Frank Evans Seagrave: A Timeline of His Life & Contributions in Historical Context: 1860 - 1899
September 2024 :
The Early Years : 1860 - 1874
Frank Evans Seagrave was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on March 29, 1860, son of Mary Greene (Evans) and George Augustus Seagrave. George was a wealthy textile mill owner just outside of Providence, as well as a Providence bank president. During my extensive research I was surprised to learn that when Frank was born his family lived at 20 Angell Street. In 1866 George purchased the house at 119 Benefit Street.
I have been unable to uncover any details of young Seagrave’s childhood. From 1869 to 1874 Frank went to a private school run by the Reverend Charles H. Wheeler of the Church of the Redeemer. Reverend Wheeler had a private school for boys and prepared students for Brown University and other New England colleges. It was at this school where Seagrave acquired a knack for mathematics.
In this treatise I have reported on some documented events simply stated with no informational detail as to how Frank’s participation was realized. I will note these events in the timeline.
In addition, my years of Seagrave research uncovered many references to articles, observations, and contributions in the astronomical journals throughout his lifetime in which Seagrave authored or was a contributor. His astronomical interests covered a wide range of topics, including variable stars, double stars, solar eclipses, sunspots, aurorae, meteors and occultations of stars and planets by the Moon. Seagrave particularly excelled in orbital calculations of newly discovered asteroids and comets. I have provided an EXCEL spreadsheet posted on our Google Drive (link 1) where you can use the information supplied to access The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) database in order to retrieve the material. Instructions on how to retrieve the specific volumes can be found here: ADS (Google Drive link 2).
From this point forward, when you encounter Google Drive (Google Drive link 3), click on it and you will be transferred to our Google Drive where you can view additional material.
While we currently have 14 images and one movie (Google Drive link 4) of Seagrave, I like the description of Seagrave provided by Skyscrapers founder Professor Charles Smiley in his 1934 Popular Astronomy obituary. Smiley wrote, “He was a tall, dignified gentleman with snow-white hair in his later years. His keen sense of humor and the kindly twinkle in his eyes endeared him to his many friends. His stories of the great astronomers of the last half-century, many of whom he had known personally, were always interesting, and his enthusiasm for his work was very contagious.”
Let’s explore Frank E. Seagrave’s life and contributions to astronomy.
In the timeline, Seagrave specific material is presented in bold text.
1860 Historical Highlights
Frank is born on March 29
• The Pony Express begins operation in April to deliver mail by horse relay from Missouri to California in just ten days. The company only survives 18 months until October 1861 due to the creation of the transcontinental telegraph system.
• British astronomer Warren de la Rue uses a photoheliograph he designed to photograph the total solar eclipse on July 18 in Spain. His photographs prove that the “red flames” (prominences) seen along the lunar limb were features of the Sun.
• Abraham Lincoln is elected president of the United States on November 6.
• South Carolina secedes from the Union on December 20.
1861 Historical Highlights
I am including brief details of the Civil War here merely to place Frank Seagrave in historical context. I do not know what life was like in Rhode Island during this sad period in our history. I just haven’t had the time to do the research.
However, Rhode Islander General Ambrose Burnside figured prominently in many campaigns. Also, thanks to Ken Burns’ Civil War television series, another local citizen, Sullivan Ballou, is best remembered for his “Letter to Sara.” See the letter at this website: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/sullivan-ballou-letter
• The Confederate States of America is formed on February 8. Jefferson Davis is elected as a provisional president on the 9th.
• The Civil War begins with Confederate troops firing on and capturing Union controlled Fort Sumter in Charlestown, South Carolina on April 12.
• From this date till the end of the war on April 9, 1865, many bloody battles ensue. I will only reference a few in their respective years.
• When the Great Comet of 1861 rounds the Sun on June 29 and becomes visible in the northern hemisphere, it is estimated to be between magnitude -2 and 0, with a 90-degree tail. It is reported to have cast shadows at night. Remember, this is before the advent of electric lighting.
