The End of the Jeannette Arctic Expedition, 1879-1881
A team of survivors of the Jeannette Arctic Expedition looking for their missing and dead comrades. This team, led by Chief Engineer Melville, found the bodies of Captain Delong and 12 others and erected the cross, at the Lena River Delta, in their memory. In 1879, an US Navy crew, led by Lieutenant Commander George Washington Delong, embarked aboard the private yacht Jeannnette in an attempt to sail to the North Pole. The Jeannette entered the ice pack, near Wrangell Island, in September 1879 and then drifted north-west, surrounded by ice until June 1881. On the 12th June, the Jeannette was crushed by the ice and sank, leaving its crew 700 miles from the nearest human habitation in Siberia. The crew of the Jeannette then dragged their three life-boats over the ice to clear water and set sail for the Lena River Delta. Unfortunately one boat, commanded by Lt. Chipp, was lost in a storm at sea. Another, commanded by Delong, made landfall on the delta, only for the majority of its crew to die of starvation or exposure. The remaining boat, with Lt. Danenhauer and Chief Melville, carried all it's crew to safety
