History
Brrrr, Those Are Some Really Cold Cows
By Teresa Steer
Aug 18, 2004, 22:20

The American Guernsey Cattle Club was an important feature in Peterborough, New Hampshire for eighty-eight years of service. The American Guernsey Cattle Club was founded to keep registers of the breed to protect the purity of the Guernsey cows. The popularity of the breed and rapid growth caused the Cattle Club to move several times to keep up with the ever-expanding records. In 1950 the Guernsey Building was constructed on the old Phoenix Mill property. By 1952, the Club reached its maximum employment of nearly two hundred. The American Guernsey Cattle Club was moved in 1982 to Columbus, Ohio. Although the Cattle Club is long gone signs of its existence still mark the town from the names of the buildings to the stone carving of a cows face.

Throughout its history The American Guernsey Cattle Club continued to make headlines but when headlines read "Three Guernsey Cows Go to the Antarctic With Admiral Byrd" the world had to do a double take to make sure they heard right. Yes, cows were going on an expedition that very few men had gone before. On October 7, 1933, Admiral Richard E. Byrd asked for three Guernsey cows to go with him in order that they might have fresh milk. Admiral Byrd thought it would be a novelty if one of the cows was fairly well along in motherhood, so the calf might be born on the ice.

The cows from Deerfoot Farm, Massachusetts, Emmadine Farm, New York and Klondike Farm, North Carolina, were loaded on the Jacob Ruppert and set sail for the Antarctic on October 11, 1933 from Boston. Along with the cows were provisions of sand and straw for bedding, twenty tons of hay, twelve tons of beet pulp and two tons of bran for the two years in the Antarctic. The three Guernsey cows affectionately named Deerfoot, Emmadine, and Klondike made the voyage to the Antarctic having gotten their sea legs long before any of the crew. A baby bull calf, named Iceberg, was born 275 miles north of the Antarctic Circle on December 19th; Admiral Byrd had hoped that the birth would truly be an Antarctic event but it was not meant to be. The four cows made it to the Antarctic site where a cow barn was made out of blocks of ice complete with an electric milking machine awaited them.

Sadly, Klondike contracted frostbite and had to be destroyed. The crew's attachment to the cows was apparent when Cox (the crew that carried out the deed) is quoted in Admiral Byrds book, The Discovery, "I've put away a lot of 'em, Admiral, but it never got me before. I guess I got pretty fond of that cow." The three remaining cows returned from the Antarctic after 22,000 miles of travel in 1935 to their original owners. Going down in history as the first cows to travel to the Antarctic.

--Teresa Steer, Peterborough Historical Society Staff, 2003

(c) Peterborough Historical Society 2003. Reprinted with kind permission. Please scroll down for additional photographs.

The party present at the time of delivery of two of the cows at the Charleston Navy Yard, Boston.  Left to right:  Frank Moore, Boston; Mrs. J. E. Dodge, Hopewell Junction, New York; Edward Cunningham, Peterboro, New Hampshire; J. E. Dodge, Hopewell Junction, New York; Hersman, Emmadine Farm, Hopewell Junction, New York; Commodore H. F. Gjertson, Oslo, Norway; Elsworth Bunce, Peterboro, New Hampshire; Leroy Clark, Commissary Officer, secretary to Admiral Byrd, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Mrs. Elsworth Bunce, Peterboro, New Hampshire; James E. O'Leary, Southboro, Massachusetts; John Lee Musser, Peterboro, New Hampshire; and S. F. Mason, Southboro, Massachusetts.

J. E. Dodge of Emmadine Farm, Hopewell Junction, New York, with Foremost Southern Girl, ans S. F. Mason, of Deerfoot Farms, Southboro, Massachusetts, with Deerfoot's Guernsey Maid.  These two Guernseys were loaded at Boston and will be met by Nira Polar Guernsey, of Klondike Farm, Elkin, North Carolina, at Norfolk, Virigina.