Hubbard

of young from old offenders by the establishment
of a state reform school. He also urged obedi-
ence to the compromise measures of 1850 and to
the federal Fugitive Slave Law in particular.
Slavery was abhorrent to him, but emancipation,
he contended, should be gradual, fair to the
South, and consistent with law and the Consti-
tution. He denounced radical Abolitionists as
mischievous and dangerous distmionists. His
medical practice was interrupted from 1857 to
1859 by his service as special Treasury agent to
examine custom-houses in the Eastern states,
and from 1859 to 1861 when he was a commis-
sioner under the Reciprocity Treaty with Great
Britain, concluded in 1854. In 1860 he aligned
himself with the Douglas Democrats, but in 1864
voted for Lincoln. After a long and useful life,
he died in his country doctor's office at Hallo-
well, having just returned from a professional
call. He was the father of six children, one of
whom was Thomas Hamlin Hubbard

[E. W. Day, One Thousand Years of Hubbard Hist.
(1895); Neal Dow, The Reminiscences of Neal Dow
(1898) ; L. C. Hatch, ed., Maine: A Hist. (1919), vol.
IV ; Emma H. Nason, Old Hallowell on the Kennebec
(1909) ; H. C. Williams, ed., Biog. Encyc, of Me. of the
Nineteenth Century (1885) ; Bangor Daily Whig and
Courier, Feb. 8, 1869.] B.M— o.

HUBBARD, JOSEPH STILLMAN (Sept
7, i823-Aug. 16, 1863), astronomer, was born in
New Haven, Conn., 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, Mass.,
representing this town in eight successive years
in the legislature. Of the second generation was
Rev. William Hubbard [g.v.], one of the first
historians of New England. Succeeding genera-
tions 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. "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 ef-
forts was to make a clock , . . which went for
a time. . . . Most of his leisure time before en-
tering college was devoted to making a telescope,
which proved to be quite a good instrument*'
(Ibid., p. 8). About this time he became ac-
quainted with Ebenezer Mason, one of Yale's
astronomers. In his sixteenth year he walked to
Ware, Mass., to talk with a mechanic, who, ac-

Hubbard
cording to Mason, had some special knowledge
of casting mirrors.
He graduated from Yale in 1843, taught the
following winter in a classical school, and in 1844
went to Philadelphia as assistant to Sears C
Walker [q.v.] in the High School observatory.
Here, away from the watchful eye of his mother,
he almost literally observed all night and com-
puted 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 Lieu-
tenant Fremont's observations made on the ex-
pedition across the Rocky Mountains, and in
1845 he was commissioned professor of mathe-
matics 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 manage-
ment of the Naval Observatory in those days
now seem incredible. Hubbard found making
his own observations less arduous than the train-
ing of lieutenants and midshipmen who were not
fitted for astronomical pursuits and often dis-
liked them. With J. H. C. Coffin he planned and
organized a system of zone-observations to be
carried out simultaneously with three instru-
ments. 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 thor-
oughly studied and mastered. He was especially
interested in the question of the parallax of Alpha
Lyrae. His first published observations were
those of Feb. 4, 1847, when he confirmed the
identity of Neptune with one of the stars ob-
served by Lalande in 1795 (Astronomiscke
Nachrichten, Aug. 2, 1847). The use of this
ancient observation enabled Walker to determine
the orbit of Neptune with great precision. Hub-
bard was an enthusiastic supporter of Benjamin
Apthorp Gould [qw*] 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 contri-
butions to this journal amount to over 210 col-
umns and cover his most important work. His
first extended computations were on the zodiacs
of all the known asteroids (Astronomical Jour-
nal, 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., vot VI) are eipaally thorough and
complete.