The Arctic explorer, Robert Edwin Peary, led an expedition to Greenland for the Academy in 1891, his party consisting of Dr. Frederick Cook, surgeon and ethnologist, John M. Verhoeff, mineralogist and meteorologist, Langdon Gibson, ornithologist, M. Henson, Eivind Astrup and Mrs. Peary. Angelo Heilprin, curator of the Academy, the second in command, was accompanied by Professors Benjamin Sharp and J. F. Holt, both zoologists, William E. Hughes, ornithologist, Dr. Robert N. Keely, Jr., surgeon, Levi W. Mengel, entomologist, Alexander C. Kenealy, correspondent of the New York Herald, Frazer Ashhurst and W. H. Burk.

The party left Brooklyn on June 6, 1891 in the "Kite" arriving at Inglefield Gulf on McCormick Bay, northeast Greenland on July 29th. Here Peary spent the winter, Heilprin's party leaving them to make their scheduled geological and biological investigations before returning to Philadelphia. In the spring, Peary's group undertook the trek across the inland ice to northeast Greenland. After studying the natives as well as the geology and geography of the area, and proving that Greenland was indeed an island, they set sail in open whale boats for the south of Greenland. En route they met Heilprin's socalled Peary Relief Expedition, transferred to the "Kite" and returned to New York. Heilprin had organized the Relief Expedition out of concern for the safety of such a small party, including one woman, left to winter under adverse conditions.

List of signers of letters and documents: Burk, W. H. 1891( ?); Hart, Gavin W. (3) 1892; Heilprin, Angelo (16) 1891-2; Hughes, W, E. (2) 1891( 7); Kenealy, Alex. C. (2) 1891; McCook, H. C. 1892; Meehan, Thomas, 1891; Mengel, L. W. 1891; Nolan, E. J. 1891; Peary, Robert E. (17) 1890-94; Putnam, F. W. 1892; Sharp, Benjamin (8) 1890-92; Wistar, I. J. 1892.