Very little can now be gleaned reminiscent of the
bearer of this name, for awhile one of the most prominent among the pioneer
astronomers of America. Very few know that he was born in a little log cabin on
top of a high hill about one-fourth of a mile north of the present hamlet of
Gum Grove; yet, here, in 1810, of poor and humble parents, awakened a life
which has shed imperishable lustre upon American science. Not great in
originality, not accurate in scientific knowledge, his vigor, his perseverance,
his unquenchable enthusiasm gave am impetus to science in this country, which
has not ceased to vibrate to the present. That little life, dawning in the
humble cabin, grew and developed, and shook off its environments as the
butter-fly shakes off its chrysalis, until its possessor, out from his humble
ignorance up from his poverty, became universally known as "The Pioneer
Astronomer of America." It is to be regretted that so little can be discovered
concerning his early struggles. At present his name is only a legend among the
best informed people of our county; yet all these know that he was born here;
that his parents were very poor; that during his stay among us he was regarded
as a silent, meditative lad--possibly the fire of future eloquence and that
earnestness which swayed multitudes as a forest is swayed by a storm, was even
then brooding and smouldering in the depths of that silent, reserved nature.
While yet a lad he left here and west East, and then all trace of him is lost,
and we next find him full of fervor and enthusiasm lecturing on astronomy from
town to town, wherever he could get an audience; and, considering his
earnestness, his faith, and the novelty of his subject, it could hardly be of
great difficulty to secure one. At this period he bears resemblance to Captain
Symmes, of Upper Kentucky, who tramped from village to village, advocating his
quaint and unscientific theory. Unlike Symmes, however, Mitchell seems to have
carried away his audience by his impassioned fervor. He told them what they
could behold nightly in the skies, and each man departed with a wish to become
a Copernicus or Galielo, or at least a Newton or a Herschel. His simple program
was for each to procure a telescoope, the larger the better, establish an
observatory, and go on the path of discovery. The stellar space was boundless,
the field of research limitless. So it was, but he forgot that fully
seven-eights of his audience didn't know the constellation of Orion from the
Pleiades, nor the ascending node from a well-sweep. As a direct result of his
preaching, however, observatories sprang up like mushrooms over the country,
some of which are in existence at present and have accomplished good; some came
down to naught, or were sold for debt; but good or ill, he laid the corner
stone of astronomy in his native land.
We next find him installed as chief astronomer at
Cincinnati, whose observatory his enthusiasm called into being, as it likewise
did the celebrated Mount Whitney Observatory, near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. The
effort to build the Cincinnati Observatory was beset with difficulties, but at
last it rose, and here his crusade ended, although his position would appear to
fully told, the reader will smile at it through his tears. The eighth Article
of Incorporation, among other things, stipulated that "It shall further be the
duty of the astronomer to by himself aid in gratifying the curiosity of such
members of the Society (of incorporators) as may desire to examine the heavens
through the telescope." He had each year to deliver a course of lectures before
the society and such citizens as may purchase a ticket to the same; and the
sale of such tickets was to constitute his only recompense for his services!
Rather a pitiable lot for one whose precepts have been productive of such
universal fruit. Some idea of his versatility may be obtained from Sidney S.
Lyon's prefatory letter to the Second Topographical Report of Geological
Survey, wherein it appears that Professor Mitchell rated the chronometers and
instruments of the survey. As these were to be first used in making the survey
of his native county, we can well imagine that the work was a labor of love.
He appears to have been tolerably content with his lot until
the beginning of the war, at which time he entered the Union service, rose to
the rank of major-general and was killed in action in 1862.
A mystic career and a tragic close. Says a recent writer in
Harper's Magazine in an introduction to a scientific paper: "There is a chapter
of history yet unwritten. Some day will provide the hour and the man to tell
the story. Then the forgotten name of O. M. Mitchell will be duly honored by
American science. Not great in himself, he was the source of greatness in
other[sic]. What he lacked in knowledge he made up in enthusiasm. He preached a
crusade, and his followers erected domes upon many a hill-top and planted
telescopes therein. His was the fervor and theirs the faith. The harvest of
long tubes and broad lenses was plentiful, but the efficient laborers in the
observatories were few."
