VITA William Cranch Bond Brief life of Harvard’s first astronomer: 1789-1859 by !"!# $%&'$()"*

+, $-#*&)* .)!&' !/,, during the late summer of 0102, “a caboose…with a telescope 34-year-old William Cranch Bond unexpectedly spent a that commands an unob- Tnight on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Har- structed view of all the cham- vard’s emissary to Britain’s astronomers had gone to fetch travel bers in the neighborhood.” funds from the University’s local agent, only to learn the man was Four years into Bond’s appointment, the spectacular Comet of away. But next morning, Bond managed to borrow money and took 0196 appeared, brightening until its tail could be seen in broad day- up his mission: inspecting the kingdom’s observatories and tele- light. In its wake, Bostonians poured ;62,777 into Harvard’s co:ers scopes to help Harvard build a world-class astronomical facility. to establish an observatory. On Bond’s recommendation, Harvard Bond was an unlikely embodiment of Harvard’s cosmic aspi- ordered a top-quality, 02-inch refractor telescope from Germany rations: a grade-school dropout, he had spent workdays in his fa- and acquired acreage for the facility on Summer-House (now Ob- ther’s modest Boston shop, fabricating and repairing timepieces. servatory) Hill, northwest of Harvard Yard. But at night, he was a skilled amateur astronomer: the first U.S. In 0199, the 22-year-old Bond transferred his family and his observer to sight the faint, white blur that swelled into the Great instruments to the bucolic grounds of the new Harvard College Comet of 0100, a feat that led to his Harvard commission. Observatory. He continued to work without pay until Harvard The young nation was an astronomical wasteland. President learned in 0194 that the Naval Observatory was trying to recruit John Quincy Adams, A.B. 0515, complained to Congress in 0132 that him. He promptly received an annual salary of ;0,277, plus a ;497 Europe had more than 067 observatories, while the United States stipend for his son George, by this time his devoted assistant. had none. Harvard had prodded wealthy Bostonians four times to Harvard’s gleaming new telescope lens arrived from Germany underwrite a research-grade telescope, without success. soon after and was installed in a sleek, mahogany-faced tube. In Meanwhile, Bond’s clock-making business flourished, its preci- June 0195, the instrument was secured to a massive granite pier, sion chronometers prized by New England shippers and the U.S. sheltered under a 67-foot, copper-clad dome that revolved on eight Navy. In 0108, his fortunes secure, he married his cousin Selina cannonballs. The crystal-clear views of heavenly bodies exceeded Cranch and settled into a large clapboard house at 021 East Cottage expectations. “The revelation was sublime,” Bond wrote of his first Street in Dorchester. The family parlor was sacrificed to astrono- glimpse of the Orion Nebula. “It is delightful to see the stars brought my, with a multi-ton, granite telescope pier emplaced in the floor out which have been hid in mysterious light from the human eye, and an observing aperture sawed through the ceiling. Smaller tele- since the creation.” For two decades, the “Great Refractor” reigned scope-mounting stones dotted the yard, topped by Bond’s growing as the nation’s largest telescope. Among its discoveries were Saturn’s array of instruments obtained from Europe or lent by Harvard. eighth moon, Hyperion, and that planet’s diaphanous crepe ring. By the mid 0167s, his observatory had become the U.S. nexus of Equally significant were Bond’s seminal experiments in celes- precision astronomy. So accurate was his celestial-based determi- tial photography, at the behest of Boston daguerreotypist John Ad- nation of his latitude and longitude that the navy’s 0161-0193 South ams Whipple. In 0127, a 87-second exposure of Vega yielded the Pacific exploration mission referenced the geographic coordinates first photograph of any star other than the sun. The following year, of foreign ports not to Washington, D.C., but to Bond’s house. Bond and Whipple’s daguerreotype of the moon created a sensa- In 0168, Harvard president Josiah Quincy came calling. Seeking tion at the international exhibition held in London’s Crystal Palace. to capitalize on public interest stoked by the recent passage of Hal- When Bond died, his son George became director of the observa- ley’s Comet, he invited Bond to move his family into Dana House, tory, remaining true to his father’s credo: “An astronomical observer on the school’s Cambridge campus (where Lamont Library now to be useful in his vocation should give up the world, he must have stands). Bond was to bring his astronomical equipment, turning a good eye, a delicate touch, and above all, entire devotion to the the building into Harvard’s de facto observatory, with Bond as “As- pursuit.” Today’s Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is tronomical Observer.” Quincy o:ered no salary, later explaining, “It the legacy of a Dorchester clockmaker who selflessly strove to make was the day…of pennies, not dollars, in the college treasury.” Harvard the hub of scientific exploration of the universe. Bond agreed. But the site, hard up against buildings and trees, proved far from optimal. Bond had to bore a sighting hole through a Alan Hirshfeld, professor of physics at the University of Massachusetts Dart- nearby barn to align his specialized meridian telescope to a masonry mouth, is an associate of the Harvard College Observatory and the author most pylon 03 miles south, atop Great Blue Hill in Milton. One Harvard recently of Starlight Detectives: How Astronomers, Inventors, and wag described a revolving turret added to the Dana House roof as Eccentrics Discovered the Modern Universe.

46 S)<=)>?)& - O@=,?)& 2015 Above: An 1852 daguerreotype of the moon, taken by John Adams Whipple with Bond’s aid Opposite: An 1849 portrait of Bond by Cephas Giovanni Thompson Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Portrait courtesy of Harvard University Portrait Collection, H180. Image: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College Daguerreotype courtesy of Harvard College Observatory Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746