The U.S.S. Polaris was the ship used in the Hall Expedition of 1871. This expedition was our first serious attempt as a nation to reach the North Pole. Unfortunately, the ship, Captain, and crew had a series of unfortunate events. Charles Francis Hall, the leader and Captain, died of what has been determined as arsenic poisoning.
A portion of the crew was on an ice flow when the ship separated at night. When they awoke, the ship was too far away, and the crew and ship were permanently separated. Luckily, the crew did have some provisions on the ice flow. The nineteen crew members ended up surviving on the flow for 196 days and traveled over 1500 miles before being rescued by the Tigress.
The U.S.S. Polaris would eventually crash in 1872. The remaining crew on board would later be rescued. There is a lot more to the story and one could easily write a screenplay about this expedition.
As of now, I have been unable to locate a manifest for the ship online. However, I was pointed towards the back of the "Narrative of the North Polar Expedition U.S. Ship Polaris” by Davis Hall. There are detailed lists of ordnance stores deposited by the crew. The deposit at Thank-God Harbor does include 10,000 gun caps. These percussion caps could be used on any breech-loading cartridges with an internal anvil. Perhaps they were used on shotshells or on the Colt .36 Thuer cartridges. There is a specific reference to (100 cartridges, centerfire "Navy Pistol”) that were left in Cape Summer.
The tin feels full. I have not opened it, but you can clearly hear the caps rattling around on the inside. The label is intact and legible. There is a little rust around the edges of the lid and the paper label is glued into place around the side of the tin.
If this piece could speak, it would have a story to tell! Unfortunately, we can only guess as to why this tin was saved. Was is picked up from the stores left along the way? Was it saved from the ship? We may never know. A scarce "Arctic Exploration” artifact that still needs more research.
Measures: D 1.638” H 1.120”
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