Nathaniel Bowditch and 

the Seaman's Bible

     Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838) was born in Salem and died in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother died when he was 10 and his father died when he was 12.  Young Bowditch was apprenticed to a ship owner and used his employer's library to teach himself.  Between 12 and 20 he learned Latin, French, Algebra, and Calculus.  He then read Newton's Principia.  

     He went on six voyages to the East Indies and took copious notes on the tides, temperature, currents, and exact measurements needed for determining the ship's position at sea.  He used the money earned from his voyages, which was substantial, to retire and devote himself to scholarship and writing.  He wrote in 1802 The New American Practical Navigator which had recalculated older (and error prone) navigational charts from Europe.  It included information on the world's major ports, where to find banks and insurance agents, lists of suppliers for ships, and places to stay for seamen. For this reason those in the industry called it "the seaman's bible."  It went through ten editions.  

     Bowditch went on to become America's first actuary and he founded two insurance companies.  He was a lifelong Unitarian but kept his religious practices private.  When asked for his beliefs, he quoted from Alexander Pope's Essay on Man:  "For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, his can't be wrong whose life is in the right." 

Elof Carlson,  UUCB Historian

Because the solar eclipse is on Monday, August 21 and some may be en route, we will meet Sunday, August 27 at 3:00 p.m. at Elof and Nedra Carlson's.  We shift to non-fiction and a memoir by Trevor Noah,  BORN A CRIME. Noah describes life under apartheid in South Africa (much of it in Capetown) and how his African mother helped him become multilingual and well read. His father was white.  It was a difficult childhood living in poverty and always under threat as a child of mixed race origin.  Today Noah, who became a comedian, is known to American audiences for replacing Jon Stewart when Stewart retired. Info, contact Elof Carlson, ecarlson31@netzero.net

Reverend Mary Ann Macklin, our Senior Minister,