Bowdoin College - Bugle Yearbook (Brunswick, ME)

Page 9 text:

To COMMANDER ROBERT EDWIN PEARY, Engineer, Geographer, Explorer, in humble recognition of his success in these pursuits We Dedicate This Bugle. 7

Page 8 text:

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Page 10 text:

Commander Robert Edwin Peary. A . U gf N S WE run the gamut of old Bowdoin's illustrious graduates, ft we can see no worthier object for our debt of honor than Commander Peary, to whom this BUGLE is dedicated. He was born at Cresson, Pennsylvania, May 6, 1856. His father 1 died While Robert was very young and his mother, a Maine H 'woman, returned to her native State. While still a young fab boy, Peary attended a boarding school at Topsham, and at the age of sixteen entered Portland High School, graduating in the class of 1873. Up to this time we have no indi'cation of our future adventurer's predi- lection for the strenuous life except, perhaps, an over-fondness for the water. For we have it on good authority that when he was at the Topsham Boarding School he came very near being drowned in the little pond at the left-hand side of the road on the way to the Topsham Fair Grounds. Peary entered Bowdoin in the class of 1877 and registered in the engineer- ing course under Professor Vose. He was a good student, took first prize in English Composition, was on the editorial boards of both Orient and BUGLE, and a member of both Delta Kappa Epsilon and Phi Beta Kappa Fraternities. He was a member of his class crew, a good horseman, an excellent shot, an expert swimmer and especially fond of winter sports. - It was at Nipper Smithts house on Potter Street that Peary had his Natural History collections, but he also lived with his mother on Page Street. His mother was an invalid, and the responsibility that was so early thrust upon him of caring for both himself and his mother must have laid the groundwork of that indomitable spirit of self-reliance which characterized all his future work. For two years following his graduation in 1877 he was engaged as civil engineer and surveyor in Fryeburg, and then in july, 1879, he competed suc- cessfully for a temporary position on the United States Coast Survey. Six months later he was one of four to receive a permanent position in the service. In the fall of 1881, after a severe examination, he was given a permanent posi- tion on the engineer corps of the United States Navy, in which department he has since risen to the rank of Commander. He was in charge of the Nicaragua Canal Survey, 1880-85 and 1887-88. During this time he was also engaged in the reconstruction of government navy yards and invented a new type of rolling lock gate for ship canals. Peary's first trip to the north was in the summer of 1886. He went as a passenger on a Newfoundland Usealern and landed at Disko in Greenland., 8