Born February 3, 1820, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died February 16, 1857, Havana, Cuba

In 1845 British naval officer Sir John Franklin (1786–1847) led an expedition into the Canadian Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage, a northern sailing route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in the Western Hemisphere. When he and his party of 129 men were never heard from again, several rescue expeditions were launched over the next decade, to find survivors or to discover the travelers’ fate. Leaders of British expeditions included Sir James Clark Ross (1800–62) and Sir Robert McClure (1807–73). American search efforts were also undertaken, sponsored by wealthy New York businessman Henry Grinnell (1799–1874). American naval officer and physician Elisha Kent Kane commanded one of these expeditions into the Arctic.

Kane was born February 3, 1820, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of a prominent attorney. In 1838 he attended the University of Virginia, hoping to become an...