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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Holcomb, Fitz and Peate: Three 19th Century American Telescope Makers, by Robert P. Multhauf.
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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58747 ***</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="500" height="650" alt="Cover image" />
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
<p class="titlepage"><span class="smcap">Contributions from<br />
The Museum of History and Technology:<br />
Paper 26</span></p>
<p class="titlepage"><span class="smcap">Holcomb, Fitz, and Peate:<br />
Three 19th-Century American Telescope Makers</span></p>
<hr />
<table summary="Contents">
<tr>
<td colspan="2">INTRODUCTION—<i>Robert P. Multhauf</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Introduction">156</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="right">I.</td>
<td>Amasa Holcomb—<i>Autobiographical Sketch</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#I_Amasa_Holcomb">160</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="right">II.</td>
<td>Henry Fitz—<i>Julia Fitz Howell</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#II_Henry_Fitz">164</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="right">III.</td>
<td>John Peate—<i>F. W. Preston and William J. McGrath, Jr.</i></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#III_John_Peate">171</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p>
<h1>HOLCOMB, FITZ, and PEATE:<br />
<span class="smaller">Three 19th Century American Telescope Makers</span></h1>
<div class="blockquote">
<p><i>Practically all the telescopes used by amateur scientists in 18th-century
America were of European origin. Our dependence upon
foreign sources for these instruments continued well into the 19th
century, and the beginning of telescope making in this country has
conventionally been associated with the names of Alvan Clark and
John Brashear, whose work dates from the 1860’s.</i></p>
<p><i>Presented here are biographical sketches of two predecessors and a
contemporary of Clark and Brashear whose obscurity is not deserved.
The accounts relate some hitherto little-known aspects of telescope
making in America as it progressed from mechanic art to science.</i></p>
<p><span class="smcap">The Author</span> <i>of the Introduction, Robert P. Multhauf, is head
curator of the department of science and technology in the United
States National Museum, Smithsonian Institution.</i></p>
</div>
<hr />
<h2 id="Introduction"><span class="smcap">Introduction</span></h2>
<p class="center"><i>Robert P. Multhauf</i></p>
<p>The telescope was invented about 1600. It was
brought to America about a half-century later,
and within another century had become a commonplace
appurtenance to the library of the cultivated
gentleman.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
<p>Throughout this period, from Galileo to Herschel,
the telescope found use in scientific astronomy, although
the possibility of contributing to the science
of astronomy by simple observation diminished continuously
after the time of Galileo. Herschel’s work
had aimed at the advancement of scientific astronomy
through increasing spectacularly our powers of
vision, just as had that of Galileo in the 17th century
and of Hale in the 20th. But even in Herschel’s
time the monstrous size of the instrument required
made the project something of a national effort.
The telescopes of the 18th-century American gentleman
were already toys, as far as the astronomer was
concerned.</p>
<p>However, the telescope had another, if less glamorous,
use in the 18th century. This was its use in
positional astronomy, in the ever more precise measurement
of the relative positions of objects seen in the
heavens. Measurement had been the purpose served
by pre-telescopic astronomical instruments, the sighting
bars of the Ptolemaic observers of Alexandria and
the elegant quadrants of Tycho Brahe. For a time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
after the invention of the telescope the professional
astronomer resisted the innovation, but by the end of
the 17th century the new optical instrument was being
adapted to the quadrant and other instruments for
the precise measurement of the positions of heavenly
bodies in relation to the time-honored astronomical
coordinates. By the late 18th century telescopes were
found serving three relatively distinct purposes: the
increased magnification of the sky in general (in
which use Herschel’s 48-inch reflector had made all
others obsolete): the more precise measurement of
planetary and stellar positions (and, conversely, of
the Earth’s shape) by means of the quadrant, vertical
circle, zenith sector, and similar instruments; and the
simple edification of the educated but not learned
classes, who wished not only to see what the astronomer
saw, but to have an instrument also useful for
looking occasionally at interesting objects on earth.</p>
<p>Of these three purposes the second was the most
unimpeachably scientific. It is remarkable that
the earliest American-made telescopes of which we
have knowledge were made for this purpose and
not for the mere gratification of the curiosity of the
educated layman. These are the telescopes of the
remarkable Philadelphia mechanic, David Rittenhouse
(1732-96). In an atmosphere not unlike
the intellectual democracy that characterized the
formation of the Royal Society a century earlier
in London, Rittenhouse began as a clockmaker and
ended as president of the American Philosophical
Society, our counterpart of the Royal Society, in
Philadelphia. He demonstrated not merely that
an instrument-maker was capable of being a scientist,
but also that the work of the instrument-maker,
as it had developed by the late 18th century, was
in itself scientific work. One of several observers
assigned by the Society to the observation of the
transit of Venus in 1769, he constructed instruments
of the most advanced types, apparently employing
European lenses, and used the instruments himself.
Of these, a 1¾-inch refractor mounted as a transit
instrument stands in the hall of the Philosophical
Society. It is probably the oldest extant American-made
telescope.</p>
<p>Rittenhouse made other telescopes which survive,
notably two zenith sectors now in the U.S. National
Museum of the Smithsonian Institution,<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> but he
does not appear to have made them for commercial
sale. In the history of telescope-making in America
he seems to have been something of a “sport.” Not
only were the instruments which still grace the
desks of Washington, Jefferson, and others, of European
manufacture, but the earliest observatories in
the United States (eleven between 1786 and 1840)
were outfitted exclusively (except for the Rittenhouse
observatory) with European instruments.<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> In its
endeavor to establish a permanent observatory
even Rittenhouse’s own Philosophical Society seems
to have thought exclusively in terms of instruments
of European manufacture.</p>
<p>It must therefore have required some courage for
Amasa Holcomb, 43-year-old Massachusetts surveyor,
to approach Professor Silliman of Yale in 1830 with
a telescope of his own construction. In the autobiography
printed here, Holcomb states that all the
telescopes used in this country before 1833 had been
obtained in Europe, and indicates that thereafter
“the whole market was in his hands during thirteen
years,” a period which would fall, apparently, between
1833 and 1845. It should be mentioned, although
it is no conclusive negation of Holcomb’s
claim, that the New York instrument-maker Richard
Patten in 1830 built a telescopic theodolite that was
designed by Ferdinand Hassler for use on the Wilkes
Expedition, and was subsequently used at the observatory
of the Navy’s “Depot of Charts and Instruments”
in Washington.<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> We do not know the source of
Patten’s lenses.</p>
<p>Holcomb would appear to have succeeded as a
commercial maker of telescopes. He claims to have
sold his instruments “in almost every state in the
Union,” and also abroad, but we know nothing
of what use was made of any of them. The telescope
he showed Professor Silliman was a refractor.
Another, preserved in the Smithsonian Institution,<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>
is like Rittenhouse’s 1769 instrument, a transit. But
Holcomb seems to have specialized in reflectors of the
Herschelean type, <i>i.e.</i>, instruments, in which the
image is viewed through an eye-piece located at the
mouth of the tube. It is probably reasonable to doubt
that the serious astronomer of this period shared
Holcomb’s enthusiasm for this type of difficult-to-adjust
instrument in the small sizes he produced
(10-inches is the largest reported). In 1834, 1835,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
and 1836 he presented instruments of this type to
the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, where committees
compared them with the best available
European refractors and found them more than
adequate. One of Holcomb’s instruments of 1835,
apparently his only surviving reflector, is now in the
Smithsonian Institution (see appendix, p. 184).</p>
<p>Toward 1845, Holcomb tells us, “one after another
went into the business,” and indeed they did. At
the American Institute Fair in New York that year
a gold medal was given Henry Fitz “for the best
achromatic telescope.” In Cambridge, Massachusetts,
Alvan Clark is supposed to have already taken
up the hobby of lens and mirror making. And in
McKeesport, Pennsylvania, an amateur telescope-maker
now known only as “Squire Wampler” made
a small achromatic refractor which he demonstrated
in 1849 to a 9-year-old boy named John Brashear,
of whom more later.</p>
<p>Some of Holcomb’s telescopes must have come to
the attention of Henry Fitz during his wide travels
as a locksmith after 1830, if, as is reported, he was
at that time pursuing his avocational interest in
astronomy. It is interesting to note that both
Holcomb and Fitz seem to have pursued feverishly
the new photographic process of Daguerre in 1839,
the former near the end of his career as a telescope-maker,
the latter near the beginning of his.</p>
<p>The decade before 1845, when “one after another
went into the business,” seems to have been marked
by the flowering of observational astronomy in the
United States. The professional work of the Navy’s
Depot of Charts and Instruments (forerunner of
the Naval Observatory) began about 1838. In
1844 the first instrument larger than 6 inches came
to this country, an 11-inch refractor for the Cincinnati
Observatory. The Bonds established what
was to be the Harvard Observatory in 1839, and by
1847 Harvard had obtained its famous 15-inch
refractor from Merz and Mabler.<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> Fitz was to
have a more sophisticated market than had Holcomb.</p>
<p>Despite the glowing recommendations of the
Franklin Institute committee,<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> no actual use of
Holcomb’s instruments by astronomers has come to
light. We may owe to the rapid progress of American
astronomy after 1840 the fact that we have evidence
of a more distinguished history for some of Fitz’s
instruments. It will also be recalled that Holcomb
specialized in Herschelian reflectors. Fitz, on the
other hand, made few reflectors. He specialized in
achromatic telescopes mounted equatorially, the type
of instrument which was in greatest demand among
professional astronomers at the time.</p>
<p>Some of Fitz’s instruments had individual histories
and were associated with important events in astronomy.
One was taken in 1849 on the Chilean astronomical
expedition of Lieut. James M. Gilliss.
Another was used by L. M. Rutherfurd in his epochal
astronomical photography at Columbia University.
One, made for the Allegheny Observatory, is still in
use at that institution. It appears from his account
book that Fitz made many telescopes, and some have
turned up in strange places. The lens of one of his
refractors was located a few years ago in South Carolina,
in use as substitute for the lens in an automobile
headlamp!<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> At an eastern university in 1958 the
writer saw another of his refractors incorporated into
apparatus used in graduate student experimentation.</p>
<p>Among the others who began telescope-making
about 1845 was the portrait painter who was to become
one of the world’s foremost telescope-makers,
Alvan Clark. Clark is supposed to have become
first interested in lens and mirror making about 1844,
and, as a resident of Cambridge, Mass., to have been
inspired three years later by the great 15-inch refractor
installed at Harvard. His first encouragement
came from the British astronomer W. R. Dawes, with
whom he had a correspondence on their respective
observations and to whom he sold a 7½ inch refractor
in 1851. The following year he established, with
his sons, the firm of Alvan Clark and Sons, a name
which was later to become one of the most famous
in the field of telescope making. Whereas Holcomb
had demonstrated that telescopes could be made in
this country, and Fitz that American instruments
were adequate to the needs of the professional astronomer,
Clark was to prove that American instruments
could compete commercially with the finest made in
Europe. In 1862 Alvan Clark and Sons completed
an 18½-inch refractor which was long to serve the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
Dearborn Observatory. It is now in the Adler Planetarium.
