40 Fun Facts About Matthew Henson

In 2021, astronomers named a crater after Matthew Henson near the south pole of which world?

The Moon now has a Henson crater at its south pole, the opposite end of the sky map from the pole he chased. A student intern proposed the name.

Which cartoon characters fronted a 1978 educational filmstrip series featuring Matthew Henson, Black explorer?

Scooby-Doo and the gang lent their name to Hanna-Barbera's 1978 educational filmstrips on Black explorers, one of them devoted to Henson.

In the 1890s, Matthew Henson helped Robert Peary haul which giant objects from the Arctic to a New York museum?

Meteorites, three of them, came south with Peary and Henson. The largest is so heavy that the supports of its display stand reach the bedrock under the museum.

Which Motown star names Matthew Henson in his 1976 song Black Man?

Stevie Wonder wrote Black Man with Gary Byrd while the US Bicentennial was under way, listing achievers of many races, Henson among them.

In 1988, Matthew Henson was reburied with military honors near Robert Peary's grave in which burial ground?

Arlington National Cemetery received Henson and his wife Lucy on April 6, 1988, the 79th anniversary of the day his party claimed the Pole.

Matthew Henson and Robert Peary's last expedition ship sailed north carrying 246 of which animals?

Dogs pulled the sledges, and Henson learned to drive and train them the Inuit way. About 130 went out with the men who laid the trail toward the Pole.

Henson and Peary's ice-breaking expedition ship of 1908 was named for which US president, a Peary supporter?

Theodore Roosevelt had openly backed Peary, so the ship launched in 1905 took his name. Peary's wife christened it with a bottle of champagne encased in ice.

Matthew Henson first went to sea aboard the merchant ship Katie Hines in which job?

Cabin boy was Henson's first job at sea, and six years aboard taught him to read, write and navigate, the skills that later caught Peary's eye.

Which comedian's 2019 Netflix special on Black history retells Matthew Henson's trek, with Tom Kenny as Robert Peary?

Kevin Hart's Guide to Black History mixes re-enactments with archive footage, and casts Barry Brewer as Henson on the ice.

In 1986, Matthew Henson and Robert Peary appeared together on what kind of national tribute?

A postage stamp worth 22 cents finally named both men in 1986. A 1959 issue had marked their expedition without naming either of them.

Matthew Henson's first Arctic expedition with Robert Peary, in 1891, set out to explore which enormous island?

Greenland is where Henson first learned Arctic survival from the Inuit, picking up their language and how to dress, hunt and travel as they did.

Matthew Henson was born in 1866 near the Potomac River in which US state?

Maryland remembers its native son with a state park, several schools and a plaque in the rotunda of its State House.

Which shelters did Matthew Henson learn to build from the Inuit, giving Peary's teams mobile housing on the trail?

Igloos went up at each camp on the march. In his memoir Henson writes that he and his team could build a good big one in less than an hour.

Robert Peary, Matthew Henson's expedition leader, lost several of which body parts to frostbite in 1899?

Toes snapped off at the first joint after Peary's frozen march to Fort Conger. Bedridden for weeks, he wrote a Latin vow on the wall to find a way or make one.

Robert Peary, who hired Matthew Henson in 1887, was a civil engineer and officer in which US service?

The Navy commissioned Peary in its Civil Engineer Corps in 1881. An Act of Congress later made him a rear admiral, backdated to April 6, 1909.

In 1937, Matthew Henson became the first African American member of which New York-based society?

The Explorers Club admitted Henson 28 years after the polar trek. In 1948 it raised him to honorary member, its highest rank.

Matthew Henson was clerking in what kind of store when Robert Peary met him in 1887?

A hat shop in the US capital employed Henson, and its owner recommended him to Peary. Hearing of his years at sea, Peary hired him at once.

Which US president honored Matthew Henson and his wife Lucy at the White House in 1954?

Dwight Eisenhower welcomed Henson a year before the explorer died, part of a late run of honors of the kind Peary had received decades earlier.

Which US president granted the exception that let Matthew Henson be reburied with military honors in 1988?

Ronald Reagan agreed in 1987 after a petition from a scientist who had traced Henson's descendants. Henson, a civilian, needed an exception to the burial rules.

Matthew Henson's home from 1929 until his death, now a National Historic Landmark, is in which New York neighborhood?

Harlem's Dunbar Apartments, built to ease a housing shortage for Black New Yorkers, counted Henson among tenants as famous as Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.

