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He Was Eaten

Cincinnati Evening Post, Thursday, September 4, 1884, p. 2, col. 2

HE WAS EATEN.

Not Capt. McClintock, of the Franklin Relief Party,

BUT AN OFFICER OF FRANKLIN'S OWN EXPEDITION.

John D. Caldwell Reiterates His Statement as True, Save that in Haste He Recalled the Wrong Name—Capt Hall Further Intimated that Others Met the Same Fate.

On reading the dispatch from Washington in the C[incinnati] G[azette] denying the truth of John D. Caldwell's statement to a POST reporter that an officer of the Franklin expedition, as reported by Explorer Hall, was shot and eaten by his companions, THE POST representative immediately sought Mr. Caldwell and solicited an explanation. There is no better known or more reliable man in Cincinnati than J.D. Caldwell. In years long past he was connected with the Cincinnati Gazette. He has held many important trusts, in a public capacity, and is known far and wide among the Masonic fraternity, who know him too well to doubt his word, although in the matter of the name of the party eaten he is in error. When spoken to in regard to the error he said substantially:

"You will remember that you called me out from dinner, and the name was given as a hasty recollection, and was wrong, of course, since Capt. McClintock was a member of an exploration party some seven years after that of Franklin's. His was a familiar name, and was unfortunately the first suggested to my mind. The name of the officer who Hall told me and those sitting at my table, was shot and eaten by his comrades under an agreement to draw lots, has been familiar also, but at present I can not recall it. However, I think I may be able to do so. Possibly Miss Cracraft's letter to me from New York on her return may contain it, if I happen to have preserved it; but, on reflection, that is hardly likely. From some source I may, however, be able to furnish it before you go to press.

"I want to say this is no revival of a story, nor in telling of this fact to a friend did I do it to create a sensa[t]ion. I merely stated what Capt. Hall told me at my own table, in the presence of members of my own family, and one or two visitors. He told it as a secret, which has been kept as such by me now for f[o]urteen years. That it does not appear in Capt. Hall's narrative, notes or correspondence I can well believe. It was a fact he determined not to make known.

"That he communicated the story to me is not to be wondered at. We were engaged together upon the little penny paper which he then published in Cincinnati, and were warm friends. Captain Hall related the statement as a fact of which he entertained no doubt himself, one concerning which the testimony to his mind was conclusive. I remember, too, that the inference I drew from his statement was that the contract to perish by lot was carried farther than the sacrifice of the officer he named, as the affianced husband of Miss Cracraft, and that others of the party met the same fate.

"Yes, sir, the statement could be verified by others, but I am not accustomed to offering testimony in support of my statements, nor do I feel called upon on this occasion to do so, notwithstanding that in my hasty recollections I used the wrong name. Of course it was not McClintock. Capt. Hall was speaking of Sir John Franklin's expedition, no member of which ever returned—not about the Franklin relief party, of which Capt. McClintock was a member."

Later Mr. Caldwell called upon THE POST reporter and stated that he is not ab[l]e to recall the name of the officer mentioned by Hall as the first victim, but thinks that it was probably Captain Crosier.¹ At any rate he was a trusted officer of Sir John Franklin. Mr. Caldwell recalled the statement of Hall regarding the Esquimau from whom he had received the information. Mr. Hall said that a custom prevailed among those Arctic people of confining those who under certain circumstances, fell sick and leaving them to live or die as might happen. He (Hall) had rec[e]ived from such a fate an old E[s]quimau and his wife, who in consequence became very much devoted to him, so much so that the old woman when he himself was suffering in his feet from cold would place them in her bosom and warm them. The old man confirmed to him the discovery made in the expedition preceding him that the last of Franklin's party, to the number of about 40, died from starvation at a certain place, and he himself witnessed the first sacrifice of the officer, whatever his name might have been, under the compact to die by lot.