Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

Summary

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch is a fictionalized biography of Nathaniel Bowditch (1773–1838), the self-taught Salem mathematician whose New American Practical Navigator became the standard American guide to navigation at sea. It opens in Salem, Massachusetts, during the Revolutionary War, when Nat is a small boy in a seafaring family led by his father, Captain Habakkuk Bowditch. Losses at sea and hard times drive Father ashore to work as a cooper, and Nat, who shows a gift for figures at Master Watson's school, has to leave school to help in the cooper's shop. The family meets further grief, and Nat's hope of going to Harvard ends when, at twelve, he is bound by indenture to the ship chandlers Ropes and Hodges for nine years, until he turns twenty-one. At first Nat feels becalmed. The sea captain Sam Smith gives him the book's watchword: when there is no wind, a strong man rows, sailing by ash breeze. Nat studies in every spare hour. He keeps the chandlery's books, works out an almanac, teaches himself algebra and calculus, and learns Latin so that he can read Newton's Principia, using translations of the Bible to learn the language. Salem's learned men help him, among them the Reverend Dr. Prince, Dr. Bentley and Nathan Read, and he gains the use of the Philosophical Library, a collection of scientific books captured from the Irish chemist Richard Kirwan by a privateer during the war. He also comes to know Elizabeth Boardman and her cousin Polly Ingersoll through his sister Lizza. When his indenture ends, Nat helps with a survey of Salem and then ships out as second mate and ship's writer on the Henry under Captain Henry Prince, sailing for the Indian Ocean. At sea he finds that the standard navigation book, Moore's Practical Navigator, is full of errors, mistakes that can wreck ships and drown men. He corrects the tables, and on the Astrea, bound for Manila, he teaches the common sailors, even the cook, to take lunar observations, against the old-timers' scorn for book sailing. Between voyages he marries Elizabeth, and news later reaches him that she has died of consumption. He finally resolves to write a new navigator, free of error and simple enough for any seaman to use, and Edmund Blunt publishes it. He later marries Polly, receives an honorary degree from Harvard, the college he could never attend, and sails as master of the Putnam on a pepper voyage to Sumatra. In the last chapter, on Christmas Day, Captain Bowditch brings the Putnam into Salem harbor through blinding fog, with no sight of sun or land, using only compass, log line, soundings, his watch and arithmetic, while the town waits for news of a wreck. Houghton Mifflin published the book in 1955 with illustrations by John O'Hara Cosgrave II, and it won the 1956 Newbery Medal.

Plot or Argument

• Chapters 1–5: A Salem boyhood

  Nat grows up in wartime Salem among sailors and privateers; Father's misfortunes at sea, the cooper's shop, Nat's talent at Master Watson's school, and family losses.

• Chapters 6–9: Indenture and the ash breeze

  Nat is bound to the chandlers Ropes and Hodges for nine years; Sam Smith's ash-breeze advice; the almanac, Latin, the Philosophical Library and the help of Salem's learned men.

• Chapters 10–12: Freedom and the sea

  Nat's indenture ends; he works on a survey of Salem and ships out on the Henry under Captain Henry Prince.

• Chapters 13–17: Finding the errors

  On his voyages Nat discovers the mistakes in Moore's navigator, earns Captain Prince's confidence, and begins teaching sailors to work lunar observations.

• Chapters 18–21: Book sailing

  The Astrea voyages; the crew learns navigation; Nat's resolve to replace Moore with a new, accurate book; personal grief at home.

• Chapters 22–24: Captain Bowditch

  Nat commands the Putnam to Sumatra and, on Christmas Day, brings her home through fog into Salem harbor by dead reckoning.

Characters

• Nathaniel (Nat) Bowditch, protagonist

  Salem boy with a genius for mathematics who educates himself during a long indenture and becomes navigator, captain and author.

• Captain Habakkuk Bowditch, father

  Sea captain whose losses force him ashore as a cooper and lead him to indenture Nat.

• Lizza Bowditch, sister

  Nat's favorite sister, who believes in him and links him to Elizabeth and Polly.

• Captain Sam Smith, family friend

  Sea captain who tells Nat that a strong man sails by ash breeze.

• Mr. Ropes and Mr. Hodges, ship chandlers

  The partners to whom Nat is indentured as bookkeeper.

• Dr. Bentley, mentor

  Learned Salem clergyman who encourages Nat's studies.

• Nathan Read, mentor

  Harvard-educated apothecary and inventor who befriends the young scholar.

• Captain Henry Prince, ship's master

  Commander of the Henry and the Astrea, who trusts Nat's mathematics.

• Elizabeth Boardman, first wife

  Salem captain's daughter and Nat's longtime friend, who dies of consumption.

• Polly Ingersoll, second wife

  Elizabeth's cousin, who later marries Nat and waits in Salem as he sails home through the fog.

• Lem Harvey, sailor

  Common seaman on the Astrea whose later shipwreck shows what bad tables cost.