The famous Lick Observatory 36-inch refractor
was completed in 1887, the year of Clark’s
death, and his sons went on to build the 40-inch
Yerkes refractor, (1897) still the largest refractor ever
built. It is no reflection on Clark to note that he was
more fortunate than Fitz, in his longer life, his association
with Warner and Swasey in the construction
of mountings, and in the continuity given to his work
by his sons.</p>
<p>Let us return for a moment to the 1840’s and John
Brashear, the 9-year-old Pennsylvania boy who, was
given his first opportunity of looking through a small
refractor telescope by its maker, Squire Wampler of
McKeesport. Brashear became a professional machinist,
but retained an interest in astronomy which
led him to make a 5-inch achromatic refractor in 1872
and subsequently to show the instrument to Samuel
Pierpont Langley,<a name="FNanchor_9" id="FNanchor_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> then director of the Allegheny Observatory.
With Langley’s encouragement Brashear
went on to construct a 12-inch reflector and in 1880
decided to make a business of telescope-making.
He subsequently made, among other telescopes, a
30-inch refractor in 1906 for the Allegheny Observatory
and in 1918 a 72-inch reflector, at Victoria, British
Columbia. Brashear’s greatest fame, however, came
from his accessory instruments—spectroscopes and
the like.</p>
<p>Not the least thrilling aspect of the story of the spectacular
ascendancy of American-made telescopes is
the story of their financing—of the big-telescope era
in American philanthropy and the financial giants
(Lick, Hooker, Thaw, Yerkes, and others) who peopled
it. In the biography of our third telescope-maker,
John Peate, we see at once the persistence of
the amateur and the difficulty of his position at the
end of the 19th century.</p>
<p>Peate, too, may have acquired his interest in astronomy
during the years just before 1845. It has been
surmised that he was inspired by the sensation created
by the comet of 1843, but it is more likely that
his interest resulted from visits to European observatories
while he was on a walking tour in 1859. Unlike
our other amateurs, he did not change his profession
(he was a Methodist minister), being certainly at less
liberty to do so, but he adapted his hobby to it in an
interesting way. Peate was something of a poor man’s
philanthropist, and his fame would have been no
greater than that role customarily brings had he not
undertaken in 1893 the astonishingly audacious project
of making the largest glass reflector that had ever
been built. In this project he assumes, like his English
contemporary A. A. Common, a position intermediate
between the makers of giant metallic specula, Herschel
and Rosse, and the makers of the California glass
reflectors of the 20th century.<a name="FNanchor_10" id="FNanchor_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> In a professional
telescope-maker of the end of the 19th century,
Peate’s accomplishment would have been remarkable.
In an amateur it is amazing. It detracts
nothing from Peate to reveal, as does the sketch
printed here, that the accolade which this project
deserves (but has never received) belongs in part to
George Howard and the Standard Plate Glass Company.
His example and theirs encourage us to hope
that the day of the amateur in science may not be at
an end.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>
<h2 id="I_Amasa_Holcomb"><i>I.</i> Amasa Holcomb, 1787-1875</h2>
<div class="blockquote">
<p><i>Amasa Holcomb was born in 1787, the year John
Fitch demonstrated his steamboat before the Constitutional
Convention assembled at Philadelphia, and
three years before the death of Benjamin Franklin.
Two of Holcomb’s telescopes remained in the attic of
the family home in Southwick, Massachusetts, until
1933, when they were offered by his descendants to the
Smithsonian Institution.<a name="FNanchor_11" id="FNanchor_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> With them came a manuscript
book of meteorological and astronomical notes,
and the following short sketch of the life of Holcomb,
unsigned but almost certainly autobiographical. It
appears to have been written when the subject was
about 80 years old (1867).</i></p>
</div>
<p>The subject of this notice was born June 18, 1787.
The place was Simsbury Connecticut previous to
1768. That year Simsbury was divided and his
birth place fell in Granby Con. that being the name
of the new town. It remained so until 1804 when
the line between Connecticut and Massachusetts
was moved further south and his birth place fell in
Southwick Massachusetts. The house was about a
quarter of a mile north of the new state line, and on
a road about half a mile west of the main road from
Westfield to Simsbury and Hartford. Here his
father and mother lived and died, having lived in
three different towns and two different states without
changing the place of their residence. Here Amasa
was born and past his early youth. His grand father
and grand mother on his fathers side lived and died
in a house about thirty rods further south, on the
same road. His grandfather’s name was Elijah,
and was a son of Nathaniel Holcomb 3d, and married
Violet Cornish of Simsbury Con. daughter of Capt.
James Cornish. His fathers name was Elijah Holcomb
Junr. He was a farmer and cooper. In the
latter part of his life his father became involved in
debt, and mortgaged the farm. His son Amasa
paid the debt and the father Elijah Holcomb Junr
occupied the farm until he died Oct 5th 1841. The
grandfather on the mothers side was Silas Holcomb
a son of Judah Holcomb 1st and grandson of Nathanial
Holcomb 2d. He lived in the northwest
part of Granby, near Hartland line, where he owned
a large farm and beautiful home. He kept a park
for deer and cultivated fruit, and made raisins. He
married Mary Post of Hebron Connecticut, and in
this beautiful place they lived and died. There
Lucy Holcomb the mother of Amasa was born in
1767. During her short life, she was one of the
excellent ones of the earth, and labored for the
welfare of her children by instruction and example,
until she died August 31 1800. In a very hot day
in 1797, she attempted to get some cattle out a field
of wheat. The men were at work in a distant field,
too far off to know about it. She became heated,
and never recovered, though she lived three years.
During the last year of her life she became so reduced,
that for a long while she could not speak a
loud word, but she could and did whisper some
good advice to her children. Her son Amasa never
forgot it, and he always remembered his mother
with affection and gratitude. She had two sisters
but no brother. The house where she was born is
still standing, but has passed out of the family. The
house where his father and mother [lived and died]<a name="FNanchor_12" id="FNanchor_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>
spent their married life, and where he was born,
has been taken down, and a new house built on the
same place by his brother Newton Holcomb who
now owns the old home stead. Here Amasa spent
his early youth and school days. There was not a
schoolhouse in the district where he lived, until he
was past having any use for a common school. The
schools were kept in dwelling houses, one part was
occupied by the family, and the other part by the
school. In these schools were taught, reading,
spelling, writing and the first rules of arithmetic. In
some of them a little English grammar was taught.
Climena Holcomb, Lois Gains, Bethuel Barber,
Samuel Frasier, and James L. Adair, in the order
in which they are named, were his teachers. At the
age of fifteen he was asked to take a school in Suffield
Connecticut. He was inspected and passed and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
took the school. A large portion of the pupils were
older and stouter than he was, but they had the
good sense to submit to be governed and taught,
and good progress was made. But before this a
great impulse had been given to his mind. He had
an uncle Abijah Holcomb that went to sea about
1798 and never returned. Abijah had fitted for
college and left a valuable collection of books.
Some of them were classical, and some scientific.
Here he found books on Geometry, Navigation, and
astronomy. Amasa had free access to these books,
and they opened a brighter world before him. He
went into these studies with great pleasure, and
a mind fully awake, but <i>alone</i>. None of these
branches were taught in any school to which he
had access. He had so far progressed without help,
in Geometry, Surveying, navigation, Optics and Astronomy,
that at the great Solar eclipse in June
1806 he could make astronomical computations,
and was prepared to observe the eclipse with instruments
of his own making. The stars were visible
during about four minutes of total darkness. He
computed, and published, an almanac for the next
year 1807, and also for the year 1808. He went
into the business of surveying land about this time.
He loved to climb the mountains, and enjoyed fine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
health. In the year 1808 he married Miss Gillet
Kendall, a daughter of Noadiah Kendall of Granby
Connecticut. She was one of the best of women,
and had no enemies, but was beloved by every
body who was acquainted with her. For a while
he took students into his own house, and taught
them such branches as each one had engaged to be
instructed in. Julius M. Coy of Suffield, studied
surveying—Levi —— also from Suffield studied Navigation,
and soon went to sea, and after a while
command[ed] a vessel. Benoni B. Bacon of Simsbury,
studied Surveying and astronomy, Joseph W.
King of Suffield, studied surveying—Henry Merwin
of Granby studied Surveying, Jefferson Cooley, a
graduate of Yale College, studied surveying and
civil engineering. He had also students from Granville
Mass. But the school interfered with his other
business, and he discontinued it. He manufactured
about this time a good many sets of surveyors instruments—compasses,
chains, scales, protractors,
and dividers, some for his pupils and some for others.
He also manufactured, magnets, electrical machines,
leveling instruments, and some others. He was
greatly attached to the business of surveying, and
had more applications than he could attend to.
He was compelled to leave it in 1825, and go into
the business of civil engineering, which also in a
few years, gave way for the business of manufacturing
telescopes. At the commencement, he never thought
of its ever becoming a business of profit. About the
year 1830 he had completed an achromatic telescope,
which he took to New Haven, and asked Prof. Benjamin
Silliman to look at it. He did so, and at
once took an interest in it, and published a notice
of it in the American Journal of science, of which he
was editor. He manufactured principally Reflecting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
telescopes, of the Herschelian kind. About the year
1833, he began to have orders for telescopes. Among
these orders was one from William J. Young, a
celebrated Philosophical instrument maker of Philadelphia,
who wanted two small diagonal metallic
reflectors for two Transit instruments that he was
making. Mr Holcomb made the articles wanted,
and thought he would take them and a telescope
and visit Philadelphia. Mr Young introduced him
to the late Sears C. Walker, and Mr Walker introduced
him to Mr Hamilton, Actuary of the Franklin
Institute of the State of Pennsylvania, and the Actuary
appointed a committee to examine the telescope.
He selected the committee from the standing committee
on Science and the Arts of the Institute.
Mr Patterson of the Mint, Alexander D. Bach superintendent
of the Coast survey, Dr Robert Hare the
chemist, James P. Espey, Sears C. Walker, Isiah T.
Lukens and some others. These were among the
first scientific men of America. The committee
examined the telescope, and compared it with others
of European manufacture. The Report of that
committee may be found in the Journal of the Franklin
Institute Vol. 14 p. 169. The next year 1835
he took a larger telescope to Philadelphia, and offered
it to the same committee for examination and comparison
with European telescopes. That Report
may be found in the Journal of the Franklin Institute
Vol 16 p. 11. The next year 1836 he presented a
Telescope 14 feet long to the same committee. Their
report may be found in the Journal of the Franklin
Institute Vol. 18 p. 312. These Reports furnish
the best information in regard to the performance
of these telescopes. The committee gave them a
high character, and they were sold in almost every
state in the Union. One went to Seramp in the
East indies, and one to one of the Sandwich islands
in the Pacific ocean. While he was pursuing his
labors as Engineer, and manufacturing Telescopes,
and other instruments, in 1839 the news reached
this country from Paris, of Daguerre’s great discovery
of taking pictures on silver plates by solar light.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
The discoverer had not then succeeded in taking
likenesses from life. Holcombe immediately commenced
experimenting and soon succeeded in taking
portraits, on silver plates, made sensitive to light by
Iodine. There was soon a great demand for instruments
to take portraits. He had for a considerable
time as much as he could do to supply the applications
he received for these instruments, from 1839 to 1845.
As the calls for these instruments lessened he continued
the manufacture of telescopes. He was the
first that sold a telescope of American manufacture.
