Nathaniel Bowditch receives honorary Master's Degree

Today's blog post is coming to you courtesy of Mass Moments, a program from the Mass Foundation for the Humanities. If you're a history buff, or a Massachusetts enthusiast, I highly recommend signing up for the daily Mass Moment e-mails. They are historical, educational, and often entertaining.

Here is today's moment:

On this day in 1802 Harvard College awarded Nathaniel Bowditch an honorary Master's Degree. The Salem-born astronomer, mathematician, and navigator was almost entirely self-educated. His formal schooling ended when he was ten. While apprenticed to a ship chandler, he taught himself mathematics, astronomy, Latin, Greek, and French. Later, during his years at sea, he began working on The New American Practical Navigator, the first complete and accurate handbook of navigation tables. The Practical Navigator was published in 1802. It is still in print, and in use, over two centuries later. Tradition has it that no sailor left port without a Bible, a chest of clothes, a mother's blessing, and his copy of Bowditch.

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You can click here for a printable PDF of the Nathaniel Bowditch Trail in Salem, which is "A walking tour of the great age of Sail."

Mass Humanities' Sources

American National Biography, Vol. 3 (Oxford University Press, 1999).

"Nathaniel Bowditch, Scientist," by Jim McCallister in "Salem Tales."

"Salem's Stellar Scientist: Nathanial Bowditch, An Appreciation," by Mildred Berman, SEXTANT, The Journal of Salem State College, Vol. III, No.1, 1996.

On this day...

Here's a Mass Moment about Salem and our good friend to the south, Marblehead:

...in 1635, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay established the town of Marblehead on land that belonged to Salem. The move was meant to punish Salem for allowing Roger Williams to express his "dangerous opinions." Marblehead residents, who never saw eye-to-eye with their more devout neighbors, were delighted, but less than a year later, the lawmakers reversed themselves. Marblehead finally became independent of Salem in 1649. The feisty fishermen of Marblehead were not the last to go their own way. Danvers, Peabody, Beverly, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Wenham, and a section of Topsfield were all once part of Salem. One by one, smaller new towns were formed out of one large old one. This pattern was repeated many times over the next 200 years.

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