LT. MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY Matthew Fontaine Maury “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY LT. MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 1806 January 14, Tuesday: Matthew Fontaine Maury was born in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. His mother’s ancestors, of the “Minor” family, had come to Virginia from Holland, and his father Richard Maury’s ancestors had been Huguenots (his granddaddy the Reverend James Maury had taught Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe). NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Matthew Fontaine Maury “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX LT. MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 1811 While Matthew Fontaine Maury was five years of age his family relocated from Virginia to Franklin, Tennessee. He would think to emulate the career of an older brother, Flag Lieutenant John Minor Maury, a pirate fighter, until, after Lt. Maury had died of yellow fever, Matthew’s father Richard Maury would refuse to consider allowing his younger son to enlist. Matthew would contemplate a career beginning at the West Point Military Academy, until his family would be able to use its connections and the influence of Senator Sam Houston to secure for him at the age of 19 a direct Naval appointment. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. Matthew Fontaine Maury “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY LT. MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 1825 William H. Day was born in New-York. His father would die and he would be adopted by a white reformer of Northampton. He would attend school there, before being apprenticed to the print shop of a newspaper. The geriatric general Lafayette visited Northampton. Through family political connections and the assistance of Senator Sam Houston, the 19-year-old Matthew Fontaine Maury joined the Navy as a midshipman on board the frigate Brandywine, which in the second half of that year would be carrying the Marquis home to France. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT Matthew Fontaine Maury “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX LT. MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY At age 19, Matthew Fontaine Maury joined the United States Navy as a midshipman on board the frigate Brandywine. Almost immediately he began to study the seas and record methods of navigation. When a leg injury left him unfit for sea duty, Maury devoted his time to the study of navigation, meteorology, winds, and currents. His hard work on and love of plotting the oceans paid off when he became Superintendent of the US Naval Observatory and head of the Depot of Charts and Instruments. Here Maury studied thousands of ships’ logs and charts. He published the Wind and Current Chart of the North Atlantic, which showed sailors how to use the ocean’s currents and winds to their advantage and drastically reduced the length of ocean voyages. Maury’s uniform system of recording oceanographic data was adopted by navies and merchant marines around the world and was used to develop charts for all the major trade routes. In this year President John Quincy Adams, whose personal hobby was stargazing, signed a bill for the creation of a National Observatory. It would take many years to arrange federal funding, but eventually as a Congressman again, he would spend many nights there with Lt. Maury, watching and charting the stars. THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT Matthew Fontaine Maury “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY LT. MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 1831 Lt. Matthew Fontaine Maury sailed around the Horn as master of the sloop of war Falmouth. DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Matthew Fontaine Maury “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX LT. MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 1839 At the age of 33, Lt. Matthew Fontaine Maury’s seagoing days came to an abrupt end when his hip and knee were shattered in a stagecoach accident. Thereafter, he would devote himself to the study of naval meteorology, navigation, charting the winds and currents, seeking out the “Paths of the Seas” that had been mentioned in THE BOOK OF PSALMS 8. TIMELINE OF ACCIDENTS REFER TO PSALMS 8:8 CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Matthew Fontaine Maury “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY LT. MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 1842 The new naval Lieutenant William Lewis Herndon was assigned to work with his relative Matthew Fontaine Maury in preparation of ocean charts at the Depot of Charts and Instruments. Lieutenant Uriah Phillips Levy, the only Jewish officer in the US Navy, was promoted to Captain by President John Tyler. JUDAISM HDT WHAT? INDEX LT. MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY August: The federal Congress provided funding for the National Observatory (the hobby of President John Quincy Adams had been stargazing). When the facility was created, everything appeared to be in order, but then it was discovered that Lt. James Melville Gilliss of the US Navy had failed to properly oversee the construction, and the placing of the instruments, and that the concrete beneath the telescopes and other equipment was dangerously weak and damp. Everything had had to be removed while the structure was repaired, and while that had been going on Gillis was reassigned elsewhere. The new facility came therefore to be under the direction of the crippled Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury. The facility’s primary mission was to care for the United States Navy’s marine chronometers, charts, and other navigational equipment. It would calibrate ships’ chronometers by timing the transit of stars across the meridian. Initially located downtown in Foggy Bottom (near the Lincoln Memorial), the observatory would not be relocated to Observatory Hill overlooking Massachusetts Avenue until 1893, amidst perfectly circular grounds. For the initial dozen years of its existence this facility would be referred to alternatively as the National Observatory and as the US Naval Observatory, and Lt. Maury would need to prepare each and every document and letter in duplicate under each designation until this nomenclature issue would be resolved in follow-on legislation. At the facility, Maury would data- mine an enormous collection of old ships’ logs and charts for observations on winds, calms, and currents for all seas in all seasons, discovering, for instance, that these documents could be used to determine the migration patterns of various species of whales. Because whales had been described in the Pacific Ocean as having HDT WHAT? INDEX MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY LT. MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY carried in their bodies old harpoons of a design used only in the Atlantic and vice versa, and because whales had not been observed to journey via the channels at the tip of South America, he hypothesized that there must be occasions on which the north polar ocean is sufficiently free of its crust of ice to allow these breathing mammals to transit. Herman Melville was picked up by an Australian whaler, the Lucy Ann, signing on for 1/200ths of whatever proceeds were generated by its voyage. There would be, however, no proceeds to speak of, and he would participate in a revolt of the crew, winding up in prison with them on Tahiti. When released, he would spend a few months exploring the fauna and flora of Tahiti and Eimeo. HDT WHAT? INDEX LT. MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY HDT WHAT? INDEX MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY LT. MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 1845 The 12th time ball in the world, the 1st in the USA and the 1st vulcanized one anywhere, was created by Charles Goodyear to Lt. Matthew Fontaine Maury’s specification. The time ball would be mounted above the US Naval Observatory and dropped, by hand of course, every day except Sunday, at the astronomically defined moment of Mean Solar Noon. WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF Matthew Fontaine Maury “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX LT. MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 1847 Lt. Matthew Fontaine Maury published his WIND AND CURRENT CHART OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC, which showed sailors how to use the ocean’s currents and winds to their advantage and drastically reduced the length of ocean voyages. HDT WHAT? INDEX MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY LT. MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 1848 Lt. Matthew Fontaine Maury’s ABSTRACT LOG FOR THE USE OF AMERICAN NAVIGATORS. Richard Owen described “homologies” — similarities of design in bird wings, fish fins and human hands. The AAAS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was founded after the model of a British Association for the Advancement of Science which had been in existence for some 17 years. Lt. Maury of the US Naval Observatory was present for its initial meeting. Joseph Henry (1797-1898), who had been appointed the 1st secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1846, became its 1st Secretary. In this year was issued the 1st publication of the new Smithsonian Institution, Ephraim George Squier’s and Edwin H. Davis’s ANCIENT MONUMENTS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. Thoreau would in 1849 copy the following materials into his Indian Notebook #3:1 Arrowheads, differing from each other only in variety of stone of which they are composed, are discovered in all quarters of the globe. They have been found in ... Liberia, in the tombs of Egypt ... upon the plains of Greece ... and in the rude monuments of ancient Scandinavia.