Part 16

Several examples of Huntington's clocks are known to exist in private collections in the United States. However, only one example of his scientific instruments appears to have survived. This is a surveying compass (fig. 66) made of wood, with brass sighting bars and a painted dial under glass with a steel needle. The dial is inscribed "G. HUNTINGTON/WALPOLE." The instrument, which is in the collection of the writer, is made of cherry wood, with a riveted ball-and-socket joint of brass for insertion on a tripod.

Jedidiah Baldwin

Jedidiah Baldwin (fl. 1790's) was another early New England clock and instrument maker, but little is known of his early life. He was a brother of Jabes Baldwin (c. 1777-1829), who worked as a clockmaker in Salem and Boston after serving an apprenticeship with Thomas Harland in Norwich, Connecticut.

Jedidiah Baldwin also served an apprenticeship with Harland. In 1791 he was working in Northampton, Massachusetts, as a member of the firm of Stiles and Baldwin, and from 1792 to 1794 he was a member of the firm of Stiles and Storrs, in partnership with Nathan Storrs. In about 1794 Baldwin moved to Hanover, New Hampshire, where he became the local postmaster, and where Dartmouth College records his death.

Only one existing instrument is known to have been made by Baldwin; it is a wooden surveying compass with a brass dial having two scales, one for degrees and one for eight divisions per 90 deg.. The dial is inscribed "JED BALDWIN/HANOVER." According to its present owner, Mr. Worth Shampeny of Rochester, Vermont, the compass was used for surveying in Vermont during the early 1800's.

Another Jedidiah Baldwin worked as a clockmaker in Morrisville, New York, from 1818-1820 and then in Fairfield, New York; he appears also in the city directory of Rochester, New York, as a clockmaker during the years 1834-1844. He may have been a son or grandson of the first Jedidiah, or a nephew.

Thomas Salter Bowles

Thomas Salter Bowles (c. 1765-?) is another elusive New England instrument maker about whom little information is available. He is believed to have been the son of Deacon Samuel and Hannah (Salter) Bowles, born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, probably between 1765 and 1770. His father was born in 1739; his mother, who was the daughter of Captain Titus Salter, was born in 1748 and died in 1831. Deacon Bowles was clerk of the Brick Market in Portsmouth from 1801 to the time of his death, November 3, 1802. There is a minimum of information available from church and city records in the community, but it is believed that he was a member of one of the offshoots of the established Puritan Church, and hence he would not appear in its records. He kept the lower school in the Brick School House on State Street for a number of years.

It is believed that the Bowles family first came to Portsmouth during the few years immediately before the beginning of the Revolutionary War. It is known that a Thomas Bowles and a Samuel Bowles both signed the Association Test on August 14, 1776, promising to oppose the hostile proceedings of the British fleets and armies. Furthermore, one of the principal taxpayers in Portsmouth in 1770 was a firm named Griffith and Bowles, which paid L17 in taxes in 1770. The name of the Bowles who formed part of this firm is not known, but it was either Samuel or the first Thomas Bowles. The other partner was Nathaniel S. Griffith, a watchmaker. It is possible that a tradition of instrument making existed in the Bowles family even then.

On file in the office of the City Clerk in Portsmouth are two certificates of marriage made out by Thomas Salter Bowles. The first is for his marriage to Hannah Ham, a ceremony performed on September 21, 1809, by Joseph Walton, one of the pastors of a church dissenting from the Puritan regime. Hannah was the daughter of William Ham, a brother of Supply Ham (1788-1862), a noted local clockmaker. Bowles may have served an apprenticeship in that shop before he married Hannah. Two other members of the Ham family--George Ham and Henry H. Ham--worked as watchmakers in Portsmouth in the same period.

A search of the cemeteries has indicated that Hannah Ham Bowles died in 1811, age 20. She is buried with her infant son in North Cemetery.

Thomas Bowles's second marriage certificate in Portsmouth is for his marriage on September 29, 1813--two years after Hannah's death--to Abiah Emerly Bradley of Haverhill, Massachusetts.

Little is known about the work of Bowles as an instrument maker except through a few of his instruments. He is listed in the first Portsmouth directory, of 1821, as a "mathematical instrument maker" with a place of business on Daniel Street; his home was given as Austin Street in Portsmouth. He did not appear in the city's directories of 1827 and 1834. It is assumed that he may have left Portsmouth in the interim, possibly to settle in his wife's home town of Haverhill.

