Matthew Fontaine Maury (January 14, 1806 – February 1, 1873) 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, 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 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 utilize the ocean's currents and winds to their advantage, thereby drastically reducing the length of ocean voyages. Maury's uniform system of recording oceanographic data was adopted by navies and merchant marines worldwide and 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 intervene on behalf of the Confederacy. 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 completing an exhausting state-to-state lecture tour on national and international weather forecasting. He had also completed his book, Geological Survey of Virginia, and a new series on geography for young people.
Early life and career Maury 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 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 a naval appointment through the influence of Tennessee Representative Sam Houston, a family friend, in 1825, at the age of 19, with the rank of acting midshipman. Maury's first assignment was on the newly built frigate Brandywine, which was to carry the elderly Marquis de Lafayette home to France following his famous 1824 visit to the United States. Brandywine left from the Potomac River on 9 September 1825, and soon proved to be a fast sailer, making 11 knots as she left Chesapeake Bay and entered the Atlantic. They reached France on 4 October, and the Marquis went ashore at Le Havre. They then sailed to Cowes on the Isle of Wight, where the ship was calked. Maury was anxious to learn as much as possible about navigation, and during his time ashore was able to buy a copy of Norie's Epitome of Practical Navigation. They next sailed for the Mediterranean, reaching Gibralter on 2 November, where there was again shore leave. Maury wished to learn Spanish, and bought a Spanish dictionary and a Spanish textbook of navigation. They then left for Port Mahon on Minorca, the winter American naval rendezvous. Brandywine then returned to the United States, leaving on 26 February 1826, and arriving off Sandy Hook on 17 April. Once back in New York, Maury received his warrant confirming his position as midshipman. After taking the opportunity to visit relatives, Maury returned to New York on 1 June 1826 to rejoin Brandywine. They were to sail in company with the newly built sloop-of-war USS Vincennes for duty in the Pacific. They left in August headed for Rio de Janeiro. As they sailed into the South Atlantic, Maury was able to see the constellations of the southern skies and the Magellanic Clouds for the first time. They arrived in Rio on 28 October. After some difficulties with the authorities caused by the ongoing war between Brazil and Argentina, they left on 18 November, and as they sailed south, the ships were prepared for the stormy passage around Cape Horn, which took 17 days. On 26 December, the two ships anchored in Valparaíso where they liaised with other American ships, as well as HMS Cambridge of the Royal Navy, and carried out maintenance. On 24 January, Brandywine and Vincennes, together with the United States and Dolphin sailed north to Callao, arriving there on 9 February.
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