Captain James Cook Early Life
A Brief Biography of Captain Cook (Page1)
Captain James Cook was an extrordinary man who on three voyages discovered numerous Pacific Islands, and virtually completed the mapping of our world.
Born the son of an agricultural laborer in Yorkshire, the young Cook showed a strong talent for mathematics, and was educated by the patronage of his father’s employer. His father thought that mathematics was good for handling money, and had his James apprenticed to a shopkeeper as a young teen. James didn’t take well to the shopkeepers life, and longed to go to sea. Whether he broke his indentures and ran away to sea, or negotiated a release from his obligations is unknown, but the young James Cook was soon an apprentice seaman on a collier, or coal transport. These ships have the interesting characteristic of having broad flat shallow draft bottoms which can run in shallow water and be beached without overturning. He reached manhood, and the rank of mate in the Merchant Marine sailing on colliers, but war with France persuaded him to join the Royal Navy as an enlisted man. His navigational skills were already well developed, and he quickly gained notice and promotion.
In Canada he charted the St. Lawrence River and showed the way for General Wolfe’s famous invasion of Quebec. His Captain early in his naval career saw great promise in the young Cook, and after the war he was sent on a four year assignment to chart the coast of Newfoundland. His charts from this period won him high praise, and their value is clearly demonstrated by the fact that they remained in use until well after most of their contemporaries were outmoded. He may have used a method of finding longitude by measuring the angle of the moon at night, he certainly wrote a paper on this subject which won him a reputation in the Royal Society.
He also gained the notice of his superiors, and was commissioned as a Lieutenant in his Majesty George III’s Navy. About this time the navy was looking for a ship and a commander to undertake a scientific mission to the Pacific Ocean. Both the choice of young Lieutenant Cook to lead, and a collier commissioned and renamed the H.M. Bark Endeavor to undertake the voyage seemed strange to many. Cook was only 39, and a son of a commoner.
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