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85-628: The venture was conceived by Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury . Because of his work for the Confederate Secret Service , Maury was unable to return home to Virginia . Maury, as an internationally famous oceanographer and navy man, was a long-time friend of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico and had been awarded a medal by Maximilian before the Civil War. Maximilian had been a commander of the Austrian Navy and awarded Maury

170-784: A commodore (often a title of courtesy ) in the Virginia Provisional Navy and a Commander in the Confederacy. Buildings on several college campuses are named in his honor. 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. The original building of the College of William & Mary Virginia Institute of Marine Science

255-524: A midshipman's warrant in the United States Navy. As a midshipman on board the frigate USS  Brandywine , he almost immediately began to study the seas and record methods of navigation. When a leg injury left him unfit for sea duty, Maury devoted his time to studying navigation, meteorology, winds, and currents. He became Superintendent of the Depot of Charts and Instruments, later renamed

340-592: A Superintendent's House on the Observatory grounds. Adams thus felt no constraint in regularly stopping by for a look through the facility's telescope. As a sailor, Maury noted numerous lessons that ship masters had learned about the effects of adverse winds and drift currents on the path of a ship. The captains recorded the lessons faithfully in their logbooks, which were then forgotten. At the Observatory, Maury uncovered an enormous collection of thousands of old ships' logs and charts in storage in trunks dating back to

425-497: 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

510-690: A few years, nations owning three-fourths of the shipping of the world were sending their oceanographic observations to Maury at the Naval Observatory, where the information was evaluated and the results were given worldwide distribution. As its representative at the conference, the United States sent Maury. As a result of the Brussels Conference, many nations, including many traditional enemies, agreed to cooperate in sharing land and sea weather data using uniform standards. It

595-473: A land system of weather observations. 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

680-439: A major authority in the areas of Precise Time and Time Interval , Earth orientation , astrometry , and celestial observation. In collaboration with many national and international scientific establishments, it determines the timing and astronomical data required for accurate navigation , astrometry , and fundamental astronomy , and calculation methods — and distributes this information (such as star catalogs ) on-line and in

765-410: 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. In the wake of the 2020 George Floyd protests , JMU student organizations called for renaming the building. On Monday, June 22, 2020, hearing the calls of students and alums,

850-482: 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 Brandywine , which was carrying the elderly Marquis de La Fayette 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

935-494: A network of planned settlements to Maximilian, who liked what he heard. They were to be primarily in the agricultural regions surrounding Mexico City but also in the northern areas around Monterrey and Chihuahua. American "colonization agents" were appointed to districts, and Maury began to prepare surveys for the proposed colonies. One of Maury's colleagues was explorer and archeologist William Marshall Anderson , whose brother, U.S. Brevet Major General Robert Anderson , had commanded

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1020-450: A number of countries since 1639 resulted in a progressively more accurate definition of the AU . Relying strongly on photographic methods, the naval observers returned 350  photographic plates in 1874, and 1,380 measurable plates in 1882. The results of the surveys conducted simultaneously from several locations around the world (for each of the two transits) produced a final value of

1105-671: A school for the Navy that would rival the Army's United States Military Academy . That reform was heavily pushed by Maury's "Scraps from the Lucky Bag" and other articles printed in the newspapers, bringing about many changes in the Navy, including his finally fulfilled dream of the creation of the United States Naval Academy . During its first 1848 meeting, he helped launch the American Association for

1190-563: A stability reaching 7 × 10 . The observatory plans to build several more of this type for use at its two facilities. The clocks used for the USNO timescale are kept in 19 environmental chambers, whose temperatures are kept constant to within 0.1°C. The relative humidities are kept constant in all maser, and most cesiums enclosures, to within 1%. Time-scale management only uses the clocks in Washington, DC, and of those, preferentially uses

1275-692: A warm surface current pushing into the Arctic, and logs of old whaling ships indicated that whales killed in the Atlantic bore harpoons from ships in the Pacific (and vice versa). The frequency of these occurrences seemed unlikely if the whales had traveled around Cape Horn . Lieutenant Maury published his Wind and Current Chart of the North Atlantic , which showed sailors how to use the ocean's currents and winds to their advantage, drastically reducing

1360-606: Is named Maury Hall as well. 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

