Other Places of Interest

These institutions hold collections

of manuscripts and other materials

related to Nathaniel Bowditch:

Boston Public Library

Copley Square, Boston, MA

Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum

East India Square, Salem, MA

Harvard University Libraries

Cambridge, MA

Nathaniel Bowditch is buried in

Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge.

This cemetery contains the graves of

many famous people and is one of the

earliest examples of cemeteries designed

as landscaped parks.

A Walking Tour of the Great Age of Sail

Bowditch’s

SALEM

The Bowditch House

Built on Essex Street about 1760 and renovated in

1805, the Nathaniel Bowditch House is a National

Historic Landmark and is significant both

architecturally and historically. It was the home of

Nathaniel Bowditch from 1811 to 1823, but its

significance goes further. Bowditch purchased the

house from the Curwen family, famous for their part

in the Salem Witch Trials. Owners after Bowditch

included the Massachusetts General Hospital and

Joseph B. F. Osgood, a Salem lawyer and judge, who

lived in the house while serving as Mayor of Salem

during the Civil War. During the early to midtwentieth century, the house was owned and

occupied by a series of doctors, including Dr. Kate

C. Mudge, one of Salem’s first female physicians.

In 1946, the Bowditch House and the structure now

known as the Witch House were threatened with

demolition in a project to widen Essex Street. A

group of citizens came together and formed Historic

Salem, Inc., (HSI) and raised funds to purchase the

buildings. They moved the Witch House back on

its site and relocated the Bowditch House from Essex

Street to its present location on North Street.

Both houses were given to the city. The Witch House

became a tourist attraction, and the Bowditch House

was used for city offices. In 2000, the city returned

the Bowditch House to HSI, which is restoring the

house with the intention of turning it into an

educational and historic resource center.

Nathaniel Bowditch:

Practical Navigator

The history of Salem . . . the history of maritime

science . . . the history of American education

. . . the history of mathematics and finance . . .

the history of modern capital development—

none can be told completely without the story

of Nathaniel Bowditch. If Nathaniel Bowditch

can be described as a “contribution” from the

City of Salem, this is indeed a contribution of

global proportions and a source of great pride

for Salem.

Born in Salem in 1773 and with little formal

education, Bowditch produced in 1802 one of the

most remarkable scientific books published in early

America—The New American Practical Navigator.

The book helped give the new United States

credibility in the world scientific community.

The manual has saved countless lives and fortunes

by making the latest knowledge accessible to

the ordinary sailor. All naval ships still carry a

“Bowditch.” Bowditch made many other significant scientific contributions and was recognized

with membership in virtually every national

and international scientific society of the age.

Maritime Salem

We began as a maritime nation, tied to the sea

for our livelihoods and our power. Salem is one

of the few places where those beginnings can

still be experienced.

Founded as a fishing station in 1626, early on

Salem became active in coastal shipping and the

triangular trade across the Atlantic. Harmed by

British restrictions on trade, Salem merchants

supported the Revolution and outfitted their

trading ships as privateers, supplementing the

small American navy.

When independence was won, Salem’s glory years

began, as Salem ships explored parts of the world

previously closed to them—the Mediterranean,

the North Sea, and especially the East Indies and

China. From the 1780s until the Embargo of

1807 and the War of 1812, when its prominence

began to decline, Salem was synonymous with

the overseas luxury trade. Salem’s merchants took

great risks and reaped great rewards in sending

ships on long trading voyages “to the farthest

port of the rich East.”

For two hundred years, Salem’s life revolved around

the sea. Learn about life in the great age of sail by

following in the footsteps of one of Salem’s most

distinguished citizens, Nathaniel Bowditch.

His last work was a translation and commentary on

Pierre LaPlace’s multivolume

Mécanique Céleste, making its

theoretical science available

to a wide audience.

Bowditch enjoyed more

than just success in science.

He reformed the finances of

Harvard College. He participated in and helped found a

number of benevolent institutions in the region. As the head of insurance

companies in Salem and Boston, he served as what

would today be called a “money manager” for the

wealthy individuals who made their fortunes at sea.

This particular role was significant for the economy

of the region. Bowditch helped redirect this wealth

into new manufacturing projects, building the mills

that industrialized Massachusetts.

Nathaniel Bowditch died a few days before his

sixty-fifth birthday in 1838. His legacy has echoed

for generations.

Presented by Salem Maritime National Historic Site

in partnership with Historic Salem, Inc. and

The House of the Seven Gables

Statue of Nathaniel Bowditch (above) courtesy of

Mount Auburn Cemetery; all other photographs

courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum.

Design: Bonnie Hurd Smith. Map: Keith Phelan.

