Ukulele Dick and the instrument that conquered the North Pole, at the Morris Museum – Morristown Green

Stowaways usually land in the brig. This ones featured at the Morris Museum.

Its a ukulele, and it survived a perilous journey.

More perilous, arguably, than Septembers uke voyage into orbit with a SpaceX rocket.

This one was hidden aboard a rickety triple-engine Fokker monoplane in 1926, when explorer Richard Byrd staked his claim as the first man to fly over the North Pole.

The instrument belonged to expedition member Richard Konter better known as Ukulele Dick who persuaded pilot Floyd Bennett to stash it on the plane.

Ticker tape parades and galas welcomed home the polar conquerors. Konter, already a minor celebrity for his all-girl ukulele chorus, asked notable people to sign his famous souvenir.

Calvin Coolidge, Thomas Edison and Charles Lindbergh were among them. But these 160 or so names and the space-age detective work to identify the faded autographs are only the tip of the iceberg at this exhibition, which runs through March 2022 at the museum in Morris Township.

There are so many different tangents to the story. There is the expedition. There are all the different categories of signatures. There is romance and there is tragedy, said Dick Boak.

With Larry Bartram of Basking Ridge, Boak co-authored A Stowaway Revealed, Richard Konter & The Byrd Polar Expeditions, which inspired the exhibit.

Over more than four decades as an archivist and artist relations man with guitar maker C.F. Martin & Co., Boak worked with everyone from Johnny Cash and Judy Collins to John Mayer. Yet no big star has captivated him as thoroughly as Ukulele Dick.

Boaks deep dive began when Bartram brought his guitar for repairs at Martin headquarters in Nazareth, PA.

Wandering into the small museum there, Bartram spied a soprano-sized koa ukulele and instantly recognized the signature of his old Arctic geology professor, Laurence Gould.

Boak and Bartram identified about three-dozen autographs that day, launching a years-long expedition of their own.

They interviewed people who knew Konter, pored over news clippings and archival photos, and recruited anthropologists at the Smithsonian Institution to make infrared and ultraviolet studies of the ukulele.

Morris Museum CEO Cleveland Johnson, who used to run the National Music Museum, saw the North Pole uke at a conference of the American Musical Instrument Society.

I fell in love with it, recounted Johnson. He suspected his dream to showcase this priceless curiosity struck his staff as, well, curious.

Clevelands really lost it now, he imagined them saying. Were doing a ukulele exhibit.

Smithsonian technology detected some signatures by tracing flecks of metal left by early ballpoint pens. Yet much of the research involved old-fashioned gumshoe work.

To confirm hunches, Boak and Bartram studied news accounts to see where Konter could have crossed paths with dignitaries.

It took the authors three years to confirm the scribbled name of New York Times publisher Adolph Ochs; they found their proof by comparing it to Ochs signature on a letter to Byrd.

Jimmy Walker, New Yorks playboy mayor, signed the ukulele. So did two Nobel Prize winners, an heir to the Astor fortune, a popular Indian chief and the actress who drove a gorilla ape in Son of Kong.

Romanias Queen Marie granddaughter of Englands Queen Victoria and the Tsar of Russiaappears on the headstock.

Of course, Commander Byrd later promoted to Admiral Byrd is featured prominently, along with his rival, Roald Amundsen of Norway, and the Snow Baby daughter of polar explorer Robert Peary.

Whether Byrd actually reached the North Pole is disputed. Amundsen followed three days later in an airship; historians have not challenged his claims.

The Morris Museum exhibit highlights famous signers of the uke. But the most heart-warming, and heart-wrenching, backstories involve names that might be lost to history if not for brisk bios in the book.

Jonathan Duff Reed earned a case of Byrds best liquorand the explorers lifelong friendshipfor rescuing Igloo, his beloved dog, when the expedition mascot fell overboard.

Other signatures underscore the extreme hazards of polar exploration in the early 20th century.

Members of the Italia would die in 1928 when the dirigible crashed in the Arctic.

The gondola broke off, spilling crew members onto an ice floe. Six others wafted away with the detached envelope, never to be found.

As he drifted to his death, Ettore Arduino heroically jettisoned supplies that helped sustain his mates below through a harrowing ordeal that included a marauding polar bear.

Amundsen would perish in a rescue attempt.

For a taste of what these adventurers endured, search YouTube for With Byrd at the South Pole. The 1930 film was the first documentary to win an Oscar, and the only one to win for best cinematography. (Igloo and the sled dogs should have won as best supporting actors.)

The most colorful and enigmatic character of this exhibit is the man behind the priceless $8 ukulele.

Brooklyn-born Richard Konter went to sea at age 15. Two typhoons in one year, and a shipwreck that stranded him on an island in the Philippines, proved he was unsinkable. Konter toured the world with the Navys Great White Fleet, and taught himself to play the guitar during a long winter in Manchuria.

His 20-year Naval career ended just as ukuleles were surging in popularity. A 1915 international expo in San Francisco had sparked a craze for Hawaiian music. These four-stringed instruments now are enjoying their third resurgence in the United States.

Konter found success arranging hit songs for ukulele. As radio was in its infancy in the early 1920s, Dicks Ukulele Club and its childrens unit performed regularly on New York programs.

He fancied a talented young protg. But her father sunk his wedding hopes. Konter was 25 years older than Johanna. Instead, she married Battleship Bill, Konters best friend from the Navy.

Learning of Byrds North Pole plans, Konter wrote a letter asking to volunteer. Byrds response seemed like an offer anyone could refuse:

If I pay the volunteers anything, it will be a small amount. You will, however, be lodged and boarded and your expenses will be paid.

Byrds letters express admiration for Konter, who also was a member of the 1928 Antarctic expedition.

For reasons that remain murky, however, Konter soured on Byrd, and burned bridges that could have served him well.

On the bright side, decades after his rejection, Ukulele Dick got a second chance with Johanna.

Now a widow, she said yes this time. Konter was 80 when they married. He lived to age 97. Those were happy years, according to A Stowaway Ukulele Revealed.

Konter was happy to rid himself of the uke that made him famous.

He traded it to C.F. Martin & Co. for a guitar, for his bride.

Stowed Away: A Traveling Philographist and His Arctic Uke can be seen at the Morris Museum through March 6, 2022. The Museum, at 6 Normandy Heights Road in Morris Township, is open Wednesdays through Sundays from 11 am to 5 pm; call (973) 971-3700 for more. SPECIAL NOTE: Members of the Morristown Uke Jam will perform some holiday favorites in the lobby this Sunday, Dec. 12, 2021, prior to the 2 pm Empire Wild Holiday Concert.

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Ukulele Dick and the instrument that conquered the North Pole, at the Morris Museum - Morristown Green