Matthew Fontaine Maury (January 14, 1806February 1, 1873) was an American oceanographer and naval officer, serving the United States and then joining the Confederacy during the American Civil War.

He was nicknamed "Pathfinder of the Seas" and is considered a founder of modern oceanography. He wrote extensively on the subject, and his book, The Physical Geography of the Sea (1855), was the first comprehensive work on oceanography to be published.

In 1825, at 19, Maury obtained, through U.S. Representative Sam Houston, a midshipman's warrant in the United States Navy. There, Maury studied thousands of ships' logs and charts. He published the Wind and Current Chart of the North Atlantic, which showed sailors how to utilize the ocean's currents and winds to their advantage, thereby drastically reducing the length of ocean voyages. Maury's uniform system of recording oceanographic data was adopted by navies and merchant marines worldwide and was used to develop charts for all the major trade routes.

With the outbreak of the American Civil War, Maury, a Virginian, resigned his commission as a U.S. Navy commander and joined the Confederacy. He spent the war in the Southern United States, and Great Britain and France as a Confederate envoy. He helped the Confederacy acquire a ship, , while trying to convince several European powers to intervene on behalf of the Confederacy. Following the war, Maury was eventually pardoned; he accepted a teaching position at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia.

He died at the institute in 1873 after completing an exhausting state-to-state lecture tour on national and international weather forecasting. He had also completed his book, Geological Survey of Virginia, and a new series on geography for young people.

Early life and career

Maury was a descendant of the Maury family, a prominent Virginia family of Huguenot ancestry that can be traced back to 15th-century France. His grandfather (the Reverend James Maury) was an inspiring teacher to a future U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson. Maury also had Dutch-American ancestry from the Minor family of early Virginia.

He was born in 1806 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, near Fredericksburg; his parents were Richard Maury and Diane Minor Maury. The family moved to Franklin, Tennessee when he was five. He wanted to emulate the naval career of his older brother, Flag Lieutenant John Minor Maury, an officer in the U.S. Navy, who caught yellow fever after fighting pirates. As a result of John's painful death, Matthew's father, Richard, forbade him from joining the Navy. Maury strongly considered attending West Point to get a better education than the Navy could offer. Instead, he obtained a naval appointment through the influence of Tennessee Representative Sam Houston, a family friend, in 1825, at the age of 19.

Maury joined the Navy as a midshipman on board the frigate , which was carrying the elderly Marquis de Lafayette home to France following his famous 1824 visit to the United States. Almost immediately, Maury began to study the seas and to record methods of navigation. One of the experiences that piqued this interest was circumnavigating the globe on the , his assigned ship and the first U.S. warship to travel around the world.

Scientific career

Maury's seagoing days ended abruptly at the age of 33 after he broke his right leg in a stagecoach accident. After that, he studied naval meteorology, navigation, and charting the winds and currents. He told his family that his work was inspired by Psalm 8, "Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands... and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas."

As officer-in-charge of the United States Navy office in Washington, DC, called the "Depot of Charts and Instruments," the young lieutenant became a librarian of the many unorganized log books and records in 1842. On his initiative, he sought to improve seamanship by organizing the information in his office and instituting a reporting system among the nation's shipmasters to gather further information on sea conditions and observations. The product of his work was international recognition and the publication in 1847 of Wind and Current Chart of the North Atlantic,

International meteorological conference

Maury also called for an international sea and land weather service. Having charted the seas and currents, he worked on charting land weather forecasting. Congress refused to appropriate funds for a nationwide land-based weather observation system.

Maury became convinced that adequate scientific knowledge of the sea could be obtained only through international cooperation. He proposed that the United States invite the maritime nations of the world to a conference to establish a "universal system" of meteorology, and he was the leading spirit of a pioneer scientific conference when it met in Brussels in 1853. Within a few years, nations owning three-fourths of the world's shipping were sending their oceanographic observations to Maury at the Naval Observatory, where the information was evaluated and the results were given worldwide distribution. Maury, along with other politicians, newspaper editors, merchants, and United States government officials, envisioned a future for slavery that linked the United States, the Caribbean Sea, and the Amazon basin in Brazil. He believed the future of United States commerce lay in South America, colonized by white southerners and the people they enslaved. There, Maury claimed, was "work to be done by Africans with the American axe in his hand." Maury was aware of a 1853 survey of the Amazon region conducted by the Navy Lt. William Lewis Herndon. The 1853 expedition aimed to map the area for trade so that American traders could go "with their goods and chattels [including enslaved people] to settle and to trade goods from South American countries along the river highways of the Amazon valley". When Virginia declared secession in April 1861, Maury nonetheless resigned his commission in the U.S. Navy, choosing to fight against the North. With the outbreak of the American Civil War, Maury joined the Confederacy. He was reburied between Presidents James Monroe and John Tyler in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.

Legacy

thumb|Maury Memorial at Goshen Pass overlooking the Maury River

thumb|right|Bust of Maury in the [[Hall of Fame for Great Americans, New York City]]

After decades of national and international work, Maury received fame and honors, including being knighted by several nations and given medals with precious gems as well as a collection of all medals struck by Pope Pius IX during his pontificate, a book dedication and more from Father Angelo Secchi, who was a student of Maury from 1848 to 1849 in the United States Naval Observatory. The two remained lifelong friends. Other religious friends of Maury included James Hervey Otey, his former teacher who, before 1857, worked with Bishop Leonidas Polk on the construction of the University of the South in Tennessee. While visiting, Maury was convinced by his old teacher to deliver the "cornerstone speech."

