Thomas Hubbard Sumner

Thomas Hubbard Sumner ( born March 20, 1807 in Boston, Massachusetts, † March 9, 1876 in Taunton, Massachusetts) was a captain in the 19th century. The Astro Navigation owes him an important development, which is referred to as astronomical position line or as a Sumner line. It is a method of position determination by measuring the amount of stars and comparison with their " desired height ".

At the age of 15 years, Sumner went to Harvard. In 1829 he got a job on a merchant ship on the China route. Sumner developed his idea of the possibility of a position determination on a trip from South Carolina to Scotland in 1837. He published his findings six years later in 1843. His method for determining the position was considered so important classified that each ship was equipped in the U.S. Navy so.

Sumner's personal fate then took a tragic turn. In 1850 he came to McLean Hospital for Psychiatry. 5 years later, Sumner was the madhouse in Taunton, Massachusetts, where he died in 1876.

A moon crater and two USN research vessels USS_Sumner AGS -5 and USS_Sumner T- AGS -61, were named after him.