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One cause of the success of Bowditch's manual was its simplicity. For this there was a simple reason. Many of the crews Bowditch sailed with were ambitious. Bowditch, a practical democrat, would teach anybody who was willing to learn. "If one explanation of a mathematical principle proved too difficult for a seaman to understand, Bowditch could try another one." By teaching sailors on his ships, Bowditch learned to write simply for generations of sailors to come.
How well he educated U.S. seamen, Salem Shipmaster George Crowninshield liked to illustrate with a story. One day in a European port, German Astronomer Franz Xaver von Zach visited Crowninshield's yacht, expressed surprise that anybody on board could take lunar observations. "Our cook can do that!" said Crowninshield, pointing to a Negro in a white apron with a bloody fowl in one hand and a big knife in the other. "By what method do you calculate lunar distances?" the German astronomer asked the American cook. "It is immaterial," said the Negro, "I use sometimes the method of Maskelyne, Lyons, or Bowditch, but I prefer that of Dunthorne, as I am more accustomed to it."
Lonely Scientist. Settled in Salem again, Bowditch became president of a prosperous insurance company. The pattern of the chandler's shop was repeated on another plane. By day Bowditch was "a capable and prudent businessman." By night "he slaved over astronomical papers. ... A gregarious man, fond of society and taking pleasure in the town meetings and dinners ... he nevertheless spent a great part of his leisure studying a lonely science—for astronomy is inherently a lonely science, and in Bowditch's case ... his only companions in astronomy on the whole North American continent were his books."
Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead says that "religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness." Perhaps that explains in part the contemplative but shrewd prelatical look on Bowditch's face in Gilbert Stuart's unfinished portrait (see cut).
Bowditch became president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, wrote for the North American Review, tanned his sons with a slide rule whenever they disturbed him. An unreconstructed Federalist, he ran for office, finally was elected member of the Massachusetts Executive Council. Sometimes the self-educated mathematician lectured perennially rebellious Harvard students, once remarking of some of them that "I should have some little respect for their offensive if it had been carried on in a manner that indicated strength of mind or body, or that they had an immortal soul," but when they put themselves "upon a level with mischievous monkeys or baboons, in breaking their plates, glasses &c., it was too contemptible."