On the afternoon of April 14, 1932, the Honorable Secretary of the p Navy accepted from Mrs. James Parmelee, the granddaughter of Lieutenant Maury, the handsome bronze bust of the "Pathfinder of the Seas.”
The impressive ceremony took place in the beautiful old library of the U. S. Naval Observatory before a number of invited guests. In his acceptance speech, the Secretary touched briefly on a number of the salient points of Lieutenant Maury’s unusually interesting naval career.
It is not believed that any other officer in our service became so famous for his scientific work as Lieutenant Maury. Only gradually did the value and importance of his researches become known throughout the Maritime world. At first his teachings were not accepted at full value; but one by one, the skeptics were convinced by the daily occurrences on the seas, and then came the flood of enthusiastic approval throughout the world. To this day, all mariners of all nationalities religiously obey without question the orders which were issued many years ago by that famous American naval officer. It is doubtful if there is another instance in history where the orders of an officer are obeyed many years after death with such faithfulness as are the instructions of the “Pathfinder of the Seas,” Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury, United States Navy.
Lieutenant Maury was born in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, a few miles to the westward of historic old Fredericksburg, January 14, 1806. On his father’s side, came of a line of students, teachers, and clergymen. On his mother’s side, he was descended from a line of fearless, resourceful, and capable seamen. Captain Maindort Doodes, a Dutch sea captain well known for his adventurous undertakings, finally settled in America and turned his attention to less dangerous and more lucrative ventures. With such a background, Maury’s love for study and research, and his devotion to the sea were perfectly natural.
Maury immediately established a reputation in the naval service for his faithfulness and attention to the details of his duty. He was reported as faithful, studious, proficient, and with an insatiable desire for knowledge. It is told that, during his watches on board ship, he would chalk diagrams of spherical trigonometry on the round shot in the racks on the quarterdeck, and work out the complicated problems mentally as he paced back and forth. Maury’s two predominating characteristics were his extraordinary power of concentration and application; and, second, his unflagging industry in pushing to completion the details of any project no matter how dry it might be. Coupled with these characteristics was a vivid imagination which aided him materially in visualizing the great possibilities of his ventures and made it possible for him to impress others with the importance of his work. He served on board the U.S.S. Brandywine when that vessel conveyed the Marquis de Lafayette to France.
Upon returning to New York, Maury was transferred to the U.S.S. Vincennes and circumnavigated the globe. Upon completing that cruise he was commissioned a passed midshipman; and soon after, the results of his long hours of work became known through his publication of his lunar tables. This was the first of a long list of articles published by Maury, and occasioned considerable favorable comment.
In 1831, after only six years of service, Maury, at the age of twenty-five, was given the responsible task of sailing the sloop of war, Falmouth, from New York to the Pacific, around the Horn. This first experience as a sailing master undoubtedly influenced his later remarkable work regarding ocean currents, winds, temperatures, and sea conditions. Fired with ambition, the youthful officer was specially anxious to make a record voyage. He sought all the information available about the winds and currents that he might reasonably expect to encounter on the long trip. Unsuccessful in obtaining any information, and cognizant of the great value of such knowledge to seafaring men, Maury conceived the idea of his celebrated wind and current charts. On this long cruise, in addition to crystallizing his ideas on wind and current charts, he made voluminous notes and also completed the manuscript of his second work on navigation. He also wrote a paper on the phenomenon of the low barometer in the vicinity of Cape Horn.
The merit of Maury’s Navigation was immediately appreciated, and it was favorably reviewed by the highest nautical authorities, not only in America but in Great Britain. It became a textbook in our Navy and brought considerable fame to Maury.
While attached to the South Sea Exploring Expedition, Maury studied and became an adept in the use of the theodolite and similar instruments.