All the telescopes used in this country before 1833,
had been obtained in Europe. It had been said that
they could not be made in this country. He had
been greatly assisted in his sales, by the influence
and recommendation of scientific men. It was soon
discovered that telescopes could be made in America
and about 1845, one after another went into the
business, and there is now no further need of going
to Europe for telescopes, as good ones can be made
in the United States as can be made in Europe.
The whole market was in his hands during thirteen
years. During this time the business was good and
paid well. The competition afterward reduced the
profit. In 1816 he was chosen select man and assessor
in his own town, which office he held during four
successive years, and held the office occasionally by
subsequent elections. In 1832 he was chosen to
represent the town in the Legislature of Mass and
he was reelected three successive terms. In 1852
he was elected to the State senate. In 1833 he was
appointed a Justice of the Peace for the county of
Hampden, which office he has held every year since,
and his last commission does not expire until May 1875,
at which time, if he should live to see it, he will be
but a few days less than 88 years old. In 1837 he
received from Williams College the Honorary
degree of A.M. In 1831 he was ordained a minister
in the Methodist Episcopal church. He preached
constantly on the sabbath during many years, and
afterward occasionally until he was eighty years old.</p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="images/figure1.jpg" width="600" height="485" alt="" />
<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Figure 1.</span>—Page from
manuscript sketch of the life of Amasa Holcomb, now in the collections of
the U.S. National Museum.</p>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
<img src="images/figure2.jpg" width="400" height="275" alt="" />
<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Figure 2.</span>—Herschelian
reflecting telescope (USNM 310598) built by Amasa Holcomb and shown by
him at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, in 1835. The Institute’s
report of the demonstration is given in the appendix (p. 182).
(<i>Smithsonian photo 11000-a</i>)</p>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
<img src="images/figure3.jpg" width="300" height="350" alt="" />
<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Figure 3.</span>—Eyepiece and
tripod head of the Holcomb reflecting telescope shown in figure 2.
(<i>Smithsonian photo 11000</i>)</p>
</div>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
<img src="images/figure4.jpg" width="300" height="375" alt="" />
<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Figure 4.</span>—Transit telescope
(USNM 310599) made by Amasa Holcomb. The aperture is 1½ inches, length 21
inches, and axis 14 inches. It lacks the original support. (<i>Smithsonian
photo 43472-c</i>)</p>
</div>
<hr />
<h2 id="II_Henry_Fitz"><i>II.</i> Henry Fitz, 1808-1863</h2>
<p class="center"><i>Julia Fitz Howell</i></p>
<div class="blockquote">
<p><i>Henry Fitz died suddenly through an accident in
1863, when he was in his 55th year. His widow
closed his shop in New York City and moved the
equipment to Southold, Long Island, where it was
used by his son to complete certain contracts in progress.
Thereafter it remained essentially as it was until
nearly the present time, when the shop was offered to
the U.S. National Museum of the Smithsonian Institution
by Mrs. Julia Fitz Howell, granddaughter of
Fitz. The decision to construct a new Museum of
History and Technology made it possible to accept
this generous offer, and the complicated project of
transferring the shop and reassembling it was accomplished
in 1957 through the assistance of Mr. L. C.
Eichner.<a name="FNanchor_13" id="FNanchor_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></i></p>
<p><i>Although a few duplicate items were eliminated,
the shop is essentially complete, including such items
as Fitz’s account books, the small rouge box he used
to polish lenses in the course of a walk, and his door
key. Through the assistance of Mr. Eichner and Mr.
Arthur V. A. Fitz the Smithsonian has obtained a
comet-seeker telescope and Fitz’s first instrument, a
small draw telescope.</i></p>
<p><i>The following biographical sketch was written by
Mrs. Howell on the basis of papers in the possession
of the family.</i></p>
</div>
<p>Henry Fitz, inventor and telescope maker, was
born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on December
31, 1808. Little is known of his mother, Susan
Page Fitz, except that she was probably of Scottish
ancestry. His father, Henry Fitz, Sr., was a hatter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
by trade and the youngest son of Mark Fitz, who
for several years represented his city in the Massachusetts
General Court.</p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
<img src="images/figure5.jpg" width="600" height="385" alt="" /> <p
class="caption"><span class="smcap">Figure 5.</span>—The telescope-maker’s
shop of Henry Fitz as reconstructed in the U.S. National Museum.
(<i>Smithsonian photo 46545</i>)</p>
</div>
<p>Newburyport was then a prosperous and fast
growing maritime community and the Fitzes,
though not among its wealthy citizens, were a
public spirited and reasonably prosperous family.
As in other sections of New England, the War of
1812 made great changes in this pleasing picture.
The town’s shipping and ship-building had been
brought almost to a standstill and all its business
suffered disastrously. After the war recovery was
very slow. Since few needed or could afford new
beaver hats, Henry Fitz in 1819 took his wife and
three small children first to Albany, New York,
where he worked at his trade for awhile, and later
to New York City.</p>
<p>To young Henry, aged eleven, New York was an
exciting and stimulating place and he watched all
its activities with eager interest. The father found
the city stimulating in a different way. An enthusiastic
Universalist, he met in New York many
persons with similar leanings. He soon established
a religious weekly, <i>The Gospel Herald</i>, which he
edited for several years. It is therefore not surprising
that young Henry was set to learning the printer’s
trade, but although he rapidly became skilled, he
didn’t especially like the trade. What he most
enjoyed about it was tinkering with the machinery
of the shop. In this his mechanical ability soon
became evident. When his father relinquished his
editorship, Henry, then nineteen, gladly turned to
different work.</p>
<p>He chose locksmithing, which he learned speedily
and well in the shop of William Day of New York.
The years 1830 to 1839 found him travelling between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New
Orleans, following the activities of the building
trades and trying by long hours and austere living
to save money for a locksmith shop of his own. For
the sake of both health and pocketbook, he never
rode if he could walk, neither drank nor smoked,
ate little meat, and lived chiefly on graham bread
and water.</p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 430px;">
<img src="images/figure6.jpg" width="430" height="500" alt="" />
<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Figure 6.</span>—Henry Fitz, from a
photograph in the collections of the U.S. National Museum. (<i>Smithsonian
photo 44594-b</i>)</p>
</div>
<p>Evenings were spent in reading, study, and the
pursuit of hobbies, chief of which was astronomy.
His diaries and letters of this period show him buying
telescopes and lenses and carrying them with him
on his travels. He first made a telescope in 1838,
a reflector, with which he delighted to show the stars
and planets to his friends. The well-known Reverend
Clapp of New Orleans referred to him in a public
address as “the young locksmith who knew more
about the heavenly bodies than anyone else in the
United States.” Henry was pleased with this
compliment, even while deprecating the enthusiasm
which prompted it.</p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
<img src="images/figure7.jpg" width="400" height="475" alt="" />
<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Figure 7.</span>—Certificate of
award to Henry Fitz, Jr., by the American Institute, 1852, “For the best
achromatic telescope.” (<i>Smithsonian photo 46815-a</i>)</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
<img src="images/figure8.jpg" width="450" height="600" alt="" />
<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Figure 8.</span>—Advertisement of
Henry Fitz, about 1850. (<i>Smithsonian photo 44594-a</i>)</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
<img src="images/figure9.jpg" width="500" height="300" alt="" />
<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Figure 9.</span>—Refracting
telescope, comet seeker, (USNM 317027) by Henry Fitz, 8¼-inch aperture,
61-inch tube, fitted for equatorial mounting. The stand is lacking.
(<i>Smithsonian photo 46815</i>)</p>
</div>
<p>Although he saved money, his work did not bring
him the financial or other rewards that he had hoped
for. In spring of 1839 he appears to have worked as
a speculum maker with Wolcott and others—one of
them may have been his acquaintance John Johnson—and
to have read of Daguerre’s work in photography.
To learn more of these experiments, as well as to
inquire into optics and optical glass, he sailed to
Europe in August of that year, taking passage by
steerage.</p>
<p>He returned to New York in November 1839 and
in that month, according to the testimony of his son
Harry, made a portrait with a camera invented by
Wolcott. This camera portrait he believed to be the
first ever made. In 1840, after more experimenting,
he set up a studio in Baltimore, where his father was
then living, and spent several years there “taking
likenesses.” At the same time he continued to work
with telescopes and lenses. His first refractors were
built there, instruments he later referred to as crude
affairs.</p>
<p>While in Baltimore he took a step which marks
the beginning of the final phase of his career. In
June 1844 he married Julia Ann Wells of Southold,
Long Island, whom he had known for about a decade
and with whom he had long corresponded. Julia
was a woman of unusual ability and personality,
less scientific than he but more literary and artistic,
and no less intelligent. With her to encourage him,
he continued his experiments in telescope building.
A year after their marriage they moved to New York,
where he was to spend the remainder of his life.</p>
<p>That summer he prepared a 6-inch refracting
telescope for exhibition at the Fair of the American
Institute, held annually in New York. This carefully
constructed instrument, with its ingenious tripod and
its achromatic objective—which he had made himself,
correcting the curves by a process of his own
invention—won the highest award of the Fair, a gold
medal. It was the first of many such medals he
was to earn. His telescope also received favorable
notice from scientists and astronomers, among them
Lewis M. Rutherfurd, a wealthy New Yorker and
trustee of Columbia College. Rutherfurd immediately
ordered a 4-inch refractor for his own observatory.
His interest and example soon brought orders from
others.</p>
<p>From this time on, Henry Fitz devoted most of his
energies to building telescopes. Cameras were not
altogether abandoned. He continued to make them
and to instruct others in their use. He invented a
camera lens that was patented posthumously. He
was one of the founders of the American Photographical
Society and remained interested in it all
his life. But from 1845 on, cameras became secondary;
he built them between telescope orders.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
<img src="images/figure10.jpg" width="450" height="575" alt="" />
<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Figure 10.</span>—Henry Fitz made
this 13-inch equatorial refractor in 1861 for the Allegheny Observatory.
It is still in use. The University of Michigan has in use a Fitz
refractor of similar size. (<i>Photo courtesy Allegheny Observatory</i>)</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p>
<p>During the years that followed he constantly improved
the quality of his lenses and the accuracy and
speed with which he could “execute the true curves,”
as he expressed it. He used better and better glass.
In his early experiments he had taken what came to
hand—ordinary tumbler bottoms, for instance. In
his 1845 prize winner he combined Boston-made flint
with French plate glass. But the Boston flint proved
too veiny for any but small lenses and he soon was
importing both crown and flint. He designed and
built machines, run by foot power, on which he could
train employees to do much of the labor of lens making,
always reserving the final polishing for himself.
