Background
Talcott was born on April 20, 1797 in Glastonbury, Connecticut. The son of George and Abigail (Goodrich) Talcott, he was a lineal descendant of John Talcott, one of the first settlers of Hartford.
Talcott was born on April 20, 1797 in Glastonbury, Connecticut. The son of George and Abigail (Goodrich) Talcott, he was a lineal descendant of John Talcott, one of the first settlers of Hartford.
Entering the United States Military Academy in March 1815, he was graduated, second in his class, in July 1818, and made a brevet second lieutenant in the corps of engineers. Having been advanced through the intervening grades, he became captain on December 22, 1830.
After serving as assistant engineer in connection with the construction of fortifications at Rouse's Point, N. Y. , 1818-19, he was engineer and aide-de-camp to Gen. Henry Atkinson in the establishment of posts on the upper Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, 1820-21.
For the next five years he was engaged in engineering work on fortifications in Virginia, Rhode Island, New York, and Delaware. From 1826 to 1828 he superintended the construction of the canal through the Dismal Swamp in Virginia, and from 1828 to 1834, the construction of Fort Monroe and Fort Calhoun, Hampton Roads, Va. He also served as astronomer in determining the boundary line between Ohio and Michigan, 1832-36; and as superintending engineer of improvements on the Hudson River, 1834-36. In 1836 he resigned his commission in the army to engage in work as a civil engineer. The varied tasks he was now called upon to execute bear evidence of his complete mastery of his profession.
In December 1857 he began his last work, the location and construction of the railroad from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico. On this project he was engaged until March 1867, with the exception of a period in 1860-61 when work was suspended because of a reorganization of the company. During this period of suspension he was manager of the Sonora Exploring & Mining Company and chief engineer of the state of Virginia.
Talcott was always interested in practical astronomy, and while working on the Michigan-Ohio boundary line devised a method of determining terrestrial latitudes through the observation of stars near the zenith, adapting the zenith telescope to the purpose. "Talcott's method" was first described in the Journal of the Franklin Institute (October 1838), and its adoption by the Coast Survey led to great improvements in the zenith telescope and to the utilization of the method in all the great United States government surveys. Talcott never claimed any credit for originality in his method; he simply considered it the best means of determining latitude from his knowledge of practical astronomy and with the instruments then available. Credit was given him by others, however.
After his retirement he traveled abroad and upon his return settled in Baltimore, moving later to Richmond, where he died.
He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society and an honorary member of the Connecticut Association of Arts and Sciences.
He was twice married: first, in April 1826, to Catherine Thompson of Philadelphia, who died in 1828 leaving no child; second, April 11, 1832, at Norfolk, Va. , to Harriet Randolph Hackley, by whom he had six sons and five daughters. Seven of these children survived him.