• Zack Selby, old-school sailor

  Seaman who distrusts book learning and scorns Nat's new navigation.

Lessons

• Sailing by ash breeze

  Nat cannot go to Harvard and is bound to a shop for nine years, but instead of waiting for luck he works his own oars, studying every spare hour. The book shows a disappointment turned into an education by steady effort.

  • What does Ben Meeker's example show Nat about giving up?
  • What does it mean to sail by ash breeze, and when does Nat do it?
  • Is there a way in which the indenture actually helped Nat's education?

• Accuracy saves lives

  Nat is not content to find mistakes in Moore's tables; he sees that each error could put a ship on the rocks. His careful arithmetic becomes a form of care for the men who will rely on it.

  • Why does Nat get so angry when he finds errors in the navigation book?
  • Where else in life does someone's careful work protect people who never meet them?

• Knowledge shared, not hoarded

  Many captains guarded navigation as a secret skill, but Nat teaches every sailor who will learn, and writes his book so that an ordinary seaman can use it. His success becomes the crew's success.

  • Why do some sailors resist learning lunars from Nat?
  • What changes on the ship once the whole crew can navigate?
  • How does Nat's new navigator carry that teaching beyond his own ship?

• Grief and perseverance

  Nat loses family members and his young wife Elizabeth, yet he keeps working and later finds love again with Polly. The book does not make grief small, but it shows a man who goes on without becoming bitter.

  • How does Nat respond to the deaths in his family and to Elizabeth's death?
  • What helps him keep going?

Context

The book covers Salem, Massachusetts, from the Revolutionary War to the early 1800s, when its merchants, above all Elias Hasket Derby, sent ships to the Indian Ocean, the East Indies and Asia, and the town became one of the richest ports in the young republic. Finding longitude at sea depended either on expensive chronometers or on the method of lunar distances, which required long calculations from printed tables. The historical Bowditch's New American Practical Navigator (1802) corrected thousands of errors in the British work by John Hamilton Moore and explained the method plainly; revised editions have been published by the United States government ever since.

Composition

Latham drew on the historical record of Bowditch's life, including his voyages of 1795–1803, his marriages to Elizabeth Boardman (who died in 1798) and Mary (Polly) Ingersoll, and his honorary Harvard degree of 1802, and dramatized them with invented dialogue and minor characters. Houghton Mifflin published the book in 1955 with illustrations by John O'Hara Cosgrave II.

Reception

It won the Newbery Medal in 1956 and has remained in print as one of the most widely read biographies for young readers. Kirkus Reviews called it a readable biography of the man who wrote the authoritative book on navigation still used at Annapolis.

Comparisons

• franklin-autobiography-and-poor-richard

  Franklin and Bowditch were both apprenticed New England boys who educated themselves by borrowed books, early rising and method, and both turned their learning to practical use for ordinary people.

• principia

  Nat learns Latin to read Newton's Principia; the mechanics of the moon's motion worked out there lies behind the lunar tables he corrects and teaches.

• johnny-tremain

  Two apprentices in Revolutionary Massachusetts, one in a Boston silversmith's shop and one in a Salem chandlery, each forced to rebuild his hopes after a blow.

• captains-courageous

  Kipling's Harvey Cheyne learns seamanship under Disko Troop, who finds the fishing grounds by dead reckoning much as Captain Bowditch finds Salem harbor in the fog.

• moby-dick

  Melville's Pequod sails from the same New England maritime world a generation later; Ahab smashes his quadrant in defiance, while Nat's whole life is devoted to trustworthy instruments and tables.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• Sam Smith's ash-breeze advice in Chapter 6, and the later moments when Nat remembers it.
• The ways Nat finds to study while bound to the chandlery: the account books, the almanac, Latin and the Philosophical Library.
• Chapter 13, where Nat discovers errors in Moore's navigator and Captain Prince gives the order that becomes the book's title.
• How the common sailors, and the doubters like Zack Selby, respond as Nat teaches lunars on the Astrea.
• The fog landing in Chapter 24, where Nat relies only on arithmetic and instruments, and the final echo of being becalmed.

Key terms and names

Indenture

A legal contract binding Nat to work for the chandlers Ropes and Hodges for nine years, until age twenty-one, in return for training and keep.

Ship chandlery

A shop selling everything a ship needs, from rope and canvas to provisions. Nat keeps its accounts and meets the captains who come in.

Ash breeze

Sailors' term for rowing with ash-wood oars when there is no wind. In the book it means making your own progress when circumstances stall you.

Lunar observation

Measuring the angle between the moon and a star or the sun to work out longitude from printed tables. Nat makes the long calculation simple enough for ordinary seamen.

Dead reckoning

Estimating a ship's position from its known course, speed and time sailed, without sighting sun, stars or land. Nat uses it to bring the Putnam home in the fog.

