Matthew a henson biography

What is matthew henson famous for

At the age of four Henson and his family moved to Washington, D. When he was still a young child both of his parents died, and Henson and his siblings were put under the care of an uncle in Washington. At the age of twelve he left school, traveled to Baltimore, and started his career as a seaman when he was hired as a cabin boy on a ship sailing out of the port city.

Henson spent the remainder of his adolescence traveling around the world as a merchant sailor and working menial jobs when back on the East Coast. At the age of twenty, while working as a clerk in a Baltimore hat store, Henson was hired by U. Navy Lt. Robert E. Peary to be Peary's personal servant on a survey expedition for the building of a Central American canal.

In Peary received a commission to explore northern Greenland and again hired Henson as a personal assistant, despite Peary's concern that a "son of the tropics" would not be able to withstand Arctic weather. While surveying Greenland Henson grew close to the native Inuits, learned the Inuit language, became the expedition's most able dogsled driver, and acted as liaison with the Inuits, who were used as guides and porters by the survey team.

Henson and Peary returned to the United States in the summer of and spent a year touring the country presenting lectures and reenactments of their Greenland expedition. On a second exploration of Greenland, from to , Peary and Henson led an aborted attempt at reaching the North Pole.