#Peglar Papers

[acheronist]

to the ghost of henry peglar, congrats on writing your poem down 177 years ago!!!

to the actual academic scholars who have studied the pages before me....

so I took the royal museum greenwich's scan of the poem page (which is available online hereeee) and screwed around with its light levels in photoshop until henry's script was darkened enough to see more clearly. then I digitally traced over the darkened letters as best as I could, while also trying to discern his handwriting, and type up how I was reading it & this process took me about a week to get done between like... living my regular day to day life lmao.......

so when it WAS done, the final isabel acheronist peglar papers ["the open C"] transcript seemed a bit different than how I remembered the readily available russell potter transcript going ? (the poem is on the last two pages of that pdf for those of you who don't spend a billion hours a week looking at it btw)

it felt like I was getting more/different information out of it, compared to the potter transcript, which was kind of stressing me out honestly. so THEN I compared mine with barry cornwall's original poem and found more words that matched up? particularly in the second and third stanzas?

so!!!!! almost two hundred years later here's what I've landed on:

April 21 1847 the C the C the open ) ( it grew so fresh the Ever free the Ever free the Ever free without it without it covered it will Run to Earth above Re gions Round I love the C I love the C when I whare & I wish to be with and and silence whare Never go if a sailor should a Come and Make the meek What matter what matter Come Ride Or Sleep there was shores white and of red morn at the noisy hours knew I was ever near I was Born the [...] in felt Unto the Maid the wale the young dolphin ...... yet thes back of gold the Call of gods When I was on Old England Shore I like the young C more and more oftentimes time flew to a sweltering place like a bird thats seeks it mother Case and ware she was bird oft to me for have I loved a young and Hopen C

so then after going thru All Of That, I wanted to have a version of the original poem with parts that Henry did remember clearly highlighted for comparison purposes:

I know it's a popular theory that Henry was writing a dirty parody of the original poem? which if true, is funny as hell. me when i have to write cheeky victorian porn before i die.

But (serious voice) something about that hadn't ever seemed exactly right to me... IN MY HEART it seems more realistic that around 1847 he (and also by extension, the whole surviving expedition crew) were starting to experience confusion / brain fog symptoms from being ummmm quite physically unwell. the lead poisoning/scurvy combo would have severe effects on the brain's ability to function properly, and I started to wonder if Henry was trying to test his memory somehow? So he picked a widely known and popular Victorian era poem about being a sailor to see how much he could recall??? and he then got a little whimsical with it, and wrote in his own words to fill in the portions he couldn't fully recall, because it's his own diary and likely didn't expect anyone else to ever read it, much less have it turn into ONE of TWO surviving sources about the expedition?????

like... idk... this is probably the work of someone in the exact moment as they were starting to realize how bad things were, and then was trying to cope by using poetry. and That hurts my feelings enough as it is, but going through it was also just a very weird and haunting experience....... like, I can recognize all these tiny details in this dead guy's script and handwriting now. and to read his own account of his life in his own words, what stood out to him and what he recalled, what he wanted people in the future to know about him? insane. it literally felt like i was getting haunted by him for no reason. on top of knowing that Someone (#teamarmitage) loved this guy enough to keep his memory protected and safe, even though They Were So Totally Fucked And Going To Die There, unknowing if they'd ever be found again........

SIGHING + SIGHING + SIGHING + SIGHING + CRYING A BIT HONESTLY

anyways thanks for reading this all. I don't think that this is revolutionary franklin expedition news by any means, and idk if there's a better different transcript somewhere that i've not found that already covers all this? but it's consumed a lot of my life lately lol and i wanted to share. because its the anniversary of henry writing it, and it felt...... important....? 💌....????

[saints-who-never-existed]

I'm desperate now, absolutely desperate to find more information specifically on the conservation of the Peglar Papers but thus far, there seems to be next to nothing out there...

Who the fuck conserved them and how? I demand to know!

[the-holy-ghosted]

The mutuals are posting about the peglar papers on main lets all sit in a circle and cry about it

[finnyflinn]

would it be crazy to get a tattoo based on the peglar papers

[crancisfrozier]

My Franklin Expedition journey culminated today in a visit to the National Maritime Museum, the old royal naval college, and a viewing of 3 arctic explorer portraits that the national portrait gallery has in storage! I wanted to go to Greenhithe so bad but my body just wasn’t up for it, but that’s okay! It means I have to come back and see it along with the Scott Polar Research Institute, Lady Jane and Sophia’s graves, and James Clark Ross’s grave!

