John Gummere

Background

John Gummere was born near Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, United States in 1784, the son of Samuel and Rachel (James) Gummere. He was a great-grandson of Johann and Anna Gomere, who were driven from their home in French Flanders by religious persecution.

Joining a company of Protestant refugees from Crefeld, husband and wife crossed the ocean to Pennsylvania in 1719 and took up a farm, later known as the old Monastery property, along the Wissahickon in Germantown. There they both died on the same day in May 1738.

Their son, John Gummere, married Sarah Davis and became the father of Samuel Gummere, who was a recorded minister of Friends and at one time postmaster at Stroudsburg.

Samuel had, like his son, a mathematical mind. He could solve any problem, capable of solution by arithmetic, but beyond arithmetic his education did not go.

Education

John’s love of mathematics would not let him rest satisfied with the poor repertory of the country schools.

While still a boy, perhaps as young as thirteen, John Gummere got possession of the necessary books and taught himself algebra, mensuration, geometry, trigonometry, surveying, and practical astronomy.

When he was nineteen he taught a school at Horsham, Pennsylvania, for a few terms and then entered the Friends’ Boarding School at Westtown, Pennsylvania, where for six months he was under the tuition of Enoch Lewis, whom he always remembered with respect and affection.

Career

His own distinguished career as a teacher began at Rancocas, New Jersey, where John Gummere remained for six years.

He returned to Westtown as a teacher in 1811, and in the spring of 1814 he opened a boarding school of his own at Burlington, New Jersey.

His Elementary Treatise on Astronomy (1822) was a deservedly popular textbook. Their author corresponded with Robert Adrain and Nathaniel Bowditch and continued to add to his knowledge until John Gummere was considered one of the most eminent mathematicians in the United States. His school became famous and drew pupils from all parts of the Union and from the West Indies.

In 1833 he gave up his school in order to teach mathematics in the newly established Haverford School.

For several years he was superintendent as well as teacher, but in 1843, because of differences over the management of the institution, he and the members of his family withdrew amicably.

He and his son, Samuel James, reestablished the old school at Burlington.

Achievements

• Gummere was one of the most famous mathematicians in the United States and the author of the famous book Elementary Treatise on Astronomy. He founded the school that became popular among pupils of the United States.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Gummere's Surveying: Revised and Adapted to Modern Methods (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Gummere's Surveying: Revised and Adapted to ...)

  • A Treatise On Surveying: Containing the Theory and Practice: To Which Is Prefixed a Perspicuous System of Plane Trigonometry. the Whole Clearly ... Particularly Adapted to the Use of Scho

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • An Elementary Treatise on Astronomy: In Two Parts, the First Containing a Clear and Compendious, Vol. 1 of 2 (Classic Reprint)

    (St tas,manrtftrtl NOTE BY THE PUBLISHERS. Fot theS isU iE...)

  • A treatise on surveying, containing the theory and practice: to which is prefixed a perspicuous system of plane trigonometry. The whole clearly ... Particularly adapted to the use of schools
  • Mathematical tables: difference of latitude and departure: logarithms, from 1 to 10,000; and artificial sines, tangents, and secants
  • Gummere's Surveying

Membership

In 1814 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society, to whose Transactions he contributed various papers, and saw the publication of his Treatise on Surveying, which ran through twenty-two editions.

Personality

Gummere was himself an ideal teacher, winning both the respect and the affection of his pupils, and taking equal delight in acquiring knowledge for himself and in imparting it to others.

Quotes from others about the person

• Allinson: "He avoided the too common error of over-estimating the supposed attainments of the pupil. ”

Connections

John Gummere married on 17 November, 1808 at the Rancocas Meeting House, New Jersey to Elizabeth Buzby.

Father:

Samuel Gummere

Mother:

Rachel Gummere

Wife:

Elizabeth Buzby

Grandfather:

Johann Gomere

Son:

Samuel James

grandmother:

Anna Gomere

References

• Using Latin: Book One
• The Declension of Nouns, Adjectives and Pronouns
• Stoic Six (Illustrated): Meditations, Golden Sayings, Fragments and Discourses of Epictetus, Letters from a Stoic, Enchiridion (Stoic Six Pack)
• An elementary treatise on astronomy; in two parts. The first containing a clear and compendious view of the theory; the second, a number of practical ... astronomical tables. By John Gummere ...
• A Treatise on Surveying Containing the Theory and Practice to Which is Prefixed a Perspicuous System of Plane Trigonometry