Jean-Charles Houzeau de Lehaie (October 7, 1820 – July 12, 1888) was a
Belgian astronomer and
journalist. A French speaker, he moved to
New Orleans after getting in trouble for his politics in Belgium.
In the U.S. he continued his journalistic, astronomical, and political pursuits. He was an abolitionist and joined with unionists in Texas before the American Civil War. In
New Orleans he worked with Dr.
Louis Charles Roudanez at the newspapers he founded in the 1860s.
Houzeau migrated to
Jamaica in the postwar years. After a period here, he received reinstatement from an observatory in
Brussels and returned to Europe to work. He came back to Texas for an astronomical event. He published stirring memoirs and other accounts of his adventures and contacts during his travels, as well as several works on astronomical subjects.
Life
Houzeau was born in 1820 in
Havré
Havré ( wa, Avrè) is a village of Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Mons, located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium.
It was a municipality until the fusion of the Belgian municipalities in 1977.
Etymology
The village's name woul ...
(a small city near
Mons
Mons (; German and nl, Bergen, ; Walloon and pcd, Mont) is a city and municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the province of Hainaut, Belgium.
Mons was made into a fortified city by Count Baldwin IV of Hainaut in the 12th century. T ...
); at the time it was within the Netherlands, and was later included in the independent nation of
Belgium. From 1842, he worked as a voluntary assistant at the
Brussels Observatory
The Royal Observatory of Belgium (french: link=no, Observatoire Royal de Belgique, nl, Koninklijke Sterrenwacht van België), has been situated in the Uccle municipality of Brussels (Belgium) since 1890. It was first established in Saint-Josse ...
and began writing papers. He eventually became the observatory's director. He travelled frequently during his career, to
Paris, the
United Kingdom,
United States,
Mexico, and
Jamaica.
After being removed from the Belgian Royal Observatory for "outspoken political views", Houzeau migrated to the United States. In
Texas by 1858, he first worked as a surveyor. He moved to
Uvalde, where he organized early scientific expeditions.
He believed in the abolition of slavery and aided the escape of some notable unionists from
San Antonio before the American Civil War. He soon fled to Mexico, disguised as a Mexican laborer for his escape.
Later in
New Orleans, when the city had been taken by Federal forces, he worked with Dr.
Louis Charles Roudanez, a physician who founded the bilingual ''New Orleans Tribune - La Tribune de la Nouvelle-Orléans'' in 1864. During a period of fierce intraparty rivalries, Roudanez lost outside support and the newspaper closed after the election in 1868 of a Northern Republican as governor of Louisiana.
Houzeau then migrated to Jamaica, where he lived for eight years. Finally, having kept his European contacts, he was reinstated as director of the Royal Observatory in Brussels. He returned to Belgium and his work there as an astronomer.
In December 1882, however, Houzeau made a return trip to Texas. He led a scientific expedition, accompanied by
Albert Benoît Lancaster and Charles Emile Stuyvaert">Albert Lancaster">Albert Benoît Lancaster and Charles Emile Stuyvaert, to San Antonio to observe a locally visible transit of Venus across the face of the sun. At the time, this was a method of measuring time and gravity.
Works
His published works include:
*''Des turbines, de leur construction, du calcul de leur puissance et de leur application à l'industrie'' (On Turbines, Their Construction, Calculation of Their Power, and Their Application in Industry / Paris, L.M. Augustin, 1839) his first published work, issued when he was 19 years old;
*''Atlas de toutes les étoiles visibles à l'oeil nu, formé d'après l'observation directe, dans les deux hémisphères'' (Atlas of All Stars Visible To the Naked Eye, Developed From Direct Observation in Two Hemispheres / Mons, Belgium, Hector Manceaux, 1878)
*''Vade-mecum de l'astronome'' (The Astronomer's Handbook / Brussels, F. Hayez, 1882);
*''Bibliographie générale de L'astronomie depuis L'origine de L'imprimerie Jusqu'en 1880'' (General bibliography of Astronomy From Its First Printed Works Until 1880 / Brussels, F. Hayez, 1882–1887);
*''Règles de climatologie'' (Rules of Climatology /Brussels, Jamar, no date); and
*''Les facultés mentales des animaux'' (The mental faculties of animals / Paris & Brussels, Mons, Hector Manceaux 1872).
Travel memoirs
*''La terreur blanche au Texas et mon évasion'' (The White Terror in Texas and My Escape), Brussels: Ve Parent et Fils, 1862, in French
*''My Passage at the New Orleans Tribune'' (published in French and English, 1872; reprinted 1984 in English)
[https://lsupress.org/books/detail/my-passage-at-the-new-orleans-tribune/ Louisiana State University Press, 1984]
See also
*
Alphonse Toussenel
Alphonse Toussenel (March 17, 1803 – April 30, 1885) was a French naturalist, writer and journalist born in Montreuil-Bellay, a small meadows commune of Angers; he died in Paris on April 30, 1885.
A utopian socialist and a disciple of Charles F ...
*
Antoine Laurent Apollinaire Fée
Antoine Laurent Apollinaire Fée was a French botanist who was born in Ardentes, 7 November 1789, and died in Paris on 21 May 1874. He was the author of works on botany and mycology, practical and historical pharmacology, Darwinism, and his expe ...
*
Karl Kessler
References
* https://web.archive.org/web/20110526033615/http://joyousjam.tripod.com/jeanhouzeauinjamaica/id1.html
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Houzeau De Lehaie, Jean-Charles
1820 births
1888 deaths
Belgian emigrants to the United States
19th-century Belgian astronomers
People from Mons
People from Uvalde, Texas