Maury’s pen was not confined to navigational and meteorological subjects. Some of his articles, written under the nom de plume of Harry Bluff, attracted so much attention and were so heartily approved, that a group of naval officers at their own expense had them collected and published. When the identity of “Harry Bluff” became known, it caused considerable surprise owing to the youth of the author. At that early date, Maury recommended the building of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Panama. He also recommended the construction of lighthouses on the Florida and gulf coast, and the construction of tide gauges at the principal towns on the Mississippi in order that captains could be informed accurately of the stage of the water. He also recommended the founding of a school for the teaching of midshipmen, that they might be instructed in the higher duties of their profession and urged the use of regular textbooks to insure uniformity in the teaching of the naval profession to the young midshipmen.
Maury wrote a number of articles on great circle sailing, the use of blank charts on board public cruisers, terrestrial magnetism, and the Gulf Stream and its causes.
He was badly injured, in 1840, while traveling from Tennessee to New York by coach when he gave up his seat to an old negro woman and rode on the top, from which he was thrown by a sudden capsizing of the coach. A public clamor arose that he be appointed Secretary of the Navy. This was strongly opposed by Maury.
In 1842, at the age of thirty-six, upon the recommendations of brother naval officers, Maury was placed in charge of the depot of charts and instruments at Washington. Two years later, in 1844, Lieutenant Maury was ordered to take charge of the new observatory, the first real observatory, and to move all instruments; charts, etc., into the new quarters. Lieutenant Maury, therefore, became the first superintendent of the naval observatory It was Maury’s genius which develops not only the naval observatory but also the naval hydrographic office. Due to his inspiration and his enthusiasm, he impregnated all those with whom he came in contact with the importance of the work. It was owing to his zeal and energy that so much was accomplished. The first of a series of wind and current charts, which really revolutionized commerce on the high seas and saved millions of dollars annually to shipowners, was published in 1846.
The first vessels which tried Maury’s route for passage from New York to Rio de Janeiro showed an average saving of ten days. The merchants of Boston were delighted with this remarkable performance that they offered to raise the sum of $50,000 for the purchase of a vessel to be placed at Maury’s disposition for the germination of any new routes he might select. But it was not until a Captain Jackson of Baltimore sailed the new route to Rio and completed the round trip in the time often consumed for the outward journey only, that merchant captains and shipowners became enthusiastic. After that, every sailing master religiously lowed Maury’s trade routes and sailing directions.
In order to compile additional navigational and meteorological information and to perfect the system, all captains were guested to submit detailed reports of their voyages. Thus was inaugurated the present comprehensive system for the collection of navigational and meteorological data by which information from the Seven Seas is focused in the hydrographic office, on which is based our wonderful pilot charts which are sought by the mariners of every nationality of the world.
A 16,000-mile race from New York to San Francisco was planned in order to check the accuracy and the value of the sailing directions. Two of the ships followed the sailing directions religiously and arrived at San Francisco within three hours of each other, although they only sighted each other a few times on the entire voyage. The other two vessels in the race did not follow the sailing directions, with the result that one arrived eight days, and the other, twenty-four days later. This test proved conclusively the tremendous value to shipping of Lieutenant Maury’s trade routes and sailing direction charts.
One of the most spectacular exhibitions of his accurate knowledge occurred when the San Francisco became helpless in a hurricane in the vicinity of Hatteras. She was overdue several weeks. The vessel had hundreds of soldiers on board and had been given up for lost. Finally, an appeal was made to Maury to ascertain the probable position of the vessel. Maury learned its position when struck by the storm, calculated the most probable drift, and marked a cross on the chart, stating, “If afloat, you will find her here.” Vessels were dispatched; and, at the longitude and latitude indicated by Maury, the San Francisco was found, her rudder disabled, and the ship helpless. This instance, which few of the present generation know, indicates the remarkable accuracy of Maury’s knowledge.
