health. In the year 1808 he married Miss Gillet 

 Kendall, a daughter of Noadiah Kendall of Granby 

 Connecticut. She was one of the best of women, 

 and had no enemies, but was beloved by every 

 body who was acquainted with her. For a while 

 he took students into his own house, and taught 

 them such branches as each one had engaged to be 

 instructed in. Julius M. Coy of Suffield, studied 

 surveying — Levi also from Suffield studied Nav- 

 igation, and soon went to sea, and after a while 

 command[ed] a vessel. Benoni B. Bacon of Sims- 

 bury, studied Surveying and astronomy, Joseph W. 

 King of Suffield, studied surveying — Henry Merwin 

 of Granby studied Surveying, Jefferson Cooley, a 

 graduate of Yale Colledge, studied surveying and 

 civil engineering. He had also students from Gran- 

 ville Mass. But the school interfered with his other 

 business, and he discontinued it. He manufactured 



about this time a good many sets of surveyors in- 

 struments — compasses, chains, scales, protractors, 

 and dividers, some for his pupils and some for others. 

 He also manufactured, magnets, electrical machines, 

 leveling instruments, and some others. He was 

 greatly attached to the business of surveying, and 

 had more applications than he could attend to. 

 He was compelled to leave it in 1825, and go into 

 the business of civil engineering, which also in a 

 few years, gave way for the business of manufacturing 

 telescopes. At the commencement, he never thought 

 of its ever becoming a business of profit. About the 

 year 1830 he had completed an achromatic telescope, 

 which he took to New Haven, and asked Prof. Ben- 

 jamin Silliman to look at it. He did so, and at 

 once took an interest in it, and published a notice 

 of it in the American Journal of science, of which he 

 was editor. He manufactured principally Reflecting 



Figure 2. — Herschelian reflecting telescope (USNM 310598) built by Amasa Holcomb and shown by him at 

 the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, in 1835. The Institute's report of the demonstration is given in the 

 appendix (p. 182). {Smithsonian photo uooo-a) 



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BULLETIN 228: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



