CHAPTER III 

 He Resorts to the Pen 



When the Potomac arrived in Boston, Maury applied 

 for leave of absence and went directly to Fredericksburg, 

 Virginia, where he was married to Ann Herndon on July 

 15, 1834. In this charming old Virginia town he es- 

 tablished his residence for the next seven years, living on 

 Charlotte Street in a two-story frame house with a large 

 old-fashioned garden, which he rented from a Mr. 

 Johnston. He had always been generous with his money 

 to different members of his family, and it is related that, 

 as a consequence, he had but twenty dollars of ready 

 money at the time of his marriage, all of which he gave 

 as a fee to Parson E. C. McGuire. In the same generous 

 way he shared his home for a considerable time with his 

 brother John's widow and her two sons. 



With some leisure at his command, Maury determined 

 to become an author, under the encouragement of the 

 recent appearance in the American Journal of Science and 

 Arts of his first scientific article, "On the Navigation of 

 Cape Horn". This, the first fruit of his sea experience, 

 described forcefully the dangers of the passage of Cape 

 Horn, and gave specific information concerning the winds 

 and the peculiar rising and falling of the barometer in 

 those latitudes. In the same number of this journal 

 there appeared another article describing Maury's "Plan 

 of an Instrument for Finding the True Lunar Distance", 

 the instrument in question having been invented by him. 

 With these beginnings, he ambitiously set to work to 

 finish a book on navigation, which he had commenced 



26 



