CSN Maury, Matthew F.

Matthew Fontaine Maury​

Born: January 14, 1806

Birthplace: Spotsylvania County, Virginia

Father: Richard Maury 1766 – 1843

(Buried: Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia)​

Mother: Diana Minor 1768 – 1843

(Buried: Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia)​

Wife: Ann Hull Herndon 1811 – 1901

(Buried: Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia)​

Children:

Elizabeth Herndon "Betty" Maury 1835 – 1903​

(Buried: Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C.)​

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Bettie G. Maury 1835 – 1907​

(Buried: Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia)​

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Diana Fontaine "Nannie" Maury Corbin 1837 – 1900​

(Buried: Fredericksburg Cemetery, Fredericksburg, Virginia)​

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Lt. Colonel Richard Launcelot Maury 1840 – 1907​

(Buried: Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia)​

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Lt. John Herndon Maury 1842 – 1863​

(Buried: Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia)

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Mary Herndon Maury Werth 1844 – 1928​

(Buried: Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia)​

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Matthew Fontaine Maury Jr. 1849 – 1887​

(Buried: Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio)​

Occupation before War:

1825 – 1861: Served in the United States Navy rising to Commander​

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Midshipman abroad the frigate Brandywine​

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Studied the Seas and how to record methods of navigation​

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His leg was broken by a stagecoach accident​

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Officer – in – charge of the United States Navy Office in D.C.​

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Advocate of the theory of Northwest Passage to the North Pole​

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Advocate for reform of the United States Navy​

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Advocate for a transcontinental Railroad​

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Leader for a scientific conference that met in Brussels​

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U.S. Representative International Meteorological Conference

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Started a campaign to force Brazil government to open navigation of Amazon River​

Civil War Career:

1861 – 1865: Commander in Confederate States Navy​

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Confederate Chief of Sea Coast, River and Harbor Defenses​

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Tried to get other countries to try to stop the American Civil War​

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Confederate Commissioner of Weights and Measures​

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Perfected an "electric torpedo" raising havoc with northern shipping​

Occupation after War:

Chairman of Physics for Virginia Military Institute​

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Author of The Physical Geography of Virginia ​

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Advocate for the creation of Agriculture College in Virginia​

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1870: Served as Pallbearer at the funeral of General Robert E. Lee

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1871: President of University of Alabama​

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Speaker in Europe about co – operation of Weather Bureau for Land​

Died: February 1, 1873

Time of Death: 12:40 PM

Place of Death: Lexington, Virginia

Last Words: "All's well"

Original Burial Place: Gillham Family Vault, Lexington, Virginia

Burial Place: Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia

 

[Pollaco]

I've read where Maury (after the war) served briefly as a cabinet member to Emperor Maximilian in Mexico before returning to England. What position did he serve as?

 

[donna]

Happy Birthday , May you rest in peace.

 

[Woods-walker]

A man that is definitely underrated by history. There is a Matthew Fontaine Murray SCV Camp here in Fredericksburg VA

 

[Pollaco]

He was first a commander in the US Navy which he resigned from and was appointed commander in the CS Navy on June 10, 1861.

 

[Pollaco]

During his stay in Europe while researching the electric torpedo he prepared commerce raiders for service. I don't exactly have any details on what it was he did.

 

[gentlemanrob]

Happy Birthday CSN Commander Matthew F. Maury! Salutes remembering General Maury on his birthday.

 

[Pollaco]

I've read where Maury (after the war) served briefly as a cabinet member to Emperor Maximilian in Mexico before returning to England. What position did he serve as?

The title "Imperial Commissioner of Colonization" was bestowed upon Maury by Maximillian,but no date is given however the bio does state it was after his learning of the collapse of the Confederacy. So probably 1865.

 

[Pollaco]

Uncle to Major General Dabney H. Maury.

 

[Pollaco]

Before leaving for Europe Maury was chief of river and harbor defenses and He was also charged with mining the James River approaches to Richmond.

 

[Pollaco]

I assume it's his daughter, Diana Fontaine Maury, who wrote a biography of him titled "A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury".

 

[donna]

Happy Birthday, Jan. 14th. My UDC Chapter had our historical presentation on Matthew F. Maury yesterday. He was a brilliant man. As our speaker said a "renaissance man."

 

[Woods-walker]

Happy Birthday, Jan. 14th. My UDC Chapter had our historical presentation on Matthew F. Maury yesterday. He was a brilliant man. As our speaker said a "renaissance man."

So right. It always amazed me how he never quit got the historical acclaim he deserved.

 

[USS ALASKA]

Tracks in the Sea: Matthew Fontaine Maury and the Mapping of the Oceans by Chester G. Hearn

Maritime navigation remained largely a matter of guesswork until well into the 19th century, and making a voyage meant following a series of all-too-often disastrous hunches. Changing that became the lifelong obsession of the brilliant, irascible geographer Matthew Fontaine Maury, whose career both aided and mirrored America's rise as a maritime power. With his controversial appointment as the first superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory in 1840, he at last found his life's work. While others built railroads across the trackless interior, Maury mapped the highways of wind and current over the previously trackless sea. In Tracks in the Sea, Chester G. Hearn uses Maury's career as a window on the 19th century, including the brief but glorious clipper-ship era of the 1850s, the rise of steam and steel, the Civil War and the destruction of the U.S. merchant fleet, and the points of intersection with some of the most colorful and influential people of the time, including presidents, congressmen, military leaders, scientists, explorers, merchants, and writers.

Tracks in the Sea: Matthew Fontaine Maury and the Mapping of the Oceans: Hearn, Chester G.: 0639785801580: Amazon.com: Books

Tracks in the Sea: Matthew Fontaine Maury and the Mapping of the Oceans [Hearn, Chester G.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Tracks in the Sea: Matthew Fontaine Maury and the Mapping of the Oceans

www.amazon.com

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[USS ALASKA]

21 Oct 1842

Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury, his days at sea ended by a leg injury suffered in a stagecoach accident, is assigned to the post of Superintendent of the Depot of Charts and Instruments. In this capacity, he becomes a world-renowned expert on oceanography, publishing The Physical Geography of the Sea in 1855. He has gone down in history as the "Pathfinder of the Seas."

https://www.history.navy.mil/today-in-history/june-29.html

Journal Article
Geography as Power: The Political Economy of Matthew Fontaine Maury
JOHN MAJEWSKI and TODD W. WAHLSTROM
The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
Vol. 120, No. 4 (2012), pp. 340-371
Virginia Historical Society

https://www.jstor.org/stable/24392847

Full article at above link on JSTOR with Google sign-in (In the upper right-hand corner of the linked page, there is a 'Log in' button. If you have a Gmail account, you have a Google sign-in and this will allow for free reading of 100 articles a month).

Cheers,
USS ALASKA