• The first major battle between the North and South occurs at Bull Run in Virginia on July 21.
• Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the president of The Confederate States of America for a six-year term on November 6.
1862 Historical Highlights
• On January 31, Alvan G. Clark, maker of our 8-inch telescope, makes the first observation of Sirius B, a white dwarf companion of the primary star, Sirius A. The 50-year elliptical orbit of Sirius B causes it to swing into view more easily from time to time. In 1975, several Skyscraper members, including myself, viewed it at about its maximum extent from Sirius A using our 8-inch Clark refractor.
• On March 9, two ironclad ships, the Merrimack/Virginia (Confederacy) and the Monitor (Union) engage each other off the Virginia coast at Hampton Roads. The Merrimack disables the Monitor.
• The first paper money, called “greenbacks,” are issued by the US government on March 10.
1863 Historical Highlights
• On January 1, Abraham Lincoln declares in his Emancipation Proclamation that all slaves in any state under Union control shall be free. This declaration allows free and escaped enslaved African-American men to serve in the Union army. (One of my favorite movies is Glory, exemplifying the service of these men to the Union cause and continued freedom.)
• Three-day Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3) is the bloodiest battle of the entire Civil War, with an estimated 50,000 + casualties. The Union prevails, heralding the end of Confederate ambitions.
• On November 19, Abraham Lincoln gives his now famous two-minute Gettysburg Address ("Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”) honoring the men who had fought and died during the Battle of Gettysburg.
1864 Historical Highlights
• February 17: the Confederate submarine Hunley “torpedoes” and sinks the Union ship Housatonic in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The birth of submarine warfare.
• On May 14, some 20 meteorites fall over a wide area in Orgueil, France.
They are classified as carbonaceous chondrites, meaning they contained organic matter.
• British astronomer William Huggins takes the first spectrum of planetary nebula NGC 6543 (aka the Cat’s Eye Nebula) on August 29.
• Atlanta is captured by William Tecumseh Sherman on September 1.
• Lincoln elected to a second term on November 8.
1865 Historical Highlights
• On April 9, General Robert E. Lee surrenders to General Ulysses S. Grant at the McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
• Five days later, on April 14, Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. The president dies the next day. Vice-president and Democrat Andrew Johnson assumes the presidency.
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is published by Lewis Carroll in November.
• Leo Tolstoy publishes War and Peace in serialized form beginning in 1865 through 1867. The complete novel is published in 1869. The first purchaser of this work just finished reading it about a month ago!
• The Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, is ratified on December 6.
• Maria Mitchell becomes the first director of the Vassa College Observatory. She had discovered a comet in 1847, which was later called “Miss Mitchell's Comet.”
1866 Historical Highlights
• The James-Younger Gang, Jesse and Frank James, et al, rob the Clay County Savings Association in Liberty, Missouri, on February 13.
• The Civil Rights Act of 1866 is passed by the US Congress on April 9, defining the rights of all citizens, but specifically guaranteeing the rights of formerly enslaved people.
• The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is passed by the Senate on June 8. It addresses rights of citizens and a concept everyone knows, “equal protection under the law.” The amendment is not ratified until July 9, 1868.
• Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel invents dynamite in 1866 and patents it in 1867.
1867 Historical Highlights
• Secretary of State William Seward purchases Alaska for $7.2 million on March 30. Officially becomes part of the United States on October 18.
1868 Historical Highlights
• Louisa May Alcott publishes her coming-of-age book for children, Little Women, in two volumes (1868 & 1869). It was later combined into one volume.
• Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution finally ratified on July 9.
• French astronomer Pierre Jules Janssen detects an unknown element in the Sun’s chromosphere during the total solar eclipse in India on August 18. It is later identified as helium.
• Republican and Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant wins the US November 3 presidential election.
1869 Historical Highlights
• The Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution is passed by Congress on February 26. It states: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” It is ratified on February 3, 1870.
