[USS BEAR]. The original auxiliary deck wheel from the fame...

Scottish hardwood with brass fittings including the knob for due north, underneath the central brass hub is the handwritten number 30530. 30” diameter, with general wear indicative of polar climates.

“PROBABLY THE MOST FAMOUS SHIP IN THE HISTORY OF THE COAST GUARD” (USCG).

Built in Scotland in 1874, the 198-foot, 700-ton barquentine rigged steamer, Bear, was designed specifically to work in ice-bound conditions. In 1881, Lt. Adolphus Greely led an expedition to Ellesmere Island to study weather and winter conditions but proved unsuccessful due to harsh weather and members of the crew began to die of disease and starvation. In 1884, the U.S. Navy purchased Bear to help rescue Greely and the five surviving members of his expedition. In 1886, Bear served on the Bering Sea Patrol under the command of Captain Michael Healy who became the first African American to receive a commission from the U.S. Government and the first to command a federal ship. In 1892, Healy convinced authorities that Siberian reindeer should be introduced to Alaska to prevent starvation in the native fishing and hunting villages. Under Healy, Bear also protected endangered seal herds from poachers in the waters of the Pribilof Islands, seizing poaching vessels of all nationalities. Bear would again support a major rescue mission into the Arctic in 1897. The Overland Relief Expedition, under the leadership of Francis Tuttle and the helm of Bear, was sent to rescue eight whaling ships that became trapped in pack ice near Point Barrow, Alaska. Tuttle placed Lt. David Jarvis in charge of a team that included Lt. Ellsworth Bertholf, Surgeon Samuel Call, and three enlisted men with the task of driving a herd of newly introduced reindeer to the whaling ships. After three months and 1500 miles, the rescue party arrived at Point Barrow, supplying 382 reindeer to the starving whalers with no loss of human life. Jarvis, Bertholf, and Call were awarded by Congress a specially struck Gold Medal for their heroic efforts. Bear would serve as a cutter in the United States Coast Guard for many years after, and in 1928 Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd would purchase her to be used as one of two ships for his first Antarctic expedition to establish the famous research base at Little America. He would again use Bear on a second Antarctic expedition in 1933. These important expeditions resulted in the advanced discoveries in weather, climate and geography. Before Byrd’s second expedition, Bear of Oakland (as she was named while being used in Oakland as an historic museum ship in 1927) was dry docked at the East Boston Shipyard to be repaired and refitted for her upcoming excursion to the South Pole that included the installation of a diesel engine and new propeller, among other improvements. It was at this time the wheel was acquired and has been in the original owner’s family ever since.

Provenance: Mary Bertha Benson Doyle, acquired in 1933 (includes several LOAs describing the acquisition, a letter from the Bostonian Society noting that the Collections Manager at Boston’s National Historic Park, Phil Hunt, “is very interested”). In one of the letters, Mrs. Doyle describes the provenance in length: “I acquired the aft deck wheel of Admiral Byrd’s ship ‘The Bear of Oakland’ who’s ship was used in the Antarctic Expedition…My mother and I had gone to Boston…at that time…the Bear of Oakland was in dry dock and we went aboard it. There was a caretaker who was ‘selling’ various articles. (I do not know if the ship was to be dismantled or not). However we bought the aft deck wheel for $5.00”. The wheel was later passed down to her nephew, the notable polar scholar and dealer, Chet Ross. With an LOA from Ross.