Alexander Dallas Bache was an American physicist, scientist, and surveyor who erected coastal fortifications and conducted a detailed survey to map the mideastern United States coastline. Originally an army engineer, he later became Superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey, and built it into the foremost scientific institution in the country before the Civil War.
Early life and family
Alexander Bache was born in Philadelphia, the son of Richard Bache, Jr., and Sophia Burrell Dallas Bache. He came from a prominent family as he was the nephew of Vice-President George M. Dallas and naval hero Alexander J. Dallas. He was the grandson of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Dallas and was the great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin.
Bache was a professor of natural philosophy and chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania from 1828 to 1841 and again from 1842 to 1843. He spent 1836–1838 in Europe on behalf of the trustees of what became Girard College; he was named president of the college after his return. Abroad, he examined European education systems, and on his return he published a valuable report. From 1839 to 1842, he served as the first president of Central High School of Philadelphia, one of the oldest public high schools in the United States. In 1843, on the death of Professor Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler, Bache was appointed superintendent of the United States Coast Survey. He convinced the United States Congress of the value of this work and, by means of the liberal aid it granted, he completed the mapping of the whole coast by a skillful division of labor and the erection of numerous observing stations. In addition, magnetic and meteorological data were collected. Bache served as head of the Coast Survey for 24 years.
He married Nancy Clark Fowler on September 30, 1838, at Newport, Rhode Island. She was born in Newport and died on January 13, 1870, in Philadelphia. She assisted in the publication of much of his work. They were the parents of one son, Henry Wood Bache.
Death
He died at Newport, Rhode Island, on February 17, 1867, from "softening of the brain". He was buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., under a monument designed by architect Henry Hobson Richardson.
Legacy
Two survey ships were named for him, the A. D. Bache of 1871 and its successor in 1901. The cydippid ctenophore Pleurobrachia bachei A. Agassiz, 1860 was named for him; it was discovered in 1859 by Alexander Agassiz who was working as an engineer on a ship surveying the United States/Canada boundary between Washington State and British Columbia. Loma Prieta peak in the Santa Cruz mountains once bore his name - Mount Bache. The name is no longer in use. A K-8 public elementary school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has its 5th-8th grade building named after him.
