careers in the Marine and Maritime Field from 1800
Nathaniel Bowditch, Navigator
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Becween keeping che accounts for ships avigaror, machemacician, ascronomer, clerk, insurance company execucive, accounranr-Nachaniel Bowdicch and merchants, going to sea and learning to was all chese chings. He grew up in che lace 1700s in Salem, navigate, and having an insatiable interest Massachuseccs, which was chen an accive seaporc, where mosc ev- in mathematics and astronomy, he soon eryone in rown had someching ro do wich ships and che sea. Like became an expert in the science behind many boys in l 8'h-century America, Nachaniel Bowdicch lefr school celestial navigation. Bowdicch's book is useful because of ics accuracy and thoras a boy ro apprentice ro a skilled cradesman. Apprentices worked for free in exchange for being crained in a crade or business. His oughness, buc also because he wroce in a way chat anyone could apprenticeship began when he was cwelve years old, when he went understand. He determined that he would "put down nothing in ro learn bookkeeping from a local ship chandler (someone who che book [he couldn'c] teach the crew." By che end of his final voysells ship supplies and equipment). During his apprenticeship, he age to Asia in 1803, every member of the 12-man crew-even the mec many sea capcains and crewmembers, ship owners and ochers ship's cook-could take and calculate a lunar observation and then whose businesses were cied ro che sea. In his spare time, he scudied plot the ship's posidon on the chart. che books in che chandler's library and caughc himself algebra and Bowditch published many books and papers on mathematics, calculus, and Lacin, French, and several ocher foreign languages. astronomy, and navigation, but lhe New American Practical NaviWhen his apprenticeship ended in 1795, Nachaniel Bowdicch went gator was by far his most famous. This book is as useful today as it ro sea as a ship's clerk, and by his fifrh voyage ro che Far Ease he was was in 1802, and because of that, the United States government sailing as che ship's capcain. bought che copyright in 1866 and continues to update and publish For someone who was interesced in mach, going ro sea showed it, making it available to all. You can download the entire book for him how chis interesc had a very practical use. This was cwo cen- free online at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's webmries before tools like GPS and sacellices made navigacing easy. site. (Go to http://msi.nga.mil/NGAPortal/MSI.ponal. Click Back chen, sailors kepc crack of cheir course direccion and speed ro on "Publications" on che menu list. On the next window under decermine how far chey had craveled in a given direction , buc chis "Menu Options," select ''American Praccical Navigaror" and follow form of navigacing, called "dead reckoning," has ics limics. A more the instructions.) 1. reliable-buc more complicaced-way of navigacing ac sea was by taking measurements of the sun, stars, and moon and performing a series of calculations to determine a "fix," or position on a chart. At che time Nachaniel Bowditch went to sea, most mariners used a book called lhe Practical Navigator chac had printed tables of scar posicions and tides to calculace their location at sea. When Bowdicch began making his own calculations, he discovered chousands of errors in chis book and began recalculating all of the equations and cables. By che cime he was finished, he had redone just about everything and added so much new information chat he ended up publishing ic as a new book, lhe New American Practical Navigator (1802). Nathaniel Bowditch was a perfectionist, which is a good trait for a navigator. When the tools he had at hand, either reference books or nautical instruments, were not up to par, he didn't make excuses-he would just create new ones himself. The quadrant seen here (left) was one he built himself. The octant (upper right) was another one of his personal instruments. You can see both of these items on display at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem.
S>EA HISTORY 136, AUTUMN 2011