At the age of ten, he was made to leave school to work in his father's cooperage, before becoming indentured at twelve for nine years as a bookkeeping apprentice to a ship chandler.

He also taught himself Latin in 1790 and French in 1792 so he was able to read mathematical works such as Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

He found thousands of errors in John Hamilton Moore's The New Practical Navigator; at eighteen, he copied all the mathematical papers of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.

Among his many significant scientific contributions would be a translation of Pierre-Simon de Laplace's Mécanique céleste, a lengthy work on mathematics and theoretical astronomy.

[6] As well as Harvard, the United States Military Academy and the University of Virginia offered Bowditch chairs in mathematics.

Nonetheless, he continued to work on it with the assistance of Benjamin Peirce, adding commentaries that doubled its length.

Bowditch's move from Salem to Boston involved the transfer of over 2,500 books, 100 maps and charts, and 29 volumes of his own manuscripts.

During his time at sea, Bowditch became intensely interested in the mathematics involved in celestial navigation.

He contacted the US publisher of the work, Edmund March Blunt, who asked him to correct and revise the third edition on his fifth voyage.

In 1802 Blunt published the first edition of Bowditch's American Practical Navigator, which became the western hemisphere shipping industry standard for the next century and a half.

The text included several solutions to the spherical triangle problem that were new, as well as extensive formulae and tables for navigation.

In 1866, the United States Hydrographic Office purchased the copyright and since that time the book has been in continuous publication, with regular revisions to keep it current.

The following eulogy was written by the Salem Marine Society: In his death a public, a national, a human benefactor has departed.

"[8] In 1858 the family gave the collection, "which consists mostly of mathematical and astronomical works", to the Boston Public Library.