Three instruments signed by Bowles have survived, and all show signs of considerable wear. They are surveying compasses made of walnut, having maple sighting bars and a silvered brass vernier set under the glass. Two examples, one in the Streeter Collection of Weights and Measures at Yale University and one owned by this writer are almost identical in size, form, and details. The only variation is that the Yale example (fig. 67) has a bubble level under a brass strip set into one end, an item lacking in the other example (fig. 68).

The compass card, made from a line engraving, is identical in each of the three examples. A floriated fleur-de-lis on the North point has a compass and square at its base, and the name T. S. BOWLES is on a riband over it. Adorning the East point is an American eagle bearing a shield with stars and stripes and clutching arrows in one claw and a laurel twig in the other. In a ring within the central medallion is inscribed (see fig. 68), "* T. S. BOWLES * PORTSMOUTH, N.H. *"

The most interesting of the three instruments was acquired by the Dartmouth Museum as part of a collection of the late Frank C. Churchill, an inspector in the Indian Service. The instrument (fig. 69) is a quarter circle with a compass in its center and sighting bars mounted on a swinging arm that reads the angle of the brass scale on the arc by means of a vernier. It is mounted on a wooden tripod with the customary ball-and-socket joint, which permits it to be placed on a vertical plane. A built-in plumb bob at the side helps to establish the vertical.

Interesting features of this instrument are two inscriptions engraved on the brass strip on the top of the dial. One states that it was "INVENTED BY P. MERRILL ESQ." and the other relates that it was "MADE BY JOHN KENNARD NEWMARKET." No information about P. Merrill has been found, and it is presumed that it was he who conceived the idea of combining the various elements into a single instrument and that it was made under his direction by Kennard.

Some data on Kennard is available in a history of Newfields (formerly Newmarket) by Reverend Fitts. John Kennard was born in Kittery, Maine, in 1782. He learned the trade of clockmaker in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, presumably working with the members of the Ham family or others. On July 3, 1806, he married Sarah Ewer. He lived for various periods in Nashua and Concord before moving to Newfields in 1812. He lived in the Palmer house (which was burned in September 1899), and he kept a store in the little community and also served as its postmaster from 1822 to 1824. The post office was the only public office in the town until the cotton mills were built on the Lamprey River in 1823. Kennard later built and occupied the Kennard house on Piscassic Street, which was subsequently owned by Jeremiah Towle and has since been burned. In December 1830 he established an iron foundry together with Temple Paul and the Drake family, but in 1834 he sold his interest to Amos Paul and others. He was the father of six children and he died in 1861. During his lifetime he had specialized in making tall case and banjo clocks.

The New Era

The beginning of the 19th century saw increased trading and shipping resulting from the economic development of the new republic, and the westward surge brought increased preoccupation with the settlement of communities and the development of land areas. As a consequence, the demand for instruments likewise increased.

Whereas during the 18th century and until some time after the end of the Revolutionary War probably not more than a dozen instrument makers and dealers are known to have emigrated from England or elsewhere to make their homes and careers in the American Colonies, the beginning of the 19th century saw substantial numbers of English and French instrument makers and dealers immigrate to the United States, to establish shops in the major centers of trade.

And whereas the names of scarcely a hundred mathematical-instrument makers who worked in the American Colonies during the 18th century are known today, the names of hundreds of similar 19th-century craftsmen and dealers are to be found.

As Derek Price has so cogently stated: "For scientific instrument makers, one need only examine the nineteenth century city directories of Boston, Philadelphia and New York to find hundreds of names of craftsmen and firms. It is, to be sure, an antiquarian research, for one does not expect to find great discoveries coming from these people. But just as in Europe, it is a populous trade, influential in the growth of science and highly effective in spreading and intensifying the itch for ingenious instruments and devices. It is by these men that the basic skills of the Industrial Revolution were populated...." By such means did American science and technology come of age.

The National Collection

Early American Scientific Instruments and Related Materials in the United States National Museum, Listed by Makers and Users

ADAMS, GEORGE; Fleet Street, London. (See Ellicott, Andrew; Surveying Instrument.)

BARDIN, W. & T. M.; 16 Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, London. (See Priestley, Joseph: Globes.)

BENNET, N. (fl. 1777); Middleboro, Mass., or Middleboro, Pa. Alidade, plane table, scale 7-7/8 in. radius, compass 5-3/8 in. long. Brass scale and sights with compass in wooden box. Instrument inscribed "N. Bennet--Middlebor 1777." Although the name of this instrument maker does not appear on list of English or American makers, it is believed that he was American. USNM 319076.