rudimentary commutator, which led to a prac- 

 tical rotating electrical generator. 



Returning to the United States in 1837, Saxton 

 was employed in the U.S. Mint until, in 1843, 

 he moved to the Coast Survey and was given 

 the responsibility for constructing the standard 

 balances, weights, and measures that were dis- 

 tributed to the various state governments. Many 

 examples of this work are still in existence, 

 delighting the eye and exciting admiration for 

 his surpassingly fine craftsmanship. 



Joseph Henry paid him a well-deserved compli- 

 ment in describing him as one who "had the 

 good fortune, denied to many, of neither being 

 behind nor in advance of his age, but of being in 

 perfect harmony with it. He neither pestered 

 the world with premature projects destined to 

 failure because the necessary contemporaneous 

 conditions were not present; nor retarded the 

 advance of improvement by advocating old errors 

 under new forms." 



Saxton was a tall man, his forehead was high 

 and broad, and his countenance was, according 

 to Henry, thoughtful and benevolent. Honored 

 and esteemed by his more illustrious contempora- 

 ries, Joseph Saxton willed to his successors a 

 heritage of mechanical excellence that one may 

 hope will, in time, be adequately appreciated. 



in the National Archives. Lukens visited Jacob Perkins while 

 he was in England. A letter from Lukens to Thomas P. Jones 

 dated March 8, 1827, is quoted in Bathe and Bathe (cited in 

 note 26 above), pp. 128-129. 



77 A memoir of Joseph Saxton's life was written by his friend 

 Joseph Henry, the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion. In his memoir Henry mentioned a diary that Saxton 

 kept "for several years" while he was in England, in which 

 he "recorded daily events intermingled with suggestions which 

 illustrated his habits, his thoughts, and his varying employ- 

 ment" (Joseph Henry, "Memoir of Joseph Saxton 1 799—1 873," 

 National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs, vol. 1, 



Figure 24. — Isaiah Lukens (1779- 1846). 

 Portrait by Charles VVillson Peale, 181 6. 

 Photo courtesy of The Franklin Institute and 

 Frick Art Reference Library. 



1 have alluded to the activity in mechanic arts 

 during the few years preceding the organization of 

 the Franklin Institute; I now propose incidentally to 

 speak of some of the leading spirits that conceived of 

 and organized that institution, in what was truly a 

 transition period. [19] 



Henry and Stephen Morris; Samuel V. Merrick and 

 his partner, Agnew, then engaged in building fire- 

 engines; Matthias Baldwin, carrying on a general job- 

 bing machine shop, and at the time, if I recollect right, 

 constructing the first hydrostatic presses made in 

 America; the members of the firm of Sellers & Pen- 

 nock, Rush & Muhlenberg, Professor Robert M. 

 Patterson, Franklin Peale, the inventor and construc- 

 tor of the first steam-power coining press for the L .S 



Washington, 1877, pp. 287-316). This diary has not been 

 located, but the present editor maintains a fervent hope that 

 it yet exists. 



53 



