The bronze tablet on the monument shown on the opposite side of this page bears the following inscription:
MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY
Pathfinder of the Seas
The Genius who first Snatched
From Ocean & Atmosphere
The Secret of their Laws.
Born January 14th, 1806
Died at Lexington, Va., February 1st, 1873
Carried through Goshen Pass To His Final
Resting Place in Richmond, Virginia.
Every Mariner
For Countless Ages
As he takes his Chart to Shape
His course across the Seas,
Will think of thee
His Inspiration Holy Writ
Psalms 8 & 107, Verses 8, 23, & 24
Ecclesiastes Chap. 1, Verse 8
A Tribute by his Native State
Virginia
1923
His Last Words
“Carry My Body Through The
Pass When the Rhododendron
is in Bloom.”
They arrived in Richmond on Saturday, September 27. The burial in Hollywood Cemetery was private, Maury’s last resting-place being between the tombs of Ex-Presidents Monroe and Tyler, on a beautiful knoll overlooking the James River. “The lot we have in Hollywood”, wrote Maury’s son Matthew, “I like particularly because it faces the bright green country and overlooks the rapids of the James River, the sleeper there being always lulled by the murmur of running water, a sound which he so loved to hear”. Maury’s monument in Hollywood Cemetery bears the following inscription: In Memory of Matthew Fontaine Maury—Born in Spottsylvania Co., Virginia January 14th, 1806—Died in Lexington, Virginia February 1st, 1873—“All is well”, Maury. On another side of the shaft are these words: Entered the Navy of the United States 1825—That of the Confederate States 1861—Author of “Maury’s Sailing Directions” and “The Physical Geography of the Sea”.
CHAPTER XVI
His Posthumous Reputation
Immediately after Maury’s death there was a veritable flood of eulogies of the character and services of the great scientist. They were by no means confined to the colleges, legislators, and newspapers of Virginia; but the scientific journals throughout the world made known in unmistakable terms the high estimation in which he was held. For example, the British journal Nature of March 20, 1873, declared that Maury was the first to show how meteorology could be raised to the dignity of a science, and that he was essentially a practical man in the highest sense of the term. “He will certainly”, it added, “and deservedly, occupy a niche in the temple of fame as a benefactor of humanity and a promoter of scientific knowledge, to which not many men ever attain”. It is difficult to resist the temptation to quote other extracts from the dozens of highly commendatory appraisals of Maury’s achievements and character, which appeared soon after his death. But such is unnecessary, if this biography has with a reasonable degree of success given an understandable account of his work and revealed through the assistance of his letters the sterling character of the man.
After this flood of eulogy had subsided, a period of some fifteen years followed during which Maury’s name was wrapped in comparative forgetfulness. Then, there appeared in 1888 the “Life of Maury” by his daughter Diana Fontaine Maury Corbin, and the reviews of that volume once again brought his name into the literary and scientific journals where the praises of former years were repeated. The Athenaeum of July 21, 1888, after pointing out how Maury’s meteorological work had come to be unduly depreciated, declared, “The work (Physical Geography of the Sea) remains one of undoubted genius—great if only for the impulse which it gave to the study of this particular branch of physical geography and for the enormous advance in the science of meteorology which we owe to it”. The Saturday Review of October 20, 1888 said that scientific navigation was almost non-existant before Maury’s work and that he had improved the course of every ship on the sea. It would be tedious to quote further from these reviews, and it will be sufficient to state that they were unanimous in their opinion that Maury deserved high rank among the great scientists of the world because of his pioneer work in the field of oceanography.
In this connection, there is a letter which, because of the fame of its author as well as the pertinence of its contents, is of peculiar interest. Thomas Nelson Page, the distinguished Virginia novelist, wrote to Mrs. Matthew Fontaine Maury,[28] on the receipt of a copy of Mrs. Corbin’s biography of her father, as follows: “Please accept my thanks for the biography of your distinguished husband which will be an addition to our library both on account of its literary merit and of the information it contains of one of our greatest men. I trust you may live to see the services he rendered mankind suitably commemorated by a monument worthy of him. But whether you do or not, the time will assuredly come when he will be recognized by our people as an honor to the race from which he sprang. I esteem it one of my privileges that in my youth I knew personally two such men as General Lee and your honored husband”.
For many years repeated attempts have been made to erect such an adequate monument to Maury as the one mentioned in Page’s letter. Immediately after Maury’s death, at the suggestion of Rear Admiral Marin H. Jansen of Holland, some steps were taken toward the building of a lighthouse on the Rocas Banks near the coast of Brazil, as a fitting memorial to the great oceanographer. But the plan did not succeed, as foreign geographic societies wished the movement to originate in America, and this country, when approached on the matter, was found unsympathetic toward the undertaking. The renewed interest in Maury which was caused by Mrs. Corbin’s biography led to an effort in 1890 to induce Congress to appropriate $20,000 to erect a monument to Maury in Washington; but this attempt was not successful. Then, the Daughters of the American Revolution began a movement, which lasted for about fifteen years, to interest the government in building an appropriate monument in the nature of a lighthouse upon the Rip-Raps in Hampton Roads, off Old Point Comfort, Virginia. A final effort was made to have the memorial built and to arrange for its unveiling during the Jamestown Exposition in 1907; but failure again met all endeavors.
In 1915 it was suggested by the Superintendent of the Naval Observatory that a memorial building in Maury’s honor to accommodate the Hydrographic Office and some of the Observatory activities be erected on the Naval Observatory grounds, but the suggestion brought no tangible results. On May 11 of that year, however, the Matthew Fontaine Maury Association[29] was organized in Richmond, with three specific objects in mind. The first was to have Maury’s name placed in the Hall of Fame of New York University. In this they have not as yet succeeded, but in the election of 1925 Maury’s name came sixth, with fifty-two out of the one hundred votes cast. The two successful candidates, John Paul Jones and Edwin Booth, received sixty-eight and eighty-five votes respectively; while the other three who were ahead of Maury were John Jay with fifty-nine votes, Samuel Adams with fifty-eight, and “Stonewall” Jackson with fifty-three. The second object of the Maury Association was to induce the State Board of Education of Virginia to appoint January 14th—Maury’s birthday—as Maury Day in the schools; this was done June 27, 1916. Their third and most ambitious undertaking was the erection of a bronze statue of Maury in Richmond. In this effort slow but steady progress was made. The Virginia legislature contributed $10,000, and after the close of the World War the United Daughters of the Confederacy gave their support to the raising of funds. The school children of Virginia gave $2000, and many others contributed generously. Accordingly, the sum of $60,000 has now been raised, and the monument will in the near future be put in place at the intersection of Belmont and Monument Avenues in Richmond, where the corner stone was laid with appropriate ceremonies on June 22, 1922. A tentative model of this monument has been made by the sculptor, Mr. F. William Sievers, and approved by the committee in charge of the memorial. For description of this monument please see footnote, end of chapter, page 251.