He increased the size as well as the quality of his
lenses. By 1856, he was making 12½-inch refractors,
which according to Prof. Loomis, were as large as
any that had then been made in Munich. He built
later, still larger ones, of which one was a 16-inch
instrument made for Mr. Van Duzee of Buffalo. It
was his ambition to make a 24-inch one, but this
project, for which he had made careful plans, he did
not live to complete.</p>
<p>One of his early successes was a 3¾-inch telescope
for the Government of Haiti. By a happy accident
the objective for this instrument proved to be exceptionally
fine and provided a standard which he tried
to meet in all his work. The telescopes of European
opticians became another measuring stick. It
was a matter of both personal and patriotic pride to
him that he, an American locksmith untrained in
optics, had been able to invent his own process for
making so complex and difficult a thing as an achromatic
lens, and that he was able to manufacture telescopes
to compete with those of European make. He
sometimes contracted to make a telescope equal in
performance to an imported one of similar size, usually
at a lower price. The 6¾-inch telescope made
in 1849 for Lt. J. M. Gilliss to use on an astronomical
expedition to Chile passed such a test and greatly
enhanced Henry Fitz’s reputation. Another that met
such a test was the 13-inch instrument made for
the Allegheny Association at Pittsburgh in 1861.</p>
<p>His telescopes were procured by private observatories
not already mentioned, among them that of
Van Arsdale, in Newark, and of Campbell, in New
York. For Rutherfurd he made several, including a
9- and a 12-inch instrument. The latter is now at
Columbia University. Among the telescopes made
for colleges were a 12-inch one for Vassar and another
for the University of Michigan. Besides these and
other important instruments he made many of smaller
size—4, 5, 6, and 8 inches.</p>
<p>Most of the time, he was handicapped by lack of
capital with which to develop his business. The savings
from locksmithing days he had, on his father’s
advice, invested in Baltimore real estate, but found it
difficult to raise cash on this property when he needed
it. With the many orders that came in, this situation
gradually improved, though he always continued
to supervise all phases of the process and to work 12
to 16 hours a day himself. As soon as his eldest son,
Harry, was old enough, he taught him all he knew.
The boy proved an apt pupil and a great help. By
1863 Henry Fitz felt secure enough to give up renting,
and had a house built for his family and business in
11th Street, not many blocks from his friend and
patron, Mr. Rutherfurd. Plans for the future looked
bright. However, the family had hardly moved into
the new home when disaster befell. A heavy chandelier
fell on the master of the house, causing injuries
which in a few days proved fatal. Henry Fitz died
on October 31, 1863, at the height of his career, leaving
to carry on his work a widow and six children,
the oldest a girl of eighteen, the youngest an infant.</p>
<p>His son Harry, not yet seventeen, was able satisfactorily
to fulfill the outstanding contracts. In this
he had the backing and advice of Mr. Rutherfurd.
In fact, Harry continued the business, though on a
smaller scale, for some twenty years. Eventually he
became a teacher of drawing, pursuing this occupation
for over forty years more.</p>
<p>As soon as possible the widow, Julia Ann Wells Fitz,
sold the city house and bought a farm in Peconic,
Long Island, near her birthplace, where she managed
to raise her family. All the children showed marked
ability. Louise, the only daughter, married Silas
Overton of Peconic, and used her talents in home and
community. The second son, Benjamin, became a
noted painter before his early death in 1890. Robert’s
reputation as a fine mechanic was county-wide.
Charles was a prominent business and civic leader in
Suffolk County. George became a physician and inventor
and was for a time Professor at Harvard. All
married, and there are now living in the United
States about fifty descendants of Henry Fitz, telescope
maker.</p>
<p>A number of his instruments, though made a century
ago, are still in use.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p>
<h2 id="III_John_Peate"><i>III.</i> John Peate, 1820-1903</h2>
<p class="center"><i>F. W. Preston and William J. McGrath, Jr.</i></p>
<div class="blockquote">
<p><i>Although John Peate was born when Holcomb was
only 33, and before that pioneer telescope-maker had
produced his first instrument, he lived well into the
time when American telescope-making had come of age.
Before Peate’s death George Ellery Hale had begun his
career as a promoter of large telescopes; indeed, the
Yerkes 40-inch refractor was completed a year prior to
Peate’s delivery of his own magnum opus, a 62-inch
reflector, to The American University. For 34 years
the University sought funds to finance the installation
of this mirror, until it finally became obsolete as a
result of advances in the technology of glass mirror
making.</i></p>
<p><i>In 1934 it was sent by the American University to
the Smithsonian Institution. About this time Dr.
F. W. Preston undertook the difficult task of reconstructing
Peate’s career and particularly the story of
the great mirror. His results were published in the</i>
Bulletin of the American Ceramic Society <i>in 1936.</i></p>
<p><i>With the gracious permission of Dr. Preston and
the</i> Bulletin, <i>this article has been condensed, and
augmented, for publication here by William J.
McGrath, Jr., of the United States National
Museum staff.</i></p>
</div>
<p>John Peate, bricklayer, Methodist minister, and
amateur extraordinary in the art of telescope
making, was the first born of Thomas and Mary Peate.<a name="FNanchor_14" id="FNanchor_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>
He was born on May 6, 1820, in the small northern
Irish town of Drumskelt. When John was seven,
his father, a mason, emigrated to Quebec, Canada,
the first of several moves to cities in Canada and the
United States, terminating in 1836 in Buffalo, New
York, where the father was to spend the last seven
years of his life.<a name="FNanchor_15" id="FNanchor_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p>
<p>Nothing is known of the circumstances of John’s
life during these early years, nor of his education.
In 1836, at the age of 16, he entered his father’s trade
as an apprentice bricklayer. He worked at this
trade for about sixteen years, apparently intermittently,
for he seems to have been a student at Oberlin
College part of the time between 1842 and 1845.<a name="FNanchor_16" id="FNanchor_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a>
In the latter year he married Mary Elizabeth Tilden
of Buffalo.</p>
<p>Peate’s career as a bricklayer ended in 1851, when
he became a full-time minister, having been converted
to his mother’s religion. This came about in consequence
of his attendance, when he was about 20
years old, at a Methodist revival. There he was
“converted,” and, with characteristic energy and
enthusiasm, plunged into his new religion. His
attendance at Oberlin may have been connected
with his preparation for the ministry. In any case,
he started to preach in 1849, on trial with the Methodist
Erie Conference, was ordained a deacon in 1851,
and an elder two years later. From this time until
he was made a supernumerary in 1894 he worked
full-time as a minister.</p>
<p>The mobility which marked his early life was repeated
in his ministerial career. Including his probationary
term he held 19 different appointments
in 14 cities and towns in northwestern Pennsylvania,
northeastern Ohio, and southwestern New York.
He was a successful and popular minister, and is said
to have converted some 500 persons at one revival<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
in Jamestown, New York. J. N. Fradenburgh,
historian of the Erie Conference, begins his sketch of
Peate’s life with the phrase, “Who has not heard of
John Peate?”<a name="FNanchor_17" id="FNanchor_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
<p>In 1859 Peate journeyed to Europe, visiting England
and Ireland, and making a walking tour of
western Europe and the Middle East. His biographer
Fradenburgh hints that his interest in astronomy
was aroused on this trip. In any event,
upon his return home, he took up the study of
the science. His fellow minister, R. N. Stubbs reported
that “his library reveals that difficult and abstruse
works became his delight.” At some point in
the perusal of these “abstruse works,” Peate decided
to concentrate on that basic tool, the telescope. It
is possible that he first made a telescope, as many
amateurs do, to advance himself in the study of
astronomy, and only after completing it realized that
his primary interest lay in the instruments rather than
in the theoretical science. His natural aptitude for
craftsmanship probably exerted a strong influence in
this decision.</p>
<p>His first instrument was a 3-inch refractor which
he made and mounted for his own use. This was
about 1870. He next made either a 6-inch refractor
or a 6-inch reflector, or perhaps both. One of these,
if there were two, was mounted by Peate for use at
Chautauqua and Jamestown, New York, and then
used in his own observatory at Greenville. After his
death it was taken to Salina, Kansas, by W. F. Hoyt,
for a small observatory there.<a name="FNanchor_18" id="FNanchor_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>
<p>Thereafter Peate made reflectors exclusively. It
is possible that he was influenced by the treatise on
the making of silvered glass reflectors, by Dr. Henry
Draper, published by the Smithsonian Institution
in 1865, a work which led to a great improvement
in the construction of reflectors in this country.<a name="FNanchor_19" id="FNanchor_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p>
<p>Attempts to trace Peate’s mirrors have been
singularly inconclusive. A 7-inch reflector sent to
India was still in use in 1903.<a name="FNanchor_20" id="FNanchor_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> A 12-inch reflector
made for “Harriman University, Tennessee,” was
evidently mounted, but no record even of the observatory
has been found at the present time [1936].<a name="FNanchor_21" id="FNanchor_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a>
A 15-inch mirror in a reflector located at Allegheny
College in 1935 was probably made by Peate,
although the College records do not show its origin,
nor do they mention a 30.5-inch mirror which Peate
was making for Allegheny College in 1891, according
to an article in <i>The Scientific American</i>.<a name="FNanchor_22" id="FNanchor_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> Definitely
Peate’s was a 22-inch reflector found in about 1935,
still in its packing case, at Thiel College, Greenville,
Pennsylvania.<a name="FNanchor_23" id="FNanchor_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p>
<p>Altogether, 10 lenses and mirrors (sometimes also
described as “lenses”) have been traced. As many
as 20 were ascribed to him by some sources at the
time of his death. Of these only his magnum opus,
the 62-inch mirror now in the Smithsonian Institution,
can now be found. Most of them seem never to
have been used, but this is not necessarily an indication
of defects in the instruments. As our consideration
of the 62-inch mirror will show, Peate
was a competent maker. Nor is it a consequence of
his being an amateur. Many of the large telescopes
in the world in the mid-nineties had lenses and
mirrors made by two other Americans, John Brashear
and Alvin Clark, who, like Peate, entered telescope
making as amateurs.<a name="FNanchor_24" id="FNanchor_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> But they had the fortune
to become associated with well known professional
astronomers. Peate may have erred in presenting
his reflectors to institutions unable to finance their
installation. Perhaps his error was in presenting
rather than selling them.</p>
<p>We come now to Dr. Peate’s greatest mirror, the
62-inch reflector. In September 1893 the annual
meeting of the Erie Conference was held at Dubois,
Pennsylvania. This was to be Dr. Peate’s last meeting
as an active minister. In 1894 he would become
a supernumerary, a position of semiretirement, after
which he would retire. In order to honor the old
minister and to mark the opening of a new Methodist
university, American University, at Washington,
D.C., it was decided to commission Peate to make a
telescope mirror for the school. This was to be no
ordinary reflector but the largest in the world.</p>
<p>While the facts surrounding this commission and
its accomplishment are astounding in themselves it
has inspired an even more remarkable legend, which,
although rather unjust to the ability and good sense<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
of Dr. Peate, indicates the impression his hobby had
made on his contemporaries. According to this legend,
John suddenly realized at the age of seventy-three
that he must have something to occupy his
time while retired.</p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;">
<img src="images/figure11.jpg" width="700" height="375" alt="" />
<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Figure 11.</span>—Standard Plate
Glass Company, Butler, Pennsylvania, with x marking building where
Peate’s 62-inch disc was cast. (From Preston, fig. 1.)</p>
</div>
<p>“What am I to do all the rest of my life?” he asked
of the presiding officer of the meeting, Bishop Hurst,
who was also chancellor of the newly founded
University.</p>
<p>“Oh, study astronomy,” said the Bishop.</p>
<p>“Make a big telescope lens,” said Dr. Wythe.</p>
<p>Dr. Wythe, whose doctorate was in medicine, was
a minister well known in the conference as an inventor
and technologist. The legend continues that,
urged on by Wythe, Peate announced to the conference,
“I will make for the new University the largest
telescope lens in the world, if you will defray the out
of pocket expenses.”</p>
<p>“Well, how big a lens can you make?” asked the
Bishop.</p>
<p>“Oh, as big as that chart on the wall,” said Peate.</p>
<p>“Get a rule and measure the chart.”</p>
<p>The chart was 62 inches across.</p>
<p>“Offer accepted. One 62-inch reflecting telescope
from Dr. Peate,” ordered the Bishop.<a name="FNanchor_25" id="FNanchor_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>
<p>The minutes of the conference state:<a name="FNanchor_26" id="FNanchor_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>
<div class="blockquote">
<p>Proposition of John Peate … John Peate made a
proposition to manufacture a large reflecting lens for the
University providing material for the same was furnished
him … a committee of 5 was appointed to take the same
into consideration. R. N. Stubbs, G. H. Humason, N. T.