1445-1143: The American Civil War , Maury joined the Confederacy. Upon his resignation from the U.S. Navy, the Virginia governor appointed Maury commander of the Virginia Navy. When this was consolidated into the Confederate Navy, Maury was made a Commander in the Confederate States Navy and appointed as chief of the Naval Bureau of Coast, Harbor, and River Defense. In this role, Maury helped develop the first electrically controlled naval mine, which caused havoc for U.S. shipping. He'd had experience with transatlantic cable and electricity flowing through wires underwater when working with Cyrus West Field and Samuel Finley Breese Morse . The naval mines, called torpedoes at that time, were similar to present-day contact mines and were said by

1530-795: 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 honors 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. Nearby Arlington, Va., renamed its 1910 Clarendon Elementary to honor Maury in 1944; Since 1976,

1615-822: The Nautical Almanac Office a division in Astronomical Applications. The Orbital Mechanics Department operated under P. Kenneth Seidelmann until 1994, when the department was abolished and its functions transferred to a group within the Astronomical Applications Department. In 2010, USNO's astronomical 'department' known as the Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station (NOFS) was officially made autonomous as an Echelon 5 command, separate from, but still reporting to

1700-520: The Secret Service . The house is separated from the Naval Observatory. Before serving as the vice president's residence, it was that of the observatory's superintendent, and later the chief of naval operations . The U.S. Naval Observatory operates two “Master Clock” facilities, one in Washington, DC, and the other at Schriever SFB near Colorado Springs, CO . The observatory also operates four rubidium atomic fountain clocks, which have

1785-466: The United States Naval Observatory , in 1844. 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 use the ocean's currents and winds to their advantage, drastically reducing the length of ocean voyages. Maury's uniform system of recording oceanographic data was adopted by navies and merchant marines worldwide and

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1870-728: The United States Navy and the United States Department of Defense . Established in 1830 as the Depot of Charts and Instruments , it is one of the oldest scientific agencies in the United States , and remains the country's leading facility for astronomical and timing data. The observatory is located in Northwest Washington, D.C. at the northwestern end of Embassy Row . It is among

1955-764: The University of Tennessee . From statements that he made in letters, it appears that he preferred being close to General Robert E. Lee in Lexington, where Lee was president of Washington College. Maury served as a pallbearer for Lee. He also gave talks in Europe about cooperation on a weather bureau for land, just as he had charted the winds and predicted storms at sea many years before. He gave speeches until his last days when he collapsed while giving one. He went home after he recovered and told his wife Ann Hull Herndon-Maury, "I have come home to die." He died at home in Lexington at 12:40 pm on Saturday, February 1, 1873. He

2040-577: The University of the South in Tennessee. While visiting there, Maury was convinced by his old teacher to give the "cornerstone speech." As a U.S. Navy officer, he was required to decline awards from foreign nations. Some were offered to Maury's wife, Ann Hull Herndon-Maury, who accepted them for her husband. Some have been placed at Virginia Military Institute or lent to the Smithsonian . He became

2125-758: The meridian . It opened in 1844 in Foggy Bottom , north of the site of the Lincoln Memorial and west of the White House . In 1893, the observatory moved to its current location in Northwest Washington, D.C. located on a 2000 foot circle of land atop "Observatory Hill", overlooking Massachusetts Avenue . In 2017, the facilities were listed on the National Register of Historic Places . The first superintendent

2210-552: The solar parallax , after adjustments, of 8.809″, with a probable error of 0.0059″, yielding a U.S.-determined Earth-Sun distance of 92,797,000 mi (149,342,000 km), with a probable error of 59,700 mi (96,100 km). The calculated distance was a significant improvement over several previous estimates. The telescope used for the discovery of the Moons of Mars was the 26 inch (66 cm) refractor telescope, then located at Foggy Bottom , Washington, DC. In 1893 it

2295-491: The 1970s the Naval Observatory campus hosts the official residence of the vice president of the United States . President John Quincy Adams , who in 1825 signed the bill for the creation of a national observatory just before leaving presidential office, had intended for it to be called the National Observatory. The names "National Observatory" and "Naval Observatory" were both used for 10 years, until

2380-665: The 20th century, the service was broadcast by radio, with Arlington time signal available to those with wireless receivers. In November 1913 the Paris Observatory , using the Eiffel Tower as an antenna , exchanged sustained wireless (radio) signals with the U.S. Naval Observatory to determine the exact difference of longitude between the two institutions, via an antenna in Arlington, Virginia . The U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington continues to be

