Fatal North (37 page)

From the circumstances and symptoms detailed by him, and comparing them with the medical testimony of all the witnesses, we are conclusively of the opinion that Captain Hall died from natural causes, viz, apoplexy; and that the
treatment of the case by Doctor Bessels was the best practicable under the circumstances.

    Respectfully, your obedient servants,

W. K. Barnes

Surgeon-General United States Army.

J. Beale

Surgeon-General United States Navy.

The board of inquiry added nothing to the surgeon-generals' statement, accepting their medical finding that Charles Francis Hall died from natural causes. Navy Secretary George Robeson and the board recommended no actions to be taken against anyone among the
Polaris
crew. No further investigations would be conducted, official or otherwise.

As far as the United States government was concerned, the matter was ended.

O
CTOBER
1968
T
ORONTO
, O
NTARIO
, C
ANADA

 

T
he carefully preserved bodily tissues arrived at Toronto's Centre for Forensic Sciences, one of the leading pathology laboratories in the world, two months after they had been removed from the remains of Charles Francis Hall.

Dartmouth professor Chauncey Loomis and Dr. Frank Paddock, the internist who had conducted the autopsy of Hall in his ice-bound coffin, submitted the samples to the renowned forensic laboratory for a more detailed analysis after the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety Laboratory conducted tests on a piece of frontal bone removed from Hall's skull and found an increased level of arsenic, once used extensively as a “criminal poison” because it is odorless and nearly tasteless.

Dr. Auseklis Perkons, a leading researcher at the Centre, sliced the hair and nail samples into numerous sections, and subjected them to neutron activation in the McMaster University nuclear reactor—a highly sensitive test for analyzing tiny amounts of material—together with two chips of bone, two samples of
soil from the grave site, and a weighed amount of pure arsenic standard. The gamma activities subsequently produced were measured, and the amounts of arsenic in the samples were calculated by comparison with the standard reference arsenic photopeak.

Assuming the average daily growth rates of 0.4 mm for hair and 0.1 mm for fingernail, the results showed that elevated amounts of arsenic had been deposited in the hair and nails grown during the last two to five weeks of Hall's life, with the highest amounts being incorporated in the hair and nails within one week of his death.

“These results are fully consistent with the theory of arsenic poisoning being the immediate cause of Hall's demise almost a century ago,” wrote Dr. Perkons in his report.

In reviewing descriptions of Hall's symptoms from the eyewitnesses interviewed by the board of inquiry nearly a century earlier, Dr. Perkons and Douglas Lucas, director of the Centre, were in agreement that Hall's symptoms, during the final two weeks of his life, were “quite in keeping with acute arsenic poisoning.”

The presenting symptoms that could be expected from acute arsenic poisoning, according to references such as
Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products
and
Gradwohl's Legal Medicine,
include:

• sweetish metallic taste

• within thirty minutes to one hour after ingestion, constriction in the throat and difficulty in swallowing; burning and colicky pains in esophagus and stomach

• feeble pulse and cold extremities

• vertigo, frontal headache; in some cases, stupor, delirium and even mania

• numbness and tingling of the hands and feet

• coma, occasionally convulsions, general paralysis, and death

The Centre's director, Lucas, an amateur history buff, found the old case enthralling and spent many hours on his own time
reviewing the evidence and trying to piece together what had happened from both a medical and legal standpoint.

It seemed likely to Lucas that the first dose of arsenic was contained in the cup of coffee Hall received on boarding the vessel from his sledge journey—coffee Hall described as “too sweet.” Beyond that, the lab results clearly indicated that Hall continued to ingest lethal amounts of arsenic during the last two weeks of his life, proving, first, that Hall had a strong constitution to be able to last that long while being slowly poisoned, and second, that someone was very determined to finish him off.

After he became familiar with the makeup of the expedition party, Lucas had to include sailing master Sidney Buddington as a suspect in Hall's death. But no one was as tempting to accuse as Dr. Emil Bessels, who had motive, knowledge, material, and access.

Arsenic would have been available aboard
Polaris,
Lucas knew. It was a commonly administered medicine in the nineteenth century in the form of arsenious acid, which was prescribed for a great variety of diseases, such as headaches, ulcers, gout, chorea, syphilis, even cancer. Used in a popular patent medicine called “Fowler's Solution,” it was a well-known remedy for fever and various skin diseases. It would have been a standard part of any sizable medical kit, and the North Polar expedition, records showed, had a large medical store assembled by Dr. Emil Bessels for the long journey.

Lucas knew that arsenic could have been administered in the nineteenth century in one of two ways: liquid—probably used in the cup of coffee and perhaps later mixed in medicines given orally—and in the form of a white powder. There had been ample testimony of witnesses observing Bessels melting down a white powdery substance to inject into Hall by hypodermic needle; that could certainly have been an efficient delivery system for the poison.

As for Loomis, when he received the lab reports, he finally had the evidence that he had sought in disinterring Hall's remains. Toxic amounts of deadly poison
had
been administered
to the expedition commander, but the question remained: by whom and for what reason? The professor was a careful, studious man, and he resisted the temptation to call it murder. He allowed himself to consider the possibility that Hall had dosed himself, although he knew suicide was inconceivable for a man of such ambition and strength. Hall did have his personal medical kit, however, which Bessels testified had contained, among other things, “patent medicines” that may well have included Fowler's Solution. And Hall certainly could have gained access to the ship's medical supplies. Had he overdosed himself, resulting in fatal arsenic poisoning? That scenario did not, Loomis knew, account for Hall's condition markedly improving for the several days that he refused the ship doctor access to him. He had gotten better
without
Bessels' medicines and services.

