New Hampshire’s Role: The Cows That Went South

Quite by chance I came across a web article about cows that went south.  Nope, not to Bermuda, I mean FURTHER south.  Try Antarctica.

In 1894 William H. Caldwell brought the American Guernsey Cattle Club to Peterborough. In 1933 the Guernsey Cattle Club arranged with Admiral Richard E. Byrd, to take three Guernsey cows along with him on his 1933 trip to provide fresh milk.  The cow’s names were Deerfoot, Emmadine and Klondike.

In order to keep the cows alive and healthy additional materials such as a two-year supply of bedding and food (hay, beet pulp, grain and bran). At Little America there was a Cow Barn complete with an electric milking machine.

The cattle returned after 22,000 miles of sea travel. The cows returned quite healthy, except for one that had to be destroyed due to it contracting frostbite.  In addition a bull calf that they named “Iceberg,” was born to Emmadine just outside of the Antarctic Circle.

Someone even wrote a children’s book about Emmadine’s adventure to the South Pole called “Something To Tell The Grandcows”

Oh, a bit of Peterborough Trivia…
The American Guernsey Cattle Club, in downtown Peterborough, New Hampshire, was later purchased by BYTE magazine. Reportedly when BYTE moved in, many boxes of cattle registrations and breeding records moved out. For a while, the editors enjoyed free Guernsey milk from the vending machines. When BYTE magazine was discontinued, the building was sold.

Janice

*Additional Reading*

The Guernsey Cattle – Introduction to America. | Part II (New Hampshire)-

Guernsey Breeders’ Yearbook 1899 (Google Ebooks)

Brrrr, Those Are Some Really Cold Cows-

History & Genealogy of Peterborough NH-

–The History of Byte Magazine (now online ezine)-