In 1854 Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine calculated that the annual saving to American commerce through the use of Maury’s charts ran into millions of dollars, and a few years later Sir John Pakington, chairman of the group of scientists who met in Maury’s honor, declared:
The practical results of the researches instituted by this great American philosopher of the seas has been to lessen the expenses on voyages of 1,000-ton vessels from England to Rio, India, and to China by no less than two hundred and fifty pounds per voyage; while a voyage to California or Australia showed a net saving of from twelve to thirteen hundred pounds.
By authority of the government, Maury forwarded copies of his charts and sailing directions to all maritime nations, endeavoring to secure the co-operation of all world powers in establishing a world-wide meteorological research of the seas. Mariners of all nationalities followed Maury’s instructions with enthusiasm.
One year after Maury took charge of the naval observatory he began the systematic observation of the sun, moon, planets, and brighter stars, and these have been continued ever since.
In 1846, the results of Maury’s first year’s observations were published under the title “The first volume of astronomical observations ever issued from an institution properly entitled to the name of an observatory on this side of the Atlantic.” In the same year the Secretary of the Navy authorized the preparation of our first nautical ephemeris. In 1847 the observatory discovered that the planet Neptune was identical with the star seen by Lalande in 1795. The researches which resulted from this discovery afforded the means of accurately determining the orbit of Neptune. Between 1854 and 1860 the observatory, under Maury, discovered three minor planets.
When the Civil War disrupted the United States, Lieutenant Maury, together with many other officers from the South, resigned and cast his lot with Virginia, sacrificing his research work. Apparently the interruption of Lieutenant Maury’s research work was noted with considerable regret in Europe because on October 26, 1861, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Lieutenant Maury received the following letter from H. I. H. the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, inviting him to make that country his home:
27 July
8 Aug., 1861
St. Petersburgh
My dear Cart. Maury:
The news of your having left a service which is so much indebted to your great and successful labours, has made a very painful impression on me and my companions in arms.
Your indefatigable researches have unveiled the great laws which rule the winds and currents of the ocean, and have placed your name amongst those which will be ever mentioned with feelings of gratitude and respect, not only by professional men, but by all those who pride themselves in the great and noble attainments of the human race. That your name is well known in Russia I need scarcely add and though “barbarians” as we are still sometimes called, we have been taught to honour in your person disinterested and eminent services to mankind.
Sincerely deploring the inactivity into which the present political whirlpool in your country has plunged you, I deem myself called upon invite you to take up your residence in this country, where you may in peace continue your favorite and useful occupations.
Your position here will be a perfectly independent one; you will be bound by no conditions or engagements and you will always be at liberty to steer home across the ocean, in the event of your not preferring to cast anchor in our remote corner of the Baltic. As regards your material welfare, I beg to assure you that everything will be done by me to make your new home comfortable and agreeable, whilst at the same time the necessary means will be afforded you to enable you to continue your scientific pursuits in the way you have been accustomed to.
I shall now be awaiting your reply, hoping to have the pleasure of soon seeing here so distinguished an officer, whose personal acquaintance it has always been my desire to make, and whom Russia will be proud to welcome on her soil.
Believe me, my dear Capt. Maury
Your sincere well-wisher,
Constantine,
Grand Admiral of Russia.
Lieutenant Maury declined the invitation, expressing his deep appreciation and the hope that after the war was over he might have the opportunity of visiting the Grand Duke. He concluded his letter with the statement that his duty was at home and he must therefore decline.
It was Maury who first conceived the idea of “shipping lanes” across the Atlantic Ocean to reduce the risk of collision. Those “shipping lanes” are used to this day by the highest powered transantlantic liners.
That the work of one man has made such a deep and lasting impression upon the world, places him in a pre-eminent position as one of the world’s greatest pioneers. Very aptly Lieutenant Maury was called “The Pathfinder of the Seas.” No more suitable place than the U. S. Naval Observatory could be found for this beautiful bust of a remarkable man, a leader of thought far ahead of his generation, a pathfinder to whom the whole world has paid just tribute.