Person:George Wardwell (31)

In Bucksport at 1900 & 1910 census. Living at 16 Industrial Avenue in Duluth, Minnesota at 1920 census. He is likely the same George A. Wardwell, who was Chief Engineer on "The Roosevelt", the ship that took Admiral Peary to the to the Artic in 1906 and to the North Pole in 1909. "The men were not all the time out on the ice" said Chief Engineer George A. Wardwell, "There were times when we were forced to remain on board inactive in the perpetual dark of polar Winter. About the time night would be falling down here we went to bed to sleep eight hours and get up in the dark and begin all over again. We had books to read and dominoes and checkers. When we started we had forty-six packs of cards. I think the pack 'Sandy' we're using is about the last on board. Don't think we were dull. There is a pianola for the entertainment of the officers and two gramaphones for the entertainment of the men. We carred about two barrels of records and we ground out all of them. My favorite piece, and I think I can speak for the men was 'Give My Regards to Broadway'." -New York Times 25 December 1906 "Commander Peary, giving some details of his plans, said: "John Murphy, my old boatswain is to be with me again; I am to have Wardwell, my old Chief Engineer." -Marion (Ohio) Star 06 August 1907 "Chief Engineer Wardwell, also of the last expedition, aided by his assistant, Scott, kept the machinery up to a high state of efficiency, and has given the Roosevelt the force and power which enabled her to negotiate apparently impracticable ice." -Washington Post 11 September 1909 "Commander Peary went on to tell how Wardwell, his chief engineer, had made a brass memorial tablet on a sheet of tubing and how McMillan had spent long hours engraving upon it this inscription: "in memory of Ross G. Marvin, Cornell University, aged 31, drowned April 10, 1909, 45 miles north of Cape Columbia." -Washington Post 20 September 1909 "New York, both city and state, gave to Commander Robert E. Peary such a welcome home as few returning heroes can ever hope to receive. From the bridge of his Artic ship Roosevelt, Commander Peary, with his wife by his side, was the most prominent feature of the sixty-mile Hudson-Fulton naval parade from New York to Newburgh...Meanwhile Captain Barlett was kept at work so incessantly with the whistle cord answering the salutes of passing craft that Chief Engineer Wardwell called up from the engine room that he would not have steam enough to move the vessel if they didn't stop the whistle." -Adams County News (Gettysburg, PA) 09 October 1909 "A Houlton Merchant is displaying in his show window the following articles, which were sent to him by Chief Engineer Wardwell of the Roosevelt, Peary's artic ship: a pair of Eskimo trousers, a sealskin hood, a blue fox tail, a woman's necklace, several images carved from walrus ivory, a sealskin coat, an Eskimo doll, tobacco pouch made by the natives of Greenland, a pair of sealskin boots, a bunch of sinews used to sew clothing in the far north, a pair of walrus tusks, the horn of a narwhal, the skins of seals and of a musk or calf, a piece of beryl from the Northern Part of Grant land, and a crystal from Cape Sheridan , which is 82 degrees 27 minutes north. Mr. Wardwell is a Bucksport man. - Kennebec Journal" -Gettysburg Compiler, 15 May 1912 "Honors are Due Peary's Men Comrades of First Man to Reach North Pole Never Received Recognition of Feat Oil City, Pa. September 6 - The men who accompanied Commander Robert E. Peary on his dash into the Artic in 1909, when he discovered the North Pole, deserve greater recognition than they have ever received for their part in the expedition in the opinion of Dr. John Walter Goodsell of Sandy Lake, who was one of the party. Dr. Goodsell, who was physician and surgeon to Commander Peary and his crew, believes that in light of the honors accorded to other explorers in the Artic and Antartic regions the men who went with Peary and who aided him should receive more substantial evidence of the country's appreciation of what they did. "In considering the recognition accorded the Scott Antartic Expedition by the British Government and similar recognition by other governments for men who may have assisted in notable achievements," Dr. Goodsell said, "it is certainly a travesty of justice that history after seventeen years can not record that Congress has accorded any recognition to Ross Marvin, who died, and his comrades who equally dared that Commander Peary might float 'Old Glory' at the pole, which he claimed with the adjacent region for the United States. "President Taft in his message to Congress recommending recognition for Commander Peary doubtless intended to include his comrades. However, he unintentionally omitted the words 'and comrades' after Peary's name and the were forgotten by Congress, by the press and the public. "The following officers and comrades of Commander Peary should receive equal recognition in accord with the reasonable desire of themselves and family-Ross G. Marvin, Captain Robert Bartlett, Surgeon John Walter Godsell, Donald MacMillan, George Borup, Chief Engineer George Wardwell and Matthew Henson. With the exception of George Wardwell, whose duty required him to remain on the 'Roosevelt', all accompanied Commander Peary from the ship and Cape Columbia on the actual dash for the pole across a frozen sea of jagged, upturned ice, and slept without cover or sleeping bags at 60 degrees below zero Fahrenheit." -The Gettysburg Times 06 September 1926

"Engineer of Steamship Used by Peary Dies Bucksport, Me., July 4 - George A. Wardwell, 66, who retired after serving in yachts, passenger and freight steamers as marine engineer, died at his home last night. He was Chief Engineer of the steamer Roosevelt in which Admiral Robert Peary reached "farthest north" in 1906 and again in 1909 when the explorer pushed on to the North Pole." -The Hartford Courant 05 July 1927

1. ↑ 1900 United States Census for Bucksport, Hancock, Maine; Roll: T623 592; Page: 14B; Enumeration District: 44.
2. ↑ The Hartford Courant 05 July 1927.

   The Hartford Courant 05 July 1927