Biography of Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury. The Pathfinder of the Seas

“When I became old enough to reflect, it was the aim at which all my energies were directed to make myself a useful man. I soon found that occupation, for some useful end or other, was the true secret of happiness.”

(Maury to Rutson Maury, August 31, 1840.)


“It’s the talent of industry that makes a man. I don’t think that so much depends upon intellect as is generally supposed; but industry and steadiness of purpose, they are the things.”

(Maury to Frank Minor, July 25, 1855.)


CHAPTER I

His Early Years

No other great American has ever received so many honors abroad and so little recognition at home as has the oceanographer, Matthew Fontaine Maury. While his own country was but meagerly, and sometimes grudgingly, rewarding him, there was hardly a civilized foreign country that did not bestow upon him some mark of distinguished consideration. This was not merely a case of distance lending enchantment to the view, but rather one of perspective; those near him with but few exceptions had only a partial and incomplete view of the man, while foreigners at a distance saw the complete figure of the great scientist unobscured by the haze of professional jealousy or political and sectional prejudice. But there is another kind of perspective,—that produced by the lapse of time; hence it is that we now are enabled to appreciate the greatness of a man irrespective of the side he took in the War between the States in those “unhappy things and battles long ago”. It is this perspective of time that makes possible the writing of this biography with the confidence that the time has now come when throughout our entire country Maury’s greatness as a scientist and as a man will be seen in its true proportions, and his fine struggle against obstacles to attain his ideals and accomplish his purposes will serve as an inspiration and a challenge to every American.

Whatever the obstacles were that Maury had to contend with, there was no handicap in his ancestry, for


 he was distinctively well-born. Through his father, Richard Maury, he was descended from a very distinguished Huguenot family which came to Virginia in 1718. His mother, Diana Minor, was of Dutch ancestry, being descended from Dudas Minor, who received in 1665 a grant of land in Virginia from King Charles II. The Minors intermarried with the colonial aristocracy of the Old Dominion, and there was accordingly added to the mixed Huguenot and Dutch ancestry of Matthew Fontaine Maury some of the best English blood in the colonies. Thus it was that he inherited pride of family, an inclination to scholarly pursuits, a deeply religious nature, and the character and bearing of a gentleman.

Matthew Fontaine Maury was born, the fourth son in a large family of five sons and four daughters, on January 14, 1806, on his father’s farm near Fredericksburg, Virginia, and named after his paternal great-grandfathers. There had been many migrations from Spottsylvania and Albemarle counties to the free lands of the Old Southwest; and when Matthew was but five years old, his father determined to attempt to better his fortunes by following his uncle, Abram Maury, who had already established himself on the Tennessee frontier. Practically no details as to the incidents that occurred on this long and toilsome trek have been preserved; but there is a tradition in the family that all the goods and chattels were transported in wagons, and that, when little Matthew grew tired of walking or cramped from riding in the rough, jolting wagons, he was frequently carried on the back of one of his sisters. Their experiences were, no doubt, similar to those of thousands of other early pioneers who went to the Old Southwest to lay the foundations of new commonwealths.


The travel-worn family established a new home near Franklin, Tennessee, some eighteen miles north of Nashville. This section of the country was then on the outskirts of the western frontier, and it was in such an environment that young Maury spent the most formative years of his life. As a lad, he had to take his share of the burdensome work on the farm; and it appears from an incident long afterwards related by his brother that he had the distaste for farm work, which is common to boys. Their father had set them to work picking cotton, and Matthew showed his inventiveness by devising a way of shortening their labor. He suggested to his brother that they make short work of the cotton picking by pulling off the cotton balls bodily and cramming them into an old hollow hickory stump that was full of water. The scheme was a good one so long as it was undiscovered, but after a time the watchful eye of their father detected the boys in the act and a flogging was the result. The lives of the children on the frontier, however, were by no means wholly filled with toil. There was ample opportunity to enjoy out-door sports in all seasons of the year, and indoors the Maury family were not without resources for passing the time pleasantly and profitably. There were traditions of culture and even of scholarship in the family, and besides it should be remembered that the homes of the early settlers were rarely without at least a few good books.

