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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 231

WASHINGTON, D.C.

1964

Publications of the United States National Museum

The scholarly publications of the United States National Museum include two series, _Proceedings of the United States National Museum_ and _United States National Museum Bulletin_.

In these series are published original articles and monographs dealing with the collections and work of the Museum and setting forth newly acquired facts in the fields of anthropology, biology, geology, history, and technology. Copies of each publication are distributed to libraries and scientific organizations and to specialists and others interested in the various subjects.

The _Proceedings_, begun in 1878, are intended for the publication, in separate form, of shorter papers. These are gathered in volumes, octavo in size, with the publication date of each paper recorded in the table of contents of the volume.

In the _Bulletin_ series, the first of which was issued in 1875, appear longer, separate publications consisting of monographs (occasionally in several parts) and volumes in which are collected works on related subjects. _Bulletins_ are either octavo or quarto in size, depending on the needs of the presentation. Since 1902 papers relating to the botanical collections of the Museum have been published in the _Bulletin_ series under the heading _Contributions from the United States National Herbarium_.

FRANK A. TAYLOR, _Director, United States National Museum_.

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C., 20402--Price $1.00 (Paper Cover)

EARLY AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS

_and Their Makers_

SILVIO A. BEDINI

_Curator of Mechanical and Civil Engineering_

MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

WASHINGTON, 1964

Contents

Page

Acknowledgments ix

Preface xi

THE TOOLS OF SCIENCE 3 Philosophical and Practical Instruments 3 The Need for Instruments 6 Colonial Training in Instrument Making 8

THE MATHEMATICAL PRACTITIONERS 15 The Rittenhouse Brothers 15 Andrew Ellicott 19 Owen Biddle 21 Benjamin Banneker 22 Joel Baily 24 Reverend John Prince 24 Amasa Holcomb 26

INSTRUMENTS OF METAL 27 Pre-Revolutionary Immigrant Makers 27 Post-Revolutionary Immigrant Makers 30 Native American Makers 33 New Hampshire 34 Vermont 34 Massachusetts 36 Rhode Island 43 Connecticut 45 Ohio 49 New York 51 New Jersey 53 Delaware 54 Maryland and Virginia 54 Pennsylvania 58

INSTRUMENTS OF WOOD 65 The Use of Wood 65 Surviving Instruments 69 Compass Cards 75 Trade Signs 75 The Makers 80 Joseph Halsy 80 James Halsy II 84 Thomas Greenough 85 William Williams 93 Samuel Thaxter 97 John Dupee 104 Jere Clough 105 Andrew Newell 106 Aaron Breed 107 Charles Thacher 107 Benjamin King Hagger 109 Benjamin Warren 112 Daniel Burnap 117 Gurdon Huntington 118 Jedidiah Baldwin 123 Thomas Salter Bowles 124

THE NEW ERA 130

THE NATIONAL COLLECTION 131

Appendix 153 Surviving Wooden Surveying Compasses 153 Mathematical Practitioners and Instrument Makers 155

Bibliography 172

Index 177

Acknowledgments

The writer wishes to acknowledge his great indebtedness to the various compilations relating to clockmakers and instruments which have been consulted in the preparation of this work, and which have provided an invaluable basis for it.

He is especially grateful for the generous and interested assistance of the many who have cooperated in making this work possible. Particular credit must be given to Mrs. H. Ropes Cabot of the Bostonian Society; Mrs. Mary W. Phillips of the Department of Science and Technology of the U.S. National Museum; Prof. Derek J. de Solla Price, Avalon Professor of the History of Science at Yale University; Mr. Stephen T. Riley, Director of the Massachusetts Historical Society; and Mr. Charles E. Smart of Troy, New York.

Preface

Within recent years fairly exhaustive studies have been made on many aspects of American science and technology. For example, there have been numerous works relating to clocks and clockmakers, so that the collector and horological student have a number of useful sources on which to rely. More recently there has been a series of publications on the development of American tools and their makers. Until now, however, no systematic study has been attempted of the scientific instruments used in the United States from its colonial beginnings. While several useful regional lists of instrument makers in early America have been compiled from advertisements in contemporary newspapers and published as short articles, these, however, are fragmentary, and are inadequate to the need for documentation in this field.

