Joseph Stillman Hubbard was an American astronomer.
Background
Hubbard was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1823. He was the second son of Ezra Stiles Hubbard and Eliza Church, and descended from a long line of sturdy New England stock. His first American ancestor, William Hubbard of Ipswich, Suffolk, came out from London in the Defence in 1635 and settled in Ipswich, Massachussets, representing this town in eight successive years in the legislature. Of the second generation was Rev. William Hubbard, one of the first historians of New England. Succeeding generations were men of moral worth and influence. His mother's story of Joseph's boyhood (Gould, post) reveals the earnestness and enthusiasm and the gift for friendship which characterized him as a man.
Education
"It was about his ninth year that he began especially to develop his peculiar taste for mathematical studies and mechanics, " but a boyish love of fun apparently kept his precocity within wholesome limits. "One of his great efforts was to make a clock which went for a time. . Most of his leisure time before entering college was devoted to making a telescope, which proved to be quite a good instrument" (Ibid. , p. 8). About this time he became acquainted with Ebenezer Mason, one of Yale's astronomers. In his sixteenth year he walked to Ware, Massachussets, to talk with a mechanic, who, according to Mason, had some special knowledge of casting mirrors. He graduated from Yale in 1843.
Career
The winter of 1844 he taught in a classical school, and in 1844 went to Philadelphia as assistant to Sears C. Walker in the High School observatory. Here, away from the watchful eye of his mother, he almost literally observed all night and computed all day, with the result that his health gave way and was never properly regained.
Late in 1844 he went to Washington to work over Lieutenant Frémont's observations made on the expedition across the Rocky Mountains, and in 1845 he was commissioned professor of mathematics in the United States Navy, and stationed at the Naval Observatory, where he remained for the rest of his life. The discouragements and mortifications endured by those who tried to carry on true scientific work under the management of the Naval Observatory in those days now seem incredible. Hubbard found making his own observations less arduous than the training of lieutenants and midshipmen who were not fitted for astronomical pursuits and often disliked them.
With J. H. C. Coffin he planned and organized a system of zone-observations to be carried out simultaneously with three instruments. Observation on this program was begun in 1846 and carried through 1850. Hubbard's most valuable observations were made with the prime-vertical, an instrument which he thoroughly studied and mastered. He was especially interested in the question of the parallax of Alpha Lyrae. His first published observations were those of February 4, 1847, when he confirmed the identity of Neptune with one of the stars observed by Lalande in 1795 (Astronomische Nachrichten, August 2, 1847). The use of this ancient observation enabled Walker to determine the orbit of Neptune with great precision.
Hubbard was an enthusiastic supporter of Benjamin Apthorp Gould in the latter's plan for founding the Astronomical Journal (first issue, November 1849), and he acted as editor during Gould's absence from the country. His contributions to this journal amount to over 210 columns and cover his most important work. His first extended computations were on the zodiacs of all the known asteroids (Astronomical Journal, vols. I-III). Then followed his masterly and elegant calculations on the orbit of the comet of 1843, an investigation to which he had looked forward since his senior year in college (Ibid. , vols. I-II). His discussions of Biela's comet (Ibid. , vols. III-VI) and the fourth comet of 1825 (Ibid. , vol. VI) are equally thorough and complete.
There are indications that during his later years he considered renouncing his scientific labors for the ministry. After the beginning of the Civil War his charity sent him to hospitals, where he devoted whole afternoons to the writing of letters for wounded soldiers. He died in New Haven, whither he had gone to attend a class reunion.
Hubbard was intensely religious, an elder in the Presbyterian church, and city superintendent of the Presbyterian Sunday schools in Washington.
Membership
In 1845 he was elected a member of the National Institute of Washington, and in 1852 a fellow of the American Philosophical Society. Joseph Stillman Hubbard was also an original member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Connections
On April 27, 1848, he married Sarah E. L. Handy, of Washington. Ill health and pecuniary difficulties overshadowed the home. Their only child died in 1856, and Mrs. Hubbard four years later.
