By Jere Dennison

 

This time each year during its annual meeting, FBYC awards its perpetual trophies to members that have excelled throughout the year in various aspects sailing, primarily racing. However, one trophy, first awarded by the Cruising Class in 1972 through the special generosity of Reid Dunn and Ray Toms, is not limited solely to members, but can be awarded to any individual or individuals for an ‘outstanding contribution to sailing.’ This trophy is indeed presented for highest achievement and does not require that there be a recipient in any year the Board lacks a suitable candidate.

 Understandably, there may be those among us who do not know the relevance of the man for whom this trophy is named. Sure, there is a bronze statue on Monument Avenue – a big globe with Maury seated on a pedestal in front with an engraving below that reads ‘Pathfinder of the Seas.’ But why is he so esteemed as to deserve a perpetual trophy presented in his name? Many have forgotten his significance in maritime history or may not be at all familiar with his legend.

Curiously when rummaging through some family papers recently, I discovered that my maternal grandfather also was attracted to the writing and study of history. On January 20, 1924, he and two other Richmonders addressed the United Daughters of the Confederacy at the Second Presbyterian Church in a service to honor three great Virginians born during the month of January. This trilogy covered the lives of Matthew Fontaine Maury, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. Maury’s memorial was delivered by my grandfather, an abbreviated version of which is reprinted below:

Matthew Fontaine Maury

by John Archer Coke

Matthew Fontaine Maury was born on January 14th, 1806. It was in Spottsylvania County, Virginia that he first saw the light of day- that county in which Stonewall Jackson, another great Virginian, to be spoken of here tonight, received his mortal wound. Maury was the descendant of a Huguenot family, on his father’s side. As his name would indicate, he was descended from the Fontaines and the Maurys, good old Huguenot stock.

Matthew was the fourth son, one of nine children. His father was a planter, and when Matthew was about five years old, the family moved to Tennessee, not far from Nashville. Maury’s years of childhood were years of hardship, living the simple, but rude, life of the early settlers. At a very early age, he began to show a strong inclination towards the acquisition of knowledge. Maury, having been rendered unfit for the hard farm life of those early days by a serious injury resulting from a fall, his father determined to indulge his great longing for an education.

Maury says of himself, “My first ambition to become a mathematician was excited by an old cobbler, Neal by name, who lived not far from my father’s house, and who used to send the shoes home to his customers all scratched with little x’s and y’s.” Paper being scarce in those days, the cobbler worked his mathematical problems out on the leather which he half-soled the shoes. After obtaining the very meager education afforded by the elementary schools of that rough country, he was sent to Harpeth Academy. His quick and studious mind and his sterling character soon won for him the respect and admiration of his instructors.

It is said that Maury’s inclination towards the sea was first aroused and then stimulated by the career of his eldest brother, John Minor Maury, who became one of the most brilliant of the younger officers of the navy, and whose career was so full of adventure and romance as to greatly excite the interest and admiration of young Matthew. Through the influence of a friend in Congress, he was appointed a midshipman. His father disapproved, though he did not forbid his son to accept the appointment, but he would not bear the expense of sending Matthew East to enter upon his duties. Nothing daunted, young Maury borrowed a horse and with a small amount of money he had earned, he set forth on his journey in 1825.

After active service of several years, he was, in 1831, appointed master of the sloop-of-war Falmouth and ordered to the Pacific station. It was while on the voyage to this destination that he conceived the idea of making a chart of the winds and currents, which, as later perfected, became of untold importance and benefit to the maritime commerce of the world. After some further cruises, he was assigned to land duty, and it was about this time that he commenced the preparation of a work on navigation. After this was finished, he applied again for active service and was assigned the duty of making surveys of Southern harbors.

While on leave of absence and on the way to New York, he was thrown from the top of a stagecoach and badly injured his leg. Due to the attentions of an incompetent surgeon, who first set his leg, it had to be rebroken and set, leaving him partially incapacitated for months and greatly interfering with his prospects of further sea duty. It was then that he began the publication of a remarkable series of articles on naval matters, and he soon became recognized as an authority on naval questions. Both during the time of his active sea duty and afterwards, Maury had been making notes of his observations of the winds and currents, and, having been placed in charge of the Depot of Charts and Instruments at Washington, he now sent to every shipmaster sailing from American ports printed forms, with blanks to be filled, giving information as to the currents, the winds and temperature conditions on their various voyages. From these were, in time, extracted with much labor very valuable information in the shape of “Wind and Current Charts,” which were immediately of great benefit in navigation. As a result of the interest aroused by his publications, a congress of the chief nations of the world was held at Brussels for the development of research work. Maury’s at this congress brought him great distinction and fame. Orders of knighthood were offered him and medals were struck in his honor.

It was Maury who discovered that there existed a broad level plateau at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, suitable for the laying of a telegraph cable to the other side. At a dinner given in New York in 1858, to celebrate the arrival of the first message across the Atlantic, Cyrus W. Field arose and said: “I am a man of few words; Maury furnished the brains, England gave the money, and I did the work.”

Upon the breaking out of the War Between the States, Maury promptly cast his lot with his native State and the Confederacy, and was appointed Chief of the Seacoast, Harbor and River Defenses. His invention of an efficient electrical torpedo and other inventions were of great value to the Southern cause. Returning from a mission to England, he received news of the fall of the Confederacy upon his arrival at St. Thomas, in the West Indies. He surrendered his sword and took up his residence in Mexico and later in England. In 1868, he was permitted to return to his native soil, and upon his return became Professor of Physics at the Virginia Military Institute. While there he renewed his friendship with General Lee (then President at Washington College in Lexington); a friendship of former years when Lee lived at Arlington and he at the Washington Observatory, near-by.

As a result of fatigue and exposure on a trip to St. Louis in 1872, his health gave way, and after an illness of four months, he died February 1st, 1873. To the request of his wife that she might be allowed to bury him in Richmond, where she herself expected to lie, he replied gently: “Very well, my dear, then let my body remain here until the spring, and when you take me through Goshen Pass, you must pluck the rhododendrons and the mountain ivy and lay them upon me.” So passed to his reward a great Virginian, but, though dead, his works still live. Remembrance of him and of his noble example will continue for all time to be an inspiration to us all and a force for good through the coming generations.

(The river that flows through the spectacularly scenic Goshen Pass has been named the Maury River.)