Arnold, G. P. Hukill, and G. B. Chase were appointed to
that committee.</p>
</div>
<p>Although he was 73 years old Peate was in good
health and had tremendous vitality for one his age.
He had already made a number of large mirrors, so
that he could estimate the amount of time and energy
he would expend in this work. He knew that if he
retained his health for the next few years he could
complete it.</p>
<p>With his typical planned enthusiasm he started his
preparations. He wrote to his usual supplier St.
Gobain of France asking the price of a glass blank<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
large enough for a mirror of this size.<a name="FNanchor_27" id="FNanchor_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> They quoted
a price of $18,000—more, obviously, than he could
afford. He then canvassed the glassmakers of Pittsburgh,
the center of American glassmaking. However,
the Pittsburgh firms had little experience in
optical glass, especially of this size, and none would
consider making the blank.</p>
<p>Having been rebuffed in Pittsburgh, he approached
the Standard Plate Glass Company of Butler, Pennsylvania.
Plate glass making, at least profitable plate
glass making, was new in America and the Standard
was one of the newer companies. Moreover, it was
reputed one of the best plate glass makers in the country.
Peate wrote to H. C. Tilton, general manager
of the plant, asking him for a disc of glass without
bubble or flaw 62 inches in diameter and 7 inches
thick. He further advised him that he would see him
in a few days. Tilton’s experience and that of his
top supervisors was limited to the business of making
ordinary plate glass. Therefore, he sought advice as
to the feasibility of this fantastic project. He consulted
George Howard, maintenance engineer of the
plant, who had graduated from Cornell only a year
before. George Howard, later to become noted as an
inventor of glassmaking machinery, was at this time
simply an optimistic young engineer.</p>
<p>“Howard, here’s a man at Greenville who wants us
to cast him a disc 62 inches in diameter and 7 inches
thick. Is that possible?”</p>
<p>Howard calculated the cubical contents of the proposed
disc and replied that it was just barely possible.
He didn’t see any particular difficulty in it. He
thought the first few attempts might fail but felt that
they could cast it successfully. Howard was later to
ascribe his success more to his optimism and ignorance,
rather than to any particular innovation he made.
After being reassured by Howard, Tilton continued
“Well, this Dr. Peate is coming down here tomorrow
and he wants a quotation. How much do you think
we ought to ask?”</p>
<p>“We’ll have some special apparatus to make and
some experimenting to do. Then we’ll probably
lose two or three pots of glass. I think you’d better
ask him $800.” Howard thought that this was
plenty. Tilton, however, was more cautious and
doubled the price. Peate arrived in Butler on
schedule. When Tilton named his price, Peate, of
course, agreed instantly. Tilton was somewhat
shocked and probably would have been more so had
he known what St. Goubain had asked. At any rate
the contract was placed with Standard, apparently
in October 1894.</p>
<p>Having obtained a maker for his disc Peate immediately
began making arrangements to prepare
the disc. He contracted with the machine shop of a
John Hodge for the tools with which the mirror would
be worked. This small firm, The Hodge Manufacturing
Co., employed only four men besides the
owner. Among these was Frank A’Hearn, then just
a boy, who became the prime source for details of the
tools used by Peate in this work. Starting in November
1894 notes such as, “worked for Dr. Peate 3½
hours” begin to appear in his workbook.<a name="FNanchor_28" id="FNanchor_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
<img src="images/figure12.jpg" width="400" height="400" alt="" />
<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Figure 12.</span>—Hodge’s method of
cutting the checker grooves. (From Preston, fig. 6.)</p>
</div>
<p>The Hodge company made several (probably
three) grinding tools for Peate. One was about 12
inches in diameter, and was to be used by hand.
Two of the larger tools were provided with the male
member of a ball and socket joint and were to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
power driven. They were 30 and 48 inches in diameter,
respectively. The largest was grooved to a
waffle-like surface on its convex face. These grooves
were about ½ inch wide and 3/16 inch deep. This
pattern was ground by placing the tool face up on a
wheeled buggy, which rode on cambered oak rails.
As it was pushed along the length of the rail the
grinding wheel on the radius arm cut one groove.
When the groove had been cut, the radius arm was
moved 2 inches along a line shaft and another groove
cut. When all the grooves had been cut in one
direction the tool was turned 90 degrees on the buggy
and the other set of grooves was ground. The
grinding of this tool took many weeks, and making
the tools and apparatus for Peate may have kept
Hodge busy for nearly six months.<a name="FNanchor_29" id="FNanchor_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;">
<img src="images/figure13.jpg" width="350" height="500" alt="" />
<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Figure 13.</span>—Face of largest
grinding tool made by Hodge for Peate. (From Preston, fig. 5b.)</p>
</div>
<p>The history of Peate’s 62-inch mirror probably
would have remained as obscure as that of his others
except for the furor which arose over casting the disc.
The Erie Conference made no attempt to publicize
this project, and both Hodge Manufacturing and
Standard Plate Glass accepted Dr. Peate’s contracts
as somewhat unusual but hardly newsworthy jobs.
But when the glass trade became aware of Standard’s
intention to cast this disc, a mighty outcry arose.
Instead of encouraging Standard to complete this
novel task the <i>National Glass Budget</i>, one of the leading
trade journals, reviled them as “bumpkins” for attempting
something that even the great glassmakers of
Europe would not do.</p>
<p>It is hard to imagine why the trade journal so
strenuously objected to Standard’s attempt. It has
been suggested that it derived from the fact that
Standard Plate Glass just previous to that time had
refused to join in a combination of Pittsburgh companies
which had set up a glass trust.<a name="FNanchor_30" id="FNanchor_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Or it is
possible that the young industry was afraid that an
overly ambitious project doomed to failure might
open American glassmaking to European ridicule
and so harm the entire American industry. Whatever
the reason, the <i>Budget</i> ridiculed Standard
Plate Glass, and later Dr. Peate, for the attempt.
They argued that it could not be done, but that if it
were possible Pittsburgh would be the logical place
to try it. Criticism and unfavorable comment came
from other sources also, including “university professors
from Meadville” (evidently Allegheny College).<a name="FNanchor_31" id="FNanchor_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a>
Nonetheless, Standard Plate Glass started
the project.</p>
<p>George Howard was in charge of the casting operation.
He planned to use the glass from a pot
regularly used in the routine manufacture of plate
glass. However, certain modifications were introduced
in the procedure. The glass was to be poured
on the traveling casting table, upon which was placed
a circular mold made up of two semicircles of a special
charcoal iron obtained from Philadelphia. This iron
was not apt to generate bubbles of gas when in contact
with the molten glass.</p>
<p>The iron mold was hinged at one joint of the
semicircles, and the other joint was bolted. After<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
the cast was poured it would be allowed to cool
somewhat. When it was judged cool enough, it
would be pushed into a kiln to be annealed. After
it had remained in the kiln a certain length of time—again
based simply on judgement—a quantity of
pre-heated sand was to be poured over the mold as
insulation. A further innovation was the use of a
zinc sheet placed on the underside of the mold to
avoid the possibility of trouble from grease on the
casting table. This was the initial plan of operation.</p>
<p>Sometime early in 1895 the first attempt was
made. It was an immediate failure. The zinc
sheet, intended to protect the cast from grease,
volatilized when the molten glass was poured on it,
bubbled up through the glass, and, of course, ruined
the cast.</p>
<p>The second attempt was evidently made sometime
in March. The casting itself was successful. Sand
had been substituted for the zinc sheet. The cast
was placed in the kiln, and when it was thought to
be set the insulating sand was poured over it. After
a time variously estimated at from 4 to 11 days,
the cast was considered sufficiently annealed, and
was examined.</p>
<p>When the sand was removed, the disc was found
in fragments. There was also a large concavity in
what would have been the face of the disc. The
sand had been poured over it before the glass was
sufficiently set. However, the disc had been destroyed
by its iron mold. The mold had contracted
against the disc, bending the bolt and deforming
the hinges, and this tremendous pressure had
shattered the glass. The next issue of the trade
paper jubilantly noted the failures. They also
included Dr. Peate in their derision. They said in
effect that at least this experience would save the
old preacher the waste of many years of time and
effort.<a name="FNanchor_32" id="FNanchor_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p>
<p>This slur on their most esteemed citizen brought
the Greenville papers into the battle. The <i>Budget</i>
had also made the mistake of implying that any
number of Pittsburgh manufacturers were willing
and able to make the disc. John Morrison, at that
time editor of the Greenville <i>Advance Argus</i>, and
source of much of our information regarding this
controversy, immediately called the bluff of the trade
paper, which was able to supply but one name, that
of a George A. McBeth Company. This firm
promptly declined without qualification. Later the
name of the Phillips Semner Co. was given, and this
firm guaranteed a perfect disc within 60 days for a
“remunerative price,” but would not state what this
price was.<a name="FNanchor_33" id="FNanchor_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> Therefore Dr. Peate could not deal
with the firm.</p>
<p>Although the hue and cry continued for a few more
weeks, the battle was really over, for Howard was soon
to cast his disc. He had replaced the iron bolts in
his mold with bolts of red oak dipped in nitric acid and
then charred. The purpose of this was to relieve the
strain on the glass by having the wooden pegs break
as the mold contracted.</p>
<p>The third cast was in the kiln and in process of
being annealed when Howard read in the <i>Budget</i>
an article that set forth the difficulties of successfully
casting optical glass. This article was anonymous
and was obviously the work of an expert; it is thought
to have been written by John Brashear.<a name="FNanchor_34" id="FNanchor_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> Although
Howard was thoroughly discouraged by this
article, the cast had already been made and no harm
could be done now by allowing it to cool and be
examined.</p>
<p>In May 1895 Howard, with the workmen, opened
the kiln. The mold was loose, so the pegs had sheared
as expected. When the sand was removed the disc
was found to be whole. A close inspection revealed
no obvious faults. The disc was gently carried to
an inspection room and Dr. Peate was immediately
sent for. He arrived, examined the disc for a moment,
then said, “Give me a hammer.” Before anyone
could move he seized a nearby hatchet and knocked
off the sprue, or tail left as the pot was removed from
the mold. The onlookers feared the lens would
“explode,” as predicted by its detractors, but the
only result was the removal of the tail, as Dr. Peate
expected.<a name="FNanchor_35" id="FNanchor_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p>
<p>The <i>Budget</i> was still saying it couldn’t be done.
Commenting on a May 1, 1895, announcement of the
removal of the disc from the kiln, the paper seized on
the fact that the disc was still warm to predict that it
would be shattered before Peate could examine it,
and reiterated its low opinion of Standard Plate. By
the time this issue was in the hands of its readers
however, the disc had been inspected and approved
by Peate.</p>
<p>Newspapers in Pittsburgh and elsewhere carried the
news of the great American disc. The embarrassed
<i>Budget</i> replied that it was not talking about the mere<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
casting of the disc but the completion of the mirror.
