Four men step forth from the shadows

 

It has happened only twice before -- that the unknown bones of the men of Sir John Franklin's lost 1845 expedition have stepped forth to reclaim their names. And, as with previous such occasions, their recovery has been the work of many hands -- of Dr. Douglas Stenton, with his indefatigable efforts to obtain DNA from the skeletal elements he has studied and link it to living descendants -- and of historians and genealogists, such as Fabiënne Tetteroo and Kaitlyn Gorsalitz, who have labored to trace this inheritance down the centuries --and the odds are long. An unavoidable element of chance -- good and bad -- attends all such efforts;  there are relatives whose line omits crucial steps, or is not lineal -- and there are many gaps in the historical record. We take it for granted today that a person will have some certification of their being, but for much of the past such records can be sparse upon the ground. I highly recommend Ms. Gorsalitz's blog, "A Long Blank," and her detailed account of the complex process of tracing down the candidates whose DNA samples led to this most recent round of matches.

So now we are blessed with four identifications all at once -- an unprecedented figure -- sufficient that it begins to clarify the course of events, showing us a glimpse of the efforts made by the survivors of the Franklin expedition to reach home, or -- that lacking -- send some word that could beckon help. Three of the new identifications, all from sites in Erebus Bay, are men of the Erebus: David Young (Boy, 1st class), William Orren (Able Seaman), and John Bridgens (Subordinate Officers' Steward). Young was perhaps 20, perhaps 21; Birdgens in his mid-30's, and Orren in his early 40's, all of them among the lesser ranks of men aboard "Erebus." History often has a bias: the records of officers, along with their relations and descendants, are more readily found. We have relatively few letters from ordinary sailors that have survived -- fewer may have been written, and they were less likely to be preserved and archived. But the testimony of a bone, unlike that of a letter, is absolute: here, there was a man, and these his remains.

Which brings us to the fourth man, Harry Peglar, who has now been definitively identified as the skeleton found near Gladman Point, many miles to the south and east of the others. We know a good bit more about him, not only thanks to historical records, but to the singular bundle of papers he carried on his person. Originally thought to have been written in German, they turned out to be written in English but backwards -- backwards in letter order, rather than mirror-backwards. They fascinated early Franklin scholars such as Richard Cyriax, and I've written two papers about them myself. Among them was Peglar's certificate of service, a precious record to any seaman prior to the Navy's implementation of 'continuous service" records, for otherwise his seniority and pay would not be recognized.

And yet the greatest surprise of all is that the bearer of Peglar's papers has now been definitively identified as Harry Peglar himself! The body, when found by Francis Leopold McClintock, was thus decribed: "'the dress appeared to be that of a steward or officer's servant, the loose bow-knot in which his neck-handkerchief was tied not being used by seamen or officers... - the blue jacket with slashed sleeves and braided edging, and the pilot-cloth great coat with plain covered buttons." Since Harry Peglar was in fact a very senior seaman -- his title was "Captain of the Foretop" -- such dress seemed inconceiveable. Research, undertaken with the assumption that Peglar must have passed his papers on to a steward who was a friend, has shown  several candidates -- but now we know it was the man himself.

Among the notations in Peglar's papers, there is one that stands out: "The Terror Camp Clear" (or, as he wrote it, "Eht Rorret Pmac Raelc"). Inuit testimony speaks of a "tent place" near Terror Bay, and of a ship which sank there quickly, in deep water, and if indeed that was HMS Terror, it would make sense for its crew to have camped nearby. All of the remains identified at Erebus Bay, including the prevous ID's of John Gregory and James Fitzjames, are men of the Erebus. This map shows the locations of their remains, as well as Peglar's at the Borden coordinates NdLe-16. If, having cleared out a camp at Terror Bay, the men of that ship retreated to the east, it would make sense that Peglar would have been part of the march. And if, a David Woodman has suggested, the boats at Erebus bay were not being used for long hauls, but to ferry supplies to and from Erebus (which in this scenario would have been anchored nearby), it makes sense its crew would predominate. It's also worth noting that, some years ago when I traced the reported provenance of silver forks and spoons with scratched initials upon them -- officers' utensils apparently having been distributed to the men -- nine of the twelve spoons recovered at Erebus Bay were those of men from Erebus.

All of this suggests, then, not only that the two crews remained for some time as coherent organizational units, but that Peglar's narrative may not only refer to the preparations for leaving ship, but perhaps even to events afterwards. The passages that echo the service for the burial of the dead ("Oh death whare is thy sting?") and speak of "The Grave at Comfort Cove" are, suggestively, written on the other side of the same leaf as "The Terror Camp Clear."

One last note: it had been generally assumed that the body could not be Peglar's because it was wearing a steward's coat (which had cloth-covered buttons) and the neckerchief was tied in a steward's manner rather than a sailor's -- so it was assumed that a steward who was a friend of Peglar was the man. Now that we know it was Peglar himself, we can only speculate: perhaps, in the hurry to leave the ships, Peglar had scooped up an extra jacket from the slops with no care for what sort it was -- the Inuit described men wearing many layers of the same sort of clothing -- or perhaps, given that he was close to at least one if not two men serving as stewards, he wore his dead shipmate's coat. The sailor's bow-knot was, in part, designed not to tighten if it were to be caught on the rigging -- but surely Peglar knew by this time that he would no longer be climbing up the yards, so perhaps he adapted a bit of fancy. It's a touching detail, now that we know it was him all along.