• Dmitri Mendeleev develops the Periodic Table of Elements during February/March by arranging the elements and comparing them by their atomic weights. He enlists a colleague to read his discovery paper to the Russian Chemical Society in St Petersburg on March 6.
• At Promontory Summit in Utah, the transcontinental railroad is completed with the meeting of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific rail lines on May 10, with the ceremonious driving of a “Golden Spike.”
• The 120-mile-long Suez Canal, begun in 1859, linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, is officially opened on November 17.
1870 Historical Highlights
Frank: 10 Years-Old
• The Standard Oil Company of Ohio is incorporated on January 10 by John D. Rockefeller et al.
• A bill creating the U.S. Department of Justice passes the House and Senate and is signed into law by Ulysses S. Grant on June 22.
1871 Historical Highlights
• James Whistler renders a painting of his mother and titles it Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1. More widely known as Whistler’s Mother - estimated worth: $36 million.
• The Great Chicago Fire destroys about a third of the city over a three-day period (October 8 to October 10). Multiple causes of the conflagration have been postulated, though Mrs. O'Leary's cow is generally blamed for knocking over a lantern.
• Sir Henry Stanley searches for Dr. David Livingstone, who had been missing in southern Africa for six years. Stanley finds him in a village named Ujiji near Lake Tanganyika in present day Tanzania on November 10 and greets him with four famous words, “Dr Livingstone, I presume.”
1872 Historical Highlights
• March 1: The US Congress creates the first national park, Yellowstone, and president Ulysses S. Grant signs it into law.
• Montgomery Ward begins distributing dry goods through a mail-order catalog from Chicago in August.
• French writer Jules Verne publishes Around the World in 80 Days on December 22.
• Alice Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll’s sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is published on December 27, 1871, though dated 1872.
1873 Historical Highlights
• In San Francisco Levi Strauss produces "Copper Riveted Overalls" using blue denim, and patents Blue Jeans. These would eventually become Levi’s.
1874 Historical Highlights
Frank: 14 Years-Old
• Mussorgsky composes Pictures at an Exhibition as a piece for piano in memory of an exhibition by the Russian painter Victor Hartmann. Mussorgsky’s piece is considered “newer” classical. My introduction to it came through Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s 1971 rock adaptation.
It is reported that young Frank Seagrave’s interest in astronomy was awakened by a total lunar eclipse on October 24-25. So great was this new pursuit that his father bought him a 3-inch refractor soon after. It is reported that Frank observed every fair night.
1875 Historical Highlights
• William Crookes invents the radiometer, in which light (solar radiation) causes four vanes, each having one side black and the other side white, to rotate in a bulb containing gas at low pressure.
• Congress passes a Civil Rights Act on March 1. It provides, “That all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude.”
Frank begins traveling to the Harvard College Observatory (HCO) twice a week, where, even though he isn't enrolled as a student, he is given access to the library and instruments. I have no details about how this arrangement had been facilitated. Information I have seen report this activity continued into 1877.
1876 Historical Highlights
• On March 7, Alexander Graham Bell is awarded the first US patent for the telephone, encompassing in part, "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically ... by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound". On the 10th history is made when he “calls” his assistant in another room with the words, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.” See Seagrave reminiscences below.
• On June 25-26, Colonel George Armstrong Custer and the 7th US cavalry are massacred by the Sioux at the Little Bighorn River, in Montana. This event became known as Custer’s Last Stand.
• The bank robbing careers of the James-Younger gang ends after a failed attempt on a bank in Northfield, Minnesota on September 7.
• First illustrated edition of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is published in the United States in December.
• On December 7, astronomer Asaph Hall of the US Naval Observatory records the first observation of the Great White Spot on Saturn and uses it to determine Saturn’s rotational period. He used the 26-inch Alvan Clark refractor.
Frank's father is so impressed with his son's new-found activities that he purchases an 8-inch Alvan Clark refractor as a present for Frank's 16th birthday (March 29, 1876). His dad pays $2310.80 for the telescope. It wouldn’t be delivered until 1878.
