Jump to content

Nathan Daboll

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Headbomb (talk | contribs) at 20:41, 21 May 2008 (dashes). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Nathan Daboll
OccupationWriter, Educator,
Navigation school operator
NationalityAmerican
GenreAlmanacs
Textbook (Mathematics)
Textbook (Navigation)

Nathan Daboll (24 April 1750–9 March 1818), born in Groton, Connecticut, wrote the mathematics textbook most commonly used in American schools in the first half of the 19th century.[1] During the course of his career, he also operated a popular navigation school for merchant mariners, and published a variety of almanacs during the American Revolution period.

Early years

Daboll was the son of Nathan Daboll (born c. 1725 in East Hampton, New York; died c. 1780) and Anna Lynn (born 1724 in Groton). He had two brothers, John (born 1755) and Benjamin (1757–1848), and two sisters Susannah (born 1748) and Amy (born 1764). Daboll’s father was born with the surname Dibble, but changed it to Daboll. Daboll’s grandfather was born with the surname Dibble (sometimes spelled Deble).

Daboll had little formal education but mastered mathematics quickly while earning a living as a cooper.[2]

Career

Daboll's early career was that of a teacher. He taught mathematics at the Academic School in Plainfield, Connecticut.[3] He was also quite notable for his maritime navigation school in New London, Connecticut where he taught navigation and nautical astronomy to as many as 1,500 seamen.[4]

Because of Daboll’s ability with mathematics, Samuel M. Green, an early almanac publisher in the colonies, asked Daboll to calculate almanac entries. Daboll did so, beginning in 1771, under the alias "Edmund Freebetter",[5] before switching to publish almanacs and registers under his own name. Almanacs were useful instruments in propaganda wars during the American Revolution. Some of Daboll’s almanacs contained satirical or factual political commentary, while others didn't.[6] For the most part, they contained common almanac material:[7]

"lunations; eclipses of the luminaries; aspects; judgment of the weather; rising, sitting and southing of the seven stars; sun and moon's rising and sitting; festivals, and other remarkable days; courts; roads"

The textbook Daboll's schoolmaster's assistant: being a plain, practical system of arithmetic, adapted to the United States was published in 1799, and updated with Daboll's Schoolmaster's assistant, improved and enlarged being a plain practical system of arithmetic: adapted to the United States in 1814. Its popularity was based, in part, on its practicality:[8]

"We were taught arithmetic in Daboll, then a new book, and which, being adapted to our measures of length, weight, and currency was a prodigious leap over the head of poor old Dilworth, whose rules and examples were modelled upon English customs."

Even after his death, Daboll was remembered for his mathematics. Herman Melville referred to Daboll in his 1851 novel, Moby-Dick:[9]

"I'll get the almanac and as I have heard devils can be raised with Daboll's arithmetic, I'll try my hand at raising a meaning out of these queer curvicues here with the Massachusetts calendar."

In his 1890 book, The teaching and history of mathematics in the United States, mathematics historian Florian Cajori described Daboll as one of the "three great arithmeticians in America".[10]

Daboll's Practical Navigator was published posthumously in 1820 by his long-time colleague Green.

Personal life

Daboll married his first cousin, Elizabeth Daboll (1742—1813) around 1778. They had a daughter, Lydia (born c. 1782) and a son, also named Nathan (1780—1863). A grandson, Celadon Leeds Daboll invented the Daboll trumpet.

Daboll died in Groton in 1818.[11]

Works

Books

Cajori, F. (1890). The teaching and history of mathematics in the United States. Washington: Govt. Print. Off.

  • — (1799), Daboll's schoolmaster's assistant: being a plain, practical system of arithmetic, adapted to the United States, New-London, Conn.: Cady & Eells, for S. Green {{citation}}: |last= has numeric name (help)
  • — (1814), Daboll's Schoolmaster's assistant, improved and enlarged being a plain practical system of arithmetic : adapted to the United States. location=New-London, Conn., Samuel Green, OCLC 15437427 {{citation}}: |last= has numeric name (help); Missing pipe in: |title= (help)
  • — (1820), Daboll's practical navigator:: being a concise, easy, and comprehensive system of navigation; calculated for the daily use of seamen, and also for an assistant to the teacher: containing plane, traverse, parallel, middle latitude, and Mercator's sailing; with all the necessary tables. : Concise rules are given, with a variety of examples in every part of common navigation; also, a new, scientific, and very short method of correcting the dead reckoning; with rules for keeping a complete reckoning at sea, applied to practice, and exemplified in three separate journals, in which may be seen all the varieties which can probably happen in a ship's reckoning., New-London, Conn.: Samuel Green, OCLC 191273862 {{citation}}: |last= has numeric name (help)

Almanacs

References

  1. ^ Bunt 1988:33
  2. ^ Stowell 1976:92
  3. ^ "Plainfield Connecticut School History". connecticutgenealogy.com. Retrieved 2008-05-15. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  4. ^ Johnson 1904:n.s.
  5. ^ Freebetter 1771
  6. ^ Stowell 1976:92
  7. ^ Daboll 1785
  8. ^ Cajori 1890:47
  9. ^ Melville 1851
  10. ^ Cajori 1890:47
  11. ^ Johnson 1904:n.s.
  • Bunt, L. N. H. (1988). The historical roots of elementary mathematics. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0486255638. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Cajori, F. (1890). The teaching and history of mathematics in the United States. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. OCLC 635151.
  • Daboll, N. (1785). The New-England almanack, and gentlemen and ladies diary, for the year of our Lord Christ, 1786.: Being the second year after bissextile or leap-year. And the tenth year of American independence. Containing, lunations; eclipses of the luminaries; aspects; judgment of the weather; rising, sitting and southing of the seven stars; sun and moon's rising and sitting; festivals, and other remarkable days; courts; roads, &c. &c. Calculated for the meridian of Hartford, latitude 41 deg. 56 min. north. Hartford, Conn.: Barlow & Babcock. OCLC 79411551. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Freebetter, E. (1771). The Connecticut almanack, for the year of our Lord Christ 1772 ... Calculated for the meridian of New London, in Connecticut, lat. 41 deg. 25 min. north; and 4 h 45 m. west from the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. New London: T. Green. OCLC 55831696. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Johnson, R. (1904). The twentieth century biographical dictionary of notable Americans. Boston: Biographical Society. OCLC 6182270. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Melville, Herman (1851). Moby Dick; or The Whale.
  • Stowell, Marion Barber (1976). Early American Almanacs ; the Colonial Weekday Bible. New York: Ayer Publishing. ISBN 0891020632.

External links

{{subst:#if:Daboll, Nathan|}} [[Category:{{subst:#switch:{{subst:uc:1750}} 

|| UNKNOWN | MISSING = Year of birth missing {{subst:#switch:{{subst:uc:1818}}||LIVING=(living people)}}
| #default = 1750 births

}}]] {{subst:#switch:{{subst:uc:1818}} 

|| LIVING  = 
| MISSING  = 
| UNKNOWN  = 
| #default =

}}

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nathan_Daboll&oldid=214028441"