Location of the resting place of Isaac Israel Hayes, M.D.

Since 2006, three different seminar courses in American studies and Anthropology at Penn State University Abington College have sought to locate the birth and burial spots of four Arctic explorers all born in Pennsylvania.  Some of these, such as the birthplace of Robert E. Peary outside Altoona, PA, are relatively well-known, as of course is his burial place at Arlington National Cemetery.

The gravestone of Isaac Israel Hayes, M.D., in West Goshen, PA.

The other three Arctic explorers, Edwin de Haven, Elisha Kent Kane, and Isaac Israel Hayes, proved more difficult to trace.  Kane’s crypt was located in 2006 at the famous Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, and in the summer of 2012, the grave of de Haven was located at Christ Church, Philadelphia, little more than 50 feet from the grave of Benjamin Franklin.

The final resting place of Arctic explorer Isaac Israel Hayes, however, proved a much more difficult task. Penn State Abington student Kevin Drew in 2006 uncovered a lead to a Friends cemetery in West Chester, PA. Abington students Steven Mangier and Janet Stock followed up on this in the spring semester, 2013, but made little headway until a field trip to the Friends cemetery in West Chester on 3 April 2013 failed to locate Hayes. However, on this same trip, Stock alertly took down the phone number of a locale Friends school and that led to a lead that Hayes was in fact buried in another Friends cemetery, one located in the nearby village of West Goshen, PA.  A second field trip, this to West Goshen, finally discovered the grave of Isaac Israel Hayes, M.D., in the Oakland Friends Burial Ground.

Penn State Abington students Janet Stock and Steven Mangier examine Hayes’ grave marker, 17 April 2013.

The modest white marker over Dr. Hayes is difficult to read. It has a patina of lichen growth over much of it. Hayes is surrounded by other Hayeses from his immediate family, including his father Benjamin, who outlived his famous son. Isaac Israel Hayes was born on 5 March 1832 and died in New York on 17 December 1881. After his internment, the only mention of him in the New York Times is a brief note from May of 1882 that described a delegation from New York coming to place flowers on his grave on Decoration Day (now Memorial Day).  The students of Penn State Abington who found Hayes on 17 April 2013 were likely some of the first visitors to the Arctic explorer’s grave site in a century or more.

Coming in 2013 from University of Calgary Press

Shipwreck at Cape Flora: The Expeditions of Benjamin Leigh Smith, England’s Forgotten Arctic Explorer, coming next fall from University of Calgary Press

Shipwreck at Cape Flora: The Expeditions of Benjamin Leigh Smith, England’s Forgotten Arctic Explorer

The first biography of Benjamin Leigh Smith (1828-1913), the English explorer who defined the eastern limits of Svalbard and the western limits of Franz Josef Land, will be published next fall by the Northern Lights series at the University of Calgary Press.  The title: Shipwreck at Cape Flora: The Expeditions of Benjamin Leigh Smith, England’s Forgotten Arctic Explorer.

Leigh Smith’s research vessel Eira at Cape Crowther, Franz Josef Land, 1880, by W.W. May

A note from Captain Alfred S. McLaren, USN (Ret.), Ph.D.

“Pete Capelotti in his exciting new novel Nautilus, set primarily in Arctic Svalbard, skillfully weaves a fascinating tale of undersea archeological intrigue, treachery, and possibility. Written on the premise that Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas and The Mysterious Island were actually journals, the book claims there was an aftermath to the events reported- i.e. that both the ageless Captain Nemo and the submarine Nautilus survived, with significant implications for mankind that have extended well into the 21st century.

I found the book almost impossible to put down and it certainly left me wondering, “Could it be possible…?”

Captain Alfred S. McLaren, USN (Ret.), Ph.D.
President, The American Polar Society, former President, The Explorers Club, Senior Pilot of the revolutionary deep-diving “Super Aviator” submersible, and former Commanding Officer, USS Queenfish (SSN-651) during its expedition to the North Pole in 1970.

From the grand champion of adventure fiction

From Clive Cussler, author of Raise the Titanic:

“Pete Capelotti has to be a master of the mystery adventure.  Nautilus is an amazing tale filled with enigmas filled with riddles and dark mysteries. Truly a fascinating read.”

A little mid-summer Nautilus

As Head of the Anthropological Directorate of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Akagi Kurosawa arrived at his office in Tokyo each morning in the expectation of several stinging headaches.
Each morning his world grew increasing uncontrollable, a situation Kurosawa felt personally, like an irksome but unavoidable bureaucratic assignment. Few science bureaucrats enjoyed the successful longevity Kurosawa had constructed over four decades. But now even minor irritations once shrugged off became potential bomblets thrown at his corner office. In a new world dominated by the episodic, by the freakish and the bizarre, it was increasingly difficult for a talented man with a well-thought-out plan to remain on a tight schedule, even with a surfeit of funding.

A modern sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea