Matthew Fontaine Maury

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. Maury joined the Navy as a midshipman on board the frigate , which was carrying the elderly Marquis de Lafayette 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 the experiences that piqued this interest was circumnavigating the globe on the , his assigned ship and the first U.S. warship to travel around the world. ==Scientific career==

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 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 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, ==International meteorological conference==

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 a nationwide land-based weather observation system. 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 a few years, nations owning three-fourths of the world's shipping 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 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. == Proposed deportation of enslaved people to Brazil ==

Maury's stance on 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 the people they enslaved. There, Maury claimed, was "work to be done by Africans with the American axe in his hand." Maury was aware of a 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 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, 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 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 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, highlighted a proslavery stance through his deep ties to the slave trade, which accompanied his scientific achievements. ==American Civil War==

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 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 appointed Commander in the Confederate States Navy and became 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 significant damage to U.S. shipping. Maury 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 described by the Secretary of the Navy in 1865 as "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 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, 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. ==Later life==

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 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 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 accepted a pardon from the U.S. government. He returned to the US, teaching physics at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. While in Lexington, he conducted 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 was well-equipped to write such a book. He aimed to assist war-torn Virginia in rebuilding by discovering and extracting minerals, improving farming practices, and other efforts. He lectured extensively in the United States and abroad. He advocated for creating a state agricultural college as an adjunct to the Virginia Military Institute. This led to the establishment of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College in Blacksburg in 1872, later renamed Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Maury 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 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." ==Death and burial==

He died at home in Lexington at 12:40 pm on Saturday, February 1, 1873. He 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. He was reburied between Presidents James Monroe and John Tyler in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. ==Legacy==

, New York City 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 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 the University of the South in Tennessee. While visiting, Maury was convinced by his old teacher to deliver the "cornerstone speech." As a U.S. Navy officer, he declined awards from foreign nations. Some were offered to Maury's wife, Ann Hull Herndon-Maury, who accepted them on her husband's behalf. Some have been placed at Virginia Military Institute or lent to the Smithsonian. He became a commodore (often a title of courtesy) in the Virginia Provisional Navy and a Commander in the Confederacy. , Richmond, Virginia. Dedicated November 11, 1929. Removed July 2, 2020. Buildings on several college campuses are named in his memory. 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. 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 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. On Monday, June 22, 2020, hearing the calls of students and alums, 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 memory, including various vessels named ; USS Commodore Maury (SP-656), a patrol vessel and minesweeper 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 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 memorializes 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. The school was renamed Naomi L. Brooks Elementary School in 2021 based on Maury's association with the Confederacy, with the school's student moniker changed from "Mariners" to "Bees". Nearby Arlington, Va., renamed its 1910 Clarendon Elementary to memorialize Maury in 1944; Since 1976, 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 the South, including those in Richmond, Virginia, ==Publications==

, published by Maury in Explanations with data from USS Dolphin (1836) • On the Navigation of Cape Horn • Whaling Charts • Wind and Current Charts • • Explanations and Sailing Directions to Accompany the Wind and Current Charts, 1851, 1854, 1855 • Lieut. Maury's Investigations of the Winds and Currents of the Sea, 1851 • On the Probable Relation between Magnetism and the Circulation of the Atmosphere, 1851 • ''Maury's Wind and Current Charts: Gales in the Atlantic'', 1857 • • Observations to Determine the Solar Parallax, 1856 • Amazon, and the Atlantic Slopes of South America, 1853 • Commander M. F. Maury on American Affairs, 1861 • The Physical Geography of the Sea and Its Meteorology, 1861 • ''Maury's New Elements of Geography for Primary and Intermediate Classes'' • Geography: "First Lessons" • Elementary Geography: Designed for Primary and Intermediate Classes • Geography: "The World We Live In" • Published Address of Com. M. F. Maury, before the Fair of the Agricultural & Mechanical Society • Geology: A Physical Survey of Virginia; Her Geographical Position, Its Commercial Advantages and National Importance, Virginia Military Institute, 1869 ==See also==