Pinchot South Sea Expedition

The Pinchot South Sea Expedition was a 1929 zoological expedition to the Caribbean and South Pacific led and financed by Gifford Pinchot.

The expedition departed from New York City on 31 March 1929 aboard the Pinchots' yacht Mary Pinchot. Gifford Pinchot organized, financed, and led the expedition, which collected zoological specimens (and a few botanical specimens) for the U.S. National Museum of Natural History. The captain was Frederick A. Brown of Port Jefferson, New York, and the chief engineer was Henry Christensen. Aboard ship, besides the captain and crew, were Gifford Pinchot, his wife Cornelia Bryce Pinchot, Gifford Pinchot, Jr. (1916–1989), and Pinchot Jr.'s schoolmate Steve Stahlnecker. The expedition's photographer was Howard H. Cleaves, and its physician was J. B. Mathewson. The expedition's professional scientists were the malacologist Henry A. Pilsbry and the ornithologists A. K. Fisher and Alexander Wetmore. Harry A. Slattery accompanied the expedition from New York City to Panama. The yacht Mary Pinchot visited Key West (for a few days undergoing minor yacht repairs) and then Havana (for a one-day tourist trip). The expedition then visited Grand Cayman, the Swan Islands, Isla de Providencia and Isla de San Andrés for collecting specimens. The Mary Pinchot went through the Panama Canal and then to Cocos Island. The expedition collected in the Galápagos, Marquesas, and Tuamotus. The expedition reached its final destination, Tahiti, on October 15. Before the end of October, Pinchot's party departed Tahiti and then returned by steamer to San Francisco. By early November, Pinchot and his family were in Washington, D.C. Captain Brown and the crew of the Mary Pinchot went back through the Panama Canal and arrived at the yacht's winter station at Savannah, Georgia in December 1929.

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