Figure 21. — Davis quadrant or backstaff made and signed by William Guyse 

 Hagger of Newport, Rhode Island, about 1760-1770. USNM 319029. 



hold that consisted of his wife, five children, and a colored servant. 

 Whether it was he or his father who was the partner of Benjamin 

 King cannot be determined with certainty. When Newport was 

 occupied by the British, Hagger moved to Cranston, where he 

 joined the Pawtuxet Rangers and served as a sentinel at Pawtuxet 

 Fort in 1778. No members of the Hagger family appear in the 

 1790 census of Newport, but a William Hager is reported as having 

 died in Boston in 1830 at the age of 82. It seems likely from the 

 age and dates that it was William Hagger the elder who worked as 

 a partner in the firm of King & Hagger, which was established in 

 1759 or 1760.^" 



Another instrument maker of Rhode Island was William Hamlin 

 (1772-1869). He had established himself in Providence by the 

 beginning of the 19th century in the manufacturing and repairing 

 of mathematical and nautical instruments, for which there was an 



*°Chapin, op. cit. (footnote 39), pp. 398-399. 



44 



