The Gulf Stream History

In 1768, Benjamin Franklin (as Postmaster General), asked his cousin, Timothy Folger, an American whaling captain, to chart the Gulf Stream for purposes of expediting the mail deliveries between the American Colonies and Europe.

After Franklin presented this chart to the Lords of the Treasury, sailing captains began utilizing the current traveling East, and avoiding the current on their voyages West.

In 1847, the oceanographer Matthew Maury also published comprehensive data for the Gulf Stream which dramatically reduced crossing times. He wrote, “There is a river in the ocean”, and it was then that the world began to comprehend the grander system of how Atlantic circulation inter-connects the European and American continents from a marine and climatic perspective.