Nan Who Planned The
U.S. Weather Service
Captain William Hoiiilinot, of Pitls-
Imm'». know wlial
I» «I».
Iiul il was so
easy nobody bcklickv<k«l liini.
By BILLY AIM III It
Neither reward nor recognition ever
came to the North Carolinian who con¬
ceived the foundation for today's na¬
tional weather forecasting service.
He was Capt. William H. Boudinot
of Chatham County, who graduated
with distinction from the U. S. Naval
Academy in 1837, served with gallantry
in the War with Mexico and who was
a lieutenant on the battleship Ohio w ith
Commodore Perry's expedition to
Japan.
In his late years when efforts of
friends to obtain credit or pension for
him were futile. Capt. Boudinot was
modest. "Perhaps it is all for the best,"
he wrote in a letter. "The country is
deriving the benefit of its conception,
and it is immaterial who originated the
plan."
That plan was for a signal service for
gathering, plotting and forecasting the
weather for benefit of both the U.S.
Navy and the public. It came to Boudi¬
not in 1856 when he. then a lieutenant,
was stationed in Washington, but his
memorandums to higher naval officers
were pigeonholed. Too visionary, they
evidently believed.
The story is best told in a letter Capt
Boudinot wrote in 1868 to the New
York Chamber of Commerce in an ef¬
fort to revive the signal service idea. /Vs
follows, it was published nine years
later in the Dec. 29. 1887. issue of the
Wilmington Mi 'ssenger:
"Some twelve years ago (1856) while
I was an officer in the Navy, stationed
in Washington, the idea came to me of
making the electric telegraph subserve
the mercantile and commerical interests
of the country, as the matter is one by
which the commercial interests of this
country could be so greatly benefilted.
I have thought it proper to submit the
plan to your honorable body, know ing
that if you endorse il the commercial
and political influence of the stale of
12
New York w ill carry it into active oper¬
ation.
"The proposition I offer is to estab¬
lish at Washington what may be termed
a meteorological bureau to which cen¬
tral point may be transmitted Ivy the tel¬
egraph from every collector of customs
along our entire coast, giving the sta¬
tus of the weather twice each twcniv-
tbur hours, together w ith the direction
and force of the w ind, the state of the
barometer and other indications of the
condition of the atmosphere, w hich in¬
formation should be carefully examined
by the superintendent of such signal ser¬
vice at Washington, and then be given
to all other points on the coast. The
commanders of vessels would thus be
informed of the state of the weather:
and if. as is frequently the case, a heavy
gale may be blowing at Charleston or
Savannah twenty-four hours before the
body of the storm reaches the latitude
of New York, they may remain quietly
in port until the latitude of the storm
passes their latitude and avail them¬
selves of the favorable northwest winds
which usually succeed these storms,
thereby saving the wear and tear of ves¬
sels and the possible danger of ship¬
wreck: and if bound to any southern
port, to make a quick run to the desti¬
nation.
"The theory of storms has been so
verified by nautical men that
И
may be
regarded as a fact that nearly every de¬
structive storm which occurs on our
coast has its origin on the southern
coast, and the body of the storm has a
progressive motion toward the north¬
ward and generally expends itself in the
northwest portion of the American con¬
tinent. The barometer invariably indi¬
cates the approach of these storms, and
in the event of this suggestion being
acted upon, the central registration at
Washington of the barometric range, by
careful investigation, would give notice
of these gales before any other indica¬
tion.
"To a practical mind it would seem
a plan so easy to be carried into effect,
involving so little an expenditure,
fraught with much commercial benefit
to the commercial interests of the coun¬
try and the saving of many valuable
lives, should certainly receive the atten¬
tion of a great maritime nation. . . ."
No doubt thinking the letter a vision¬
ary product of some crank, the New
York Chamber did not respond.
Later in 1868 Capt. Boudinot wrote
similar letters to Catesby Jones, a class¬
mate at the naval academy, and other
scientists in Washington. They. too. at
the time did not appreciate the value of
his idea: but it did furnish the founda¬
tion for a weather service. In 18?) Con¬
gress created a public service branch of
the Army signal corps. It was trans¬
ferred to the Department of Administra¬
tion in 1890. and then to the Depart¬
ment of Commerce in 1940.
By a strange coincidence, according
to the Wilmington Messenger, the room
in Wilmington where Capt. Boudinot
wrote his 1868 letters became the
quarters for the first signal station in
Wilmington.
When he retired from the U.S. Navy-
in 1858. he became a rice planter in
New Hanover County, but was left im¬
poverished by the Civil War in which he
served five years as a captain in the
Confederate Navy. Returning to the old
home place near Pitlsboro in 1868. he
became a welcome neighbor and enter¬
tainer. A competent violinist, he was
also a delightful teller of stories of 25
years spent in both "the old navy" and
the Confederate Navy.
The rhetoric in the eulogy at his
funeral in 1889 attests to the respect and
affection in which he was held:
". . . After the storms he has
weathered on old ocean’s breast and the
greater storms of adversity that have
come to him since the last war. may the
anchorage he has found in the harbor of
Chatham's soil be smooth as the tones
he used to draw from his violin."
TAR HEEL
QUOTES
There are three kinds of people in the
world fits, misfits and counterfeits.
Blum's Almanac (1943)
• • •
A convenient thing about being rich
is if you don't pay your bills nobody
cares.
Josephus Daniels. Raleigh (1908)
THE STATE. August
19Я7