Note: In 1934, shortly before his passing, Frank Seagrave sent two short stories to Popular Astronomy magazine, reminiscing about past experiences in 1876 and 1877. They are truly fascinating.
1877 Historical Highlights
• Henry McCarty, aka, William Bonney, calls himself “Billy the Kid.” This cattle rustler, gunslinger, and outlaw, is killed by sheriff Pat Garret at the age of just 21 in 1881. The “Kid” was alleged to have murdered 21 people.
• Late August: Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli begins observing Mars with an 8.6-inch Mertz refractor just before its opposition on September 5 when the planet would be just over 35 million miles from the Earth. He notes some straight-line surface features he calls “canali.” This means channels in Italian, but when the word is translated into English it became canals. To some minds this suggests the features were constructed by intelligent Martians. Schiaparelli does not support this interpretation. While many other Mars observers did not even see these channels, those who did perceive some details thought the markings are irregular and most likely geologic in nature. The human brain was simply playing connect-the-dots creating an optical illusion.
• Asaph Hall begins observing Mars in search of Martian moons as the planet and Earth were approaching a close (35 million miles) encounter on September 7. He discovers Deimos on August 12. On the 18th he discovers Phobos.
• On December 6, Thomas Alva Edison records and plays back the line “Mary had a little lamb” on his new phonograph.
1878 Historical Highlights
• English physicist Joseph Swan demonstrates a practical electric light bulb, using an incandescent carbon filament in a vacuum
• First commercial telephone exchange opens in New Haven, CT.
• Ready Made Mixed Paints. After thousands of years where paint is mixed by hand on the spot, two Americans (Henry Sherwin and Edward Williams) begin selling premixed paints in cans.
• Thomas Edison develops the electric light
The Clark telescope ordered in 1876 is delivered and an observatory is built in the backyard of Franks’s father's house at 119 Benefit St. in Providence, R.I. This great instrument is then the 3rd largest in New England, and is the largest in New England in private hands. The telescope is mounted in May. Present at the dedication ceremony is none other than Alvan G. Clark, the famous telescope maker. Also present is Leonard Waldo, Assistant Director of HCO under E.C. Pickering, who thought the "complement of accessories attending the telescope could occupy the time of two competent observers."
View the only known Seagrave notebooks (Google Drive link 5).
Young Seagrave’s mentorship with Leonard Waldo of HCO earns him an invitation to join Harvard’s solar eclipse expedition to Fort Worth, Texas for a rendezvous with totality on July 29.
Review the complete 60-page report on the eclipse produced by Leonard Waldo (Google Drive link 6). Seagrave’s report appears on pages 52 – 55.
A summary of the expedition can be found in the journal, The Observatory. Use the spreadsheet on our Google Drive (link 1) and copy the Biblio-code in row 5 and paste into the NASA/ADS (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/) to view these documents.
Seagrave is an integral part of this eclipse expedition. He furnishes his own 3-inch refractor, a spectroscope by Browning, having a dispersive power of ten 60-degree flint glass prisms, and a “Victor Kullberg, 1178” Sidereal Box Chronometer.
For his solar observations Seagrave “uses a 5-inch telescope of 81-inches focus, made by Alvan Clark & Sons, mounted upon a portable tripod stand, with a battery of eye-pieces, giving 61, 100, and 134 diameters respectively.” This scope is on loan from Alvan Clark & Sons. Leonard Waldo assigns Seagrave with the following tasks: spectroscopic observation of the contacts; the discovery of any new prominence line, particularly beyond F; the micrometric measurement of the line “1474,” and the meteorological observations.
“When the last ray of sunlight disappeared Mr. Seagrave looked very carefully for the famous 1474 line of the coronal spectrum. At first he saw nothing, but on widening the slit he saw one bright line which was quite faint and not very well defined; this was the only line in the field. He had hardly time to secure one measure of its width when the sun reappeared.”