It feigned surprise that this was all that was to be
done in Butler. Even as late as May 24, 1895, the
<i>Butler Democratic Herald</i> was still defending its town.
It concluded an editorial on the issue thus:</p>
<div class="blockquote">
<p>… we have a feeling he [The <i>Budget</i>] has set his foot in it
when he goes to poke fun at the Standard about casting the
biggest mold on earth, and the end of it may be a repetition
of the old saw “he who laughs last laughs best.”</p>
</div>
<p>A week before this, however, the success of this casting
had been made more or less official by an announcement
to that effect in the May 17, 1895, issue
of <i>Science</i>, a publication of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science and probably the
most highly regarded scientific paper of the time.</p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;">
<img src="images/figure14.jpg" width="700" height="650" alt="" />
<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Figure 14.</span>—Surfacing machine
used by Peate. (From Preston, fig. 4.)</p>
</div>
<p>On June 1, 1895, Standard Plate rendered Peate an
invoice, not for $1600, but for $450. Evidently their
work was done at cost. The disc was now removed to
Greenville where Dr. Peate had erected a shop to
grind, polish, and figure it. As the disc was slightly
out of round the first operation was to make it perfectly
circular. Peate did this roughly by spalling off<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
pieces of the edge with his bricklayer’s hammer. The
final rounding was done with the aid of the iron
hoops that had made the mold. Dr. Peate fed steel
shot between the edge of the disc and the iron semicircles.
He rotated the disc on the turntable and thus
rounded it off.</p>
<p>After this had been done he commenced the rough
grinding. Using the large checkerboard tool, steel
shot, and levigated emery Dr. Peate ground out a
rough hollow. This took only a few days. George
Howard stated that the depth of the concavity was
about ⅝ inch and the shape correct to within about
1/10,000 inch. The calculated concavity of the mirror
would be 6/10 inch. Peate evidently used the
usual method in polishing the large mirror, that is,
he covered the tool face with pitch and used rouge
(iron oxide) as the abrasive. This method had been
used for many years before this time and is still in use
today.</p>
<p>The figuring, which consists of removing high spots
to achieve a truly parabolic contour, probably took
the longest time to complete. A mirror must be continually
tested as this polishing is being done, and
since the polishing warms the glass and distorts its
shape, it is necessary to allow a long time for the glass
to cool before it can be tested. Peate estimated that
polishing and figuring the mirror took 750 hours.<a name="FNanchor_36" id="FNanchor_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p>
<p>We do not have a really accurate account of how
he tested the mirror. Unfortunately none of the
eyewitnesses to these tests had any knowledge of optics
or of standard testing procedure. The information
of those who had such knowledge is all at least secondhand
and sometimes even more remote. J. W.
Fecker, successor to Brashear,<a name="FNanchor_37" id="FNanchor_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> who was one of a
group that examined the mirror in 1923, states that
Peate did not use the knife edge test but that he did
use a pin with a hole in its head in one of the tests
used at that time.</p>
<p>A variety of different tests and diversions with the
mirror have been reported. Dr. Peate would entertain
visitors in various ways. One of these was to
train the mirror on an apple orchard in a valley a
few miles away. In another Peate would pull out one
of his whiskers and hang it on a fence nearly a quarter
of a mile away. Peate himself tells of the time spent
in testing the mirror, but does not go into detail
about the procedure. He does mention a testing
table that stood about 75 feet away from the revolving
table on which the mirror rested. He says further
that the mirror was tested “in all ways known, in the
shop and on a pin and a watch dial a thousand feet
distant.” Of these only the pin test seems to have
been a conventional one.<a name="FNanchor_38" id="FNanchor_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p>
<p>After the polishing, the mirror was silvered. Said
Peate: “It was silvered and tried on the heavens in
the starless region under Corvus, and under the very
imperfect management of the mirror on telescopic
stars, the report was as good as could be expected.”<a name="FNanchor_39" id="FNanchor_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a>
Dr. Peate must have spent some time testing it on the
stars. The mirror was evidently completed sometime
late in summer of 1897, and when Peate was satisfied
that it was as perfect as possible, he made arrangements
to send it to American University. He also
designed the shipping case to protect it on the trip to
Washington. It is described in the University paper
as follows:<a name="FNanchor_40" id="FNanchor_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p>
<div class="blockquote">
<p>This consists of a box in which the glass is packed and a
wheeled truck in which it is swung. It is swung on its edge
by iron bands, which go around it over an iron belt which
encircles it.</p>
</div>
<p>After waiting for the case, he encountered a further
delay by reason of the fact that the express company
had no office at Greenville. However the great glass
finally was loaded on the train, and on August 24,
1898, it arrived safely at American University.</p>
<p>Although all parties concerned in this project
seemed optimistic, no provision for mounting the
mirror had yet been made. The University paper
which announced the safe arrival of the glass hoped,
at a later date, that—</p>
<div class="blockquote">
<p>some day, we trust before long, a noble and generous
giver will appear, who will provide for the proper mounting
of this mirror and also build a worthy housing.</p>
</div>
<p>This donor was never to appear. Five years later,
in announcing the death of Peate, the <i>Courier</i> was
still appealing for funds to mount the mirror. Late
in 1903 it announced that a gentleman in Pennsylvania
would contribute $100,000 to defray the cost of an
observatory to house the mirror, but nothing further
was ever heard of this gentleman. Earlier, before
the mirror had been made, the Reverend H. G.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
Sedgwick of Nashville, Tennessee, had offered to
mount and equip the mirror on the same terms
under which Peate had made it. That is, he would
do the work if someone would donate the cost and
the material. But of this offer, too, nothing further
was heard. Possibly he died before the mirror was
completed.</p>
<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
<img src="images/figure15.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt="" />
<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Figure 15.</span>—The 62-inch
telescope reflector disc (USNM 310899), cast by Standard Plate Glass
Company, April 20, 1895, and figured by John Peate. It weighs 2500
pounds. Shown here as it hangs in its protective crate, this clear green
glass mirror will be a feature of the exhibit of optics and astronomy
now being prepared for the Smithsonian’s new Museum of History and
Technology, scheduled to open soon after 1962. (<i>Smithsonian photo
41172</i>)</p>
</div>
<p>The mirror was to remain untouched for some 24
years. In 1922 the “Greenville Roundtable,” a
group reportedly founded by Dr. Peate, allocated
$90 to the Reverend H. G. Dodds to investigate
the disposition of the mirror. In that same year
the Erie Conference appointed Dodds a committee
of one to report on the same matter. Dodds visited
American University and conferred with the chancellors.
They checked the mirror and it seemed to
be in good shape. Dodds then went to Warner
and Swasey, in Cleveland, Ohio, where he attempted
to discover what it would cost to mount the mirror
and provide an observatory. But he learned nothing
there. Dodds knew nothing either of astronomy
or of glass and his lack of knowledge did not inspire
confidence in his mission. He did note a peculiar
phenomenon, that people seemed suspicious of the
mirror in itself without knowing anything about its
actual condition.<a name="FNanchor_41" id="FNanchor_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p>
<p>Shortly after Dodds’ failure to secure a user for
the mirror the Perkins Observatory at Ohio Wesleyan
University, which planned to add a large reflecting
telescope, became interested in it. Dr. Clifford C.
Crump, director of the Perkins Observatory, J. W.
Fecker, then president of the J. W. Fecker Company,
and A. N. Finn and A. Q. Tool, of the National
Bureau of Standards, inspected the glass at American
University. They found it remarkably free of
bubbles and similar defects. Due to a lack of facilities
they were unable to test the mirror optically, so
that no comment was made on either the polishing
or the correctness of the figure. It was, however,
found badly strained due to poor annealing, and
Fecker advised against using it, as it would have to
be re-annealed. If this were done, some refiguring
would also be necessary. After this rather expensive
renovation it would remain a rather thin,
flexible glass and not equal to modern standards.
The Perkins Observatory consequently decided
rather to use a mirror cast and finished under the
supervision of the Bureau of Standards.<a name="FNanchor_42" id="FNanchor_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p>
<p>This was the last attempt to use the mirror. It
remained at American University until the mid 30’s,
when it was placed in the Smithsonian Institution.
It was still, in February 1935, the largest mirror
ever cast and polished in the United States.</p>
<p>Let us return now to Dr. Peate. After seeing the
mirror safely stored at American University he
returned to Greenville, Pennsylvania. Then 78
years old, still in good health and very active, he was
to live for 5 more years.</p>
<p>To the end of his life he maintained his interest in
astronomy, and was optimistic about the possibility
of his great mirror eventually being mounted and
used. In 1900 at the age of 80 he decided to see
Europe once again. His prime objective on this
trip was undoubtedly the Paris Exposition of 1900,
where one of the main attractions was a huge telescope
made by Gautier. It had a refracting objective
of 49.2 inches, mounted horizontally, the largest
refractor yet made. Strangely enough this much
publicized telescope was never used either. After
the exposition was over the backers became bankrupt
and the instrument was dismantled and sold for
scrap.</p>
<p>Dr. Peate with his wide range of knowledge and
his conversational ability delighted and puzzled his
fellow passengers on the boat to and from Europe.
They guessed that he was an educator, a scientist,
or statesman but he denied all this saying, “no, I’m
only a bricklayer.”</p>
<p>Dr. Peate lived three years after this trip, dying
on March 24, 1903. His good health and physical
vigor never left him till almost the moment of his
death; as shortly as a week before, he had conducted
a funeral service.</p>
<p>It would be rather easy to dismiss him as a harmless
fanatic except that everything known of him indicates
that he was not. It is reasonable to believe that
his mirrors were made more in the hope than in the
certain expectation that they would stimulate the
study of astronomy in the institutions receiving them.
He was probably well aware of the difficulties of
establishing so large a telescope at a newly founded
institution such as American University, and, content
in the knowledge that he had done his part,
could only hope that others might be inspired to
do likewise.</p>
<p>Dr. Peate’s great mirror will shortly be put to
use in a manner that could hardly have been predicted
by its maker. It has been in the Smithsonian
Institution for over 20 years. The huge glass will
form a part of the exhibition of optics and astronomy
in the new Museum of History and Technology
that the Smithsonian Institution will open to the
public about 1962. There it will be seen by some
millions of persons each year. Because of its spectacular
size it should catch the attention of most museum
visitors. Surely it will awaken in more than
one potentially able worker an interest in astronomy.
If so, it will have accomplished Dr. Peate’s purpose.</p>
<hr />
<div class="footnotes">
<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Instruments surviving from 18th-century America are
almost exclusively of European origin, products of the numerous
and famous shops which sprang up, particularly in
England and France, to meet the demand occasioned by the
popularity of the telescope among amateurs and dilettanti.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> U.S. National Museum catalog nos. 152078 and 152079.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> W. I. Milham, <i>Early American Observatories</i>, Williamstown,
Mass., Williams College, 1938.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Mechanics Magazine</i>, 1830, vol. 13, pp. 114-115 and frontispiece.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> See p. 184 for a list of Holcomb’s instruments in the U.S.