Maury’s father, having observed that his own father had been too stern with his children, treated his large family with considerable indulgence; yet he was strict as to their religious training in the home and gathered the children together morning and night each day to read the Psalter antiphonally. In this way Matthew


 became so familiar with the Psalms of David that years afterwards he could give a quotation and cite chapter and verse as though he had the Bible before him. This early religious influence later colored all Maury’s thinking and writing to a very marked degree. His mother, who was known as a woman of great decision of character, endowed her son with this same quality which is so essential to greatness; while her husband passed on to Matthew much of his amiability and ingenuousness for which he was greatly liked throughout the neighborhood.

Maury received his elementary education in an “Old Field” school, where the seats were made of split logs with peg legs, where there were no blackboards and but few books, and where the pupils studied their lessons aloud. This method of study probably led to the custom of “singing geography”, the pupils being ranged round the room to chant geographical facts. Whether Maury was thus inducted into the mysteries of that science which his researches were afterwards so greatly to enrich is not known, for the only schoolbook that he makes reference to in his letters is the famous Webster’s “Blueback Speller”, which he says was the first book that was ever placed in his hands.

A better education than that afforded in these country elementary schools was, however, destined for Maury. When he was in his twelfth year, a dangerous fall from a tree so injured his back as to cause his father to consider it unwise for the lad to continue to work on the farm. He had already shown such aptitude for study that it was decided to send him to Harpeth Academy, then located about two miles from Franklin. In this school, Maury had as teachers the Reverend Doctor Blackburn, afterwards Chaplain to Congress; James Otey, who be


came the first Bishop of Tennessee; and William C. Hasbrouck, who was afterwards a distinguished lawyer in his native state, New York. The impression that Maury made upon these scholarly men was a very favorable and lasting one, and he retained their warm personal friendship as long as they lived.

It was with Dr. Blackburn that Maury began the study of Latin grammar, through which he marched with seven league boots in only seven days; this, of course, was a record for the school. Though he thus showed a capacity for learning languages, both at this time and later in the navy while on foreign stations, yet the field of science held the greatest attraction for Maury. His ambition to become a mathematician was aroused in a curious way. “The first man of science I ever saw in my infant days in the West”, he said, “was a shoemaker—old Mr. Neil. He was a mathematician; he worked out his problems with his awl on leather, and would send home his shoes with their soles covered with little x’s and y’s. The example of that man first awakened in my breast the young spirit of emulation; for my earliest recollections of the feelings of ambition are connected with the aspiration to emulate that man in mathematics”. The ambition to know and achieve early displayed itself in Maury, and in later life he pleasantly recalled to mind his “Tennessee school days when the air was filled with castles”.

Such, in brief, was the life of Maury as a lad in his adopted state,—a state which he came to love and to which he referred years afterwards, when he had traveled extensively and become a famous man, as “the loveliest of lands” and “the finest country I have ever seen”. Here he was nurtured with the best the frontier


 life had to offer, and given independence of mind, courage, and self-reliance; love of honor and a chivalrous respect for woman; an unassuming modesty which bordered on diffidence and bashfulness; a strongly religious inclination; and a burning desire to know and to achieve. With this equipment he would doubtless have made a name for himself if he had remained in Tennessee; but Providence directed his steps into a broader field where he was able to gain for himself much greater distinction,—one that was not alone national but international in its scope.

