From Hero to Humbug

After his conviction for using the US Mails to defraud in 1923, Dr. Cook spent 16 months in the Tarrant County Jail in Fort Worth, TX pending his appeal. There he came in contact with John Western, an Australian who was being confined there by immigration authorities until he could be deported. It [...]

Frederick Albert Cook was born on this day 160 years ago in the hamlet of Hortonville in Sullivan County, NY.  
“History will give Dr. Cook a place–this may be high, it may be low, but a place is assured”
– from the unpublished memoirs of Frederick A. Cook

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.

Frederick A. Stokes
Peary’s book about his 1909 expedition, The North Pole, was published in September 1910. Near the end of the month, its publisher, Frederick A. Stokes, received a night letter [...]

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.
On January 28, 1915, Lillian Kiel gave testimony before the Education Committee of the House of Representatives relevant to the controversy between Cook and Peary over which, if either, explorer reached the North Pole. [...]

On September 4, 1909 Dr. Cook landed in Copenhagen to the adulation of the masses assembled along the shore of the Danish capital’s harbor to greet the explorer as he disembarked from the Hans Egede.
He was swept in a mad crush to the Meteorological Department building, where he gave a little speech from the [...]

Cook started out in the petroleum industry in Wyoming in 1917, but quickly moved on to Texas with news of the fabulous oil strikes there in 1918. He established his first petroleum company that year as The Texas Eagle Oil Co. The company was capitalized at $300,000 in February 1919. It issued [...]

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.
In February 1910, a bill, eventually known as the Bates Bill, was introduced in Congress proposing that Robert E. Peary be given the Thanks of Congress and retired with the rank of Rear [...]

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.
When Peary reached North Star Bay on August 23, 1909, according to Matt Henson, “The Jeanie was there waiting for us, and lay alongside until the next day. The Eskimos came out [...]

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.
1914 was a climactic year in the Cook-Peary saga. Cook’s congressional lobbyist, Ernest C. Rost, had managed to get several authoritative speeches under the names of several members of Congress inserted into [...]

Exactly 115 years ago today, as mentioned in the last post, Frederick Cook was the first American to be offered the Freedom of the City of New York. Only the Prince of Prussia and Charles Dickens before him had been accorded this honor, and it was protested by the pro-Peary interests. General Thomas [...]