Loomis knew if it was murder that Bessels was a prime suspect. Buddington was a sad, pathetic figure; a coward who was probably too much of a desperate drunk and incompetent to pull off such a venal plan without bungling it or bragging about it later. While other members of the crew, including Frederick Meyer, had their own documented gripes with Hall, Bessels was a trained scientist with the necessary knowledge, and as the ship's doctor, he had at hand the material he needed to administer arsenic. Also, he had access to Hall much of the time.

There were other “straws in the wind,” as Loomis came to call them: Bessels' refusal to administer an emetic, which would have emptied Hall's stomach, when the captain first took ill; the unexplained persistence of his quinine injection treatment after Hall's fever broke the second day of his illness, and Bessels not allowing Buddington to take Hall medicine's first as an inducement to the then-suspicious captain.

If Bessels had the opportunity and skill to poison his commander, what was his motive? Unlike Buddington, who had come under Hall's scrutiny and was close to being suspended from duty upon Hall's return from his last sledge journey, Bessels gained nothing as concrete from Hall's demise. Also,
Buddington was frightened that Hall would take them farther north and wanted to retreat south at first opportunity. Bessels was an ambitious man, and he certainly had his sights set on future glory for himself through major scientific and geographical discoveries. Testimony revealed he had even, after Hall's death, tried to bribe crewmen to accompany him north so
he
could be the discoverer of the North Pole. Had he thought ridding the expedition of its ambitious commander would allow such glory to fall on him? Had he simply wanted full credit? Was outsized ambition motive enough for murder?

No careful person could rule out the possibility that Hall suffered a stroke upon returning from his sledge journey, as Bessels claimed he had and as the board of inquiry had “conclusively” accepted as the cause of death from “natural causes.” But the modern-day lab results proved another cause of death; a most unnatural one.

As Charles Francis Hall had feared those last two frightening weeks of life, he
was
being poisoned to death aboard his own vessel and by someone from among his small, handpicked crew. It hadn't been done with one massive dose of poison in the cup of coffee, administered perhaps in a fit of anger, bitterness, or envy. Rather, it was done systematically. Hall had been killed a little bit at a time over the course of two weeks. The nature of the act strongly suggested cold-blooded, calculating, premeditated murder by a diabolical killer who had gotten away with his crime.

Doug Lucas would never forget the case. Some twenty years later and by then retired from his position as head of the Centre for Forensic Sciences, he made a presentation called “Arsenic and Old Ice” to the American Academy of Forensic Sciences' Last Word Society, a group of professional scientific sleuths.

“The story I am about to tell you,” Lucas began, “has a little bit of science, a bit of mystery, a dash of history, but in the end—there is no real last word.”

Ulysses S. Grant
's two terms as president of the United States are regarded by many historians to be the most corrupt in the country's history due to his picking of numerous old friends for cabinet-level positions who would provide the nation with neither competent service nor stature. The former Civil War hero who wished to see the U.S. flag planted at the North Pole during his presidency died near Saratoga, New York, in 1885, shortly after finishing work on his acclaimed memoirs,
Personal Memories of U. S. Grant,
which highlighted his military, not political, service.

 

George M. Robeson
, Grant's second Secretary of the Navy and a strong supporter of the North Polar Expedition, was fond of good living and true to his friends, but he did not have much aptitude for the reins of administration or the details of naval business. A second investigation into his stewardship of the Navy Department in 1876 revealed that he had personally profited by nearly half a million dollars from payments received from shipyard contractors awarded naval work. As Secretary of the Navy, Robeson spent millions of government dollars in repairing
and rebuilding ships, but at the end of his reign the Navy had nothing to show for his work but an obsolete fleet in poor condition. Following his cabinet-level service, Robeson was twice elected to the House of Representatives, then returned to the practice of law in Camden, New Jersey, until his death in 1897.

 

Tigress
and USS
Tallapoosa.
The civilian steamer
Tigress,
whose name passed into polar history for rescuing the ice-floe party and her subsequent trip to the coast of Greenland in search of the remaining
Polaris
crew, was repurchased from the government by her original Canadian owners and put back into service as a commercial sealer. On April 2, 1874,
Tigress
was working through the ice pack near St. John's, Newfoundland, when a fiery explosion occurred, badly damaging the vessel and instantly killing ten of her crew. Eleven others were so badly injured that they died the next day. The Navy gun ship
Tallapoosa,
upon whose deck the official board of inquiry met, was patrolling off the coast of Rhode Island shortly before midnight on August 24, 1884, when she collided with a schooner and sank.

 

Sidney O.
Buddington, who had been regarded as one of the most experienced whaling captains of his time, never returned to sea. His career was over following his testimony before the board of inquiry, which revealed his lack of discipline and uninspired leadership. “In my judgement Buddington merited the condemnation of the public in this world and the damnation in the world to come, for I believe him to be an unmitigated scoundrel,” wrote, in 1874, another experienced New England whaling captain by the name of James M. Buddington, who was Sidney Buddington's uncle.

 

Dr. Emil
Bessels for several years held a position with the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., at least part of that time compiling the scientific records of the
Polaris
expedition. Not much is known about his later life and career, but at some point he fell out of favor at the Smithsonian and was evicted from his office following numerous attempts, after being informed
that occupancy of his office was needed so as “to make improved toilet arrangements for visitors.” Bessels returned to Germany and authored a book about the North Pole expedition:
Die Amerikanische Nordpol-Expedition
(Leipzig, W. Engelmann, 1879), published only in his native language.

Bessels presented himself in his book as a scientific observer given to accurate and detailed observations, and had virtually nothing to say about the colorful personalities and dramatic conflicts aboard
Polaris.
About Hall's final illness, Bessels wrote of Hall returning from his last sledge journey: