Bannister, Henry M. (Henry Martyn), 1844-1920

A naturalist and explorer, Robert Kennicott was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on November 13, 1835. Along with Henry M. Bannister, Kennicott explored the Alaska Territory in the mid-1860s. Their discoveries, as publicized before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, contributed to the eventual purchase of Alaska by the United States in 1867. Yet the exploration of Alaska was only the foremost of many achievements and discoveries by the two men.

While he was still quite young, his parents moved to Northbrook, Illinois, a town northwest of Chicago. Kennicott received little formal education, yet, with the guidance of his father and others, he was able to train himself in natural history. His progress was rapid. At the age of twenty, he made a comprehensive survey of southern Illinois for the Illinois Central Railroad; at twenty-one, he helped to establish the Chicago Academy of Science; at twenty-two, he established a natural history museum at Northwestern University. In the late 1850s, Kennicott joined the Smithsonian Institution as an explorer and cataloger. He traveled through British America (new Canada) as far north as Fort Yukon and returned to the Smithsonian with many new discoveries. As a reward for his achievements, he was made the curator of the Chicago Academy of Science and later chosen to head the Western Union Telegraph expedition to Alaska. He died of a heart attack at Fort Nulato, Alaska, while on this expedition.

From the guide to the Robert Kennicott (1835-1865?) and Henry M. Bannister (1844-1920) Papers, 1857-1905, (Northwestern University Archives)

Henry Martyn Bannister was born in 1844 in America. He was educated at Northwestern University in Illinois, where he graduated in 1863. Bannister worked with Robert Kennicott on the newly established Natural History Museum of Northwestern University before joining the Western Union Telegraph Expedition, 1865-1867 (leader Robert Kennicott), as meteorologist. The expedition was sent by the Western Union Telegraph Company to survey a route for, and to construct, a telegraph line through Alaska by way of Yukon River and Seward Peninsula, as part of plans to establish a telegraph link between America and Europe by way of Bering Strait. Despite the death of Robert Kennicott in May 1866 and the failure of its main objective, the expedition conducted the first systematic scientific exploration of interior Alaska, and made the most comprehensive survey of the Yukon River to that date.

In later years, Bannister worked for the Illinois Geological Survey and studied medicine at the National Medical College in Washington DC. He practised medicine in Chicago for many years, publishing widely in the area of mental illness and nervous disorders. He died in 1920.

From the guide to the Henry Bannister collection, 1865-1866, (Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)