The ‘Pathfinder of the
Seas’
There is probably no one individual
who is more overlooked in American and Tennessee history than
this man. His impact on this nation and the world are still
felt to this day and responsible for creating a new field of
science that completely revolutionized maritime shipping and
weather forecasting. He is often credited as being a Virginian,
but his family and home were in Tennessee, where a County is
named after his Uncle.
His life is one that few students of Tennessee history ever
study, but, to scholars around the world, he is often referred
to as one of America’s greatest scientific minds –
a man who overcame a devastating injury and rose to international
prominence with a discovery that still influences the lives
of people to this day.
Following the 1801 Cherokee land treaty in Middle Tennessee,
Abram Maury and family relocated from Virginia to the Tennessee
country to start a family farm. The rich land provided a good
living for the family and soon attracted others to the region.
The area grew and, when it became a County of the State in 1807,
it was named in honor of its founding family.
Abram Maury excelled in the local community. In addition to
his business interests, Maury served as a newspaper editor,
lawyer, was elected to the legislature as both a representative
and senator, and eventually elected to the U.S. Congress. Maury
eventually talked his family in Virginia into moving to the
frontier of Tennessee. In 1810, Abram Maury’s brother and
his four-year-old nephew Matthew Fontaine Maury moved to the
Tennessee county that bore their family’s name.
Young Matthew Maury spent his early years working on the family
farm. When he was old enough, Matthew attended the Harpeth Academy
in Franklin, Tenn. In the academy, he developed a vivid imagination
and excelled at his studies. In 1825, at the age of 19, Abram
Maury’s nephew was given a choice. He could remain in Maury
County and continue building the family fortunes or he could
follow his own path. His older brother had left Maury County
years earlier and was doing well in the newly formed United
States Navy. Matthew chose to follow in his brother’s footsteps.
He took a midshipman’s warrant and began what would he
hoped would become a lifelong career in the Naval forces.
Matthew Maury went to sea and dedicated himself to learning
everything he could about the sea, ships, and sailing. Maury
was a meticulous observer and he kept detailed reports of the
things he learned at sea. For nearly ten years, he cruised the
world’s oceans and conducted an exhaustive study of navigation.
In 1834, he took a leave of absence from the navy to marry Ann
Herndon and look over his reports. The couple made their home
in Fredericksburg, Va. where Matthew Maury published his study
"A New theoretical and practical treatise on navigation".
The publication impressed Maury’s superiors and he was
promoted in 1836 to the rank of Lieutenant. The officer was
assigned to survey the harbors and towns along the southeast
coast. Over the years, Maury had been appalled at the lack of
organized naval administration and education. In 1838, the Tennessean
became a vocal advocate of establishing a naval academy similar
to the one for the army at West Point. Fellow Tennessean and
then President James K. Polk agreed and a naval academy was
established at Annapolis, Maryland. His outspoken views and
published reports on naval reforms, however, had earned him
enemies among his superiors, but Maury was unaffected by them
and continued his studies of the winds and the seas.
While ashore in 1839 in Virginia, the naval officer, who had
spent his entire career sailing ships and being onboard America’s
best vessels, was seriously injured in a stagecoach accident.
The injury left him lame and ended his career as an onboard
naval officer. Maury was emotionally crushed by the accident.
Although not one to give up, his limits were tested when Maury
was reassigned in 1842 to the administrative job of heading
up the Navy’s Depot of Charts and Instruments.
Maury was not content with simply being the caretaker of the
collected volumes of ships logs and charts. He began to study
the dusty forgotten records. Maury had sailed in most of the
places he was reading about and soon he began to see a pattern
among ships that were wrecked and supposedly drifted aimlessly
on the ocean’s surface. Maury himself had once been on
a ship that was unnavigable in the Atlantic and recorded its
movements during that time. The naval officer began to compile
hard evidence that hinted at the existence of a continuous current
in the ocean.
In 1853, Matthew Maury was promoted to the rank of Commander.
His idea of the ocean possessing a continuous current, however,
was having a hard time gaining credibility and was laughed at
by seasoned sailors and dismissed. When a violent storm stuck
the Atlantic that same year, word was brought in that the American
merchant ship SS San Francisco had lost her rudder and was sighted
foundering 300 miles off of Sandy Hook. Everyone knew that without
it, the ship was lost and so was her crew. Maury saw an opportunity
to prove the existence of the Gulf Streams to his superiors.
The sailors gave him the last known coordinates of the San Francisco
and Maury finally found a captain who gave him the chance to
use his new method of charting currents. Maury agreed if he
was unsuccessful he would abandon the research.
With unswerving accuracy, however, Maury was able to locate
the ship with his formula and credited with saving the San Francisco’s
crew.
Maury’s name soon became a household word among sailors
around the world. The new fame enabled him to encourage ship’s
captains to keep detailed daily reports and soon he was able
to incorporate the research into his masterwork "The Wind
and Current Charts of the North Atlantic".
His total view of the major movements of wind and water gave
him a perspective that was years ahead of his time. The publication
cut days and even weeks from the sailing times on the world’s
traditional shipping routes and revolutionized sea travel.
His conception of a universal system of oceanography led to
his heading up and being the U.S. representative at an international
oceanography congress in Brussels, Belgium, where his system
amazed the Europeans and earned him the nickname "the pathfinder
of the seas".
