‘PATHFINDER OF SEAS’: Maury Innovated Navigational Theories

MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY, by Frances Leigh Williams. Rutgers University Press, $10.

Reviewed by JOHN J. SYNON

Those curious folk who wonder why that statue is there — the one farthest west on Monument-can get an exquisite answer from Miss Frances Leigh Williams’ new book,

“Matthew Fontaine Maury, Scientist of the Sea.”

Commodore Maury, as the book’s title implies, was the sailor who made a science of seafaring. Until Maury applied his theories of wind and current, sailing masters since the time of Noah had been navigating with nothing more than a sextant, a compass and the seat of their britches.

Maury changed that. He told seamen where to sail and when charted their routes

-and promised, if they followed his advice, they would be the richer for doing so; time at sea, as elsewhere, being money.

Eventually, a Captain Jackson, “an old hand on the Rio run”-and indubitably the first man ever to eat an oyster-followed Maury’s counselling. As a result Jackson made the trip from the Virginia Capes to Rio in 17 days less than the record.

CAPTAIN Jackson’s phenomenal voyage was the break Maury needed. It made Maury and it made a science of what had been an art.

Such is the heart of Miss Williams’s book but it is far from the whole of it. Everything known about this Spotsylvania county native is to be found in her biography. Indeed, it would have to be. Miss Williams once was a researcher for the late Douglas Freeman, former editor of The News Leader, and it isn’t likely, even at this late date, Miss Williams would dare overlook a fact.

In any event, Commodore Maury earned his monument; it is his for many reasons.

When the war came along Maury, no less than others whose statues grace the city, suffered terrible internal conflict. In the end, like the rest of them, he resigned from the service he loved, put aside his career and the comfort and safety of his family and cast his lot with. Virginia.

AFTER THE WAR, from 1869 until his death’ in 1873, Maury was professor of physics at Virginia Military Institute.

He rests now in Hollywood Cemetery, close beside Presidents Monroe and Tyler. And to a tradition-minded Virginian given to prowling those consecrated hills, it is regrettable that his grave, as theirs, lacks the sheen it might have. You would think VMI alumni-but no matter, that is the way the laurel crumbles.

Withal, it will be a distant day before Matthew Fontaine Maury is clean forgot. He won’t be, not so long as Miss Williams’s fine book is in print.

Mr. Synon is a local public relations consultant, specializing in politics.