One of the well marked characteristics of Maury’s maturity was the breadth of his intellectual vision. His mind loved to exercise itself with large problems, and questions of world-wide interest. This trait in his character could not have been developed so well perhaps in any other career as in the one he chose,—service in the navy of the United States. In this connection, it is interesting to note that Maury’s father wished him to study medicine and promised him financial assistance in such an undertaking. As a physician, he doubtless would have reached great eminence and the science of medicine would almost certainly have received contributions from his original mind; but a military career presented greater attractions for the lad. At one time he considered entering West Point as a cadet, but some one returned from there with an unfavorable report and, besides, the bare mention of such a plan put his father in a rage; hence he decided against the army and instead determined to enter the United States Navy.

There were very good reasons for Maury’s wishing to become a naval officer. Indeed, all his life he had had a close personal interest in that branch of the government


 service. His eldest brother, John Minor Maury, at the age of thirteen, even before the family had left Virginia, had become a midshipman. He then had thrilling adventures in the South Seas, was with David Porter in the Essex during the bloody battle with the English at Valparaiso, and afterwards fought with Macdonough in the Battle of Lake Champlain. All this was enough to awaken the spirit of adventure and arouse the desire of emulation in the heart of a younger brother. And though John Maury had the misfortune, in 1824, to die of yellow fever on board his ship and be buried at sea off Norfolk, yet Matthew clung firmly to his decision in the face of the opposition of his family, particularly his father, to the entrance of a second son into so hazardous a profession.

Maury secured his midshipman’s warrant with comparative ease, through General Sam Houston, who was at that time the Representative of that district in Congress. This appointment was gotten, however, without his parents’ knowledge, and when it became known to his father he expressed his disapproval of his son’s conduct in very strong terms and determined to leave him to his own resources. But young Maury was very resourceful and contrived to purchase for seventy-five dollars a gray mare from his cousin Abram Maury’s overseer, which he was to sell upon reaching his destination, and then he was to repay the money. Still he had practically nothing for traveling expenses, but this obstacle was removed by his teacher, Mr. Hasbrouck, who gave him thirty dollars for assistance he had rendered in teaching the younger pupils in the Academy.

On the day of his departure on that Sunday in the spring of 1825, Maury’s father refused to tell him good


bye and turned his back,—it is said, not so much in anger as in sorrow at his leaving home. No doubt the lad’s heart was saddened by this circumstance as well as by the parting from the rest of the family, especially from his favorite brother Richard, only two years his senior, who had always been his inseparable companion. But he put on a brave front, mounted his “snow white steed”, and set forth on the long lonesome ride to Virginia, whence he was to make his way to Washington and there embark on his new career.

The second or third day from home at an inn in East Tennessee, the young traveler fell in with two merchants, Read and Echols, from Huntsville, Alabama, on their way to Baltimore to purchase goods, and in company with these gentlemen he traveled as far as Fincastle, Virginia. Though he greatly enjoyed their company, he was much concerned lest they find out his financial condition, suspect his poverty, and humiliate him by offering him money. His resources were indeed sadly depleted on crossing over into Virginia, where his money had to be exchanged for coin of that state at a ruinous discount of twenty per cent, and when, after a journey of two weeks, he reached the home of his Cousin Reuben Maury near Charlottesville, he had but fifty cents left.

Here a special entertainment was given in his honor, and Maury had his first experience with the society manners of the East which were somewhat more refined than those of the Tennessee frontier. When the negro servant passed him a saucer of ice-cream and a spoon, he very modestly placed only a spoonful in his plate and left the remainder to be passed to the others, thinking that it was some kind of strange sauce. From this place he proceeded to the home of his Uncle Edward Herndon, 


near Fredericksburg; and while visiting there, he met the young girl who was some years afterwards to become his wife. She was Ann Hull Herndon, the eldest daughter of Dabney Herndon, who was a banker and prominent citizen of Fredericksburg. It was a case of love at first sight with young Maury, who was completely captivated by the blue eyes, auburn hair, and musical voice of his fair cousin; while she in turn was very favorably impressed with this relative from the West with his ruddy complexion which she used to say after they were married reminded her of “David fresh from his sheep with his sling”………………….