As a U.S. Navy officer, he declined awards from foreign nations. Some were offered to Maury's wife, Ann Hull Herndon-Maury, who accepted them on her husband's behalf. Some have been placed at Virginia Military Institute or lent to the Smithsonian. He became a commodore (often a title of courtesy) in the Virginia Provisional Navy and a Commander in the Confederacy.

thumb|Pathfinder of the Seas monument, [[Monument Avenue, Richmond, Virginia. Dedicated November 11, 1929. Removed July 2, 2020.]] Buildings on several college campuses are named in his memory. Maury Hall was the home of the Naval Science Department at the University of Virginia and headquarters of the university's Navy ROTC battalion until being renamed in 2022. Another Maury Hall housed the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and the Robotics and Control Engineering Department at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. On February 17, 2023, the Academy announced that it had renamed this building in honor of Jimmy Carter, the only Naval Academy graduate to become President of the United States. The change had been recommended by a naming commission created by federal law to reexamine Confederate-related names and symbols on military installations. James Madison University also has a Maury Hall, the university's first academic and administrative building. On Monday, June 22, 2020, hearing the calls of students and alums, the university president announced it would recommend to the JMU board of visitors to rename Maury Hall, along with Ashby Hall and Jackson Hall.

Ships have been named in his memory, including various vessels named ; USS Commodore Maury (SP-656), a patrol vessel and minesweeper

thumb|Portrait of Maury by Ella Sophonisba Hergesheimer, 1923

The Mariners' Lake, in Newport News, Virginia, had been named after Maury but had its name changed during the George Floyd protests. The lake is located on the Mariners' Museum property and is encircled by a walking trail.

The Maury River, entirely in Rockbridge County, Virginia, near Virginia Military Institute (where Maury taught), also memorializes the scientist, as does Maury crater, on the Moon.

Matthew Fontaine Maury High School in Norfolk, Virginia, is named after him. Matthew Maury Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia, was built in 1929. The school was renamed Naomi L. Brooks Elementary School in 2021 based on Maury's association with the Confederacy[https://wjla.com/news/local/alexandria-renames-maury-elementary-naomi-l-brooks-elementary-school], with the school's student moniker changed from "Mariners" to "Bees". Nearby Arlington, Va., renamed its 1910 Clarendon Elementary to memorialize Maury in 1944; Since 1976, the building has been home to the Arlington Arts Center (rebranded in 2022 as the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington). There is a county historical marker outside the former school. Matthew Fontaine Maury School in Fredericksburg was built in 1919-1920 and closed in 1980. The building was converted into condominiums and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Adjoining it is Maury Stadium, built in 1935 and still used for local high school sports events.

Numerous historical markers commemorate Maury throughout the South, including those in Richmond, Virginia,

Publications

thumb|right|First printed map of oceanic [[bathymetry, published by Maury in Explanations with data from USS Dolphin (1836)]]

  • On the Navigation of Cape Horn
  • Whaling Charts
  • Wind and Current Charts
  • Explanations and Sailing Directions to Accompany the Wind and Current Charts, 1851, 1854, 1855
  • Lieut. Maury's Investigations of the Winds and Currents of the Sea, 1851
  • On the Probable Relation between Magnetism and the Circulation of the Atmosphere, 1851
  • Maury's Wind and Current Charts: Gales in the Atlantic, 1857
  • Observations to Determine the Solar Parallax, 1856
  • Amazon, and the Atlantic Slopes of South America, 1853
  • Commander M. F. Maury on American Affairs, 1861
  • The Physical Geography of the Sea and Its Meteorology, 1861
  • Maury's New Elements of Geography for Primary and Intermediate Classes
  • Geography: "First Lessons"
  • Elementary Geography: Designed for Primary and Intermediate Classes
  • Geography: "The World We Live In"
  • Published Address of Com. M. F. Maury, before the Fair of the Agricultural & Mechanical Society
  • Geology: A Physical Survey of Virginia; Her Geographical Position, Its Commercial Advantages and National Importance, Virginia Military Institute, 1869

See also

  • Bathymetric chart
  • Flying Cloud
  • National Institute for the Promotion of Science
  • Oceanography
  • Prophet Without Honor

References

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Further reading

  • . 1996 website retrieved via the Wayback Search Engine
  • CBNnews VIDEO on Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury "The Father of Modern Oceanography"
  • Naval Oceanographic Office—Matthew Fontaine Maury Oceanographic Library&nbsp; — The World's Largest Oceanographic Library.
  • United States Naval Sea Cadet Corps&nbsp;— Matthew Fontaine Maury&nbsp;— Pathfinders Division.
  • The Maury Project; A comprehensive national program of teacher enhancement based on studies of the physical foundations of oceanography.
  • The Mariner's Museum: Matthew Fontaine Maury Society.
  • Letter to President John Quincy Adams from Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury (1847) on the "National" United States Naval Observatory regarding a written description of the observatory, in detail, with other information relating thereto, including an explanation of the objects and uses of the various instruments.
  • The National (Naval) Observatory and The Virginia Historical Society (May 1849)
  • Biography of Matthew Fontaine Maury at U.S. Navy Historical Center.
  • The Diary of Betty Herndon Maury, daughter of Matthew Fontaine Maury, 1861–1863.
  • Matthew Fontaine Maury School in Richmond, Virginia, USA, 1950s . Photographer: Nina Leen. Approximately 200 TIME-LIFE photographs
  • Astronomical Observations from the Naval Observatory 1845.
  • Obituary in:
  • Sample charts by Maury held by the American Geographical Society Library, UW Milwaukee in the digital map collection.