Remarkable Freemasons: Arctic Explorers

Cover Photo: Elisha Kent Kane

by Ymelda Rivera Laxton, Assistant Curator, Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library

Elisha Kent Kane (1820-1857)

In 1853, physician Elisha Kent Kane, a medical officer in the United States Navy, led the Second Grinnell Expedition from London, England, to Rensselaer Harbor, Greenland. Kane, an experienced Arctic explorer and member of the First Grinnell Expedition in 1850, charted the coasts of Smith Sound and the Kane Basin in Greenland. American merchant Henry Grinnell (1799-1874) financed both tours, launched as search expeditions for the 1845 lost Franklin Polar Expedition. While most well-known for his voyages to the Arctic, Kane was also a member of several medical assignments in China and Africa. In April of 1853, just one month before setting off on his second expedition to the Arctic, Kane took the Masonic degrees in Franklin Lodge No. 134 in Philadelphia. His father, John K. Kane (1795-1858), had been Master of the Lodge in 1825. Kane Lodge No. 454 in New York City, chartered in 1859, was dedicated to Kane, who died in Havana, Cuba, in 1857.

Robert Edwin Peary (1856-1920) and Matthew Alexander Henson (1866-1955)

Robert Edwin Peary

In April of 1909, American explorers Robert Edwin Peary and Matthew Alexander Henson, with four Inuit companions, reached what they determined to be the North Pole. This expedition was the eighth and final Arctic expedition that Peary and Henson would embark upon together. Robert Peary, a U.S. Naval civil engineer, made his first trip into the Arctic in 1886. Henson, an African American sailor from Maryland, met Peary in Washington D.C. in 1887 and joined him the same year on a trip to Nicaragua as his personal assistant. In 1891, he was part of Peary’s second arctic voyage as a partner. Peary and Henson spent 18 years traveling on Arctic expeditions together.

Matthew Alexander Henson

Both Peary and Henson were Freemasons and highly regarded by their Masonic Brethren. In May of 1895, Peary presented a Masonic flag that had been displayed at Independence Bay, Greenland to Kane Lodge No. 454. Peary received his degrees at Kane Lodge No. 454 in February and March of 1896. Henson joined Celestial Lodge No. 3 in New York in November of 1904, five years before his historic voyage to the North Pole with Peary.