Background
The family was of Huguenot origin and the original spelling of the name was Espie.
The family was of Huguenot origin and the original spelling of the name was Espie.
In the forty years following the famous exploration by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado in that region, 1540-42, the mining frontier progressed northward, and in 1581, from the mining center of the San Bartolomé Valley, Friar Agustín Rodríguez, a Franciscan lay brother, went forth to make conversions. He was escorted by Francisco Chamuscado and eight other soldiers ; two other Franciscans, Francisco López, and Juan de Santa Maria, went also. The latter was killed by Taños Indians while attempting to return alone to the south. When the soldiers returned on January 31, 1582, they left López and Rodriguez at Puaray (in Tiguex) to found a mission. The Franciscan Order, disturbed for the safety of the two zealots, sent a relief expedition to bring them back, and Antonio de Espejo —who was visiting at the time in the Valley of San Bartolomé—turned prospector, invested of his wealth in the investigations, which had been bora in Pennsylvania, the son of Josiah and Elizabeth (Patterson) Espy. Many of his relatives during colonial times and later lived in Bedford. While James, the youngest son, was still an infant his father moved to the Blue-Grass region of Kentucky, and thence, a few years later, to the Miami Valley, Ohio. James remained with his oldest sister who had married and was living at Mount Sterling, Ky. When about eighteen, he entered Transylvania University at Lexington, Ky. , from which he graduated in 1808. He then went to Xenia, Ohio, where he taught school and studied law. During the years 1812-17 he was principal of the Academy at Cumberland, Md. He next taught mathematics and the classics in Philadelphia, part of the time at the Franklin Institute. About 1835 he began to devote his whole time to lecturing on and studying meteorological problems, especially his theory of storms. This theory, erroneous in respect to the mechanism of the storm, is sound in that part which attributes precipitation to the upward movement and consequent expansion and cooling of moist air. It was a great contribution to our knowledge of the physical processes of the atmosphere and deservedly brought much renown, and the pleasing title “Storm King, ” to its author. In 1836 it won the Magellanic Prize of the American Philosophical Society, and it brought an invitation to explain it in person, which he did in 1840, before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the French Academy of Sciences. However, there was stress, too, for it involved him in many discussions, some of which, owing to his positive opinions, were not strictly impersonal. In 1841 he published his Philosophy of Storms. In 1842 the United States Congress appointed him meteorologist to the War Department, and later, 1848, also meteorologist to the Navy Department. In this capacity he established a series of daily weather observations, compiled weather maps, traced the progress of storms, and submitted in 1843 the first annual weather report. In 1852 Congress directed him to continue his work in connection with the Smithsonian Institution, which had already undertaken the collection of meteorological data. Espy’s chief contribution to the science of meteorology was his convectional theory of precipitation, and his greatest addition to practical meteorology the institution of telegraphic bulletins giving knowledge at one place of the current state of the weather at various and widely different localities, thus laying the foundation of weather forecasting. approved by a local alcalde, and became leader of the relief party. With him went Fray Bernardino Beltran and fifteen soldiers. They left San Bartolomé on Nov. 10, 1582, taking 115 horses and mules. Going down the Conchos River to its affluence with the Rio Grande, Espejo passed through the Jumanos territory into the region of the Pueblo Indians. At Puaray they learned that the friars they had come to rescue had already been killed; hence the leader, with the friar conforming, turned to prospecting. They visited first the buffalo plains to the east, and then several of the pueblos on the Rio Grande and its tributaries. Going then westward to Ácoma and Zuñí, they encountered four Christian Mexican Indians left behind by Coronado. Thence Espejo went westward in quest of a reputed lake of gold, which eluded him, though the Moquis gave him four thousand cotton blankets, and rich ores were found farther west in the vicinity of the present Bill Williams Fork. In the meantime Beltran, waiting at Zuñí, decided to return to San Bartolomé while Espejo continued prospecting. The latter visited again to the eastward among the Queres, Ubates, and Taños, finding ores. From the Taños he turned homeward down the Pecos, being escorted to the Conchos by Jumanos Indians, and reached San Bartolomé on Sept. 20, 1583. The explorations of Rodriguez and Espejo were actually more important than Coronado’s in extending the area of Spain. The reports of mineral wealth in the north brought back by these parties of prospectors fanned frontier interest into excitement, and served as the basis of several attempts at occupation, culminating in the real conquest of New Mexico under Juan de Oñate.
In 1836 it won the Magellanic Prize of the American Philosophical Society, and it brought an invitation to explain it in person, which he did in 1840, before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the French Academy of Sciences.
