Leach, Herbert W., 1858-1935

Herbert W. Leach (b. 1858, Hancock County, Maine-d. 1935, Maine), perhaps the first Mainer with polar ambitions was Herbert W. Leach, from North Penobscot, Maine. Born in 1858 in Hancock County, Maine, he joined the expedition to the North Pole on the steam ship Jeannette from San Francisco led by Lieutenant Commander G. W. DeLong on 3 July, 1879. The long ordeal is beyond the scope of this blog but the ship got frozen into the ice for two years and rode with the ice pack for thirteen hundred miles. The crew survived by hunting polar bears and walruses. After the Jeannette was finally crushed by the ice the crew set out in their three lifeboats to Siberia. Only one of the three survived, the one with Herbert Leach and twelve others. After being fed by natives and a trip to Yakutsk, Siberia, the crew took a long train ride to Europe and back to the U.S. He died in 1935 at the age of 77, and is buried in the Hillside Cemetery, North Penobscot, Maine.