Charles Francis Hall (1821–1871) was born in Vermont, moved with his family as a child to New Hampshire, and then moved westward to Cincinnati when he married. It was in Cincinnati that he developed his entrepreneurial spirit by founding a seal-engraving business and then starting two newspapers, the Cincinnati Occasional and the Daily Press. During his Cincinnati days, his business mind was aroused by the curiosity of exploration.
Charles Francis Hall in the only known photograph taken in Washington in the winter of 1870. (Public Domain)
To Find the Lost Expedition
In 1845, news had broken that Britain’s Franklin Expedition, which had set out to discover the Northwest Passage, had been lost. An award was announced, and by 1848, expeditions embarked to find Franklin, his crew, and their two ships. Numerous attempts were made only to succeed in finding remnants of the fateful voyage, yet arousing rumors of their possible survival….