Resolute Expedition Vessel Furnished Presidents

In April 1852, Great Britain sent HMS Resolute into the Canadian Arctic with the Belcher Expedition to search for British explorer Sir John Franklin's missing expedition. A cold front trapped the Royal Navy ship in ice in August 1853, forcing its crew to abandon it in May 1854, but an American whaling ship found it adrift 1,200 miles away in September 1855. The US Congress bought and restored Resolute for $40,000, then returned it to British monarch Queen Victoria in 1856. After Britain retired the ship in 1879, cabinetmakers used its timbers to make at least four desks, including the Resolute desk, which Britain gave to US President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and which later became an official Oval Office desk.

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