Instruments of Wood 



The Use of Wood 



A N INTERESTING FACT Concerning the instruments produced by 

 ■^ 18th-century craftsmen is the relatively high incidence of in- 

 struments constructed of wood instead of brass or other metals. A 

 significant reference to this use of wood is found in Alexander 

 Hamilton's "Report on the Subject of Manufactures," published 

 in 1821,^^ which refers to such items of wood as "Ships, cabinet- 

 wares and turnery, wool and cotton cards, and other machinery 

 for manufactures and husbandry, mathematical instruments," . . . 

 and "coopers' wares of every kind." 



Most common of these mathematical instruments is the survey- 

 ing compass, possibly the instrument most needed and produced 

 in America. Recorded in public and private collections are 

 31 known examples of such compasses made of wood, a rather 

 large number. Furthermore, a substantial number of these were 

 being produced simultaneously by skilled craftsmen who at the 

 same time were making similar instruments in brass. 



Finally, from a study of the surviving examples of wooden 

 surveying compasses comes the interesting and perhaps significant 

 fact that all the known makers were from New England. The 

 towns and cities in which they worked were Boston and Plymouth 

 in Massachusetts, Windsor and New Milford in Connecticut, and 

 Walpole and Portsmouth in New Hampshire. A careful study of 

 the advertisements and works of the instrument makers in the other 

 large cities of the Colonies, such as New York, Baltimore, and 

 Philadelphia, reveals no examples of wooden scientific instruments. 

 Excluded, of course, are those instruments normally made of wood, 

 such as the octant and the mariners quadrant. 



Two possible exceptions are instrument makers of New York 

 City. The first is James Ham, a maker of mathematical instru- 

 ments "at the house wherein the Widow Ratsey lately lived 



^^ Alexander Hamilton, Official Reports on Publick Credit, A National Bank, 

 Manufactures and a Mint (Philadelphia: Wm. McKean, 1821), pp. 208-209 



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