He solved one of history's greatest Arctic mysteries — then became one himself, poisoned on his own ship, the truth locked in his frozen grave for 97 years.
Charles Francis Hall was a self-taught Arctic explorer from Cincinnati who became obsessed with the Arctic in the late 1850s — not because of science, but because of mystery. He wanted to find out what had happened to the doomed Franklin Expedition of 1845, which had vanished trying to navigate the Northwest Passage.
Hall made his first expedition to the Arctic in 1860, living with Inuit communities for two years and learning their survival skills and language. He returned again from 1863 to 1869, this time reaching King William Island and recovering actual remains and relics from the Franklin disaster — bones, documents, equipment left scattered across the ice.
On his third and final expedition in 1871, Hall commanded the USS Polaris with a Congressional grant of $50,000 and orders to reach the North Pole. The ship got farther north than any previous voyage — but the expedition was plagued by factional conflict between Hall and the ship's German-American crew, particularly the ship's physician, Emil Bessels.
In November 1871, Hall returned from a sledge journey and fell violently ill after drinking a cup of coffee. He accused his crewmates of poisoning him, raved for days, and died on November 8, 1871. An official inquiry ruled death by apoplexy — a stroke.
The case was closed for nearly a century. Then in 1968, biographer Chauncey Loomis obtained permission to exhume Hall's body from its Arctic grave. Tests revealed significant amounts of arsenic in Hall's hair and fingernails — consistent with poisoning in the final two weeks of his life.
Whether Hall was murdered has never been proven. Arsenic was a common ingredient in Victorian-era medicines, and Hall may have dosed himself during his illness. But the prime suspect remains Emil Bessels, who had open conflicts with Hall and was the expedition's physician — the one person with both access and knowledge. Hall's death remains one of the Arctic's great unsolved mysteries.