USS Jeannette

“Beset and drifting in the pack,” 1879–1881

About the Jeannette

Ship Biography

Steam barque or bark, ex-British Philomel-class wooden gunvessel Pandora, built by Pembroke Dockyard, laid down 30 March 1860, launched 7 February 1861, commissioned September 1861. 570 long tons, 145 feet long by 24 feet, 4 inch beam by 13 feet draft, 8 to 11 knots, originally 60 crew. Sold in 1875 to Sir Allan Young for Arctic exploration, then in 1878 to James G. Bennett of the New York Herald and renamed Jeannette. Bennett obtained U.S. government help to fit her out for a polar expedition. Jeannette sailed with 30 officers and men (28 in some sources) and 3 civilians as a privately-owned ship under U.S. Navy orders.

Summary of Service

  • 25 June 1879: First entry in Jeannette ship's log.
  • 8 July 1879: Departed San Francisco, California. In addition to his tasks of reaching the North Pole via the Bering Strait and carrying out scientific observations during passage, Lieutenant Commander George W. DeLong was also ordered to search for the long overdue Vega polar expedition.
  • 27 August 1879: Headed north from St. Lawrence Bay, Siberia.
  • 4 September 1879: Sighted Herald Island. Soon after, caught in the pack ice and drifted northwest for the next 21 months.
  • 1879–1881: Drifting with the ice in the general direction of the North Pole.
  • May 1881: Two islands discovered, named Jeannette and Henrietta.
  • 12 June 1881: Ice started to crush the ship. The crew unloaded equipment and supplies, and next morning she sank. DeLong and his men then started hauling their three supply-filled boats over the ice towards the Lena River Delta.

Linked Material

Jeannette Ship’s Journal

Scanned manuscript copy of the Jeannette ship's journal. Provided by the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Scanned images available via NOAA PMEL.

Published Journals of George W. DeLong

The published journal of Lieutenant Commander George W. DeLong, as edited and published in 1884 by Emma Wotton DeLong. Provided by the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Digitized copy available at BHL.


Data

Data for the voyage of the USS Jeannette is made available courtesy of Old Weather, a Zooniverse project, on GitHub.

Metadata for the four volumes of the Jeannette logs is made available here in an XML package: jeannette_metadata.xml.


Credits & Sources

Full documentation of sources, along with technical notes and suggested citations, is available for each logbook volume:

USS Jeannette logbook transcriptions and data courtesy of Old Weather and Philip Brohan. Ship biography, summary of service, and other information courtesy of Naval-history.net.

Banner image: Tyler, James Gale, Abandoning the Arctic Exploration Ship Jeannette (1883).

Explore the Logbooks

Click on a heading to explore logbook entries for that month. Each entry by date includes scanned pages, a text transcription, weather observations, and links to any associated material from other sources.