Hermann Pfister
1847-1911

An early maker of surveying instruments in Cincinnati, Ohio was Hermann Pfister. Born in Schaffuausen, Switzerland he migrated to the United States at sometime between 1868 and 1870. Joining a brother in Missouri with whom he lived for a time. He moved to Cincinnati where he had established himself by 1870 on 5th Street as a maker of mathematical instruments.

In the next several years he married Mary Buchanan and has a son, William Henry, was born in 1875. Pfister worked alone until 1877 and then purchased the instrument making business of Rasselas Prince Whitcomb (1808-1884), who had become too old to continue it and thereafter retired to Florida. Whitcomb was a native of Potsdam, New York and had worked as a civil engineer and surveyor in government employment in Wisconsin before moving to Cincinnati where he began to manufacture mathematical instruments in about 1851.

Pfister continued as a manufacturer of surveying and engineering instruments at 119 West 5th Street. By 1911 he was again working alone, advertising "Architects Levels and Inventors Models" in addition to surveying and engineering instruments. His son was also listed as an instrument maker in the city directory for 1895. In 1905 William Henry Pfister became foreman of his father's shop and succeeded to the business after his father died. The firm name was changed to his own from 1912.

National Museum of American History - Transit