Matthew Henson's first journey with Robert Peary was a canal-route expedition to which Central American country?

Nicaragua was being surveyed for a canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific. Henson's hard work in its jungle won him a place on Peary's Arctic trips.

In 1887 Robert Peary first hired Matthew Henson, then a young store clerk, to do which job?

Valet was only his first title. On seven Arctic expeditions Henson became Peary's navigator, craftsman and interpreter, known as his "first man".

Which famous educator wrote the introduction to Matthew Henson's 1912 memoir of the polar expedition?

Booker T. Washington praised Henson there as the most trusted and the most useful member of the expedition. Peary himself supplied the foreword.

Which rival American explorer claimed he had reached the North Pole a year before Henson and Peary?

Frederick Cook had been the surgeon on Peary and Henson's 1891 expedition. Henson, who spoke the language, questioned the two Inuit men who had travelled with him.

After the 1909 expedition, Matthew Henson spent decades as a clerk at which New York City federal workplace?

The Customs House kept Henson on its payroll for more than two decades as a messenger and clerk. He retired at 70 on a pension of $1,020 a year.

Which award, the National Geographic Society's highest honor, went to Matthew Henson decades after his death?

The Hubbard Medal went to Henson in 2000 and was accepted by his great-niece. Peary had received the same award back in 1906.

USNS Henson, named for Matthew Henson in the 1990s, was built for which kind of work at sea?

Ocean surveying is the job of the Pathfinder-class Henson, which in 2010 joined the search for the wreck of John Paul Jones's Bonhomme Richard off England.

Which kind of spacecraft, first named Columbus, was renamed Matthew Henson after its 2020 launch?

A GPS satellite suits him: Henson served as Peary's navigator and judged by dead reckoning that he had arrived at the Pole.

Which actor played Matthew Henson opposite Henry Czerny's Robert Peary in the 1998 TV film Glory & Honor?

Delroy Lindo won a Golden Satellite Award for the role, in a film shot partly on Baffin Island that also took home a Primetime Emmy.

S. Allen Counter, who traced Matthew Henson's Arctic-born son in 1986, was a professor at which university?

Harvard neuroscientist Counter found Henson's son Anauakaq, by then in his eighties, and brought him to the US in 1987 to meet relatives and visit his father's grave.

Matthew Henson's parents, free Black Americans before the Civil War, earned their living as what?

Sharecroppers farmed for a share of the crop they raised. Both of Henson's parents died while he was still a child, and he was at sea by about 12.

Between Arctic expeditions in the early 1900s, Matthew Henson worked two years on the railroads in which job?

Pullman porter was Henson's job after four hard years in the north ended in 1902. Three years on he sailed again with Peary, this time aboard a new ship.

As a boy, Matthew Henson walked to which port city to sign on with the merchant ship Katie Hines?

Baltimore was his gateway to the world: from it Henson sailed as far as China, Japan and North Africa before he was out of his teens.

Matthew Henson and Robert Peary's last expedition ship headed north with 70 tons of which food from Labrador?

Whale meat came up from Labrador on a supply ship that, Henson wrote, could be smelled for miles. The meat and blubber of 50 walruses went north as well.

The Inuit called Matthew Henson Mahri-Pahluk, a name often translated as Matthew the what?

Kind One reflects the respect Henson earned by living as the Inuit did. Of Peary's crew, only he became fluent in their language.

Henson and Peary's ship wintered in 1908 at Cape Sheridan, on the north coast of which Canadian landmass?

Ellesmere Island was the ship's base from September 1908. The sledge parties left it the following February for the long haul across the sea ice.

Matthew Henson and Robert Peary appear as characters in which 1975 E. L. Doctorow novel?

Ragtime sends its fictional Father north with Peary's polar expedition, mixing invented characters with real figures such as Henson and Harry Houdini.

Which British polar explorer's 1989 book argued that Peary and Henson fell short of the North Pole?

Wally Herbert was hired by the National Geographic Society to study Peary's diary and judged the party 30 to 60 miles short. He had walked to the Pole himself in 1969.

Which Inuit member of the 1909 polar party pulled Matthew Henson out of the icy water with one hand?

Ootah grabbed Henson by the nape of the neck when the ice gave way three days before the Pole, and saved the sledge carrying Peary's sextant as well.

Which Newfoundland-born ship captain broke trail toward the Pole in 1909 but was sent back before Henson's final dash?

Bob Bartlett turned back at 87°47' north, within about 150 miles of the goal. Peary took Henson and four Inuit men on from there.