_Robert P. Multhauf_
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.[1]
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.
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 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.
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.
Rittenhouse made other telescopes which survive, notably two
zenith sectors now in the U.S. National Museum of the Smithsonian
Institution,[2] 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.[3] 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.
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.[4] We do not
know the source of Patten’s lenses.
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,[5] is
like Rittenhouse’s 1769 instrument, a transit. But Holcomb seems to have
specialized in reflectors of the Herschelean type, _i.e._, 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, 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).
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.
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.
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.[6] Fitz was to have a more sophisticated market than had Holcomb.
Despite the glowing recommendations of the Franklin Institute
committee,[7] 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.
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![8] At an eastern
university in 1958 the writer saw another of his refractors incorporated
into apparatus used in graduate student experimentation.
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 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.
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,[9] 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.
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.
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.[10] 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.
_I._ Amasa Holcomb, 1787-1875
_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.[11] 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)._
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][12] 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
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 _alone_. 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 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 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. 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.
[Illustration: FIGURE 1.—Page from manuscript sketch of the life of Amasa
Holcomb, now in the collections of the U.S. National Museum.]
[Illustration: FIGURE 2.—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). (_Smithsonian photo 11000-a_)]
[Illustration: FIGURE 3.—Eyepiece and tripod head of the Holcomb
reflecting telescope shown in figure 2. (_Smithsonian photo 11000_)]
[Illustration: FIGURE 4.—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. (_Smithsonian photo 43472-c_)]
_II._ Henry Fitz, 1808-1863
_Julia Fitz Howell_
_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.[13]_
_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._
_The following biographical sketch was written by Mrs. Howell
on the basis of papers in the possession of the family._
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 by trade and the youngest son of Mark
Fitz, who for several years represented his city in the Massachusetts
General Court.
[Illustration: FIGURE 5.—The telescope-maker’s shop of Henry Fitz as
reconstructed in the U.S. National Museum. (_Smithsonian photo 46545_)]
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.
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, _The Gospel Herald_, 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.
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 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.
[Illustration: FIGURE 6.—Henry Fitz, from a photograph in the collections
of the U.S. National Museum. (_Smithsonian photo 44594-b_)]
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.
[Illustration: FIGURE 7.—Certificate of award to Henry Fitz, Jr., by
the American Institute, 1852, “For the best achromatic telescope.”
(_Smithsonian photo 46815-a_)]
[Illustration: FIGURE 8.—Advertisement of Henry Fitz, about 1850.
(_Smithsonian photo 44594-a_)]
[Illustration: FIGURE 9.—Refracting telescope, comet seeker, (USNM
317027) by Henry Fitz, 8¼-inch aperture, 61-inch tube, fitted for
equatorial mounting. The stand is lacking. (_Smithsonian photo 46815_)]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[Illustration: FIGURE 10.—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.
(_Photo courtesy Allegheny Observatory_)]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A number of his instruments, though made a century ago, are still in use.
_III._ John Peate, 1820-1903
_F. W. Preston and William J. McGrath, Jr._
_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._
_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_ Bulletin of the American Ceramic Society
_in 1936._
_With the gracious permission of Dr. Preston and the_
Bulletin, _this article has been condensed, and augmented, for
publication here by William J. McGrath, Jr., of the United
States National Museum staff._
John Peate, bricklayer, Methodist minister, and amateur extraordinary
in the art of telescope making, was the first born of Thomas and Mary
Peate.[14] 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.[15]
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.[16]
In the latter year he married Mary Elizabeth Tilden of Buffalo.
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.
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 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?”[17]
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.
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.[18]
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.[19]
Attempts to trace Peate’s mirrors have been singularly inconclusive. A
7-inch reflector sent to India was still in use in 1903.[20] 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].[21] 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 _The Scientific American_.[22] Definitely Peate’s was
a 22-inch reflector found in about 1935, still in its packing case, at
Thiel College, Greenville, Pennsylvania.[23]
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.[24] 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.
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.
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
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.
[Illustration: FIGURE 11.—Standard Plate Glass Company, Butler,
Pennsylvania, with x marking building where Peate’s 62-inch disc was
cast. (From Preston, fig. 1.)]
“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.
“Oh, study astronomy,” said the Bishop.
“Make a big telescope lens,” said Dr. Wythe.
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.”
“Well, how big a lens can you make?” asked the Bishop.
“Oh, as big as that chart on the wall,” said Peate.
“Get a rule and measure the chart.”
The chart was 62 inches across.
“Offer accepted. One 62-inch reflecting telescope from Dr. Peate,”
ordered the Bishop.[25]