passes for 16 years past, and has made 500 of them; the good qualities of 

 which are well known to many surveyors, in at least 16 of the States and 

 Territories of the Union .... [he also makes] many other instruments, 

 protractors, gunner's Calibers and quadrants, etc. 



George Evans was another instrument maker who arrived from 

 London after the end of the Revolution. He established himself 

 in a shop at 33 North Front Street in 1796, where he sold imported 

 instruments as well as stationery, Bibles, and cloth. He died in 

 1798.^ 



Thomas Dring, who migrated from England, settled in Westtown 

 Township of Chester County, Pennsylvania, where he was first 

 noted in the tax records of 1786. He married Hanna Griffith, a 

 native of the region, and their son, Jeptha Dring, subsequently 

 was mentioned as a carpenter by trade, and a vagrant by incli- 

 nation, who could quote Shakespeare from memory. According 

 to local legend, Dring raised money from a number of townspeople 

 for the purpose of purchasing clocks for them in England. He 

 set sail for his homeland in about 1798 and never returned. 



Although the tax records for 1796 described Dring as an 

 "Optician" he was also a clockmaker and maker of scientific 

 instruments. At least three of his tall-case clocks have survived, 

 and a stick type of barometer which he made for Edward and 

 Hannah Hicks in 1796. The instrument is now in the collection 

 of the Chester County Historical Society. It measures 39 inches 

 in height, and is signed on the thermometer dial thomas dring/ 

 West Chester. This instrument (fig. 14) is one of the very rare 

 barometers produced in America in the 18th century. 



Another craftsman who emigrated from England was Robert 

 Clark, who opened a shop at 5K Church Street in Charleston, 

 South Carolina, in 1785. In that year he announced himself as a 



Math., Optical and Philosophical Instruments maker and Clockmaker 

 from London .... As the Advertiser has lately had an opportunity of 

 working and receiving instruction under the first masters in the above 

 branches in Great Britain, flatters himself that he shall give satisfaction to 

 those who may be pleased to favor him with their orders ... for Surveyors 

 compasses. Quadrants, Telescopes, Microscopes, Spirit Levels, etc.^' 



W. Fosbrook was another craftsman originally from London. 

 He was a cutler and maker of surgical instruments, with a shop in 

 Beekman's Slip in New York City in 1786 or earlier. He special- 

 ized in leg irons and rupture trusses, and he made instruments and 



2« Ibid., p. 304. 



^^ Charleston Evening Gazette, July 24, 1785; Prime, op. cit. (footnote 17), p. 234. 



31 



