Born May 12, 1880,
Chicago, Illinois
Died May 26, 1951,
New York, New York
Lincoln Ellsworth was a wealthy adventurer who became fascinated with polar air exploration. Flying in crafts that would be considered primitive by today’s standards, he was a new breed of explorer who had to deal with shifting winds, snow and ice, and several other difficulties. Crash landings and lost equipment were common hazards. Ellsworth participated in the first trans-Arctic air crossing and, in a supreme act of courage, led the first trans-Antarctic air crossing. Unconcerned with legalities, Ellsworth claimed over 300,000 square miles of territory for the United States. Although these acquisitions were never officially recognized, he named a good part of the land for his father, calling it Ellsworth Land.
Ellsworth was born in Chicago on May 12, 1880. His father was a wealthy mining engineer. Ellsworth also became an engineer and spent the early part of his career working and prospecting for gold in Canada and Alaska. From 1914 to 1917 he worked as a naturalist collecting specimens for the United States Biological Survey. As a good luck charm Ellsworth wore an ammunition belt once owned by his hero, Wyatt Earp, the Texas border marshal. When World War I broke out he went to France as a volunteer pilot even though he was overage. During the war he met the famous Norwegian Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen (see entry) in Paris, and he began to think seriously about the possibilities of polar exploration.
In the early 1920s Ellsworth led a topographic survey for Johns Hopkins University that extended from the Amazon Basin to the Pacific shores of Peru. On his return to New York he again met Amundsen. They agreed to undertake in 1925 an expedition to the North Pole that would use two amphibian planes, and Ellsworth asked his father to help finance the venture. While preparations were being made for the flight Ellsworth helped rescue two men who had crash-landed in Norway, a feat for which he was awarded a medal by the King of Norway. During the actual expedition the party made a crash landing without a functioning radio; they were given up for lost. It took the explorers 30 days of intense effort to carve out a takeoff field on the rough polar ice surface. After crowding all six of the party into one plane, they reached Spitsbergen off the coast of Norway.
Ellsworth and the Norwegian government jointly financed the second polar expedition led by Amundsen. Ellsworth was also a member of the party aboard the dirigible, or rigid airship, the Norge, which was designed and piloted by the Italian Umberto Nobile, when it flew over the North Pole on May 12, 1926. Their 3,393-mile journey from Spitsbergen to Alaska captured the attention of people all over the world.
Following the success of the Norge, Ellsworth became involved in efforts by Hubert Wilkins (see entry) to sail a submarine under the North Pole. Once again, he provided money for the project, but this time he did not participate in the expedition; the venture was unsuccessful. In 1931 Ellsworth made an 800-mile canoe trip through central Labrador. During that same year he accepted a German invitation to fly in the giant dirigible the Graf Zeppelin along the Arctic coast of Siberia to Franz Josef Land and Northern Land. The airship left Leningrad, Russia, on July 26 and returned on July 31, completing a trip of 5,000 miles. The expedition resolved several questions about Arctic geography, including the discovery that two islands drawn on maps did not exist.
Up to this time Ellsworth had helped finance several expeditions but had never actually led one of his own. He was inspired by Richard Evelyn Byrd (see entry), who had flown over the South Pole four years earlier. Ellsworth decided he would be the first person to fly across the continent of Antarctica, calling it the last great adventure. He purchased a plane and hired Bernt Balchen, the pilot who had flown with Byrd. Leaving New Zealand in December 1933, they arrived at the supply base that Byrd had named Little America II in January 1934. One night the ice under the plane began to break up, and by the next morning the plane had sunk.
Refusing to give up, Ellsworth went back to the United States, bought a new plane, and returned with Balchen to Antarctica. Hubert Wilkins accompanied them to handle logistics on the ground. This time Ellsworth proposed tackling the problem from the other direction—approaching Little America II from Deception Island off the Graham Peninsula. After initial test flights Ellsworth and Balchen left Deception Island on January 3, 1935. They had been airborne for only an hour when Balchen suddenly turned back, claiming the weather was too bad to continue. The attempt had to be abandoned once again, and Ellsworth realized the weather would never meet Balchen’s specifications.
In November 1935 Ellsworth returned to Antarctica with a new pilot, a Canadian named Herbert Hollick-Kenyon, in a Northrop monoplane, the Polar Star. Flying from Dundee Island southwest of Joinville Island, on November 25, 1935, they made their first attempt to cross Antarctica. During the flight they discovered a new range of mountains, which Ellsworth named the Eternity Mountains; however, they were forced to turn back after 11 hours by bad weather. They tried a second time on November 22, landing four times along the way to rest and check their position; each time they were forced to wait for clearer skies. As they prepared to leave after the fourth landing, it took them two days to dig the plane out from under the snow.
The Polar Star was finally airborne again, only to run out of fuel. On December 5 Ellsworth and Hollick-Kenyon were forced to land at a point about 60 miles from the Ross Sea. They walked 10 days to reach Little America II on the Bay of Whales. The anticipated 14-hour flight had actually taken 22 days, but Ellsworth had accomplished his mission: they had made the first flight over Antarctica from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea; the area they covered is now called Ellsworth Land. Since the base was not occupied, the explorers had to wait nearly a month, until January 14, to be picked up by a British ship. By then Ellsworth was very ill with a gangrenous left leg and frostbite.
Ellsworth returned to Antarctica once more in 1939, making a flight of 305 miles into the interior and claiming much of the previously unseen territory, which he named the American Highlands, for the United States. Throughout his exploring career Ellsworth wrote several books, the last of which, Beyond Horizons, was published in 1938, the year before his final trip. Ellsworth died in New York City in 1951. Although Ellsworth had claimed more than 300,000 square miles of Antarctic terrain for his country, the United States has never asserted territorial claims. In fact, during the International Geophysical Year, the United States was instrumental in negotiating the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which designated the continent an international region that is to be used only for peaceful scientific purposes.
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