Matthew Alexander Henson - Book Report Summary

Matthew Henson was born on August 8, 1866, on his parent's farm around the Potomac River in Charles County, Maryland. Later in Matthew's life he met a guy named Robert E. Peary. Peary was an explorer and Matthew liked the idea of exploring, so he started to explore with Peary and also with four others. They traveled to the North Pole. Both Robert and Matthew had children and Eskimo wives. When Matthew was growing up it was around the time when everybody was prejudiced, so his parents moved away to a poor little town in Georgetown, then his mother died so his father sent him to live with is uncle because he could not take care of him by himself. Years later his father died, too. So Matthew got a job at a restaurant to support himself. I guess you could say that he was a good explorer or popular because there are books written on him and he was even in an encyclopedia.

November 1998