The 1936 Templeton Crooker Pacific expedition
In 1936 Templeton Crooker on the yacht ZACA made an expedition to the Pacific for the American Museum of Natural History. Museum Curator Roy Miner
was at this expedition to collect materials and data for constructing a new pearl fisheries group for the Hall of Ocean Life at the Museum. According to the 1936 Annual Report,
"on September 5 the party embarked on Mr. Crocker's yacht, the ZACA, and sailed for the island of Tongareva, twenty-four hundred miles to the southwest, stopping
briefly at Christmas Island on the way".
The other members of the expedition were Mr. Wyllys R. Betts, Jr., Mr. Chris E. Olsen and Mr. William P. Coultas.
1 Sept. 1936
Museum News.
Image thanks to Ingo Janot
The following 4 covers were written by Chris E. Olsen of the 1936 Pacific expedition of the the American Museum of Natural History on
the Yacht ZACA, C. Templeton Crocker.
30 September 1936
Cover to West Nyack, New York. The 10c Christmas Island stamp cancelled with CL2 on Sep 30 1936, the four U.S. 3c stamps cancelled
Hilo, Hawaii 29 DEC 1936. Miss Olsen was the wife of Chris E. Olsen, who was a member of the Pacific expedition of the American Museum of Natural History on
the Yacht ZARA, C. Templeton Crocker.
Image thanks to CAPHILA Paris
30 September 1936
Air Mail cover to West Nyack, New York. The four 10c Christmas Island stamp cancelled with CL2 on Sep 30 1936, the 25c and 3c U.S. stamps cancelled
Hilo, Hawaii 29 DEC 1936. Miss Olsen was the wife of Chris E. Olsen, who was a member of the Pacific expedition of the American Museum of Natural History on
the Yacht ZACA, C. Templeton Crocker.
Image thanks to Schuyler Rumsey Philatelic Auctions
30 September 1936
Cover to the American Museum of Natural History - Mr. Southwick. The four 10c Christmas Island stamp cancelled with CL2 on Sep 30 1936, the 3c U.S. stamps cancelled
Hilo, Hawaii 29 DEC 1936. Chris E. Olsen, who was a member of the Pacific expedition of the American Museum of Natural History on
the Yacht ZARA, C. Templeton Crocker. (Janot coll.)
30 September 1936
Cover to the American Museum of Natural History - Mr. Southwick. The one 10c Christmas Island stamp cancelled with CL2 on Sep 30 1936, the 3c U.S. stamps cancelled
Hilo, Hawaii 29 DEC 1936. Chris E. Olsen, who was a member of the Pacific expedition of the American Museum of Natural History on
the Yacht ZARA, C. Templeton Crocker. (David Gillis coll.)
Some extracts from an article published by "The Advertiser" (Adelaide, Australia, 13 February 1937):
A man who can take moving pictures under water. He is Roy Waldo Miner, Curator of Living Invertebrates. With Chris Olsen. submarine artist, he has just sailed from
San Francisco, California, aboard a yacht loaned by Templeton Crocker, wealthy explorer, for Christmas Island, a large coral atoll lin the Pacific Ocean, 1,200 miles
south of Honolulu, Hawaii.......
Dr. Miner, and his submarine artist, Chris Olsen, collaborate in a manner that would have astonished Jules Verne......
Chris Olsen is one of the few under sea painters who really deserve the name. Many of them do their work by first looking through
glass-bottomed buckets or going under water in a dlving suit, but trusting to memory to paint what they saw, after they have reached shore.......
Olsen works for only 29 minutes at a stretch, lest even in the warm Bahaman waters he gets chills. But he goes down four or five times a dsy, making the
sketches that, with vivid enthusiasm and colorful memory he elaborates at a studio ashore at Nassau. It was Chris Olsen who, under Dr. Miner's directions,
prepared the original scale model of the Hall of Ocean Life as planned by Dr. Miner, and appreoved by the President and Board of Trustees of the Museum in 1923.
In November, the ZACA called at Apia and Savaii in Samoa. So after this they went back to Hawaii, were these covers were posted to their destiny
on 29 December 1936.
30 September 1936
Cover to West Nyack, New York. The 10c Christmas Island stamp cancelled with CL2 on Sep 30 1936, the four U.S. 3c stamps cancelled
Hilo, Hawaii 29 DEC 1936. Miss Olsen was the wife of Chris E. Olsen, who was a member of the Pacific expedition of the American Museum of Natural History on
the Yacht ZARA, C. Templeton Crocker.
Image thanks to CAPHILA Paris