National Museum.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> H. C. King, <i>The History of the Telescope</i>, London, Charles
Griffin, 1955, pp. 246-248. Milham <i>op. cit.</i> (footnote 3), p. 10.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> As reported in the <i>Journal of the Franklin Institute</i> for July
1834, new ser. vol 14 (whole no. 18), pp. 169-172; July 1835,
new ser. vol. 16 (whole no. 20), pp. 11-13; and August 1836,
new ser. vol. 18 (whole no. 22), p. 110. The first two of these
are given in the appendix, pp. 181-184.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Reported by “R. K. M.” in <i>Sky and Telescope</i>, March 1942,
vol. 1, p. 21. The “Catalog of Objectives Made by Henry
Fitz,” the time span of which is unspecified, lists 428 objectives
up to 13 inches and only 6 mirrors. It is not clear, however,
that these represent finished units.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Langley’s work at the Allegheny Observatory, particularly
his invention of the bolometer, brought him international reknown
as a scientist. In January 1887 he was appointed
assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and later in
that year became its third Secretary, serving from 1887-1906.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> The giant mirrors of Herschel (1789) and Rosse (1842)
were made of an alloy of 71% copper and 29% tin, and 68½%
copper and 31½% tin, respectively. This alloy was known as
“speculum metal.” The silvered glass mirror was pioneered
by Steinhill and Foucault in 1856. In England Dr. A. A. Common
made considerable use in the 1870’s of silvered glass
mirrors made by George Calver. About 1892-97 Common
himself made, but never finished, a 60-inch mirror. It was
later refigured and is still in use.
</p>
<p>
On these matters see King, <i>op. cit.</i> (footnote 6).</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> For a list of these, see appendix, p. 184.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Words crossed out in manuscript. See figure 1.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> For a list of Fitz material in the U.S. National Museum,
see appendix, p. 184.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> F. W. Preston, “The first big American telescope mirror,
John Peate, his lens,” <i>Bulletin of the American Ceramic Society</i>,
1936, vol. 15, pp. 129-152. Hereafter cited as Preston.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> The circumstances of Peate’s life and ministerial career
are from Preston, supplemented by Dr. Peate’s service record,
provided by the Erie Conference of the Methodist Church.
Dr. Preston’s prime sources are: J. N. Fradenburgh, <i>History of
the Erie Conference</i>, Oil City, Pa., 1907, vol. 2, pp. 204-211; obituary
notice by R. N. Stubbs in <i>Minutes of the Erie Conference</i>,
pl. publ. 1903, p. 90. Other data were obtained by Preston
through interviews and letters, all cited in detail in the article.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_16" id="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> From information provided by Robert Barr, acting secretary
of Oberlin College, February 15, 1960. The college
records show a John Peate from Buffalo enrolled in the preparatory
department in 1842-43 and 1844-45. The <i>Encyclopedia
Americana</i> (1924 ed., vol. 21, p. 460) states that Peate attended
Oberlin about this time. The Doctorate was an honorary one
conferred by Allegheny College.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_17" id="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Fradenburgh, <i>op. cit.</i> (footnote 2), p. 204.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_18" id="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Preston, p. 130, n. 10; p. 131, n. 19; p. 148.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_19" id="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> “On the Construction of a Silvered Glass Telescope, Fifteen
and a Half Inches in Aperture, and its Use in Celestial
Photography,” <i>Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge</i>, vol. 14,
art. 3, iv+55 pp., 1865 (reprinted in vol. 34 as art. 2, 1904).</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_20" id="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Preston, p. 148. From an article in the Greenville, Pa.,
<i>Record Argus</i>, December 17, 1903.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_21" id="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Preston, p. 148. In 1960 it was further learned that an
“American Temperance” college or university once existed
at Harriman.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_22" id="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <i>Scientific American</i>, October 24, 1891, vol. 65, p. 260.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_23" id="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Communication from Thiel College, Preston, p. 131, n. 17.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_24" id="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <i>Popular Astronomy</i>, July 1898, vol. 6, p. 310.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_25" id="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Preston, p. 129, notes 2 & 3. Based on recollections of
George Lambert (1895) and John Morrison (1903). That the
decision to make the mirror 62 inches in diameter may have
had another origin is suggested by the fact that Common, in
England, had made two mirrors of 60 and 61 inches in 1886-91.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_26" id="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Minutes of the Erie Conference, 1893, p. 29. Preston,
p. 130, n. 4.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_27" id="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Preston has reconstructed the story of the making of the
62-inch mirror from contemporary journals, which will be
cited below, and from personal communications with some of
the participants, notably George Howard and George Lambert.
Detailed citation of these communications are given in Preston.
He has also used a brief manuscript account by Peate himself
(Preston, p. 142, n. 62).</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_28" id="Footnote_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Communication with Frank A’Hearn and John Hodge.
Preston, p. 135.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_29" id="Footnote_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Peate’s workshop and apparatus is described in detail by
Preston, pp. 135-138.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_30" id="Footnote_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Preston, p. 139.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_31" id="Footnote_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <i>Advance Argus</i>, Greenville, Pa., May 9, 1895. Preston,
p. 139.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_32" id="Footnote_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Clipping of uncertain date from the <i>Pittsburgh Leader</i>,
quoting the <i>National Glass Budget</i>. Preston, p. 139 and n. 55.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_33" id="Footnote_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Preston, p. 140.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_34" id="Footnote_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Preston, p. 139.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_35" id="Footnote_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Preston, p. 140.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_36" id="Footnote_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Preston, p. 142.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_37" id="Footnote_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> The Brashear Instrument Company, after the death of
its founder John Brashear, became the J. W. Fecker Company,
Inc. This concern is now a division of the American Optical
Company.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_38" id="Footnote_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Preston, pp. 142-143.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_39" id="Footnote_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> The mirror is no longer silvered. The silver surface was
apparently removed during the inspection by the Bureau of
Standards in the 1920’s.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_40" id="Footnote_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Preston, p. 144. Various notices were published in the
<i>American University Courier</i> in 1898.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_41" id="Footnote_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Preston, pp. 145-146.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><a name="Footnote_42" id="Footnote_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Preston, p. 146.</p>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p>
<h2>Appendix<br />
<span class="smcap">Reports of Committees
of the Franklin Institute</span></h2>
<h3><i>Report on Amasa Holcomb’s Reflecting Telescope.</i></h3>
<p class="center">[From <i>Journal of the Franklin Institute</i>, July 1834, new ser.
vol. 14 (whole no. 18), pp. 169-172.]</p>
<p class="smaller hanging">The Committee on Science and the Arts, constituted by the
Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania for the promotion
of the Mechanic Arts, to whom was referred for
examination a Reflecting Telescope, manufactured by
Mr. Amasa Holcomb, of Southwick, Hampden county, Massachusetts,</p>
<p class="center">REPORT:—</p>
<p>That the following is the description of the instrument
as given by Mr. Holcomb.</p>
<div class="smaller">
<p>“The telescope submitted to the examination of the Committee
of the Franklin Institute is of the reflecting kind; has
a focal length of six feet; the diameter of the speculum is
three inches nine-tenths; the rays of light are reflected but
once; the image formed in the focus of the speculum is
viewed by a common astronomical eye piece, or by a single
lens; it has also an eye piece for viewing land objects, which
shows them erect. The telescope is of the same construction
as those of Sir William Herschell, the observer having his
back towards the object and looking directly towards the
speculum. It has an advantage over those of the Gregorian
and Newtonian forms, by showing the object brighter with
the same aperture, there being no light lost by a second
reflection. The diameter of the speculum is small in proportion
to the length of the instrument; it will bear a diameter
of eight inches, with much advantage for viewing
very small stars, in consequence of the great increase of
the light.</p>
<p>The magnifying powers that are used are, forty, ninety,
and two hundred and fifty.”</p>
</div>
<p>Through the politeness of Prof. A. D. Bache, the
committee were permitted to compare the performance
of Mr. Holcomb’s reflector with that of a
five feet achromatic, of four inches aperture, by
Dolland, the property of the University of Pennsylvania.
The instrument was also compared with a
three and a half feet achromatic, by Dolland, and
with a Gregorian of four inches aperture, the mirrors
of which had been lately repolished in London.
The short stay of Mr. Holcomb in Philadelphia,
prevented the comparison of it with reflectors in the
possession of other members of the committee.</p>
<p>On the evening of the 14th of April, the committee
met by adjournment in the open lot south of the
Pennsylvania Hospital, the use of which was politely
permitted to the committee by the managers of
that institution.</p>
<p>The following were the results of the comparisons:—</p>
<p>The moon, nearly full, was at a height to be conveniently
viewed with the lower powers of the instruments:
with a power of 350 in the five feet
achromatic, the moon appeared bright and well
defined,—with the same eye-piece, giving a power
of 400, in the reflector by Mr. Holcomb, the moon
was sufficiently bright, and equally well defined.
The same, with the exception that the moon was
more brilliant, and the field of view much greater,
was remarked with the use of Mr. Holcomb’s highest
magnifier, giving a power of two hundred and fifty.</p>
<p>As an illustration of their comparative performances,
it was remarked that the waved appearance of the
outer declivities of the craters of some of the apparently
extinct lunar volcanoes, indicating the successive
depositions of the lava, was more manifest with a
power of four hundred in the reflector.</p>
<p>The immersions of 3 and 4 Geminorum of the
sixth and seventh magnitude, were observed at the
same instant of time in each.</p>
<p>The same occurred the evening before with a star
of the eighth or ninth magnitude.</p>
<p>The immersions, however, of two very small stars,
apparently of the tenth or eleventh magnitude, were
observed with difficulty in the refractor, but could
not be observed at all in the reflector.</p>
<p>The comparison of Polaris was best seen when
the moon was up in the refractor, but in the absence
of the moon it was readily seen in both.</p>
<p>Castor was easily divided with the lower powers of
either, but in the case of this, as well as of other
binary and double stars, the dark space between the
stars was less disturbed by scattering rays in the
reflector than in the refractor.</p>
<p>ε Bootes was seen double in each, but more distinctly
in the reflector, μ Draconis, γ Leonis, and 4th
and 5th ε Lyra, were seen distinctly double in both<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
instruments; μ Draconis, from the equality of the disks
and softness of light, presented the finest appearance.</p>
<p>γ Virginis, with a power of three hundred and fifty
in either telescope, gave no certain indications of
being double. Some of the members of the committee
were of opinion that it was slightly elongated.</p>
<p>It was stated by the artist that his reflector would
divide stars distant 3″ from each other.</p>
<p>Estimating the distance of the stars observed by the
late observations of South, Struve, and Herschel, jr.,
the committee were of opinion that his instrument is
adequate to the distinct division of double stars distant
from each other 2″.5.</p>
<p>The motion of this instrument, plainly mounted, was
steady, and with the finder, even without rack work,
objects were easily made to range with the centre,
or line of collimation of the instrument.</p>
<p>The position of the observers with the Herschelian
telescope, was natural and easy in contemplating
objects having seventy or eighty degrees of altitude,
though quite constrained and inconvenient in using
the achromatic.</p>
<p>The reflector gave a distinct view of land objects,
even when within one-fourth of a mile.</p>
<p>Some light was lost by the position of the head, an
inconvenience partially obviated by making the end
nearest the object three inches greater in aperture.</p>
<p>The Gregorian, which probably was not a very fine
instrument of its kind, bore no comparison in distinctness,
or in quantity of light, with the Herschelian
telescope.</p>
<p>From these trials, the committee are of opinion that
Mr. Holcomb has been entirely successful in the difficult
art of polishing specula with the true curve,
which gives to the objects viewed all the distinctness
of figure that is given them by the best refractors by
Dolland.</p>
<p>In one respect, the largeness of the field of view, the
reflectors by Mr. Holcomb have a decided advantage
over achromatics and reflectors of different construction.
