In 1866, May 14, the only child of Joe and Hannah died, while on one of Hall’s journeys. According to custom, the distracted mother at the plain funeral carried the dead baby in a fur blanket suspended from her neck. Captain Hall put this note in the fur cap covering the head of the child: “These are the mortal remains of little King William, the only child of Ebierbing and Too-koo-li-too, the interpreters of the lost Franklin Research Expedition. God hath its soul now, and will keep it from harm.”
Later, Hall visited King William Land, and brought away one hundred and twenty-five pounds of relics of Franklin and his men. Among these was a complete skeleton, proved from the filling of a tooth to be that of an officer of the ship “Erebus.” Hall felt sure now that all the party were dead. Joe and Hannah came back to the States with Hall, bringing a little three-year-old girl whom they adopted. They bought her of her parents for a sled. Hannah named her Sylvia Grinnell, after the Grinnell family, celebrated for their gifts towards Arctic research, but her real name was Punna.
Captain Hall made his third voyage in the ship “Polaris” in 1871 for the North Pole, taking his devoted Joe and Hannah and little Punna. He reached a higher point in Smith sound than had been reached by any other vessel at that time, and anchored in a harbor protected by an iceberg four hundred and fifty feet long and three hundred broad, calling the place Thank God harbor. In the autumn of this year Hall died very suddenly, and his men spent two days in digging a grave only two feet deep. He was buried at eleven in the forenoon, but so dark was it in that high latitude that lanterns were carried. Poor Hannah sobbed aloud at the death of her best friend. The party on the “Polaris” determined to return, but, being caught in the ice, were obliged to abandon her and throw the provisions and clothing out on the ice-floe. In the midst of this work, in the night, the ship drifted away, with fourteen persons on board, leaving on a piece of ice one hundred yards long and seventy-five broad Captain Tyson and eight white men and nine Eskimos, including three women and a baby eight weeks old. Hannah and Punna were among them.
A dreadful snow-storm came on, and the shivering creatures huddled together under some musk-ox skins. Later they built a little house from materials thrown out of the ship, and floated down Baffin’s bay and Davis strait, the ice constantly crumbling and the sea washing over them. They used all their boats save one for fuel, and were only kept alive through the heroic efforts of Joe and another Eskimo, Hans, who caught some seals for them, which were eagerly eaten uncooked, without removing the hairy skin. They had only a little mouldy bread, and the sufferings of the children from hunger were painful to witness.
Once, when nearly all were dead from starvation, Joe saved them by killing a bear. He and Hannah refused to leave Captain Tyson and the party when they were drifting past their homes at Cumberland inlet, even when it was probable that the Eskimos themselves must be used for food by the famished white men. After drifting one thousand five hundred miles in six months (one hundred and ninety-six days), one of the most thrilling journeys on record, the party were rescued off the coast of Labrador by the English ship “Tigress.”
Hannah and Joe settled at Groton in 1873, in a little house purchased for them by their good friend, “Father Hall.” Joe became a carpenter, and Hannah made up furs and other articles on her sewing-machine.
The next year Hannah, at the age of thirty-eight, died of consumption, her health broken by the exposure on the ice-floe. She had long been an earnest Christian, loving and reading her Bible daily. She was tenderly cared for by Mrs. Captain Budington and others, saying at the last, “Come, Lord Jesus, and take thy poor creature home!” A handsome stone marks the grave of the faithful Hannah in the cemetery. Joe came often to the graves on the hillside of Groton, and said at last, “Hannah gone! Punna gone! Me go now again to King William Land; I have to fight; me no care.” He went with Lieutenant Schwatka in the Franklin search party, June 19, 1878, and never returned to the United States.