2465-608: The Advancement of Science (AAAS). In 1849, Maury spoke out on the need for a transcontinental railroad to join the Eastern United States to California . He recommended a southerly route with Memphis, Tennessee , as the eastern terminus, as it is equidistant from Lake Michigan and the Gulf of Mexico . He argued that a southerly route running through Texas would avoid winter snows and could open up commerce with

2550-531: The Confederacy. Maury traveled to England, Ireland, and France, acquiring and fitting out ships for the Confederacy and soliciting supplies. Through speeches and newspaper publications, Maury unsuccessfully called for European nations to intercede on behalf of the Confederacy and help end the American Civil War. Maury established relations for the Confederacy with Emperor Napoleon III of France and Archduke Maximilian of Austria , who, on April 10, 1864,

2635-641: The French withdrew from Carlota in March 1867, the area was overrun by the forces of Juárez and the remaining New Virginia colonists fled the area. The New Virginia settlements were abandoned as the anti-Maximilian forces reached them. The survivors generally relocated toward the coast. The imperial government ended in May 1867 and most of the settlers left Mexico. Matthew Fontaine Maury Matthew Fontaine Maury (January 14, 1806 – February 1, 1873)

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2720-402: The Observatory rose from humble beginnings: Placed under the command of Lieutenant Louis M. Goldsborough , with an annual budget of $ 330; its primary function was the restoration, repair, and rating of navigational instruments. It was established as a national observatory in 1842 by federal law and a Congressional appropriation of $ 25,000. Lt.  J.M. Gilliss was put in charge of "obtaining

2805-584: The R/V Matthew F. Maury . The ship is used for oceanography research and student cruises. In March 2013, the U.S. Navy launched the oceanographic survey ship USNS Maury (T-AGS-66), in 2023 the ship was renamed USNS Marie Tharp . 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

2890-539: The Secretary of the Navy in 1865 "to have cost the Union more vessels than all other causes combined." In September 1862, Maury, partly because of his international reputation, and partly due to jealousy of superior officers who wanted him placed at some distance, was ordered on special service to England. There, he sought to purchase and fit ships for the Confederacy and persuade European powers to recognize and support

2975-541: The Secretary of the Navy officially adopted the latter. Adams had made protracted efforts to bring astronomy to a national level. He spent many nights at the observatory, watching and charting the stars, which had always been one of his interests. Established by order of the United States Secretary of the Navy John Branch on 6 December 1830 as the Depot of Charts and Instruments,

3060-580: The South, including those in Richmond, Virginia, Fletcher, North Carolina , Franklin, Tennessee , and several in Chancellorsville, Virginia . The Matthew Fontaine Maury Papers collection at the Library of Congress contains over 14,000 items. It documents Maury's extensive career and scientific endeavors, including correspondence, notebooks, lectures, and written speeches. On July 2, 2020,

3145-547: The USN 1854 Darien Exploration Expedition , and others. Their duty at the observatory was always temporary, and new men had to be trained repeatedly. Thus Lt. Maury was simultaneously employed with astronomical and nautical work, as well as constantly training new temporary men to assist in these works. As his reputation grew, the competition among young midshipmen to be assigned to work with him intensified. Thus, he always had able assistants. Maury advocated for naval reform, including

3230-442: The USNO in Washington. In the alpine woodlands above 7,000 feet altitude outside Flagstaff, Arizona , NOFS performs its national, Celestial Reference Frame (CRF) mission under dark skies in that region. A house situated on the grounds of the observatory, at Number One Observatory Circle, has been the official residence of the vice president of the United States since 1974. It is protected by tight security control enforced by

3315-404: The USNO time since 1978. The voice announcements always begin with the local time (daylight or standard), and include a background of 1 second ticks. Local time announcements are made on the minute, and 15, 30, and 45 seconds after the minute. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is announced 5 seconds after the local time. Upon connecting, only the second-marking ticks are heard for

3400-581: The Union soldiers at Fort Sumter . Two others had worked for Maury when he was the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory . His eldest son, Colonel Richard Launcelot Maury, had also emigrated to Mexico. Maury had plans for his entire family to relocate there eventually. Virginia was war-torn: "back to what? To poverty and misery . . ." declared Maury in a September 1865 letter. Confederate generals such as Fighting Jo Shelby , Edmund Kirby Smith , John B. Magruder , Sterling Price , Thomas C. Hindman , and Alexander W. Terrell made their way to Mexico after

