The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1873-08-28
Nathaniel BOwditch.


When he was captain of ship sailing
out of Salem to the East Indies, almost
all his crew became mathematicians,
progress as to be able to work out
lnnar observation. The secret of it
was his own intense and passionate love
of the science. In one of his early voy-
ages, when he was little more than
boy, the slfip was CHASED by privateer;
and the captain making up his mind to
fight, assigned to young Bowditch the
duty of handing up the powder. In the
midst of the hurlyburly of preparing
the ship for action, he was observed
seated by keg of powder, wholly alb
sorbed in his slate and pencil. Such
love as that is very contagious.
This interesting man, born at Salem,
in 1878, came of long line of tough
and valiant Yankee sea-captains; but
his father, after going to sea for several
years, came ashore, and settled at Sa-
lem in the business of cooper, and
reared a family of seven children. He
had hard time of it during the Revo-
lutionary War to support so large fam
lily; so that when his son, Nathaniel,
was a boy of ten, he was obliged to take
him from the townschool and put him
to work in his cooper shop. Soon after
the boy was regularly apprenticed to o
hip-chandler, and served out his time
of seven years.
From an early age, even while still at
school, he had shown strange aptitude
for arithmetic, being one of those boys
who learn to do all the hard sums, and
help their companions out of their arith-
metical difficulties. During his ap-
culation, that in the long and frequent
intervals when there were no customers
to serve, he still assiduously employed
himself with slate and pencil I have
never heard of such devotion to knowl-
edge, such energy, zeal and indefatiga-
BILE industry in acquiring it. Hearing
one day that there was way of doing
sums by letters instead of figures, he
pursued his inquiries until he had
found an algrebra. Upon looking over
it, he was SO fascinated and so agitated,
that he could not slssp during the next
night, and he gave himself no rest until
he had mastered it's contents. Getting
access to an Encyclopedia, he read it all
through, article after article, in their
alphabetical order. An old sailor set
tied in Salem>gave him some notion of
navigation, and he pursued the science
until he could work out all the prob
lens.
At seventeen, while still an appren-
tice, he obtained copy of Newton S
Prineipia, the most abstruse mathemati-
cal work then existing, in which the
great philosopher develops in math-
ematical form his theory of gravitation.
The curiosity of the boy was instantly
reused ; but, alas ! the work was writ
ten in Latin, of which he knew scarcely
a word. Nothing daunted, he began to
learn the language, and continued until,
by the aid of the diagrams given in the
work, he could read and understand
Newton's demonstrations. Early in
life he had acquired the French Ian.
guage, in order to read the many excel,
lent mathematical works written in it
as later he learned German, italian and
Spanish, in order to get possession ot
their treasures of literature and science
1t was fortunate, perhaps, for this
energetic genius that no wealthy patron
released him from the necessity o.
daily toll for # the gift of leisure hat
made him greater mathematician, i
might have rendered him less admir-
able man. With all his talent, he wal
left to pursue precisely the same course
as the most ordinary youth in Salem
After his apprenticeship, he was shil
chandler's clerk for few years. A
twenty-five he sailed as captains clerl
in an East India ship, and was promo
ted, in due time, first, to b.
supercargo, and afterward to be captain
in the course of his sea-servic
visiting most of the important port
of the world. 1t could not b.
said of him that he was merely a bool
mathematician, for he was one of the
best and safest practical navigator'
that ever lived. His son relates that
coming on the coast of Massachusetts il
winter, after long voyage, he arrived
off Salem harbor by night, in tempes
of wind and snow. Besides his reckon
ing, he had no help except one momen
tary glimpse of the light on Baker
island; but he stood by the helm, an,
steered the ship safely in. He was no
yet thirty years of age when he publish
ed his Practical Navigator, which wa
so exactly what navigators wanted tina
it found its way speedily into the cabi
of almost every American and Englisl
ship.
A pleasing incident of his sea-farini
life occurred soon after the publicatio
of this work. While his ship lay i
Boston harbor, one day, waiting for
fair wind, the young captain Che wa
then but twenty-nine) went on shor
to attend the Commencement of Han
ward College at Cambridge, near by
When the President read the name
of the men upon whom the colleg
had conferred honorary degrees, Capt
Bowditch was thrilled with delight t
hear his own name among those VIII
had received the degree of Master c
Arts. This was a great honor in thos
honest old days, and would have re
mained such to this hour if college
had been chary and conscientious i
the bestowal of degrees. In after years
when he lad received many such di;
tinctions and was member of most c
the learned societies in the world, he a
ways looked back upon that day as tn
proudest of his life.
Yankee sailors of any force and sens
are not apt to be sailors long after mic
die life. When Captain Bowditch ha
followed the sea for about fifteen years
he settled in Salient as president of a
insurance company, an empioymer
which gave him as much leisure as h
could proitably employ. He was sti
an ardent and constant student, an
contributed frequently scientific paper
to The North american ReUielO, an
other works These hnwavar Wer