The duration of totality is 2 minutes and 28.75 seconds.
An interesting note: a local Fort Worth Agricultural professor notes Seagrave’s participation saying, “…there was a young man from Rhode Island as an amateur whose father said he preferred to furnish him money for the purpose rather than for many other sports.”
Harvard College Observatory Expedition participants. The original photograph does not identify the individuals. However, those who have examined the image all agree that Frank Seagrave is the young man on the right.
From August through December, Frank Seagrave, with the guidance of assistant Leonard Waldo of the Harvard College Observatory, makes micrometer observations of Saturn’s satellite from Frank’s new observatory in Providence. In a paper published in the April 1879 German journal Astronomische Nachrichten, Waldo noted, “The private observatory … was built by my pupil, Mr. Frank Seagrave in the spring of 1878.” (So, was Frank a student at Harvard or not?) Waldo also states, “ It (the 8-inch Clark refractor) is provided with the usual appliances for micrometric work and its optical qualities are of the highest order.” See aforementioned spreadsheet to access Waldo’s paper.
1879 Historical Highlights
• On February 22, Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store opens in Utica, New York. The store’s pledge is to not sell anything that cost more the five cents. The Utica store soon fails, but the business is moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania and opens on June 21, 1879. And the rest, as they say, is history. The chain is a staple in many down-city locations when at its peak. Woolworth’s went out of business in July 1997.
• I think many folks believe that Thomas Alva Edison invented the light bulb. He did not. Many other inventors had pioneered the way. The filaments in prior incandescent bulbs burned out very quickly. After thousands of material combinations, Edison discovers that a carbonized cotton thread filament worked very well. He files his first patent application for "Improvement in Electric Lights" on October 14, 1878. The first successful test is on October 22, 1879 with the filament lasting 13.5 hours. Therefore, Edison is credited with “inventing” the first practical incandescent light bulb.
• James and John Ritty of Ohio patent the design of the first cash register on November 4, which became known as "Ritty's Incorruptible Cashier". It is later sold to a company which became known as The National Cash Register Company (NCR).
1880 Historical Highlights
Frank: 20 Years-Old
• On September 30, doctor Henry Draper takes the first photograph of the Orion Nebula using an 11-inch Alvan Clark photographic refractor. The exposure time is 50 minutes!
• December: Thomas A. Edison uses electric Christmas lights for the first time, hanging them outside his Menlo Park lab in New Jersey.
1881 Historical Highlights
• Clara Barton, an American Civil Was hospital nurse establishes the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C. on May 21st, 1881.
• On May 22, Australian amateur astronomer John Tebbutt discovers what would become The Great Comet of 1881. (Note: There certainly seemed to be a lot of “Great Comets” in the 19th century!) When it becomes visible in the northern hemisphere around June 22, it is easily visible to the naked-eye. On June 25 it sports a 25-degree tail and the comet’s nucleus is around 1st magnitude.
• Billy the Kid is shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett on July 14.
• On October 26, perhaps one of the most renowned gunfights of the American West occurs in Tombstone, Arizona. The Earps, Doc Holiday, the Clintons, et al have a shootout in the Gunfight at the OK Corral.
1882 Historical Highlights
• On September 4, Thomas Alva Edison (Edison Illuminating Company) opens the first power station on Manhattan Island in New York. It provides 110 volts (DC) direct current to 59 customers in lower Manhattan.
Frank successfully observes and photographs the transit of Venus on December 6 from his observatory in Providence. See a detailed report on page 355 in the December 16 issue of Scientific American which can be found on our Google Drive (link 7). I do not know what happened to the 23 images mentioned in the report.
You can also view a brief letter Seagrave sent to Professor Asaph Hall of the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC, on February 27, 1893. The letter appears to indicate that he may have sent images to Hall, but I have no information about that. I have no idea what became of Seagrave’s original plates.
• Jesse James is shot and killed on April 3 by one of his own gang members, Robert Ford, who hoped to collect the reward offered for taking out Jesse.
