22 Facts About Nathaniel Bowditch

Nathaniel Bowditch was an early American mathematician remembered for his work on ocean navigation.

Nathaniel Bowditch is often credited as the founder of modern maritime navigation; his book The New American Practical Navigator, first published in 1802, is still carried on board every commissioned US Naval vessel.

Nathaniel Bowditch, the fourth of seven children, was born in Salem, Province of Massachusetts Bay, to Habakkuk Bowditch, a cooper who at one point was a sailor as well but stopped after his ship went aground in 1775, and Mary Ingersoll Bowditch.

In 1786, age fourteen, Bowditch began to study algebra and two years later he taught himself calculus.

Nathaniel Bowditch taught himself Latin in 1790 and French in 1792 so he was able to read mathematical works such as Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

Nathaniel Bowditch found thousands of errors in John Hamilton Moore's The New Practical Navigator; at eighteen, he copied all the mathematical papers of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.

Serendipity aided Nathaniel Bowditch's self-directed study, in as much as he found himself able to use the eminent Irish chemist Richard Kirwan's library: Hugh Hill, a privateer from Salem who captained the Pilgrim, had intercepted the ship carrying the library between Ireland and England and brought the library back to Salem in 1781.

In 1795, Nathaniel Bowditch went to sea on the first of four voyages as a ship's clerk and captain's writer.

In 1798 Nathaniel Bowditch married Elizabeth Boardman, who died seven months later.

In 1800 Nathaniel Bowditch married his second wife and cousin, Mary "Polly" Ingersoll Nathaniel Bowditch.

In 1804, Nathaniel Bowditch became America's first insurance actuary as president of the Essex Fire and Marine Insurance Company in Salem.

Nathaniel Bowditch was offered the chair of mathematics and physics at Harvard in 1806, but turned it down.

Nathaniel Bowditch again refused these offers, perhaps because the $2,000 salary offered was two-thirds of the salary he received as president of the insurance company.

In 1823, Nathaniel Bowditch left the Essex Fire and Marine Insurance Company to become an actuary for the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company in Boston.

Nathaniel Bowditch's move from Salem to Boston involved the transfer of over 2,500 books, 100 maps and charts, and 29 volumes of his own manuscripts.

Nathaniel Bowditch worked initially with John Hamilton Moore's London-published Navigator, which was known to have errors.

The task was so extensive that Nathaniel Bowditch decided to write his own book, and to "put down in the book nothing I can't teach the crew".

Nathaniel Bowditch is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, where a monument to him was erected through public collections.

Nathaniel Bowditch, ran the "Nathaniel Bowditch Library" on Otis Place in Boston's Financial District.

In 1955, a book for younger readers, Carry On, Mr Nathaniel Bowditch, was published by Jean Lee Latham, portraying Nathaniel Bowditch's life dramatized and fictionalized.

Nathaniel Bowditch gives his name to a street in Berkeley, California.

Nathaniel Bowditch was inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame in 2014.