Cook, Frederick Albert

Cook, Frederick Albert

(1865–1940) explorer, physician; born in Calicoon Depot, N.Y. He was the surgeon and ethnologist on Robert E. Peary's Greenland expedition (1891–92) and he returned to Greenland in 1893, 1894, 1897, and 1901–02. He claimed to have made the first ascent of Mount McKinley (1906) and to have reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908 (one year before Robert E. Peary). An investigative committee discredited both of these claims. He led an expedition around the world (1915–16), founded a Texas oil company, and was imprisoned (1925–29) for mail fraud. He received an unconditional pardon from President Franklin D. Roosevelt just before his death.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.