• September: Another comet is discovered in southern hemisphere skies, rapidly approaching the Sun. Just before perihelion passage (closest to the Sun), the comet can be seen during the day near the Sun. The comet’s brightness is estimated at -17!!! This comet falls into the category known as “sungrazers.” During its close encounter with the Sun the comet fragments into at least 5 pieces.
1883 Historical Highlights
• Once the largest suspension bridge in the world, the Brooklyn Bridge opens on May 24, crossing the East River. It took 14 years to complete construction.
• The Orient-Express makes its first run between Paris and Constantinople on June 5. This method of travel is luxurious.
• On August 26-27, one of the most eruptive volcanic explosions occurs when Krakatoa explodes with an estimated 200 megatons of energy in Indonesia. An estimated 35,000 people are killed.
1884 Historical Highlights
Frank Seagrave’s father passes away on November 15 at age 61.
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published in the United States by Mark Twain on February 18, 1885, after first being published in the UK in December 1884.
1885 Historical Highlights
• The Statue of Liberty, made in France and funded by the French people, is shipped to New York Harbor and erected on Liberty Island. It isn’t dedicated until October 26, 1886 by President Grover Cleveland.
• The 555-foot-tall Washington Monument is dedicated in 1885 with President Chester A. Arthur in attendance. Construction had begun in 1848, but funding shortfalls kept delaying the monumental project.
• While our organization has a rich history, having been founded in May, 1932, the world's first skyscraper, site of the Home Life Insurance Building, is completed in Chicago. It stands only 10 stories tall.
• George Eastman, founder of Kodak, develops dry film technology for taking pictures.
• On August 20, German astronomer Ernst Hartwig discovers S Andromedae, a supernova, in the Andromeda Galaxy. It is the first such object discovered outside of the Milky Way.
1886 Historical Highlights
• Apache medicine man and leader Geronimo surrenders on September 4.
• A drink named Coca Cola is first introduced by pharmacist John Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia. His concoction is a combination of ingredients including caffeine and cocaine that he markets as a patent medicine (a cure-all of sorts). For a variety of reasons, the company stopped using cocaine in its formula in 1903.
• Josephine Cochrane, a housewife from Shelbyville, Illinois, is credited with inventing and building the first dishwasher. Hers differed from prior machines in that “A motor turned the wheel while hot soapy water squirted up from the bottom of the boiler and rained down on the dishes.” The company she founded is later bought by KitchenAid, a brand of Whirlpool. This story was featured on the television series, “The Machines that Built America” on the History Channel.
1887 Historical Highlights
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle publishes his first Sherlock Holmes story, ‘A Study in Scarlet’ in Beeton’s Christmas Annual. In 1888 the work is published in book form. This is the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
• A young boy of 15 years-old in Farmington, Maine “invents” (actually improves) earmuffs in 1873. Word has it that he thought of the idea while he was ice skating. He supposedly asks his grandmother to sew tufts of fur between loops of wire. He is awarded a patent for “ear-mufflers” on March 13, 1877.
A government sponsored solar eclipse expedition in 1887 takes young Seagrave to Potsdam, Germany, where he observes and photographs the reversing layer, as well as obtaining prominence and corona spectra. I have been unable to locate any detailed information about this expedition. See Seagrave’s Passport application for this trip (Google Drive link 8).
1888 Historical Highlights
• Taking photography one step further, George Eastman markets his Kodak No 1 Box Camera to use the film he developed in 1885. The camera is pre-loaded with enough film to take 100 images.
• John Boyd Dunlop, a Scottish inventor, patents the first inflatable tire on December 7.
1889 Historical Highlights
• On March 31, the Eiffel Tower is inaugurated in Paris, France. Construction started on January 28, 1887 and was completed on March 15, 1889. The Tower is opened on March 31. It stands 1,083 feet tall.
