River, from Its Source to Its Mouth, in

(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

Frederick Schwatka

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also known as Frederick Gustavus Schwatka

explorer

Background

Frederick was born on September 29, 1849 at Galena, Illinois, United States, the son of Frederick Schwatka and Amelia (Hukill) Schwatka. At the age of ten he was taken by his family to Salem, Oregon, where he worked as a printer.

Education

Frederick Schwatka attended Willamette University. In 1867 he received an appointment to West Point, from which he graduated in June 1871. His father Frederick G. Sr. (1810-1888) was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of August and Catherine (Geissendorfer) Schwatke. At the same time he studied both medicine and law and in 1876 he received a medical degree from the Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York City.

Career

Commissioned as second lieutenant in the 3rd Cavalry, Schwatka served at various army posts throughout the United States. He was admitted to the Nebraska bar in 1875. But it was neither as a lawyer nor as a doctor that he established his reputation.

He became interested in exploration, and his adventurous imagination was seized by reports brought from the Arctic regions by Capitan Thomas F. Barry concerning the fate of the famous expedition of Sir John Franklin. For thirty years following the loss of this expedition British and American explorers had sought the bodies or the papers of the Franklin party. Schwatka persuaded the American Geographical Society to organize a new search in the Arctic.

The expedition, commanded by Schwatka and William Henry Gilder of the New York Herald, sailed from New York on June 19, 1878, in the Eothen. The explorers did not return for more than two years. During their search in King William Land in 1879-1880 they performed the longest sledge journey then on record, being absent from their base of supplies for eleven months and twenty days and traversing 2, 819 geographical or 3, 251 statute miles.

Schwatka's search resolved the last doubts about the fate of the Franklin expedition. He discovered the wreckage of the one untraced ship, located many of the graves of members of the party, gave other mortal remains decent burial, brought back various relics, and established beyond doubt that Franklin's records were lost. "Schwatka's search, " described by Gilder in articles in the Herald, became a popular phrase, and his discoveries were hailed as a triumph of Arctic exploration.

In 1885 he resigned from the army and thereafter devoted himself to expeditions and to writing and lecturing. He explored the course of the Yukon River, described in his Along Alaska's Great River (1885) and Nimrod in the North (1885); he commanded the Alaskan expedition launched by the New York Times in 1886 and published his The Children of the Cold (1886); and he later visited northern Mexico and described the Tarahumari Indians of Chihuahua in a volume published posthumously, In the Land of Cave and Cliff Dweller (1893).

During the last years of his life he suffered intensely from a stomach complaint which necessitated the use of laudanum. He died in Portland, Oregon, of an overdose of this drug.

Achievements

Frederick Schwatka's amazing and spectacular journeys established the fact, that white men could exist and carry on useful scientific work in the Arctic if they conformed to native habits. During his expeditions he made the longest sledge journey ever made both in regard to time and distance. Schwatka’s famous publications include Along Alaska’s Great River (1885) and The Search for Franklin (1882). Schwatka received the Roquette Arctic Medal from the Geographical Society of Paris, and a medal from the Imperial Geographical Society of Russia. Schwatka Lake in Whitehorse, Yukon, is named after him, as is Mount Schwatka, Alaska. In 2007, an Arctic Sharps rifle commemorating Frederick Schwatka was begun by a group of prominent American gunsmiths.

Works

The Children Of The Cold The Children Of The Cold

In The Land Of Cave And Cliff Dwellers In The Land Of Cave And Cliff Dwellers

Report of a Military Reconnaissance in Alaska, Made in 1883 Report of a Military Reconnaissance in Alaska, Made in 1883

A Summer in Alaska, a Popular Account of the Travels of an Alaska Exploring Expedition Along the Great Yukon River, from Its Source to Its Mouth, in A Summer in Alaska, a Popular Account of the Travels of an Alaska Exploring Expedition Along the Great Yukon River, from Its Source to Its Mouth, in

book
- A Summer in Alaska, a Popular Account of the Travels of an Alaska Exploring Expedition Along the Great Yukon River, from Its Source to Its Mouth, in
  (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
- Report of a Military Reconnaissance in Alaska, Made in 1883
  ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
- The Children Of The Cold
  (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
- In The Land Of Cave And Cliff Dwellers
  (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Membership

Schwatka was an honorary member of the Geographical Societies of Bremen, Geneva, and Rome.

Connections

Father:: Frederick Schwatka
Mother:: Amelia (Hukill) Schwatka
Grandfather:: August Schwatke
coworker:: William Henry Gilder
grandmother:: Catherine (Geissendorfer) Schwatke

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