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March 28, 2008 03:45 pm
Editorial: Salem Marine Society won't exonerate former honorary member who sided with
More than 140 years after the end of the Civil War, members are still
carrying a grudge against hero-turned-traitor, Matthew Fontaine Maury.
CNHI News Service
— Editorial: Salem Marine Society won't exonerate former honorary member who sided with South
Talk about carrying a grudge
Opinion: The Salem (Mass.) News
Ulysses S. Grant may have accepted the Confederate Army's surrender at
Appomattox Court House in the spring of 1865, but that didn't settle things
as far as the Salem Marine Society were concerned.
More than 140 years after the end of the Civil War, members are still
carrying a grudge against hero-turned-traitor, Matthew Fontaine Maury.
The Virginian's nautical charts were considered an essential tool by sea
captains up and down the coast during the first part of the 19th century,
and in 1859 he was granted honorary membership in the exclusive society of
Salem mariners. Two years later, after it was learned he'd provided aid and
comfort to his native South, he was drummed out of the club. And to put an
exclamation on their disgust, members directed that his portrait be hung
upside down and turned towards the wall.
And that's the way the portrait of Maury remained, even after the
society moved its quarters from the Franklin Building to the roof of the
Hawthorne Hotel in 1923.
Which didn't sit well with members of the Mary Washington Branch of the
Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA), based in
Maury's hometown of Fredericksburg, Va., when they visited the Hawthorne in
the fall of 2006 and happened upon their hero's portrait | or rather the
back of it.
As detailed in Tom Dalton's March 24 story on this fascinating slice of
history, negotiations soon commenced between the Fredericksburg and Salem
factions to give Maury his due without undoing the actions of the Unionist
skippers. And this fall the Marine Society will unveil a new portrait of
Maury | right side up | as part of an exhibit on his contributions to the
field of navigation. The original | upside down and facing the wall | will
remain, however.
The treaty will be sealed at the Marine Society's annual dinner to which
representatives of the APVA have been invited. Hopefully peace will reign
and no one picks a fight over who | Maury or Salem's Nathaniel Bowditch |
was the better navigator.
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