Nathaniel Bowditch’s

book, The New American

Practical Navigator, helped

give the new United States

credibility in the world

scientific community.

Historic Salem, Inc. is restoring Nathaniel

Bowditch’s house, shown, circa 1900, at its

original location on Essex Street.

In 1806, Nathaniel Bowditch published his

chart of the harbors of Salem, Marblehead,

Beverly, and Manchester, Massachusetts.

Recommended reading for younger readers: Jean Lee Latham, Carry on Mr. Bowditch

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1955). Available in paperback.

Bowditch built many

of his own navigational

instruments, such as

this quadrant he

designed in 1792.

It may be seen at the

Peabody Essex Museum.
The House of the Seven Gables

Nathaniel Bowditch’s family had lived in Salem for five

generations, was related to most of the major families in

the city, and had long been part of the maritime trades.

His grandmother, Mary Turner Bowditch, who lived with the

family, grew up in The House of the Seven Gables, the daughter

of Salem’s wealthiest merchant of the early 1700’s. Nathaniel’s

mother, Mary Ingersoll, a sea captain’s daughter, was related

to the family that owned the mansion after the Turners.

However, Nathaniel’s parents’ share of this wealth had been

risked and lost by the time Nathaniel was born.

Old Burying Point

The graves of some of Nathaniel’s ancestors, siblings, and

children can be seen in this burial ground, Salem’s earliest.

Before this section of Salem Harbor was filled in during the

nineteenth century, the cemetery overlooked the waterfront.

2 Kimball Court1

Nathaniel Bowditch was born on March 26, 1773, in this house

when it stood at 14 Brown Street and was much smaller than it

is now. It was one of a series of rented or borrowed homes that

the family lived in. The fourth of seven children, Nathaniel,

like most of his siblings, was born while his father, Habakkuk

Bowditch, was at sea. Hab suffered several marine disasters, and

so his wife’s life was one of poverty and drudgery. The family

was assisted for some time by the Salem Marine Society, a

benevolent society of mariners founded in 1766. Just before

the birth of their seventh child, Hab returned to his early

trade as a cooper—a barrel-maker for the shipping trades—

and expected his sons to follow him. Nathaniel’s mother died

when he was only ten.

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church

The First Church

The Bowditches attended St. Peter’s when Nathaniel was young

because his mother was a staunch Anglican, and Nathaniel was

baptized there. The original building was replaced with the

current church in 1833, but the Bowditch pew is still inside,

and the gravestone of Nathaniel Bowditch’s favorite sister, who

died when he was eighteen, can be seen in the small churchyard.

However, the Bowditches were historically Congregationalist,

and returned to that church in 1791. The Congregationalist

First Church, now Unitarian, met at the corner of Washington

and Essex Streets when Nathaniel belonged as an adult. In the

twentieth century, the First Church merged with the North

Church, which had built this edifice in 1836. Bowditch helped

arrange the financing for this building.

Master Watson’s School2

Because his family moved around, Nathaniel’s schooling

was irregular. For a time, he attended a school run by

John Watson (corner of Union and Essex Streets, now gone).

At age ten, when times were especially bad because of the effects

of the Revolutionary War, Nathaniel was removed from school

to work alongside his father in the cooperage. After two years,

his father had him tutored in bookkeeping so that he could be

apprenticed in a ship chandlery.

Ropes & Hodges Chandlery,

Neptune Street2

An apprenticeship bound a child to work for a business for

a certain number of years, in Nathaniel’s case until he was

twenty-one. The child was provided with room, board, and

clothing and was taught the “art and mystery” of a trade.

A chandlery was a “one-stop shop” where a ship’s captain

could purchase the goods needed to outfit a vessel for a voyage.

Nathaniel worked for Ropes & Hodges Chandlery for five

years; when they left the business about 1790, Nathaniel’s

contract was transferred to another ship chandler, Samuel

Ward. Nathaniel probably first learned about the science of

navigation from visitors to the shop. The shop is no longer

standing, but the waterfront, which originally reached this

location, was dotted with such firms, and the Derby Waterfront

Historic District, from here to the power plant, still shows

the dense mix of stores and homes that existed two hundred

years ago.

Ropes Mansion

(Peabody Essex Museum)

Crowninshield-Bentley House

(Peabody Essex Museum)

Salem Athenæum

While at the chandlery, Nathaniel was mentored by several men

who were impressed by his desire to learn. His employer’s father,

Judge Nathaniel Ropes II, gave him access to his library of

works on navigation, surveying, astronomy, and mathematics.

