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Salem's about-face on Matthew Maury on agenda

February 7, 2008 12:15 am

By CLINT SCHEMMER

Time heals all wounds, the old adage says. But it sure can take awhile.

In the case of some New Englanders and Fredericksburg-area native Matthew Fontaine Maury, the mending took 146 years.

But today, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities is to announce that Maury--famed "Pathfinder of the Seas"--will no longer be shunned by an august Salem, Mass., group that had held him in official disgrace since the Civil War began.

The change of heart comes after months of dialogue between the Salem Marine Society and the Virginia organization, said Gail Braxton, director of the APVA's Mary Washington Branch.

"We're just delighted it has worked out," Braxton said yesterday. "We feel it is a wonderful way to honor and bring to life, in Virginia as well as Massachusetts, to the very important contributions of Matthew Fontaine Maury and, at the same time, preserve the Marine Society's history."

branded a traitor

The Marine Society was founded in 1766 by 18 sea captains in Salem, a port that became the hub of the young nation's lucrative trade with the East Indies. Its members roster reads like a Who's Who of American maritime history.

APVA members learned of Maury's lowly reputation in Salem during a visit there in the fall of 2006. While staying at the historic Hawthorne Hotel, they were granted a rare peek inside its most curious feature, the rooftop penthouse where the Salem Marine Society has been meeting for decades.

Its otherworldly home, called the Ship's Cabin, mimics the deckhouse of the 145-foot Salem-built bark Taria Topan, last seagoing command of society member Edward B. Trumbull.

There, ensconced amid the teak-and-cypress woodwork, the APVA visitors found a portrait of Maury, turned upside down, face to the wall, beside a plaque branding him a traitor.

It wasn't always so.

Maury, a self-taught genius who revolutionized ocean travel with his more accurate navigational aids, was named the society's first honorary member in 1859. His portrait was hung with those of the Marine Society's founders and heroes.

This in the home of Nathaniel Bowditch, considered the founder of modern maritime navigation.

The Salemites esteemed Maury's accomplishments, which cut ships' travel time to distant ports by weeks and found a safer way around Cape Horn.

As first superintendent of the Navy's Department of Charts and Instruments (later the Naval Observatory and Hydrographical Office), he sent complimentary copies of his works to the society.

But Salem's good feelings evaporated when Maury sided with his native Virginia in the Civil War. Though he had opposed secession, like Robert E. Lee, he quit the U.S. Navy and accepted a commission in the Confederate naval forces.

That's when outraged members voted to strike his name from the Marine Society's rolls and ordered that his picture be reversed and hung head down in their meeting hall.

It wasn't until 1966, during the group's bicentennial gala, that a few members tried to resurrect his good name.

Ernest S. Dodge, director of Salem's world-renowned Peabody Museum, suggested that maybe the time had come to pardon Maury, given that the Civil War had been over for a century.

So clerk Philip Chadwick Foster Smith brought up the idea at the annual meeting, as 18th- and 19th-century portraits of Marine Society members gazed down upon their descendants.

"The room instantaneously erupted into an uproar. Volatile expressions of indignant outrage. Sardonic laughter. Vitriolic explosions of wrath. Boos. Hisses. Bronx cheers," Smith wrote. "'No! No! No! Never! Let it stay that way!'"

The motion died without a second.

forgiveness, at last

Fast-forward to last year, when horrified APVA members returned from Salem to Fredericksburg and began spreading word about Maury's undignified treatment. The group formed the Maury Project, spearheaded by Fredericksburg residents Rebecca Starling and Scott Walker, to research the oceanographer's life and to reach out to the New England group.

"This was a happy discovery for the APVA," Starling said. "We wanted to bring back to life this man whose name has slipped away from us all."

In September, the APVA formally contacted the Marine Society. Noting Fredericksburg's tradition of honoring both Union and Confederate soldiers, it offered the gift of a new portrait of Maury to be hung in the society's hall, face forward, with a framed text about his innovations in navigational science. A bevy of other Fredericksburg-area groups sent encouraging letters.

A few days ago, APVA officers learned the group's polite entreaty had succeeded. A diplomatic exchange will follow, with society clerk Allan P. Vaughan coming here in early April for a reception with the APVA travelers whose visit to Salem set things in motion.

In October, a small delegation will attend the Marine Society's annual meeting, at which Walker will speak on Maury's life and accomplishments.

Clint Schemmer: 540/368-5029
Email: cschemmer@freelancestar.com