Nathaniel Bowditch House
| Nathaniel Bowditch House | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| National Register of Historic Places | |||
| National Historic Landmark | |||
 The house in 2005 |
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| location | Salem , Massachusetts , United States | ||
| Coordinates | 42 ° 31 '17.2 " N , 70 ° 53' 56.6" W | ||
| Built | Early 19th century | ||
| Architectural style | Federal style | ||
| NRHP number | 66000135 | ||
| Data | |||
| The NRHP added | October 15, 1966 | ||
| Declared as an NHL | January 12, 1965 | ||
The Nathaniel Bowditch House is today commercially-used building in Salem in the state of Massachusetts of the United States . It is named after Nathaniel Bowditch , who lived in this house from 1811 to 1823. It has been recognized as a National Historic Landmark since 1965 and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1966 .
architecture
The house was built at the beginning of the 19th century and initially stood on Essex Street in Salem before being moved to its current location around 1945 to prevent its final demolition due to road widening. The three-story building was built in the Federal style and is made entirely of wood. It has a low hipped roof and a two-and-a-half-story extension at the rear.
The centered main entrance is flanked by two Corinthian pillars that support an entablature . The interior layout corresponds to the classic scheme of four rooms per floor.
When it was moved to its new location, the house was in very poor condition and had to be extensively renovated. Nevertheless, the external appearance largely corresponds to the original condition, while the interiors have been redesigned.
Historical meaning
From 1811 to 1823, Nathaniel Bowditch lived in this house, which is known in the United States for his developments in nautical navigation and for "introducing continental mathematics to America". He discovered no less than 8000 errors in The Practical Navigator , which had been published as a navigation manual by the Englishman John Hamilton Moore. One of the most serious mistakes was the incorrect specification of the year 1800 as a leap year , which led to several accidents at sea. As a result, Bowditch's own book The New American Practical Navigator became the standard work for seafarers worldwide after its publication in 1802.
After teaching himself Latin at the age of 21 , he read the original book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton and found a mistake there as well. With the help of a Bible and a dictionary, he learned French and then translated the work Traité de Mécanique Céleste (Treatise on Celestial Mechanics) by Pierre-Simon Laplace into English. He was able to publish four volumes of more than 1000 pages each before he died in 1838 and could not finish his work on the fifth volume.
See also
- List of entries on the National Register of Historic Places in Salem
- List of National Historic Landmarks in Massachusetts
literature
- Polly M. Rettig, S. Sydney Bradford: National Register of Historic Places - Nomination Form. (PDF) United States Department of the Interior , National Park Service , December 23, 1974, accessed October 26, 2017 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Massachusetts. National Park Service , accessed August 6, 2019.
- ↑ a b c cf. Rettig, p. 2.
- ↑ cf. Rettig, p. 3.
- ↑ cf. Rettig, p. 5.