The Prime Movers
For an organization to not only survive but also flourish for a hundred years, a significant number of remarkable individuals are required. Too many unfortunately for these pages to cover. However, we are going to provide some insight into a few of the early prime movers of the BAS.
Burleigh S. Annis (1859-1930)
Professor Burleigh Annis was born in Maine, and based on research conducted by F. M. Cordell, Sr. (a former BAS archivist), an experience in Norfolk, Virginia some twenty-eight years prior to his coming to Chattanooga cultivated his life as a teacher and amateur astronomer. While in Norfolk, he had the pleasure of meeting professional astronomers observing a total solar eclipse, and among those present were Professors Pickering and Goodwin from Harvard University. Also present were Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes (son of the poet) and Mary Proctor, the distinguished and gifted daughter of the astronomer Professor Richard Proctor.
Eventually moving to Chattanooga and residing in the community of Lookout Mountain, Mr. Annis organized the initial meeting of the BAS and became its inaugural president. While chairing the first fifty-eight meetings, he guided the beginnings of this fledgling society. During his tenure, the BAS joined the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and discussed telescope making and even building an observatory on Missionary Ridge. He also had topics on the newly invented “planetarium” and the unusual crater in Arizona, “which was evidently caused by a meteor”.
He was briefly succeeded by the distinguished educator Dr. J. Park McCallie, a noted prime mover in his own right, and whose elected Vice President at that same time was Oscar Langston. Mr. Annis unfortunately passed away of a heart attack on January 23, 1930 as he and his family were returning home from a music concert at the Memorial Auditorium in Chattanooga.
Oscar Langston (1868-1934)
Dr. McCallie’s presidency was followed by Oscar Langston in January 1930. Mr. Langston had a career associated with the American Railroad Express Company and the US Army, and eventually as a bachelor farmer later in life on his approximate 100 acres located on Sand Mountain in north Georgia. He gained an interest in astronomy while viewing Jupiter for the first time through a telescope while in Cincinnati, Ohio and never looked back, always up.
Mr. Langston was a constant presence while a member of the BAS, and friend to all. In a memorial letter written by Dr. J. Park McCallie, “His willingness to tramp down the mountains through rain and mud or slush and take a bus from Trenton to Chattanooga and there secure a room and pay for his meals so that he might attend the monthly meeting of the Barnard Astronomical Society was one of the factors that kept the Society alive through the years”.
However, he brought other developments to the BAS as well. As a skilled telescope maker, he passed that expertise on to others. Also noteworthy was his collaboration with the Barnard Astronomical Society of Nashville, Tennessee, which later became the Barnard-Seyfert Astronomical Society (BSAS). Mr. Langston makes mention of having met twice with the Nashville society at the 85th BAS meeting on September 15, 1931.
At that same meeting, Mr. Langston also introduced a local architect and telescope maker by the name of Clarence T. Jones, along with his sons Arthur and Bruce. From the very moment of this introduction, the course of the BAS was to change to one of great accomplishment. It seems like a prophetic note in the minutes by Secretary W. D. Powell that the group had adjourned to the roof of Chattanooga High School to observe the planet Saturn after that fateful meeting. While there, they saw a brilliant meteor passing from the zenith in a north easterly direction until disappearing on the horizon.
Mr. Langston passed away at home alone sometime between December 20 and 22, 1934. He was just completing a new twelve-inch mirror at the time of his passing at age 66.
Clarence T. Jones (1879-1951)
A native of Frankfort, Kentucky, Clarence Taylor Jones moved to Chattanooga to start his own architectural firm in 1910 after a brief period in Ohio. One can deduce the motivation of Mr. Jones’s desire for membership within the BAS at his first meeting on September 15, 1931, which involved his discussion of a paper on the great photographic telescope being constructed by George W. Ritchey.
Picture of C.T. Jones and the family hand built 12” reflector (Image Credit: unknown photographer)
During his first year of membership, Mr. Jones spoke of the great planetarium he recently saw in Chicago (Adler Planetarium) and demonstrated his newly constructed six-inch Newtonian reflector and how he grinds telescope lenses by means of a "curious machine" of his own making. His six-inch telescope was the first of many family instruments leading to a twelve-inch reflector, which was mounted in his own personal backyard observatory. That same telescope was eventually donated by Mr. Jones as the prime instrument for the McCallie School Observatory in 1938.
Picture of C.T. Jones and the family backyard observatory (Image Credit: unknown photographer)
The BAS of 1932 embodied some fifty-five members, and all would become inspired by Mr. Jones and his sons. He was elected president at the 98th meeting on December 27, 1932. He stayed on as president until January 29, 1938, where he was then voted the first and only “Permanent President” of the BAS. Dr. J. Park McCallie was elected as the “Active President” during that meeting.
Chattanooga Daily Times article highlighting the donated 12” telescope (October 1, 1938)
Until his unfortunate passing of a heart attack at 71 on July 30, 1951, Clarance T. Jones helped carry the BAS through many prosperous years. He even spearheaded the resurrection of the BAS after being put on hold due to World War II.
However, this is not the end of the Clarance T. Jones story. The BAS embodied the history of amateur telescope making in the southeast in those days and although the idea of producing a large telescope and observatory had been on the minds of the society’s members since the early days under Burleigh S. Annis, it was Mr. Jones who became the force needed to produce this great dream. He was also to help pave the way for an eventual planetarium.
The historic University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) Clarence T. Jones Observatory (CTJO) that stands today is a symbol for local astronomy and science education, thanks heavily to the drive and passion of Mr. Jones. Additional details regarding the CTJO are described in the following sections.
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“We are just a speck, on a speck, orbiting a speck, in the corner of a speck, in the middle of nowhere.” - Bill Nye
Image Credit: BAS Member Matt Harbison