With the rapidly growing interest in the history of science, it becomes necessary to have a more complete background for the student and the historian alike. It is desirable to have a more comprehensive picture of the work of the scientific practitioners of the earlier periods of American scientific development, and of their tools. At the same time it is essential to have a history of the development and distribution and use of scientific instruments by others than the practitioners and teachers. The role of the instrument maker in the American Colonies was an important one--as it was in each epoch of the history of science in Europe--and it deserves to be reported.

To make a comprehensive study of American scientific instruments and instrument makers in the American Colonies is no simple matter, partly because of an indifference to the subject in the past, and partly because of the great volume of sources that must be sifted to accomplish it. Such a project would require an organized search of all published reference works relating to the field and associated topics, of all contemporary newspapers for advertisements and notices, of civil records filed in state and community archives, of business account-books and records that have been preserved, and of business directories of the period under consideration. In addition, such a study would require the compilation of an inventory of all surviving instruments in private and public collections, and a correlation of all the data that could be assembled from these sources.

The present study attempts only in part to accomplish this aim, being no more than a preliminary compilation of the scientific instruments known to have been used during the first two centuries of American colonial existence. It merely attempts to assemble all the data that is presently available in scattered sources, and to organize it in a usable form for the student and historian of American science. A supplement relating to 19th-century instruments and instrument makers is in progress.

The most that is hoped for the present work is that it will be of temporary assistance, serving to bring forth additional information on the subject from sources not previously available or known.

_February 1, 1964_ S.A.B.

EARLY AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS

_and Their Makers_

_The Tools of Science_

Philosophical and Practical Instruments

Development of the sciences in the American Colonies was critically dependent upon the available tools--scientific instruments--and the men who made and used them. These tools may be separated into two groups. The first group consists of philosophical instruments and scientific teaching apparatus produced and employed for experimentation and teaching in educational institutions. The second includes the so-called "mathematical instruments" of practical use, which were employed by mathematical practitioners and laymen alike for the mensural and nautical needs of the Colonies. It is particularly with this second group that the present study is concerned.

It has been generally assumed that scientific instruments, as well as the instrument makers, of the first two centuries of American colonization were imported from England, and that the movement declined by the beginning of the 19th century with the development of skilled native craftsmen.[1] This assumption is basically true for those instruments grouped under philosophical and scientific apparatus for experimentation and teaching. Almost all of these items were in fact imported from England and France until well into the 19th century.

Likewise, the very earliest examples of mathematical instruments for surveying and navigation in the Colonies were imported with the settlers from England. It was not long after the establishment of the first settlements, however, that the settlers, and later the first generation of native Americans, began to produce their own instruments. Records derived from historical archives and from the instruments themselves reveal that a considerable number of the instruments available and used in the Colonies before 1800 were of native production. Apparently, relatively few instrument makers immigrated to the American continent before the end of the Revolutionary War. Later, with the beginning of the 19th century, makers of and dealers in instruments in England and France became aware of the growing new market, and emigrated in numbers to establish shops in the major cities of commerce in the United States.

Quite possibly the few instrument makers trained in England who immigrated to the Colonies in the early epoch of Colonial development may have in turn trained others in their communities, although no evidence has yet been found. Perhaps more data on this aspect of the subject will eventually come to light.

There is reason to believe that a few mathematical practitioners and instrument makers lived and worked in the New England colonies as early as the first century of colonization.

The evidence, frankly meager, consists of two items. The first is a reference relating to James Halsie of Boston. In a land deed made out to him in 1674 he was referred to as a "Mathematician."[2] Halsie was listed as a freeman of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1690. He apparently was the forbear of the several members of the Halsy family of instrument makers of Boston of the 18th century, mentioned later in this study. It is uncertain whether the use of the term "mathematician" in this connection meant an artisan, but if not it may be inferred that Halsie was a practitioner.

