Instruments of Metal 



A 



Pre-Revolutionary Immigrant Makers 



ccoRDiNG TO PRESENT EVIDENCE, Only a few makers of metal 

 instruments emigrated from England to the Colonies before the 

 beginning of the Revolutionary War. A slightly larger number 

 emigrated after the war had ended. In almost every instance, the 

 immigrant instrument makers settled in the major cities, which 

 were the shipping centers of the new country. The reason is 

 obvious: in these cities there was the greatest demand for nautical 

 and other instruments. 



One of the earliest immigrant instrument makers arrived in 

 Boston in 1739. According to an advertisement that appeared in 

 The Boston Gazette in the issue of July 16-23, 1739, there had 



Arriv'd here by Capt. Gerry from London John Dabney, junr. who serv'd his 

 time to Mr. Jonathan Sisson, Mathematical Instrument Maker to his Royal 

 Highness, the Prince of Wales. Makes and sells all sorts of Mathematical 

 Instruments, in Silver, Brass, or Ivory, at Reasonable Rates, at Mr. Rowland 

 Houghton's Shop the north side of the Town Huse in Boston. 



N.B. Said Dabney, sets Loadstones to a greater Perfection than any 

 heretofore. 



Dabney's master, Jonathan Sisson (1694-1749) originally of 

 Lincolnshire, with a shop in the Strand, London, was a well-known 

 maker of optical and mathematical instruments in the early decades 

 of the 18th century. He was particularly noted for the exact 

 division of scales, and examples of his work are to be found in the 

 major collections. 



Dabney's name appeared again several years later, in the Sup- 

 plement to the Boston Evening Post for December 12, 1743, and 

 again in the Boston Evening Post for December 19 of the same year, 

 with the following advertisement: 



To be shown by John Dabney, Mathematical Instrument maker, in Milk 

 Street, Boston, on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday Evenings, from five to 

 eight o'clock, for the Entertainment of the Curious, the Magic Lanthorn 

 an Optick Machine, which exhibits a great Number of wonderful and surpris- 

 ing Figures, prodigious large, and vivid, at Half a Crown each, Old Tenor. 



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