3485-757: The Virginia Military Institute library. Maury was initially buried in the Gilham family vault in Lexington's cemetery, across from Stonewall Jackson , until, after some delay, his remains were taken through Goshen Pass to Richmond, Virginia the following year He was reburied between Presidents James Monroe and John Tyler in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. 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

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3570-536: The advice of Robert E. Lee and other friends, he decided not to return to Virginia but sent a letter of surrender to U.S. naval forces in the Gulf of Mexico and headed for Mexico. There Maximilian , whom he had met in Europe, appointed him "Imperial Commissioner of Colonization". Maury and Maximilian planned to entice former Confederates to emigrate to Mexico, building Carlotta and New Virginia Colony for displaced Confederates and immigrants from other lands. Upon learning of

3655-700: The annual publications The Astronomical Almanac and The Nautical Almanac . Former USNO director Gernot M. R. Winkler initiated the " Master clock " service that the USNO still operates, and which provides precise time to the GPS satellite constellation run by the United States Space Force . The alternate Master Clock time service continues to operate at Schriever Space Force Base in Colorado . In 1990 two departments were established: Orbital Mechanics and Astronomical Applications, with

3740-790: 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

3825-494: The clocks that currently conform reliably to the time reports of the majority. It is the combined ‘vote’ of the ensemble that constitutes the otherwise-fictitious “Master Clock”. The time-scale computations on 7 June 2007 weighted 70 of the clocks into the standard. The U.S. Naval Observatory provides public time service via 26  NTP servers on the public Internet , and via telephone voice announcements: The voice of actor Fred Covington (1928–1993) has been announcing

3910-535: The exact time. By the end of the American Civil War, the Observatory's clocks were linked via telegraph to ring the alarm bells in all of the Washington, D.C. firehouses three times a day. The USNO held a one-off time-ball re-enactment for the year-2000 celebration. In 1849, the Nautical Almanac Office (NAO) was established in Cambridge, Massachusetts as a separate organization. In 1866, it

3995-468: The experiences that piqued this interest was circumnavigating the globe on the USS ; Vincennes , his assigned ship and the first U.S. warship to travel around the world. 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

4080-461: The few pre-20th century astronomical observatories located in an urban area. In 1893, in an effort to escape light pollution , it was relocated from Foggy Bottom near the city's center, to its Northwest Washington, D.C. location. The USNO has conducted significant scientific studies throughout its history, including measuring the speed of light, observing solar eclipses, and discovering the moons of Mars. Its achievements include providing data for

4165-447: The first radio time signals, constructing some of the earliest and most accurate telescopes of their kind, and helping develop universal time . The Naval Observatory performs radio VLBI -based positions of quasars for astrometry and geodesy with numerous global collaborators ( IERS ), in order to produce Earth orientation parameters and to realize the celestial reference system ( ICRF ). Aside from its scientific mission, since

4250-493: 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 , causing the change of purpose and renaming of the depot to the United States Naval Observatory and Hydrographical Office in 1854. He held that position until his resignation in April 1861. Maury

4335-444: The institution of slavery has been termed "proslavery international". 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 their enslaved people. There, Maury claimed,

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4420-402: The instruments needed and books." Lt. Gilliss visited the principal observatories of Europe with the mission to purchase telescopes and other scientific devices, and books. The observatory's primary mission was to care for the United States Navy 's marine chronometers , charts, and other navigational equipment. It calibrated ships' chronometers by timing the transit of stars across

4505-531: The length of voyages. His Sailing Directions and Physical Geography of the Seas and Its Meteorology remain standard. Maury's uniform system of recording synoptic oceanographic data was adopted by navies and merchant marines around the world and was used to develop charts for all the major trade routes. Maury's Naval Observatory team included midshipmen assigned to him: James Melville Gilliss , Lieutenants John Mercer Brooke , William Lewis Herndon , Lardner Gibbon , Isaac Strain , John "Jack" Minor Maury II of

4590-483: The mayor of Richmond, Levar Stoney ordered the removal of a statue of Maury erected in 1929 on Richmond's Monument Avenue. The mayor used his emergency powers to bypass a state-mandated review process, calling the statue a "severe, immediate and growing threat to public safety." United States Naval Observatory The United States Naval Observatory ( USNO ) is a scientific and military facility that produces geopositioning , navigation and timekeeping data for