[collectedandgone]

Thinking about the Peglar papers. Thinking about the list of ships he worked on. Thinking about how it’s written in a spiral around the page and going through his life brings you closer and closer to the centre. Thinking about how the spiral ends with the words, “Now in the Terror.” Thinking about the Arctic labyrinth. Thinking about madness and spirals. Do you understand what I’m saying?

[jartnell]

How to explain to the head of my uni's LGBTsoc that polar exploration is really gay and they should let me organise a terror-themed club night in the SU bar

[petoskeystones]

"you sure seem thrilled about these documents" and you dont seem nearly thrilled enough about these documents

[ellicler]

the typical way homophobia warps back around to become dripping with homoeroticism

simmons started with the premise 'how do i make my gay ex-couple celibate and pure as an angel's wing' and worked his way to 'i should make one of them not really gay just a kinsey 1 for this one guy only' (rediscovering a typical fandom strategy) and then he got to an eternal classic 'what if i was your student and fell in love with you for the very first time and you taught me everything both about life and about love' and then he shrugged and said 'good job and then they broke up amicably and never thought about it again'

[catilinas]

guy who only updates his phone every thousand years glad to discover that doing so has had no effect on the photo that the phone thinks was taken in the year 5494081

[acheronist]

so as far as i can tell, he got hit with a moment of Existential Panic And Misery and then wrote down his account of his entire sailing career to add in next to his issued ID papers in the wallet. so if the wallet survived then we would know who he was. thanks bestie the clues did help.

[saints-who-never-existed]

Who do you think was the Gladman Point skeleton? I’ve seen most sources place it as a toss up between Armitage and Gibson since I believe both of them had sailed with Peglar before and The Terror went with Bridgens, though I don’t believe the real life Bridgens was ever considered an option, but which of the them would you think is more likely?

I honestly don't know mate, I really don't!

-

Out of those two, my gut says Armitage.

He and Peglar, as you mention, knew one another having sailed together on HMS Gannet and to me, it seems more likely that they could have become and remained friends in some capacity, especially given that they seem to have been relatively close in age. Gibson also sailed with Peglar and did so more recently than Armitage but somehow I just have a harder time picturing Peglar becoming fast, firm friends with a man something like 10+ years his junior?

On other points Armitage and Gibson are on fairly level pegging (or Peglar-ing, as the case may be). Mentioned in the Papers, for example, are two locations that Peglar visited alongside one man but not the other - Venezuela with only Armitage, and the South Atlantic with only Gibson.

Armitage edges ahead by virtue of "All my art, Tom" but Gibson may well hold his own by the fact that he was literate whereas Armitage was still signing papers with an X as of 1845.

-

But then that brings me on to my final point: that, unless I'm really out of pocket and missing something glaringly obvious, there are certain assumptions that seem to often be made on this subject that I'm intrigued by and think are always worth interrogating further.

I've seen people confuse and conflate the Gladman Point skeleton with the second writer of the Peglar Papers themselves, for instance, and argue as a result that the skeleton could not be Armitage due to his illiteracy. That assumption - that the man who wrote the papers alongside Peglar is the same man that carried them on his person - doesn't sit entirely right with me...

There's also the matter of the scraps of clothing and other personal effects found with the skeleton - the cloth-covered buttons and neckerchief, comb and clothes brush all pointing to a Steward. I find it really interesting though that so much store has been placed in those artefacts and in the idea that Peglar would never ever have worn/possessed such things. Is it not possible that rather than, say, Armitage, taking Peglar's papers and carrying them forward, it could have been Peglar instead making use of his lost friend's clothing and carrying some of his stewardly paraphernalia as a keepsake?

It's a wild sort of thought to put out there, I realise, but those dudes travelled 3000 miles into the unknown and ended up fuckin' eating each other - who are we to suddenly place limits on what they would or wouldn't do?

[the-holy-ghosted]

i am normal and can be asked about the relic of the lost franklin expedition's known as the peglar papers. i am fine and can be asked about it no i will not cry (starts fucking BAWLING)

[luminiera-merge]

there is nothing so humbling as first looking into the terror's fanbase. in other fanbases making two hour presentations and knowing crew profiles of people who died 170+ years ago made you The Smart One. you go look up the terror and suddenly it's "yeah yeah we all know about the backdrop of victorian-era colonial geopolitics and anti-inuit racism, tell us something we don't know". also they have their own yearly virtual conference. they just. did that

[napoleoninjorts]

Gibsons brother saying “oh my brother died on that same expedition!” And then disappearing into the Australian desert is so?????

[crancisfrozier]

Standing outside the National Maritime Museum waiting for it to open like a kid at Christmas