The second piece of evidence is even more slender; it consists of an inscription upon a dialing rule (fig. 1) for making sundials and charts. The instrument is of cast brass, 20-7/16 inches long and 1-11/16 inches wide. The date "1674" is inscribed on the rule together with the name of its original owner, "Arthur Willis." The instrument almost certainly was produced by the school of Henry Sutton, the notable English instrument maker who worked in Threadneedle Street in London from about 1637 through 1665. The name and date inscriptions are consistent and contemporary with the workmanship of the rule, and were probably inscribed by the maker for the original owner. It is conceivable that Arthur Willis was an Englishman and that the rule was brought into this country even in relatively recent times. However, it is claimed that the rule was owned and used by Nathaniel Footes, surveyor of Springfield, Massachusetts. Nathaniel Footes, believed to have been originally from Salem, subsequently moved from Springfield to Wethersfield, Conn. The instrument was later owned and used in Connecticut not later than the early 19th century[3] by the forbears of Mr. Newton C. Brainard of Hartford, Connecticut. If records relating to Willis as a resident of the New England colonies can be recovered, it may then be possible to establish whether he worked in the Colonies as a mathematical practitioner in the 17th century. His name is included on a tentative basis.

The Need for Instruments

The production and use of scientific instruments in the American Colonies reflected colonial development in education and in territorial and economic expansion, and closely paralleled the same development in England, where the first mathematical practitioners were the teachers of navigational and commercial arithmetic and the surveyors employed in the redistribution of land following the dissolution of the monasteries. As the communities became established and the settlers gained a foothold on the soil, their attention naturally turned to improving their lot by expanding the land under cultivation and by trading their products for other needs. The growth of the communities became increasingly rapid from the end of the 17th century, and the land expansion closely paralleled the development of trade. The educational institutions placed greater emphasis on the sciences as their curriculums developed. Particularly there was a greater preoccupation with the sciences on the part of the layman because of the need for knowledge of surveying and navigation.

The colonial school curriculum was accordingly designed from the practical point of view to emphasize practical mathematics, and there was an increasing demand for instruction in all aspects of the subject. One of the earliest advertisements of this nature appeared in _The Boston Gazette_ in March 1719. In the issue of February 19 to March 7 the advertisement stated that:

This day Mr. Samuel Grainger opens his school at the House formerly Sir Charles Hobby's, where will be taught Grammar Writing after a free and easy manner in all the usual Hands, Arithmetick in a concise and Practical Method, Merchants Accompts, and the Mathematicks.

He hopes that more thinking People will in no wise be discouraged from sending their children thither, on the account of the reports newly reviv'd, because these dancing Phaenomena's were never seen nor heard of in School Hours.

The advertisement was further amplified in its second appearance, in the issue of March 21-22, 1719:

At the house formerly Sir Charles Hobby's are taught grammar, writing, after a free & easy manner in all hands usually practiced, Arithmetick Vulgar and Decimal in a concise and Practical Method, Merchants Accompts, Geometry, Algebra, Mensuration, Geography, Trigonometry, Astronomy, Navigation and other parts of the Mathematicks, with the use of the Globes and other Mathematical Instruments, by Samuel Grainger.

They whose business won't permit 'em to attend the usual School Hours, shall be carefully attended and Instructed in the Evenings.

R. F. Seybold[4] has noted that: "In advertisements of 1753 and 1754, John Lewis, of New York City, announced 'What is called a New Method of Navigation, is an excellent Method of Trigonometry here particularly applied to Navigation; But it is of great use in all kinds of measuring and in solving many Arithmetical Questions.' James Cosgrove, of Philadelphia, in 1755, taught 'geometry, trigonometry, and their application in surveying, navigation, etc.,' and Alexander Power, in 1766, 'With their Application to Surveying, Navigation, Geography, and Astronomy'." These subjects were featured also in the evening schools of the colonial period, maintained by private schoolmasters in some of the larger communities for the education of those who could not attend school in the daytime.

According to Seybold, surveying and navigation were the most popular mathematical subjects taught. Some explanation is to be derived from the statement by Schoen[5] that: "In the days when the 'bounds' of great wilderness tracts were being marked off by deep-cut blazes in the trees along a line, a knowledge of land surveying was a useful skill, and many a boy learned its elements by following the 'boundsgoer' in his work of 'running the line.' And those who did not actually take part in running the line must have attended many a gay springtime 'processioning' when neighbors made a festive occasion out of 'perambulating the bounds'." "Vague land grants and inaccurate surveys," he adds, "made the subject of boundary lines a prime issue in the everyday life of colonial homes."

