Delaware 



George Crow (ca. 1725-1771/72) of Wilmington, Delaware, 

 was apparently well established as a clockmaker in the community 

 by the time of his marriage in 1746 to Mary Laudonet. They had 

 four children, and Crow's two sons followed his trade. George 

 Crow was active in civic affairs, and in addition to clocks, he 

 produced surveying compasses, several of which have survived.^^ 



Maryland and Virginia 



Brief mention has already been made of the Chandlee family of 

 clockmakers and instrument makers of the 18th century. The 

 founder of the line and first of interest was Benjamin Chandlee, Sr., 

 who migrated in 1702 from Ireland to Philadelphia, where he was 

 apprenticed to Abel Cottey, clockmaker, and eventually married 

 his daughter. His son Benjamin Chandlee, Jr. (1723-1791), 

 worked as a clockmaker in Nottingham, Maryland, where he 

 produced instruments as well as clocks. A fine example of a brass 

 surveying compass — inscribed with his name, and which is believed 

 to have been made for the Gilpin family in about 1761 — ^is on 

 exhibition in the Chester County Historical Society. He had four 

 sons, and a few years before his death he established the firm of 

 Chandlee & Sons, the name of which was changed to Ellis Chandlee 

 & Brothers a year before he died. 



The oldest of Benjamin Jr.'s four sons was Goldsmith Chandlee 

 (c. 1746-1821). After serving an apprenticeship with his father. 

 Goldsmith moved to Virginia and worked near Stephensburg (now 

 Stephens City). He eventually established himself at Winchester 

 and built a brass foundry and a shop where he produced clocks, 

 surveying compasses, sundials, apothecary and money scales, 

 surgical instruments, compasses, telescopes, and other items in 

 metal. Numerous examples of his clocks and instruments have 

 survived. Their fine quality attests to the claim that he was one of 

 the foremost craftsmen of the 18th century. Several of his survey- 

 ing compasses exist in modern collections. An instrument (fig. 26) 

 that he made about 1794 for a surveyor named Robert Lyle is in 

 ihe writer's collection; an almost identical instrument that Chand- 

 lee made for Lawrence Augustine Washington, George Wash- 

 ington's nephew, is exhibited in the library at Mount Vernon, 

 Virginia. 



^* Henry C. Conrad, "Old Delaware Clockmakers," The Historical and Bio- 

 graphical Papers of the Historical Society of Delaware (1897), vol. 3, chap. 20, 

 pp. 4-34. 



54 