Moore's Practical Navigator

The British navigation book most American sailors used. Nat finds its tables riddled with errors and decides to replace it.

Supercargo

The officer who manages the cargo and its sale for the ship's owners. Nat serves in this role as well as navigator on his voyages.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Why does Nat's father bind him to the chandlery, and how long must Nat serve?
2. Comprehension What does Nat discover about Moore's navigation tables, and why does it matter to sailors?
3. Comprehension How does Captain Bowditch bring the Putnam into Salem harbor in the fog without seeing land or sun?
4. Interpretation Ben Meeker and Nat are both indentured. Why does one give up while the other keeps studying, and what part does Sam Smith's advice play?
5. Interpretation Nat insists on teaching the cook and the deckhands to navigate. What does this tell us about the kind of leader he is, and how does it change his crews?
6. Interpretation Harvard gives Nat an honorary degree after he could never attend as a student. Is this the reward for his indenture years, or a sign that his real education happened elsewhere?
7. Interpretation Latham ends the book with the fog landing rather than with the publication of the navigator. Why might she have chosen that ending?
8. Big Question Does a closed door, like Nat's lost chance at Harvard, ever turn out to be a gift? What would you need in order to sail by ash breeze in your own life?

Faith Connections

• Psalm 107:23-30 (Scripture)

  They that go down to the sea in ships see the works of the Lord in the deep, cry out in the storm, and are brought to their desired haven. The Putnam's Christmas arrival out of the fog into Salem harbor fits the psalm closely.

• Proverbs 22:29 (Scripture)

  A man diligent in his work will stand before kings. The bookkeeping apprentice who studied in every spare hour ends as a captain, an author and an honored scholar of Harvard.

• John 1:1-5 (Scripture)

  Nat learns new languages by working through the Bible in translation, beginning with the Gospel of John, so the opening of that Gospel is literally part of his education.

• Isaac Newton, Principia (1687) (Great Conversation)

  Nat learns Latin specifically to read Newton, whose account of the moon's motion makes lunar navigation possible. Newton himself saw the order of the heavens as the work of an intelligent Creator, a view stated in the General Scholium added to the second edition.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: A ship's safety depends on its navigator's tables, and the tables in common use are full of errors; therefore sailors are dying of mistakes that careful arithmetic could prevent. Nat has the mathematics to correct them and the will to teach ordinary men. So the self-taught boy whom circumstance shut out of college becomes the man who makes safe navigation available to every seaman, and the book argues that perseverance can turn a closed door into a calling.

Rhetorical device: motif (recurring metaphor). Being becalmed and sailing by ash breeze, introduced by Sam Smith in Chapter 6, returns at moments of setback and again in the last chapter, so that a sailor's phrase becomes the shape of Nat's whole life.

Debate: Resolved: Nat's nine years of indenture gave him a better education than Harvard would have.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Trace the ash-breeze idea from Sam Smith's words in Chapter 6 to the fog landing in Chapter 24, and argue how it explains Nat's choices at three turning points in his life.

Comparison with Autobiography and Poor Richard's Almanack: Compare how Benjamin Franklin and Nat Bowditch educated themselves while apprenticed. Which habits do they share, and how did each one turn his learning into help for ordinary people?

Medical Lens

Medical matters are in the background but real. Nat's young wife Elizabeth dies of consumption while he is at sea, an ordinary and much-feared death in New England port towns around 1800, before tuberculosis was understood as infectious. The Bowditch family's repeated losses, and the deaths of sailors at sea, give the book a steady undertone of grief that Latham treats plainly and without sentiment. The historical Bowditch later served as an actuary for Boston's Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company, a link to early American mortality statistics that lies outside the novel.

• Later chapters (between voyages)

  News reaches Nat that Elizabeth Boardman has died of consumption.

  Tuberculosis Consumption Grief
• Early chapters

  Deaths in the Bowditch household during Nat's boyhood and indenture.

  Grief Death Dying

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Set up a dead-reckoning exercise: given a ship's compass course, speed from the log and hours sailed, plot its position on graph paper as Nat does in the fog of Chapter 24.

• Fiction

  Write Polly's Christmas morning in Salem as the town waits for the Putnam, ending at the moment she hears the ship is in.

• Essay

  Nat could have kept his corrections to himself and become the only navigator who could be trusted. Explain why he chose to teach the crew and publish instead.

• Dialogue

  Write an argument on deck between Zack Selby and a sailor Nat has taught to work a lunar, each defending his way of finding the ship's position.

Further Reading

• The American Practical Navigator, Nathaniel Bowditch

  Still issued by the United States government in revised editions.

• Nat the Navigator: A Life of Nathaniel Bowditch, Henry Ingersoll Bowditch

  A nineteenth-century life for young readers by Bowditch's son, available on Project Gutenberg.

• Longitude, Dava Sobel

  The rival chronometer method of finding longitude at sea.

• Johnny Tremain, Esther Forbes