At the same time there was interest in the other aspects of the mathematical sciences. As early as 1743, for instance, a Harvard mathematician named Nathan Prince advertised in Boston that if he were given "suitable Encouragement" he would establish a school to teach "Geography and Astronomy, With the Use of the Globes, and the several kinds of Projecting the Sphere" among other things.[6] A decade later, Theophilus Grew, professor in the academy at Philadelphia which has become the University of Pennsylvania, published a treatise on globes, with the title:

_The Description_ and _Use_ of the _Globes_, Celestial and Terrestrial; With Variety for _Examples_ for the Learner's _Exercises_: Intended for the Use of Such Persons as would attain to the Knowledge of those _Instruments_; But Chiefly designed for the _Instruction_ of the young _Gentlemen_ at the _Academy_ in Philadelphia. To which is added Rules for working all the Cases in Plain and Spherical Triangles without a Scheme. By _Theophilus Grew_, Mathematical Professor. Germantown, Printed by Christopher Sower, 1753.[7]

Thus, the need for practical mathematical instruments for the surveyor and navigator became critical in proportion to the need for men to make and use them, and it is not surprising to discover that the majority of the instruments produced and advertised by early American makers were for surveying, with nautical instruments in second place. Generally, the surveyors were not professionals; they were farmers, tradesmen, or craftsmen with a sound knowledge of basic arithmetic and occasionally with some advanced study of the subject as taught in the evening schools. The surveying of provincial and intercolonial boundaries required greater skill, however, as well as a knowledge of astronomy, and this work was relegated to the scientific men of the period.

As the increasing preoccupation with subdivision of land and with surveying led to a greater demand for suitable instruments, it was the skilled craftsmen of the community, such as the clockmaker and the silversmith, that were called upon to produce them. Superb examples also were produced by the advanced scientific men, or "mathematical practitioners," of the period.

Colonial Training in Instrument Making

One may well ask, where did these native craftsmen acquire the knowledge that enabled them to produce so skillfully the accurate and often delicate mathematical instruments? There were a number of possible sources for this knowledge. The first source lies in England, where some of these craftsmen could have studied or served apprenticeships. After completing their apprenticeship with English mathematical practitioners, they may have immigrated to the Colonies and taught the craft to others. This seems to be entirely plausible, and was probably true, for example, of Thomas Harland the clockmaker, Anthony Lamb, and perhaps several others. However, these were the exceptions instead of the rule, since a biographical study of the instrument makers in general reveals that they were for the most part native to America. It is not likely that the one or two isolated practitioners that had been trained in England could have taught so many others who worked in the same epoch.

Another source for this knowledge of instrument making was probably the reference works on the subject that had been published in England and in France. As an example, Nicolas Bion's _Traitè de la Construction et des Principaux Usages des Instruments de Mathematique_, which had been first published in 1686, was translated into English by Edmund Stone in 1723, and went into several English editions. Copies of this work in English undoubtedly found their way to America soon after publication. Other popular works were Aaron Rathbone's _The Surveyor_, which appeared in London in 1616 (see fig. 2); William Leybourn's _The Compleat Surveyor_, in 1653; and George Atwell's _Faithfull Surveyour_, in 1662. Other works popular in the Colonies were R. Norwood's _Epitome, or The Doctrine of Triangles_ (London, 1659) and J. Love's _Geodasia, or the Art of Surveying_ (London, 1688).

These works undoubtedly inspired similar publications in America, for many books on surveying and navigation appeared there before the beginning of the 19th century. Chief among them were S. Moore's _An Accurate System of Surveying_ (Litchfield, Conn., 1796), Z. Jess's _A Compendious System of Practical Surveying_ (Wilmington, 1799), Abel Flint's _Surveying_ (Hartford, 1804), and J. Day's _Principles of Navigation and Surveying_ (New Haven, 1817).

The published works were unquestionably responsible for much of the training in the making of mathematical instruments in America, although no documentary evidence has yet been recovered to prove it.