Isaac Israel Hayes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Israel_Hayes

Isaac Israel Hayes (March 5, 1832 – December 17, 1881) was an Arctic explorer and physician.

Hayes was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania. After completing his medical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Hayes signed on as ship's surgeon for an 1853 expedition led by Elisha Kent Kane to search for John Franklin. His 1854 exploration of the east coast of Ellesmere Island north of 79° North resulted in new and accurately mapped geographical discoveries.

Hayes led his own expedition 1860-1 which claimed to have reached the farthest north land ever, on the Ellesmere Island coast at 81°35' North, 70°30' West. It was later found that this position is deep within Ellesmere, not on the coast, and that Hayes's resulting map of Ellesmere north of 80° North was erroneous, possibly because he had represented seriously after-noon sextant observations of the Sun as having been taken at noon, and because his 1861 farthest was at Cape Collinson, less than 10 miles north of 80°.

Hayes returned to the United States in 1861 claiming to have seen the Open Polar Sea reported by Elisha Kent Kane in 1855. The Civil War, however, had come to preoccupy Americans and diminished Hayes' reports of discovery.

During the American Civil War, Hayes commanded Satterlee Hospital, a sprawling Union army 4,500-bed hospital in Philadelphia.

The United States Range on Canada's Ellesmere Island is named after his ship.

Ostrov Kheysa, an island in Franz Josef Land (Russia) is named after Isaac I. Hayes.

Further reading

Douglas W. Wamsley, Polar Hayes: The Life and Contributions of Isaac Israel Hayes, M.D, (American Philosophical Society Press, 2009) ISBN 0871692627

Michael Robinson, The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture (University of Chicago Press, 2006)