HENRY PICKERING BOWDITCH. 

 By W. B. Cannon. 



Henry Pickering Bowditch was born in Boston April 4, 1840. Scientific interest and 

 ability were manifest in both the maternal and paternal family lines. Through his mother, 

 Lucy Orne Nichols, a woman of rare fortitude and unselfish devotion, he was related to John 

 Pickering (a son of Col. Timothy Pickering, Washington's Secretary of State), who was a student 

 of and an authority on Indian language. On the maternal side, also, he was related to the well- 

 known astronomers, Edward and William Pickering, and to the mathematician, Benjamin Mills 

 Pierce. His paternal grandfather, Nathaniel Bowditch, was a well-known mathematician who 

 at one time followed the sea — self-educated, accurate and careful, author of "The American 

 Practical Navigator, " and translator of La Place's " Mechanique Celeste. " The father, Jonathan 

 Ingersoll Bowditch, was a Boston merchant, a man with a scientific turn of mind, who continued 

 to edit the Practical Navigator, and who on the basis of his father's work published a set of 

 useful nautical tables. He was interested in meteorology, and if occasion had been favorable 

 would probably have devoted his life to scientific pursuits. He is said to have brought up his 

 children, of whom he had five besides Henry, in a strict and uncompromising discipline. 



BOYHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 



Life in Boston in the middle of the nineteenth century had more of the characteristics of a 

 small town than of a city. The common was a playground for the boys, and Henry Bowditch 

 skated on the Frog Pond in winter, "cut" behind sleighs, played "I spy," and engaged in the 

 sports that a vigorous normal lad would naturally enjoy. When he was 13 years old the family 

 moved to an estate in West Roxbury, situated on» a hill from which there were beautiful and 

 extensive views of Boston and the surrounding territory. Then the region was in the country, 

 and riding and tramping were the common activities. Jamaica Pond was near and enabled 

 the boy to become a good swimmer and diver. He and a young friend built a rowboat and 

 he became an adept at managing it. His resourcefulness at that time is indicated by his 

 success, when he had been blown offshore without oars, in getting to land by using the 

 rudder as a paddle. 



After his primary education he entered the school managed by Mr. Epes S. Dixwell, where he 

 was prepared for college. The five other members of his class were Oliver Wendell Holmes, jr., 

 Charles Greenough, Thomas B. Wales, Samuel F. Emmons, and Franklin Weld. He entered 

 Harvard College in 1857. » 



About the time of his entering college he was enough interested in anatomy to clean the bones 

 of one of his father's horses which had died, and later to set up the complete skeleton, properly 

 articulated. His medical career, however, was not decided on till late in his college life, or after 

 graduation — a delay in determining his future which was very disturbing to his father. After 

 graduation, in 1861, he entered the Lawrence Scientific School in Cambridge and started 

 studying chemistry and natural history. The call to arms became too strong to resist, however, 

 and he gave up his studies for service in the war. 



EXPERIENCE IN THE WAR, 1861-1865. 



InNovember, 1861, he joined the First Massachusetts Cavalry (Company G, Second Battalion) 

 as second lieutenant. On January 13, 1862, the regiment sailed from New York for Port Royal. 

 On June 28 Bowditch was commissioned first lieutenant and saw active service in the Battle 



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