Henry Williamson Howgate (March 24, 1835 – June 1, 1901) was an American Army Signal Corps officer and Arctic explorer who embezzled over $133,000 from the U.S. Government.

He escaped custody while on trial and evaded the Secret Service and Pinkerton Detective Agency for 13 years, during which time he worked as a reporter and ran a New York bookstore.

In 1867, he joined the 20th Infantry before re-joining the Signal Corps where he served as a property and disbursing officer before becoming responsible for planning all polar expeditions.

The 1877 phase was tasked with establishing relationships with local Inuit promoting scientific experiments, and whaling as a source of revenue.

[11] The Florence left New London on August 2, 1877, and first anchored at Niantilic Harbour, western Cumberland Sound, on September 12.

However, the Army and Navy decided, in June 1880, to withdraw support of the Howgate Arctic Expedition as the expeditionary vessel, the steamship Gulnare, was unseaworthy.

We did not hunt up nameless islands and promontories to tag them with the surnames ... We did not even erect cenotaphs ... We received no flags, converted no natives, killed no one ...

Karl Weyprecht, an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Navy who co-led, with Julius von Payer, the 1872–1874 Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition that discovered Franz Josef Land, made a presentation at the 48th Meeting of German Scientists and Physicians in 1875 where he, too, made recommendations for establishment of fixed Arctic observation stations.

Named the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, its purpose was to establish and sustain, with adequate supplies, an Arctic colony near the northeastern tip of Ellesmere Island.

The colony was to be dropped off and left on its own in 1881 near the coal seam found previously by George Nares,[13] relief supplies were to arrive in 1882, and the expeditionary team was to be picked up in 1883.

Captain Sir Frederick John Owen Evans commented: This ... appears to be a renewal of the Howgate Expedition of 1880 ... which was unsuccessful.

There is now engrafted on the Howgate Expedition the taking part in a scheme (not yet matured) for various nations to found stations in the Arctic Circle ... the time available, the money voted, the means proposed, all appear to be equally inadequate for the contemplated purpose.

Plans for the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition continued despite Howgate's sudden departure and the subsequent investigation.

Howgate was indicted for embezzlement in 1882, but slipped away from authorities on April 13, 1882, while on a court-supervised visit to his home where his daughter sang to the marshal for an hour while he was supposed to be changing his underwear but in fact was fleeing across the Potomac River.

[1] Howgate was captured , in New York City on September 28, 1894 and spent the night at the Ludlow Street Jail.

Upon release in December 1900, Howgate moved to his daughter Ida's home in Washington, D.C., where he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1901.