Henry Martyn Paul was an American astronomer, engineer, teacher.
Background
Henry Martyn Paul was born on June 25, 1851 in Dedham, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. He was the eldest of six children of Ebenezer and Susan (Dresser) Paul. His ancestry may be traced directly to Richard Paul (1636), one of the first settlers of Cohannet, now Taunton, Massachussets By 1664 Richard's son, Samuel, had moved to Dorchester where his son, another Samuel, acquired a large estate including what was later known as the "Paul Homestead. " This was located near Paul's Bridge on the Neponset River in what later became the town of Dedham and still more recently Hyde Park. Henry Martyn Paul spent his boyhood in work on his father's farm.
Education
Henry Martyn Paul attended the local public schools and after four years at the Dedham High School entered Dartmouth College, from which he received the degree of A. B. in 1873. In the fall of 1873 he entered the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth and two years later received the degrees of C. E. and A. M.
Career
Henry Martyn Paul won the sophomore prize in mathematics, acted as assistant to his instructors in engineering courses, and during the winter of his sophomore year taught a district school at Waterford, Vermont. His extra-curricular activities included editorship, rowing, and music. He assisted in teaching astronomy and meteorology in the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. Immediately following his graduation from the Thayer School he was for a few weeks assistant to Prof. Elihu T. Quimby, then triangulating the state of New Hampshire for the United States Coast Survey. He was appointed junior assistant at the Naval Observatory at Washington in August 1875 and assigned to work with the transit circle under Prof. John R. Eastman. The telegram ordering him to Washington was relayed by heliotrope from Hanover to the triangulation station on Croydon Mountain.
In 1878 Henry Martyn Paul declined the professorship of astronomy at Dartmouth, but two years later (1880) resigned his position at the Naval Observatory to become the first professor of astronomy at the University of Tokyo, returning to the Naval Observatory in 1883. At Washington he was chiefly occupied with the time-consuming routine of the transit instrument, the equatorial, the care of the library, the publications, and the time service, but he also took part in observing and discussing observations of the transit of Mercury of May 1878, the total solar eclipse of 1878, the longitude of Princeton, the semi-diameter of the moon, and observations of variable stars, while occasionally contributing to scientific journals. In 1897 he became professor of mathematics in the United States Navy and in 1899 was transferred to the Bureau of Yards and Docks with duties of engineer. In this capacity he served until 1905, when he was assigned to the Naval Academy at Annapolis as teacher of mathematics.
Here Henry Martyn Paul remained until 1912, and in the following year he retired from the navy with the rank of captain. He died on March 15, 1931.
Achievements
Henry Martyn Paul was the first professor of astronomy at the University of Tokyo (1880 - 1883).
Membership
Henry Martyn Paul was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of the American Astronomical Society, of the Washington Academy of the Sciences, and of the Philosophical Society of Washington.
Interests
His interest in music was lifelong and for many years, Henry Martyn Paul was precentor in a Washington church and an officer of the Washington choral society.
Connections
On August 27, 1878 Henry Martyn Paul married Augusta Anna Gray, daughter of Rev. Edgar H. Gray of Washington. They had only son, who also became an engineer.
