HE SAW THE NORTH POLE - The Intelligencer - Wheeling W. Virgina - May 17 1888

The Intlligencer, a newpaper out of Wheeling, West Virgina, ran a colorful story in the Spring of 1888 (likely printed in many other papers accross the country too) about a fellow who claimed to have made it to the North Pole.    While the story is clearly fanciful the author of the article paints a colorful picture of Red Hook, Brooklyn that does jibe with what we know of the era as the:

"classic portion of Brooklyn called Red Hook, where sea and land contest for the mastery, and the smell of onions and greens have a constant struggle for supremacy with the odors of tar and hemp from the Atlantic Docks and the Erie Basin, where the bowsprits of ships peer curiously in at the rear windows of dwelling houses."

The Red Hook "explorer" is said to "earns a living by the manufacture of lobster nets." At present the Red Hook WaterStories team has no other reference to lobster nets making in Red Hook.

Text of article:

The Intelligencer, Wheeling W. Virgina, May 17, 1888

HE SAW THE NORTH POLE.

Old Tom Roper Tells a Yarn about the astonishing people of Red Hook.

The fair city of Brooklyn has one citizen who claims to have accomplished what many others set out to do, but never succeeded. His name is Tom Roper, and he claims to have visited the North Pole and returned alive and well. This man, who has never received the appreciation or public honor to which his achievements entitle him, resides in that classic portion of Brooklyn called Red Hook, where sea and land contest for the mastery, and the smell of onions and greens have a constant struggle for supremacy with the odors of tar and hemp from the Atlantic Docks and the Erie Basin, where the bowsprits of ships peer curiously in at the rear windows of dwelling houses. The great explorer earns a living by the manufacture of lobster nets and, claims Donegal as his birth-place.

Tom is rather diminutive, being only five feet three and weighing scarcely 120 pounds. Wrinkles diverge from his nose as a central point, like the spokes of a wheel, and have so changed the contour of his face that Tom would never be able to recognize an early photograph of his phiz. Two bright, twinkling eyes peer out of this cabinet of wrinkles with the inquisitive penetration that becomes a discoverer and explorer.  Mr. Roper’s ambition to reach the Pole was stirred within him by much reading about the expeditions of Sir John Franklin; Dr. Kane and others. This led him to serious study on the matter, extending over a long period, until at last he decided upon setting out himself, with the intention of chipping off a piece of the pole itself.

“ I got dere,” said he, “ through Smit’s Straits, in the Injun Oshun. They are always kep free from ice by do pure strength of do rock salt. But I want ter tell you ono thing. Der isn’t no pole dere at all; nothing in der world but a solid rock of goold, de same in form as a lime kiln, and it’s holler in de middle. You kin walk round it in twenty-two steps.”