As Geoffrey correctly says, Franklin's ships are specifically mentioned on the plaque alongside Login's Well. Login was a shipping agent with his offices just across the road from the well. Ships would have sent men ashore to fill their water barrels from his well. No piped water in those days. The plaque actually reads <quote> There watered here the Hudson Bay Coy's ships 1670 - 1891. Capt. Cook's vessels Resolution and Discovery 1780. Sir John Franklin's ships Erebus and Terror on Arctic Exploration 1845. Also the merchant vessels of former days Well sealed up 1931. <unquote> In the book "Sea Haven - Stromness in the Orkney Islands" it states "Elaborately equipped by the Admiralty, Sir John Franklin's ships, Erebus and Terror, had made Stromness their last port of call in 1846, before seeking the elusive North-West Passage to the Orient." Dr. John Rae, a son of the Hudson Bay Coy's agent in Stromness, was sent to the North West Territories by the HBC and explored huge tracts of the west coast of Hudson Bay, the Gulf of Boothia and the Mackenzie river. He discovered from the Eskimos the fate of Franklin's ships and men. Because Rae had "gone native" and used Eskimo techniques to survive the harsh climate and adopted their clothing he was not accepted by the Victorian establishment back in the UK. He remains largely unhonoured, even in Orkney, apart from a tomb in St. Magnus Cathedral, and having a sheltered housing scheme in Stromness named after him! His birthplace, the Hall of Clestrain, stands in ruins. A terrible indictment really. His face didn't fit so no rewards for Dr. John Rae. -- Mike Clouston