Ellsworth, Lincoln, 1880-1951

Lincoln Ellsworth (b. May 12, 1880-d. May 26, 1951) was an explorer from the United States.

American explorer, engineer, and scientist, Ellsworth led the first trans-Arctic (1926) and trans-Antarctic (1935) air crossings. He first attempted to fly over the North Pole in 1925 with Roald Amundsen. Their planes were forced down onto the ice short of their goal, and the explorers spent 30 days trapped on the surface. In 1926, Ellsworth accompanied Amundsen on his second effort to fly over the Pole in the airship Norge, designed and piloted by the Italian engineer Umberto Nobile, in a flight from Svalbard to Alaska. On May 12, they made the first undisputed sigthing of the Geographic North Pole. Ellsworth made four expeditions to Antarctica between 1933 and 1939, attempting twice (in 1933 and 1934) to cross the continent before succeeding the following year. In all four, he used as his aircraft transporter and base a former Norwegian herring boat that he named Wyatt Earp after his hero. On November 23, 1935, Ellsworth discovered the Ellsworth Mountains of Antarctica when he made a trans-Antarctic flight from Dundee Island to the Ross Ice Shelf. He gave the descriptive name Sentinel Range, which was later named for the northern half of the Ellsworth Mountains. Ellsworth was a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History.

Lincoln Ellsworth (1880-1951) was born on May 12, 1880, in Chicago, Illinois. He studied both at Yale and Columbia University. After college he was a surveyor for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad. His true passion, however, was exploration. In 1925, he participated in his first Arctic expedition, which was to travel to the North Pole. It was the Amundsen-Ellsworth expedition, which only lasted 25 days although they never reached the North Pole. A year later, he tried the expedition to the North Pole again and finally reached it on May 12, 1926. He wanted to be the first to reach the North Pole, but the U.S. Navy beat him by three days. By the end of his career he traveled to Antarctica. On November 23, 1935, he successfully made his trans-Antarctic flight, becoming the first man to fly across Antarctica. On May 29, 1929, before he made his trans-Antarctic flight, he was honored the Congressional Gold Medal for his North Pole expedition. He died in New York City on May 26, 1951.

Lincoln Ellsworth, explorer and civil engineer, participated in the first Grand Pacific Railroad survey across Canada from 1902-1907. He worked as an engineer in Canada and Alaska from 1907-1924. In 1924, Ellsworth organized an expedition through the Andes to the Amazon River. In 1926, he participated in trans-polar flights and, in 1931, he participated in trans-Arctic flights and submarine expeditions. Ellsworth a made flight to the interior of Antarctica in 1939. He was the recipient of many awards and the author of several books.

Lincoln Ellsworth was born on 12 May 1880 to a prominent and wealthy family in Chicago. He studied engineering and survey at Columbia and Yale Universities, in preparation for inheriting his father's mining interests. For several years, he was employed on survey work on the Canadian railways and also acted as assistant engineer on gold-fields in Alaska. During the First World War, he trained as an aviator, serving with the U.S. Army Air Corps before returning to mining.

In 1924 Ellsworth participated in an expedition to the Peruvian Andes to conduct a geological survey, and later in the same year met the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen in New York City, with whom he discussed plans for a polar expedition. The Amundsen-Ellsworth expedition, financed by Ellsworth's father, set out in 1925 from Spitsbergen in two Dornier-Wal seaplanes in an unsuccessful attempt to cross the north polar basin. The following year Ellsworth funded and participated in a flight with Amundsen and Umberto Nobile in Norge, an Italian airship, from Spitsbergen to Teller, Alaska, successfully passing over the North Pole.

In 1931 Ellsworth took part in flights by Graf Zeppelin, a German airship, over Franz Josef Land and Severnaya Zemlya. In the same year he contributed funding to an attempt by the Australian explorer George Hubert Wilkins to take the submarine Nautilus from Spitsbergen northwards under the Arctic pack ice to the North Pole. There followed a long partnership with Wilkins, in association with whom Ellsworth made three attempts to cross Antarctica by air between 1933 and 1936. He succeeded in the third flight after four forced landings, reporting the discovery of Eternity Range and naming James W. Ellsworth Land [Ellsworth Land] and claiming it for the United States. Between 1938 and 1939, again accompanied by Wilkins, he explored parts of the East Antarctica coast by air and sea and claimed the interior 'American Highland' for the United States. He died on 26 May 1951 in New York City.

Published work Beyond horizons by Lincoln Ellsworth, William Heinemann London (1938) SPRI Library Shelf 92[Ellsworth, L.] Search by Lincoln Ellsworth, Brewer, Warren and Putnam New York (1932) SPRI Library Shelf 92[Ellsworth, L.]