Nathaniel taught himself Latin, and the Rev. William Bentley

lent him the greatest scientific work of the age, Isaac Newton’s

Principia. Most important, Bentley and Rev. John Prince

arranged for Nathaniel to have access to the Philosophical

Library, a private collection of scientific books now housed

at the Salem Athenæum, which Bowditch later helped found.

In the absence of public libraries, these kinds of private and

informal arrangements fostered learning in the new nation.

Salem Maritime National Historic Site

Soon after completing his apprenticeship at age twenty-one,

Bowditch made his first sea voyage as a crew member on a

merchant vessel much like the Friendship, a modern replica.

His five voyages between 1795 and 1803 lasted between seven

and fourteen months each and included stops in Mauritius,

Portugal, the Philippines, Spain, and Indonesia. Officers and

crew could profit by trading for themselves on the side, and

Bowditch was able to accumulate a little wealth. His first four

voyages were on ships belonging to Elias Hasket Derby, the

“king” of Salem’s waterfront and reportedly America’s first

millionaire. Salem harbor was filled with wharves, all privately

owned, with Derby Wharf the most prominent. Bowditch held

positions as clerk, mate, supercargo (business agent), and finally

as captain on his fifth voyage, when he was a part owner of the

ship Putnam. On his voyages for Derby, Bowditch made the

calculations that resulted in the 1802 publication of The New

American Practical Navigator.

82 Washington Square East1

On March 25, 1798, Bowditch married Elizabeth Boardman,

the daughter of a captain who had died at sea. The couple lived

with Elizabeth’s mother at 82 Washington Square East. Salem

Common, once a swampy area used for common pasturage,

was rehabilitated into Washington Square Park, the centerpiece

of a neighborhood newly developed for stately display of the

wealth arising from maritime trade. Five months after his

marriage, Bowditch left on his third voyage, and a few months

later learned of his wife’s death. He could not return home for

several months after that. Salem families were used to the long

absences of men at sea, and the women kept society functioning

and looked after each other. In 1800, between his fourth and

fifth voyages, Bowditch married his (and Elizabeth’s) cousin,

Mary Ingersoll. The couple probably continued to live at the

Boardman house until they moved to Chestnut Street in 1805.

12 Chestnut Street1

From 1805–11, the Bowditches shared a house with Nathaniel’s

former boss, Jonathan Hodges, in what is now the McIntire

Historic District, named after Salem’s famous architect of the

Federal style. This neighborhood was developed shortly after

the Common area for the newly wealthy merchants and sea

captains who wanted to move away from the waterfront where

they did business. Bowditch pursued his scientific interests

here, including observing the solar eclipse of 1806, and wrote

numerous scientific articles. This district was a center of

Federalist political sentiment, and Bowditch shared that

perspective, possibly because President Jefferson’s 1807–09

embargo on overseas trade so hurt New England’s economy.

Peabody Essex Museum

Bowditch was an early member and later president of the

East India Marine Society, established in 1799 for captains and

supercargoes who had sailed around Cape Horn or the Cape

of Good Hope. Their sea journals and the items they brought

home became the nucleus of what is now the Peabody Essex

Museum, the oldest continuously operating museum in the

nation. The museum currently has a permanent exhibit about

Bowditch, as well as exhibits on all of Salem’s maritime history.

.

11 Central Street1

In 1804, Bowditch became President of the Essex Fire and

Marine Insurance Company, located on the site of this building

designed by Charles Bulfinch (now an antiques shop). The

growing insurance industry was critical to the full maturing of

the maritime trade, as it controlled risk-taking. It also created

pools of money that could be invested in new businesses.

Bowditch brought that opportunity to fruition when he left

Salem for Boston in 1823 to head the Massachusetts Hospital

Life Insurance Company, a large financial institution, from

which he helped launch a number of factory projects. Maritime

trade had made America an independent country; it now

financed its industrial revolution.

Bowditch House1

Nathaniel and Mary bought this house in 1811 and lived here

with their children until 1823. A National Historic Landmark,

it is being restored by Historic Salem, Inc., as a research and

educational center. During his years here, Bowditch carried

on his scientific inquiries and was offered, but declined,

professorships in mathematics at Harvard College, the

University of Virginia, and West Point—offers made to

a man whose schooling had ended when he was ten.

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Not open to the public 2No longer standing

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For further information

Salem Maritime NHS: www.nps.gov/sama

Historic Salem, Inc.: www.historicsalem.org

The House of the Seven Gables: www.7gables.org

Peabody Essex Museum: www.pem.org

Salem Athenæum: www.salemathenaeum.org

Destination Salem: www.salem.org

HSI Bowditch Initiative: www.nathanielbowditch.org

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