Background

He was born on December 15, 1846 in Lowell, Massachussets, United States, the son of John Gilman and Elizabeth Wimble (Smith) Pillsbury, and a descendant of William Pillsbury who emigrated to Massachusetts about 1640.

Education

He graduated from the Naval vAcademy in 1867. Later he attended the Naval War College in 1897.

Career

At the age of fourteen he was made a page in the United States House of Representatives and served till appointed to the Naval Academy by President Lincoln in 1862. His training took place at Newport and Annapolis, and in the summers of 1863 and 1864 on the Marion and Saco respectively as they cruised in search of the Tacony and other Confederate raiders. He was made an ensign in 1868, and subsequently advanced through the grades until July 4, 1908, he became rear admiral.

After two years at the Boston Navy Yard, he was sent to the Orient on the Colorado, participated in a futile attempt to open Korea to the world, and then returned to San Francisco on the Benicia. In 1873 he was at the Torpedo Station, Newport. Pillsbury's first contact with the scientific work of the navy was made in 1874-75, when he went on the Swatara to Tasmania and New Zealand with a party of scientists to observe the transit of Venus.

When he returned he began service with the Coast Survey, which lasted for fifteen years. While in command of the Coast Survey steamer Blake (1884 - 89) he anchored his ship in water two miles deep, and determined the axis of the Gulf Stream and many of the laws governing its flow - work which has been of permanent value. The record of it appeared first in Report of the Superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey 1890, and was later published separately under the title, The Gulf Stream (1891).

Pillsbury returned to active duty in the navy in 1891 and when the Spanish-American War broke out was already in command of the dynamite cruiser Vesuvius, which was engaged in the blockade of Santiago from June 13, 1898, until after the destruction of Cervera's fleet. Armed with three guns operated by compressed air, the Vesuvius would stand in close to the shore on dark nights and fire three dynamite shells at the Spanish batteries. The effect was slight, except that this new form of attack shattered the Spanish morale and dug huge holes where the shells landed.

In 1905-07 Pillsbury served under Robley D. Evans as chief of staff of the North Atlantic Squadron, where he is credited by his superior with keeping the fleet in fine condition. He then served until 1909 as chief of the Bureau of Navigation, although he was retired on December 15, 1908, and he was also on the board which decided against the claims of Dr. Frederick A. Cook that he had reached the North Pole.

He became one of the managers of the National Geographic Society and held various offices in that organization till elected president in April 1919, a few months before his death, which occurred in Washington from paralysis of the heart.

Achievements

• John Elliott Pillsbury served with distinction in American Civil War and Spanish–American War and was promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral. Besides, he was one of the world's foremost geographers and an authority on the Gulf Stream, his chief work was in the Gulf Stream. In 1876 he invented a current meter for determining the flow of ocean currents at various depths - an instrument which was used till his death. Pillsbury determined the axis of the Gulf Stream and many of the laws governing its flow - work which has been of permanent value. He also published "Wilkes and D'Urville's Discoveries in Wilkes Land", "The Grandest and Most Mighty Terrestrial Phenomenon: the Gulf Stream" and "Charts and Chart Making".

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Gulf Stream: Methods Of The Investigation And Results Of The Research (1891)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Recent Discoveries concerning the Gulf Stream. A rare original article from the Century Magazine, 1891.

Membership

He was a member of National Geographic Society in the United States.

Connections

On August 26, 1873 he married Florence Greenwood Aitchison, of Portland, Maine. He had one daughter.

Father:

John Gilman Pillsbury

Mother:

Elizabeth Wimble (Smith) Pillsbury

Spouse:

Florence Greenwood Aitchison

coworker:

Robley D. Evans

ancestor:

William Pillsbury