John William Hart

The Baltimore Sun

Capt. John William Hart, who had calibrated ships' magnetic compasses for more than four decades and was the former owner of Maryland Nautical Sales Inc., died Monday of complications from a broken hip at Bonnie Blink, the Maryland Masonic home in Cockeysville. He was 94.

Captain Hart was born in Baltimore and raised on West Fayette Street. After his father died when he was 11, he quit school and sold newspapers and worked in a drugstore.

While attending Polytechnic Institute at night, he worked in a machine shop and as an usher at the old Century Theater.

He first went to sea in 1931 aboard the Merchant & Miners Transportation Co.'s SS Chatham, as a cadet and quartermaster. Within four years, he had been certified as a third mate by the Coast Guard and had earned master's and pilot's licenses.

After he was injured in a lifeboat accident aboard the Chatham, he went ashore in 1935 and sold insurance for the Acacia Life Insurance Co. until 1940.

He briefly worked as a rigger at Maryland Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. before returning to the sea as third mate on the SS Roanoke.

In 1941, he became assistant to the outfitting superintendent at Bethlehem Steel's Fairfield Yard, where he also served as a deck officer and compass adjuster on the original Chesapeake Bay trial trips of 383 Liberty ships - with the exception of the SS Patrick Henry, America's first Liberty - built and launched at the yard.

In 1944, he left Bethlehem and became third mate aboard the SS Westbrook Victory and the next year, took over as captain and pilot of the Cataract, a Baltimore Fire Department fireboat.

He left the Cataract in 1948, and became a full-time compass adjuster when he joined Wilfred O. White & Sons, Nautical Instruments & Chart Agents, on Water Street in Baltimore.

In 1957, he purchased the business, which he renamed Maryland Nautical Sales Inc., and continued operating it until 1975 when he sold it.

"I became a government chart agent for ships that came into port, and I had more than 12,000 charts for the entire world," Captain Hart said in a 1993 interview with the Navigator, a company newsletter.

However, Captain Hart continued adjusting compasses and once estimated that he had adjusted some 5,000 by the time he retired in 1994.

Even though the gyrocompass replaced the magnetic compass years ago, the standby instruments still had to be calibrated, which kept Captain Hart in demand.

By 1977, he was the only compass adjuster left working in the port of Baltimore.

Because a ship's compass would have been disrupted by the magnetic field of the pier and surrounding structures, Captain Hart performed his work while a ship was under way between Baltimore and the Bay Bridge.

"He was an all-around nice guy and extremely friendly, and he had a good sense of humor," said Capt. Brian H. Hope, a Chesapeake Bay pilot and marine artist.

"It's a dying art and a trade practiced by relatively few people because the gyrocompass is so reliable," he said.

"John had adjusted the John W. Brown's compass when she was launched in 1942, and returned in 1991, when she made her trial trip down the bay after restoration," Captain Hope said.

"He knew his business, and he knew the importance of having instruments precise and accurate so when a ship was out at sea, its crew had no problem determining their exact location," said former U.S. Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, former maritime editor of The Sun.

He worked with the Maryland Pilots Association adjusting compasses, and he was a member of the Maryland Marine Club. A Mason, he was a member of the Waverly Masonic Lodge, and had just been awarded a diamond 60-year membership pin.

For more than 40 years, Captain Hart had lived in a home he had built in Linstead overlooking the Severn River. For the past 13 years, he had lived at the Charlestown retirement community.

He enjoyed listening to music, writing poetry, waterfowl hunting and traveling by ship.

His wife of 40 years, the former Emma Wade, died in 1986.

A memorial service was held yesterday.

Surviving are a sister, M. Dorothy Hart Evans of Cockeysville, and two nieces.

fred.rasmussen@baltsun.com

Capt. John William Hart's obituary is being republished because an incorrect photograph accompanied it in yesterday's editions. The Sun regrets the error.

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