Nathaniel Bowditch (1773--1838)  Historical Sketch

About fourteen miles north of Boston is the delightful town of Salem, Massachusetts, which now has a population of about 45,000. Located in a beautiful harbor setting, Salem is known by most as the site of the famous witch trials of 1692, but the locals still honor the fact that it is the place where Nathaniel Bowditch was born in early 1773. As just one example of this remembrance, there is a Nathaniel Bowditch School for grades K-8 in Salem, and both the house where he was born as well as the house where he lived later are extant.

Nathaniel was not born of formally educated parents. His father was a maker of wooden casks, widely used in those days; and the Salem area was where he was to live until he was 50. Life was not easy, and Nathaniel had to quit school at age 10 so as to help his father. Then from age 12 to 18, though he worked for other companies, he educated himself in languages and in mathematics. By a stroke of some luck, a local Irish scientist with an extensive library allowed the young Bowditch to use it from the time he was 18, and Bowditch learned calculus, Latin, and French. Between ages 22 and 26, he sailed on merchant ships. He continued his studies while at sea, learning higher mathematics.

At age 31, married and starting a family, Bowditch entered upon a business career, becoming president of a Salem company that prospered under his leadership. All the while, he continued to study mathematics and astronomy, as well as what later became known as Lissajous figures, making many contributions of his discoveries through his scientific publications, including naval charts of harbors. He was eventually offered but turned down professorships at Harvard University, West Point, and the University of Virginia. Continuing to publish papers in scientific journals in the U. S. and Europe, he became known to the worldwide scientific community, as witnessed by his election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Society of London, and the Royal Irish Academy.

At age 50, Bowditch took a job as an actuary in Boston. There, he published his English translation of Laplace's four-volume work on celestial mechanics, a truly major piece of work.

Today, you can find numerous books on navigation by Bowditch, the "flagship" of which is his The American Practical Navigator (1802), a thick volume that for many years was (and an updated version possibly still is) the standard textbook in ocean navigation courses. Now that is staying power for a book with so much mathematical content!