• Thousands of Johnstown, Pennsylvania residents perish on May 31 after several days of heavy rain cause an earthen dam eight miles upstream of the city to give way, sending a 20-foot tidal wave down the South Fork River. Houses, factories, bridges, and trains pile up in the city.
• Mark Twain publishes an early foray into science fiction with his A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, a 6th century time travel comedy.
Beginning in 1889 and continuing until 1899, Frank Seagrave contributes variable star observations for a program started by Harvard College Observatory (HCO) director E. C. Pickering. 17 circumpolar variable stars are observed. Following the success of this program, from 1890 through 1901 observations began on 58 long period variables. According to Michael Saladyga in the Journal of the AAVSO, Volume 27, 1999, “Between 1906 and 1910, Pickering reported, about 6000 observations of long period variable stars were “kindly communicated by other astronomers.” Among them are: Professor Anne S. Young of Mt. Holyoke College; Frank E. Seagrave of Providence, RI. …” See Seagrave Variable Star contributions for Pickering in Michael’s complete article (Google Drive link 9). Seagrave’s contributions are reported on pages 165-166.
1890 Historical Highlights
Frank: 30 Years-Old
• On August 6, the first person to be electrocuted using the electric chair occurs in New York’s Auburn Prison.
• On December 29, the 7th Cavalry massacres 250-300 Lakota Sioux in South Dakota near Wounded Knee Creek. This slaughter became known as the Wounded Knee Massacre. Twenty-five cavalry troops are also killed. After this bloodbath the United States Army ceases its campaign against the Plains Indians.
1891 Historical Highlights
• During the winter of 1891 basketball is invented in Springfield, Massachusetts by Dr. James Naismith. He uses a soccer ball and two peach baskets as goals.
1892 Historical Highlights
• Fingerprinting is officially adopted to help solve crimes.
• There is a notorious brutal axe murder in Fall River, Mass. on October 14. I’m sure you have all heard the little rhyme that describes what Lizzie Borden is alleged to have perpetrated. She is accused of murdering her father and stepmother.
Lizzie Borden took an axe
and gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
she gave her father forty-one.
Conspiracy theories still abound, and this event has found its way into pop
culture, long before pop culture was “popular.” See 1893.
• On September 9, E.E. Barnard visually discovers Amalthea, the 5th moon of Jupiter to be discovered, with Lick Observatory’s 36-inch refractor. The lens was made by Alvan Clark & Sons and the mounting built by Warner & Swasey.
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, first published in serial form from 1891-1892, is published in book form on October 14.
1893 Historical Highlights
• Edison’s Black Maria studio produces Kinetoscope movies intended for the public. See 1894.
• Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the ax murders of her father and stepmother on June 20.
• 1893-1894: Bostonian businessman Percival Lowell decides to build an observatory using his own wealth to study Mars. A 7,200-foot mountain top peak in Flagstaff, Arizona is chosen. Lowell names it Mars Hill. His initial Mars observations are made between May 29, 1894 and April 3, 1895 using an 18-inch Brashear refractor. He believes the “canali” he observes were indeed real canals constructed by Martians to transport water across the planet. His drawings are remarkable, but fanciful and wishful thinking. The seeing was so outstanding on Mars Hill that he orders a 24-inch Alvan Clark refractor to continue his observations. Sadly, astronomers with larger telescopes did not confirm Lowell’s observations.
1894 Historical Highlights
• On March 12, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time.
• The first commercially exhibited motion pictures in the United States occurs at a Kinetoscope parlor New York City on April 14. where Edison shows ten Kinetoscopes
• Rudyard Kipling publishes The Jungle Book, a collection of fables with anthropomorphic animals to portray the characters to teach moral lessons.
