Henry L. Whiting (1821-1897) worked for the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey for nearly 60 years, having joined in July of 1838. He began joining survey parties in 1842 and began a long and steady climb through the survey's hierarchy. By the 1850s he was acting as instructor in field surveys at the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and became Professor of Topographical Engineering in Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He proposed and executed he first systematic inspection of the survey's field work. He established many of the conventions in lettering and nomenclature which would be adopted by the survey going forward. His surveys included Florida; the Mississippi River; Provincetown Harbor and Boston Harbor; The Pacific coast from San Diego to Puget Sound; Portland, Maine; Providence Harbor in Rhode Island; and New York Harbor. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he was the first of the Survey then abroad to volunteer for service in Washington, and went on to make cooperative surveys with the Army throughout the war, in many cases surveying battlegrounds just after the close of action. Though born inland in Albany, New York, he was a lifelong resident of Martha’s Vineyard, and would regularly resurvey his home. He would in 1856 co-found the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society.