In 1855, Maury published "The Physical Geography of the
Sea" and prepared a report that showed the practicality
and assured the success of the first trans-Atlantic cable between
North America and Europe.
His career seemed unstoppable and the Tennessee Commander rose
to prominence throughout the world as one of America’s
most noted scientists.
When the South seceded from the Union in 1861,however, the 36-year-naval-officer
resigned his commission and volunteered his services to the
Confederacy, where he was commissioned as a commander. His international
fame led to him becoming an unofficial ambassador and spokesman
for the Confederate cause in Europe, but Maury was never one
to stay away long from the sea.
His ingenuity proved itself over and over to Confederate command.
He aided Sumner County, Tenn. native Horace L. Hunley in designing
the C.S.S. Hunley, aided in southern harbor defense by designing
one of the first exploding electric mines, and procured war
ships for the Confederate Navy. He was still on "special
service" assignment in England when the War Between the
States ended.
In the following negotiations that provided amnesty to former
Confederate soldiers, there was a catch that would alienate
the Tennessean from his roots – a stipulation stating that
anyone representing the Confederate States of America overseas
was banned from reentering the country.
Although exiled, Maury traveled to Mexico where he served in
Emperor Maximilian’s government as Imperial Commissioner
of Immigration. With former Confederates fleeing the South,
Maury worked with other former southern leaders in an attempt
to colonize them in Mexico. When the effort collapsed, Maury
returned to England where he wrote geography textbooks for the
British schools.
In 1868, then-President U.S. Grant lifted the exile order and
Maury was finally permitted to return home.
He took a job as professor of meteorology at the Virginia Military
Institute. In this position at the Institute, he became one
of the first in the scientific field to illustrate its importance
to everyday society. His study of the depths of the sea, its
currents, and temperatures led him to develop one of the most
accurate methods of weather forecasting known. In addition,
it laid foundations for many other disciplines of atmospheric
sciences. In addition, Maury saw the importance his discoveries
could have on agriculture and published "A physical survey
of Virginia" - illustrating how farming could benefit from
weather observation.
In 1872, during one of his lectures in Lexington, Va., Maury
fell ill and was incapacitated for several months. The "pathfinder
of the seas" finally gave in to his illness and passes
away in Lexington on Feb. 1, 1873 and buried in a nearby cemetery.
Seven months later an honor guard of VMI cadets marched to Lexington
to retrieve the remains of their pioneering professor. The cadets
took up position in the cemetery and from that point forward
in their journey never left his side. Matthew Maury’s casket
was escorted by the Cadets along the North River to Richmond.
When the cadets reached his favorite retreat at the mountainous
Goshen Pass, they covered it with mountain laurel and rhododendron
and placed it on the train to Richmond.
Amid a proper VMI ceremony suitable to a distinguished military
officer and beloved alumni of the university, the body of Matthew
Fontaine Maury was committed to Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery.
ooooooooo
No other American had quite the impact on modern science as
did Matthew Maury. His research and theories proved themselves
as the most accurate ever devised. It was information that set
the standard for weather forecasting and serves us today from
the reaches of space. Weather satellites circling the earth
still use Maury’s forecasting formulas.
There are numerous books available on Matthew Maury and his
numerous inventions and discoveries. Most can be easily found
in the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond or by special order
at local bookstores. He has been long considered by scholars
as one of the most overlooked scientists and discoverers in
world history.
"While it is hardly an excuse", said a military historian,
"Maury’s accomplishments are as overlooked as Tesla’s
in electrical engineering. His service to the Confederacy is
probably responsible for it, but no excuse. While a big deal
is made about Admiral Farragut, he only stayed in Tennessee
for four years and had no real family ties to the state. Maury
on the other hand had numerous relatives and ties to the state.
Tennessee and other Confederate states were so driven to prove
themselves as "loyal Americans" to the government
that they hardly recognized anyone who had once supported the
Confederate government."
Although Tennessee is landlocked with no ocean or sea touching
it, the state has historically produced some of the world’s
most recognized naval pioneers and officers.
Virginia eventually renamed the North River near Lexington "Maury
River" and a VMI building was named in his honor. In 1923,
during a resurgence of popularity, Virginia named Highway 39
out of Goshen the "Maury Highway" and a monument to
Maury was unveiled at Goshen Pass and, six years later, his
likeness was sculptured and dedicated on Monument Avenue in
Richmond.
Special thanks for this story has to go to the Virginia Military
Institute for their providing the information of Maury’s
tenure at the Institute and his removal from Lexington to Richmond,
Va. In addition to its long tradition, the Virginia Military
Institute is still regarded today as one of the best educational
facilities of its kind.
Other contributor to this story include Greg Cina of The Mariners’s
Museum in Newport News, Va. for helping digging out some lost
facts on Maury’s career before the War Between the States.
The facility is regarded as one of the best Maritime Museums
in the nation and one of the leading tourist attractions of
coastal Virginia.
The Harpeth Academy in Franklin,Tenn. mentioned earlier in this
story was a prominent institution in its day in Middle Tennessee.
While little is known about it except through the writings of
its alumni, numerous state and national leaders attended it.
Other than Maury County being named for his Uncle, no monument
of Matthew Maury exists in Tennessee nor is he mentioned in
state historical texts. Many historians, especially those in
Maury County, want to see that changed and proper recognition
finally given to the Tennessean.
