Nathaniel Bowditch

Often referred to as the father of modern sea navigation, Salem native Nathaniel Bowditch was a gifted and self-taught mathematician, despite having to leave school at age ten and spending nine years of his adolescence indentured as a bookkeeper to a ship's chandler. On his fifth sea voyage, by which time he was master and part owner of the ship, he wrote the American Practical Navigator based on his own extensive studies of lunar maritime navigation. First published in 1802, it remains the definitive book on the subject and is still required on board all U.S. Navy vessels.

After returning to Salem, Bowditch ran an extremely prosperous insurance company, continued his mathematical work, published frequent papers, and was even offered the chair of mathematics and physics at Harvard. Author Jean Lee Latham published a Newbury Award-winning book for young adults in 1953 called Carry On, Mr. Bowditch that told the story of a determined young Bowditch as he revolutionizes maritime navigation.

The full text of the American Practical Navigator is available online.