The apparent diameter of the field of
view in the Herschelian being nearly double that of
either, with equal freedom from aberration. The
quantity of light furnished by the refractor was greater
with the same aperture, an important advantage in
searching for, and observing very minute objects.
This deficiency of light in the Herschelian for viewing
faint objects near the moon, or satellites near their
primaries, the committee are of opinion may be removed
by enlarging the aperture of the Herschelian
reflector to five or five and a half inches.</p>
<p>The simplicity of the method of preparing and
mounting Mr. Holcomb’s telescopes is worthy of
notice, since on this plan, the artist is enabled to
furnish for an expense of one hundred dollars, with
plain mounting, or of one hundred and fifty to two
hundred dollars, with more expensive mounting,
telescopes whose performance equals that of Gregorians
and achromatics hitherto imported into the
country at an expense of five hundred dollars.</p>
<p>By order of the committee.</p>
<p class="right"><span class="smcap">William Hamilton</span>, <i>Actuary</i>.</p>
<p><i>May 8th, 1834.</i></p>
<h3><i>Report on Holcomb’s Reflecting Telescopes.</i></h3>
<p class="center">[From <i>Journal of the Franklin Institute</i>, July 1835, new ser. vol.
16 (whole no. 20), pp. 11-13]</p>
<p class="smaller hanging">The Committee on Science and the Arts, constituted by
the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania for the
promotion of the Mechanic Arts, to whom was referred for
examination, two reflecting telescopes, made by Mr. Amasa
Holcomb, of Southwick, Hampden county, Massachusetts,</p>
<p class="center">REPORT:—</p>
<p>That the following description of these telescopes
is given by Mr. Holcomb:</p>
<div class="smaller">
<p>The two reflecting telescopes now submitted by the subscriber,
are constructed on the plan of Sir William Herschel,
having the front view. The largest has a focal length of
9½ feet; the diameter of the speculum is 8½ inches, and has
five astronomical eye-pieces, and one terrestrial eye-piece,
for showing objects erect; the lowest power is 57, the highest
900. The smallest has a focal length of 7 feet 9 inches; the
diameter of the speculum is 6½ inches, and has one terrestrial,
and four astronomical, eye-pieces; the lowest power is
60, the highest is 600. They are of the same kind as those
that were submitted a year ago, except the manner of
mounting, which is very different.</p>
<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Amasa Holcomb.</span></p>
</div>
<p>On the evening of the 4th of May, the committee
met, by appointment, in an open lot south of the
Pennsylvania Hospital, for the purpose of testing the
performance of the telescopes, which had previously
been tried by some of the members of the committee,
and by other gentlemen, on the evening of the 2d.
The result of the examination was highly creditable
to Mr. Holcomb, and cannot fail to gratify all who
have at heart the advancement of astronomical science
in this country.</p>
<p>The instruments, with powers varying from 50 to
600 in the smaller, and to 900 in the larger, gave satisfactory
views of the moon with a sufficiency of light.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>
<p>Mr. Holcomb’s ability to manufacture telescopes
which should bear a comparison, on favourable terms,
with the best four and five feet achromatics now in the
country, having been established by the report of the
committee in May, 1834, their attention was chiefly
directed to ascertaining the degree of perfection to
which he has attained in his art, by his persevering
efforts during the past year. Accordingly, the remarks
which follow are made with reference to the larger
telescope, of about ten feet focal length, eight inches
aperture, and with a positive eye-piece, giving a power
of about 900, and the surface of the field of view
nearly twice as great as that of a Gregorian, and one-third
greater than that of an achromatic telescope,
under similar circumstances.</p>
<p>The view of the moon with its rugged surface, its
ridges of mountains, and the endless variety of indentations
on its surface, was interesting beyond description,
and exceeded any thing of the kind the committee
have ever witnessed.</p>
<p>Saturn’s ring, though not in a favourable position,
was seen manifestly double, for the first time in this
country, as far as the information of the committee
extends.</p>
<p>The companion of Polaris appeared as a star of the
fourth or fifth magnitude, to the unassisted eye.</p>
<p>The double stars, Castor, μ Draconis, 4 and 5
ε Lyræ, and 44 Bootes, were distinctly separated, and
the dark space between them made evident. The
last mentioned, consisting of two stars of the fifth magnitude,
distant 3″ made a fine appearance; they were
soft, and well defined, and there were no scattering
rays of light, as was the case with Castor, in both
instruments.</p>
<p>A class of closer doubles stars, of which 6 Coronæ,
distant 1″.2., and ζ Bootes, distant 1″.4., may serve
as examples, was acknowledged by the artist, last year,
to be too difficult for his telescope. This has furnished
a stimulus for his exertions, and the complete division
of the latter, as witnessed by the committee on the
present occasion, has been the reward of his disinterested
labours. The discs of the two stars in ζ Bootes
appeared to be tangent to each other. The committee
have no evidence that the same has been effected
by any other telescope in the country.</p>
<p>For the purpose of finding the limit to the power of
Mr. Holcomb’s telescope, the committee called his
attention to a class of still closer stars; among them
were mentioned, ζ Cancri, μ2 Bootes, ῎ Coronæ, 36
Andromedæ, and ε Arietis, the last of which is only
divisible by two telescopes now in use, viz.: the Dorpat
telescope, and the twenty foot reflector of Sir John
Herschel. These stars, distant from 0″.6. to 1″.0.,
are made to appear with their discs tangent to each
other in those celebrated instruments, as appears by
their notes appended to the observations contained in
their printed catalogues. It is almost needless to add,
that Mr. Holcomb acknowledged these stars to be too
difficult for any telescopes he has yet made.</p>
<p>It may seem presumptuous to compare the small
instrument of Holcomb with the chefs d’oeuvre of
British and German genius; but, thanks to the admirable
labours of the Herschels, of Struve, and of
South, observers are enabled, through their printed
catalogues, to compare together the optical capacities
of their telescopes in distant regions. Accordingly
it appears from an examination of these catalogues,
and of Holcomb’s instruments, that what the best
telescopes in Europe can do upon stars distant 0″.6.,
can be done upon stars distant 1″.4., by instruments
which are the work of an unassisted, and almost
neglected, American optician.</p>
<p>Judging from the progress made in his art, by
Mr. Holcomb, during the past year, the committee
look forward, with confident expectation, to the not
far distant period, when, should his health be spared,
the country will be in possession of a twenty feet reflector,
of native workmanship, rivalling the best
European instruments, and that, too, without the
patronage of any corporate institution, should all of
them be willing to waive the opportunity of sharing
with him the merit of such an enterprise.</p>
<p>The committee have been led to enlarge upon this
subject, from a knowledge that one of our national
institutions has, within a few years, imported into the
country, at an expense of $2,500, a telescope which,
though excellent in its kind, is inferior to that exhibited
by Mr. Holcomb, which was made and mounted to
order for an individual in Georgia, at less than the
eighth part of the above mentioned sum. It is not
probable that a twenty foot instrument from Mr.
Holcomb, would cost eight times as much as one of
the length of ten feet.</p>
<p>The mode of mounting the instrument appears to
be original, and nothing can exceed it in simplicity,
or steadiness. Indeed, with a power of 900, no inconvenience
was perceived from resting with one
hand on the frame, and another on the tube, although
the same could not be done with the mounting
used by Mr. Holcomb last year, or with that of
common achromatics with a power of 200, without
serious inconvenience.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p>
<p>In conclusion, the committee beg leave to recommend
Mr. Holcomb to the Board of Managers of the
Franklin Institute, as a candidate for a premium and
medal from the Scott’s legacy fund, for his new mode
of mounting reflecting telescopes.</p>
<p>By order of the committee.</p>
<p class="right"><span class="smcap">William Hamilton</span>, <i>Actuary</i>.</p>
<p><i>May 14th, 1835.</i></p>
<h3><span class="smcap">Relics of Holcomb, Fitz, and Peate
in the Smithsonian Institution</span></h3>
<p class="center">(United States National Museum catalog number
shown at right)</p>
<h4><span class="smcap">Amasa Holcomb</span></h4>
<p class="center">(All items from Mrs. Grace E. Holcomb Steere and
Mrs. Eva C. Holcomb Storey)</p>
<table summary="Catalog listing">
<tr>
<td class="right">1.</td>
<td>Undated and unsigned original autobiographical sketch, ink on notepaper (as
published here, <a href="#Page_160">p. 160</a>)</td>
<td class="tdr"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="right">2.</td>
<td>Manuscript notebook on meteorological and astronomical matters, covering the
period 1834-41.</td>
<td class="tdr">310600</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="right">3.</td>
<td>Herschelean reflecting telescope, 8½-inch aperture, 9 feet 4 inches long. This
is the telescope made by Holcomb and shown at the Franklin Institute in 1835.</td>
<td class="tdr">310598</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="right">4.</td>
<td>Refracting telescope, 1½-inch aperture, 21 inches long, on 14-inch axis
for use as a transit telescope, without support.</td>
<td class="tdr">310599</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h4><span class="smcap">Henry Fitz, Jr.</span></h4>
<p class="center">(Item 1 from Mr. L. C. Eichner, items 2-4 from Mrs.
Julia Fitz Howell, item 5 from Mr. Arthur V. A. Fitz)</p>
<table summary="Catalog listing">
<tr>
<td class="right">1.</td>
<td>Refracting telescope, comet seeker, 8¼-inch aperture, 61-inch wooden tube,
fitted for equatorial mounting, but without mount.</td>
<td class="tdr">317027</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="right">2.</td>
<td>Machines, tools, and partially completed instruments from the shop
of Henry Fitz, of which the major pieces are:</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="right"></td>
<td>Lens grinding machine</td>
<td class="tdr">315152</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="right"></td>
<td>Lens polishing machine</td>
<td class="tdr">315153</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="right"></td>
<td>Lens edging and testing machine</td>
<td class="tdr">315151</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="right">3.</td>
<td>Manuscript notebook of Fitz accounts from 1851 to 1855.</td>
<td class="tdr">317026</td>
<td class="tdr">(2)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="right">4.</td>
<td>Manuscript “Catalogue of Objectives made by Henry Fitz.”</td>
<td class="tdr">317026</td>
<td class="tdr">(2)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="right">5.</td>
<td>Refracting telescope, 5-section draw, marked “Ta. Long, Royal
Exchange, London,” 2⅛-inch objective, 42½ inches long, open.
Purchased in London by Fitz in 1839. The present objective was
made by Fitz.</td>
<td class="tdr">316706</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</table>
<h4><span class="smcap">John Peate</span></h4>
<p class="center">(From The American University)</p>
<table summary="Catalog listing">
<tr>
<td class="right">1.</td>
<td>Mirror, glass, unsilvered, 62-inch diameter, about 6 inches thick.</td>
<td class="tdr">310899</td>
</tr>
</table>
<hr />
<p class="titlepage smaller">U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1962</p>
<p class="center smaller">For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington 25, D.C.—Price 30 cents</p>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58747 ***</div>
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