4675-439: The medal for his work in oceanography. Maximilian liked Maury and encouraged his idea of inviting Confederates to resettle in Mexico. The Emperor offered land grants to any who would come and stay, but settlers could not bring slaves into Mexico, as slavery was banned by Mexican law. He was also eagerly seeking settlers from Germany , Austria , and France , as part of his strategy to rebuild and colonize Mexico. Maury explained

4760-412: The northern states of Mexico . Maury also advocated construction of a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama . For his scientific endeavors, Maury was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1852. 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

4845-400: The past millennium. An early scientific duty assigned to the Observatory was the U.S. contribution to the definition of the Astronomical Unit , or the AU , which defines a standard mean distance between the Sun and the Earth. This was conducted under the auspices of the congressionally-funded U.S. Transit of Venus Commission. The astronomical measurements taken of the transit of Venus by

4930-440: The plan, Lee wrote Maury saying, "The thought of abandoning the country, and all that must be left in it, is abhorrent to my feelings, and I prefer to struggle for its restoration, and share its fate, rather than to give up all as lost." In the end, the plan did not attract the intended immigrants and Maximilian, facing increasing opposition in Mexico, ended it. Maury then returned to England in 1866 and found work there. In 1868 he

5015-412: The proposals, and Maury's proposal received little or no support in the United States, especially in the South, which sought to perpetuate the institution and the riches made off the yoke of slavery. By 1855, the proposal had failed. Brazil authorized free navigation to all nations in the Amazon in 1866, only when it was at war against Paraguay, when free navigation in the area had become necessary. Maury

5100-446: The river highways of the Amazon valley". Brazil maintained legal enslavement but had prohibited the importation of newly enslaved people from Africa in 1850 under the pressure of the British. Maury proposed that moving people enslaved in the United States to Brazil would reduce or eliminate slavery over time in as many areas of the southern United States as possible and would end new enslavement for Brazil. Maury's primary concern, however,

5185-411: The slave trade that accompanied his scientific achievements. Maury staunchly opposed secession, but in 1860, he wrote letters to the governors of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland urging them to stop the momentum toward war. 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

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5270-404: The space-borne Hubble Space Telescope . Because of light pollution in the Washington metropolitan area , USNO relocated the 40 inch telescope to Flagstaff, Arizona . A new Navy command, now called the USNO Flagstaff Station (NOFS), was established there. Those operations began in 1955. Within a decade, the Navy's largest telescope, the 61 inch " Kaj Strand Astrometric Reflector"

5355-415: The start of the U.S. Navy. He pored over the documents, collecting information on winds, calms, and currents for all seas in all seasons. His dream was to put that information in the hands of all captains. Maury's work on ocean currents and investigations of the whaling industry led him to suspect that a warm-water, ice-free northern passage existed between the Atlantic and Pacific. He thought he detected

5440-429: 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 honor, including various vessels named USS  Maury ; USS Commodore Maury (SP-656), a patrol vessel and minesweeper of World War I; and a World War II Liberty Ship . Additionally, Tidewater Community College, based in Norfolk, Virginia , owns

5525-399: The war, as did Pendleton Murrah , the recently-elected governor of Texas. Throughout the period, Maximilian's regime was attacked by Republican forces commanded by Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz . From 1865 onward, Juárez and Díaz were supplied covertly from a U.S. Army depot in El Paso, Texas . In 1866, Napoleon III withdrew the French troops that had been assisting Maximilian. When

5610-433: The war. 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 he had completed an exhausting state-to-state lecture tour on national and international weather forecasting on land. He had also completed his book, Geological Survey of Virginia , and a new series on geography for young people. Maury

5695-505: Was "work to be done by Africans with the American axe in his hand." In the 1850s, he studied a way to send Virginia's slaves to Brazil as a way to phase out slavery in the state gradually. Maury was aware of an 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

5780-504: Was Navy Commander M.F. Maury . Maury had the world's first vulcanized time ball , created to his specifications by Charles Goodyear for the U.S. Observatory. Placed into service in 1845, it was the first time ball in the United States and the 12th in the world. Maury kept accurate time by the stars and planets. The time ball was dropped every day except Sunday, precisely at the astronomically defined moment of mean solar noon ; this enabled all ships and civilians within sight to know

