John Munroe Longyear

John Munroe Longyear (15 April 1850–28 May 1922) was a noted developer of timber and mineral lands in America and the central figure behind the "Arctic Coal Company" which surveyed and mined coal lands on Spitsbergen, now Svalbard, from 1905-1916. This company developed a settlement on Spitsbergen able to accommodate up to around 500 people which came to be known as Longyear City, now Longyearbyen, adjacent Advent Bay. [ [http://politicalgraveyard.com/families/5751.html The Political Graveyard: Longyear family of New York ] at politicalgraveyard.com]

He was born in Lansing, Michigan. In 1906 he founded the Arctic Coal Company with long time associate Frederick Ayer and several other small shareholders. John Munroe Longyear was the main owner of the Arctic Coal Company with headquarters in Boston, USA. Longyear came to Svalbard in 1901, and bought the Tronhjem Spitsbergen Kulkompani in 1904.

Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani started as a consortium of Norwegian investors in 1916, which purchased the "Arctic Coal Company's" and "Ayer and Longyear's" lands and operations on Spitsbergen in that year. They went on to develop major coal mining operations in the Advent Valley region and at Sveagruva, originally a Swedish coal mining operation. He died in Brookline, Massachusetts.

References

*Dole, N., 1922. "America in Spitsbergen, The Romance of an Arctic Coal-Mine." Boston: Marshall-Jones Company.