N. Bowditch Blunt

Nathaniel Bowditch Blunt (ca. 1804 Newburyport, Essex County, Massachusetts - July 17, 1854 Lebanon Springs, Columbia County, New York) was an American lawyer and politician from New York.

Life

He was the youngest of four sons of Edmund March Blunt (1770-1862), a newspaper publisher and book seller in Newburyport, who in 1796 compiled and published the American Coast Pilot, a description of all ports on the United States coast. In 1802, Edmund M. Blunt published the American Practical Navigator by Nathaniel Bowditch who became the godfather of Edmund's youngest son.

N. B. Blunt was New York County District Attorney from 1851 until his death in July 1854, elected in 1850 and 1853 on the Whig ticket. In 1853, he defeated the Democratic candidate Chauncey Shaffer by a majority of only 78 votes.

In 1851, Blunt appointed as his Assistant D.A. the then 24-year old A. Oakey Hall who was elected D.A. of New York in November 1854, and was Mayor of New York City from 1869 to 1872.

Nathaniel's oldest brother, Joseph Blunt, was New York County District Attorney in 1858. The other two brothers, Edmund (1799-1866) and George William (1802-1878) followed their father's steps and got involved in nautical affairs. Edmund assisted Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler in surveying the port of New York for the United States Coast Survey in 1817. George William Blunt was for decades a member, and later secretary, of the Board of Pilot Commissioners, and in 1857 was appointed a New York Harbor Commissioner.

Sources

• The New York Civil List compiled by Franklin Benjamin Hough (page 377; Weed, Parsons and Co., 1858)
• District Attorney N. Bowditch Blunt Elected in NYT on November 12, 1853
• Death of N. B. Blunt, Esq. in NYT on July 18, 1854
• Funeral of N. B. Blunt, Esq. in NYT on July 20, 1854
• Death notice of his daughter Lizzie in NYT on September 14, 1862
• DEATH OF GEO. W. BLUNT in NYT on April 20, 1878
• Obit of Capt. Edmund Blunt, N.B. Blunt's nephew, in NYT on January 25, 1894