5865-523: 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

5950-476: 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 ,

6035-483: Was built; it saw light at Flagstaff in 1964. USNO continues to maintain its dark-sky observatory, NOFS , near Flagstaff . This facility now oversees the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer . By the early 1870s the USNO daily noon-time signal was distributed electrically, nationwide, via the Western Union Telegraph Company. Time was also "sold" to the railroads and was used in conjunction with railroad chronometers to schedule American rail transport. Early in

6120-416: Was exhausted from traveling throughout the nation giving speeches promoting land meteorology. His eldest son, Major Richard Launcelot Maury, and son-in-law, Major Spottswood Wellford Corbin, attended him at the time. Maury asked his daughters and wife to leave the room. His last words, recorded verbatim, were "all's well," a nautical expression meaning calm conditions at sea. His body was placed on display in

6205-408: 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

6290-486: 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

6375-504: Was moved to Washington, D.C. , operating near Fort Myer. It relocated to the U.S. Naval Observatory grounds in 1893. On 20 September 1894, the NAO became a "branch" of USNO; however, it remained autonomous for several years. The site houses the largest astronomy library in the United States (and the largest astrophysical periodicals collection in the world). The library includes a large collection of rare physics and astronomy books from

6460-415: Was moved to its Northwest DC location. In 1934, the largest optical telescope installed at USNO saw "first light". This 40 inch aperture instrument was also the second (and final) telescope made by famed optician, George Willis Ritchey . The Ritchey–Chrétien telescope design has since become the de facto optical design for nearly all major telescopes, including the famed Keck telescopes and

6545-648: Was neither the freedom of enslaved people nor the amelioration of slavery in Brazil, but rather an absolution for slaveholders of Virginia and other southern states. Maury wrote to his cousin, "Therefore I see in the slave territory of the Amazon the SAFETY VALVE of the Southern States." Maury wanted to open up the Amazon to free navigation in his plan. However, Emperor Pedro II 's government firmly rejected

6630-433: Was not an enslaver, but he did not actively oppose the institution of slavery. An article tying his legacy in oceanography to the slave trade suggested that Maury was ambivalent about slavery, seeing it as wrong but not intent on forcing others to free enslaved people. However, a recent article explaining the removal of his monument from Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, illustrated a proslavery stance through deep ties to

6715-663: Was offered the position as its first president but turned it down because of his age. He had previously been suggested as president of the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia , in 1848 by Benjamin Blake Minor in his publication the Southern Literary Messenger . He considered becoming president of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, the University of Alabama , and

6800-490: Was one of the principal advocates for founding a national observatory and he appealed to a science enthusiast and former U.S. president, Representative John Quincy Adams , for the creation of what would eventually become the Naval Observatory. Maury occasionally hosted Adams, who enjoyed astronomy as an avocation, at the Naval Observatory. Concerned that Maury always had a long trek to and from his home on upper Pennsylvania Avenue, Adams introduced an appropriations bill that funded

6885-574: Was pardoned by the federal government and returned to the US, accepting a teaching position at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, holding the chair of physics. While in Lexington, he completed a physical survey of Virginia, which he documented in the book The Physical Geography of Virginia . He had once been a gold mining superintendent outside Fredericksburg and had studied geology intensely during that time, so he

6970-629: Was proclaimed Emperor of Mexico. At an early stage in the war, the Confederate States Congress assigned Maury and Francis H. Smith, a mathematics professor at the University of Virginia, to develop a system of weights and measures. Maury was in the West Indies on his way back to the Confederacy when he learned of its collapse. The war had brought ruin to many in Fredericksburg, where Maury's immediate family lived. On

7055-697: Was soon after the Brussels conference that Prussia, Spain, Sardinia, the Free City of Hamburg, the Republic of Bremen, Chile, Austria, Brazil, and others agreed to join the enterprise. The Pope established honorary flags of distinction for the ships of the Papal States, which could be awarded only to the vessels that filled out and sent to Maury in Washington, DC, the Maury abstract logs. Maury's stance on

7140-570: 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, CSS  Georgia , while trying to convince several European powers to help stop

7225-565: Was well-equipped to write such a book. He aimed to assist war-torn Virginia in rebuilding by discovering and extracting minerals, improving farming, etc. He lectured extensively in the United States and abroad. He advocated for creating a state agricultural college as an adjunct to Virginia Military Institute. This led to the establishment at Blacksburg of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College , later renamed Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, in 1872. Maury

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