I remarked on the 21st of April a faint, whitish light near the constellation Canis Major, projecting a tail about one degree in length, and set down its place as follows: Right ascension, 106°; declination, 9° S. April 24, right ascension, 108°; declination, 7° or 8° S. Its motion and the situation of its tail convinced me that it was a comet. I noticed it several times in May, and supposed that its motion was toward the western part of the constellation Leo.
By messages coming in sailing ships it was learned subsequently to September that the comet had been seen in Europe on March 25. Its perihelion passage was September 12, 1811.
The elder brother already quoted says of these early days: “I suppose it would cause the astronomer royal to laugh could he see the first transit instrument used by us at Dorchester, a strip of brass nailed to the east end of the house, with a hole in it to see a fixed star and note its transit; this in 1813. When we moved into the Hawes house, he procured a good granite block; we dug a deep hole and placed it at the west end of the house and got Mr. Alger to cast a stand for the transit instrument, a small one, which I think belonged to Harvard College. From this time he began to live among the stars.”
The facts thus recorded of the beginning of Mr. Bond’s career show his zeal and watchfulness as an amateur in astronomy, and that up to the date of the comet’s appearance, and later, he had no personal acquaintance with men of science in the vicinity, since he informed none of them of what he had seen. When, months afterwards, Prof. Farrar inquired about it, the young discoverer was able to report from his memoranda no more than the degrees of position, without the minutes and seconds, and to say that he “supposed” the comet to be moving towards the constellation Leo, circumstances indicating that a strip of brass with a hole in it and a home-made boxwood quadrant were all that was astronomically in use at Dorchester as late as 1811.
That this experience with the comet was a fortunate turning point in Mr. Bond’s career is evinced by Prof. Farrar’s genial recognition in the paper published in the organ of American Science, where he might excusably have ignored so crude a record as that which was the best Mr. Bond could supply, and by the appearance not long afterwards, at the west end of the Hawes house in Dorchester, of a loaned telescope belonging to Harvard College.
There is no doubt that whatever previously had been lacking of opportunity to gain knowledge of the technics of astronomical science was now fully within his reach and that henceforth he had the best possible of instructors and counsellors so far as he had occasion for any. Mr. George P. Bond writes of his father: “He has mentioned the names of Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch, Prof. Farrar and Tutor Clapp as those from whom he received most encouragement to continue the cultivation of astronomy. Upon his friendly intercourse with the eminent mathematician and astronomer first named he often dwelt with peculiar pleasure and warmth of feeling.” The name of one other of the godfathers of the young scientist is entitled to be mentioned, that of Josiah Quincy. The lady above quoted gives an account of the setting up of the first telescope at Dorchester by her brother, and says that through it could be seen the satellites of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. She adds that in the pursuit of astronomy up to this period “he had had no assistance whatever except from the genial kindness of Hon. Josiah Quincy, who had early recognized the future astronomer in the unpretending boy in the watchmaker’s shop on Congress street, and whose kindness and encouragement never failed throughout the subsequent years.”
That these men found their patronage to have been well bestowed is manifest from the action taken four years after the date of the comet by the college in making Mr. Bond its delegate and agent. The board of that year consisted of President Kirkland, John Lathrop, D.D., Christopher Gore, LL.D., John Davis, LL.D., John Lowell, LL.D., and John Phillips. It is of record that the moving spirits in the matter were Prof. Farrar and Dr. Bowditch, and they were appointed a committee to prepare technical written instructions to the agent as to the general scope of his inquiry.
During his visit abroad, Mr. Bond married his cousin, Selina Cranch, of Kingsbridge, in Devonshire, the date being July 18, 1819. Soon after his return he purchased a house near to his father’s residence in Dorchester, and erected on the premises a small wooden building, which he carefully equipped as an astronomical observatory. Its position is that meant in the official references to the observatory at Dorchester, and is about 45 feet southerly of the present south line of Cottage street, and 360 feet southeasterly of the centre of the New York & New England railroad bridge, over that street. Here, as one of his brief biographers remarks, “no eclipse or occultation escaped him, though occupied in business during the day in Boston,” and here Mr. Quincy found him in 1839, busy in his work for the Navy Department. The period which had elapsed since the setting of the granite block and the poising upon it of the borrowed telescope had been for Mr. Bond one of constant and rapid advance in the astronomer’s art. The Cottage street observatory was built about the year 1823.
Referring to the period between 1823, or a little earlier, and 1839, Mr. G. P. Bond writes of his father: “As soon as his circumstances permitted, he imported more perfect apparatus from Europe and continued to add to his collection until it was the best in the country.” And he adds this statement, which is highly suggestive as respects the enthusiasm with which the accomplished and successful chronometer maker entered upon the broader and loftier mission which destiny had in reserve for him: “When appointed by the Navy Department to the charge of astronomical and other observations, he forthwith laid out a sum of money on instruments and buildings more than ten times greater than the annual salary (to continue but four years), which he had himself proposed as an adequate compensation for all necessary expenses, and his own time, besides.”
During a few years prior to 1830, he gathered materials for investigating the comparative rates of chronometers at sea and on shore. Subsequently he communicated to the American Academy the results reached, and in this paper effectually disposed of the scientific question involved, so far as it related to the interests of navigation. The authority for this statement is Mr. G. P. Bond, who also says that about the same time his father conducted a series of experiments to ascertain the influence of changes of temperature in the presence of large surfaces of iron upon the performance of chronometers; and adds that “although the conclusions arrived at were at variance with the opinions of men high in authority in such matters, they are now known to be correct.”