1895 Historical Highlights
• The winter of 1894-1895 was very snowy in Flagstaff and the atmospheric conditions suffered. Lowell continues using the 18-inch until April 3, 1895. He decides to set up an observatory in Mexico. The 24-inch is delivered to Mars Hill and installed in early July, 1896. “First-light” is on July 23, 1896. On November 7, observations in Flagstaff end and the lens is removed and the rest of the scope is dismantled and shipped to Mexico. (Lowell wanted the new observatory to be ready for the December 10. 1896 opposition of Mars.) Lowell begins his observations of Mars from the Mexican location on December 28. Conditions are not the best and accessibility to the observatory was difficult. The last observations made at the Mexico observatory were done on March 26, 1897, and the telescope is transported back to Mars Hill. On May 8, 1897, the 24-inch is back in service above Flagstaff. Lowell’s first book, “Mars,” is published in 1895. It is available to read online. https://archive.org/details/marsbypercivallo00lowe/page/n7/mode/2up
• Inventor Guglielmo Marconi experiments with radio, or "Telegraphy without Wires". In early summer 1895 he initially transmits a signal a distance of about a mile. Later in 1901 he successfully receives a signal from across the Atlantic from Cornwall, England to St John's Newfoundland in Canada.
• In December, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen discovers X-rays. They were so named because their nature was unknown.
1896 Historical Highlights
• The First Olympic Games of the modern era are held in Athens, Greece, from April 6-15.
1897 Historical Highlights
• Bram Stoker publishes Dracula on May 26, 1897
• The first Boston Marathon is held on April 19. It is the world’s oldest annual marathon.
Seagrave contributes 167 observations of variable star SS Cygni (a dwarf nova).
1898 Historical Highlights
• Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium and polonium. 1mg of radium is extracted from ten metric tons of the uranium ore pitch blend.
• The USS Maine explodes and sinks in Havana harbor Cuba on February 15. US Navy inquiry suggests that a submerged mine planted by the Spanish was responsible.
• On July 1, Britain obtains a 99-year lease of Hong Kong from China. Hong Kong reverts to Chinese control on July 1, 1997.
• Harrod’s of London installs the first elevator, aka “The Moving Staircase,” on November 16 to take shoppers from the first level to the second level at nearly 2 miles per hour.
• H.G. Wells writes The War of the Worlds between 1895 and 1897 and was serialized in UK and US magazines in 1897. First published in hardcover in 1898.
Seagrave contributes 71 observations of variable star SS Cygni (a dwarf nova).
1899 Historical Highlights
• A German chemist, Felix Hoffman and colleagues working for Bayer, creates Aspirin (then a brand name) for pain relief. Until recently low doses were still being used today to help prevent heart attacks and strokes (this recommendation has recently come under some medical scrutiny). Acetaminophen (1956) and ibuprofen (1962) led to Aspirin’s decline in popularity.
• End of Part I •
Part II, which will cover Seagrave’s life from 1900 to his death in 1934, will take several months to complete. (I hope to finish this project before the end of this year.) Seagrave’s observations and computations expanded during those years, and his contributions were cited in hundreds of astronomical journals. Plus, there are some interesting stories to tell.
1. Catalog of Seagrave Astronomical Journal references thru 1899
2. ADS Access Instructions
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JST81Svc6u3gJEEV-hCBJHH7uV3mNKh-
3. Archived Frank E Seagrave Material
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Y6Yaree8rp3nTRQuq5MX1NnbEaAVlVmQ
4. 14 Frank Seagrave Images and 1 video
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VKaE0umER8f2Ej-G3W3-2NFZ_UxdRKvj
5. Seagrave Notebooks
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VJ-6uQfdMjQ5YaoDWQYKCYmRHkrdLbW0
6. 1878 Total Solar Eclipse Reports
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FOtmOWSDyYnB03a9p3vhnfaKWUDlWdeu
7. Scientific American 1882 Transit of Venus
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lhcnrmkMmi73rLhzzDwC--wMP8AyPpEw
8. Seagrave's Passport Application for 1887 Total Solar Eclipse
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UkVgkAaX-Dk8COR1rC8qZkJZN3OC5EST
9. Saladyga Article including Seagrave Variable Star Contributions
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tVomissKc9bL84jA-aPCA0RUuLGcuCBv
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