Levi Colton
(1802-1885)

Levi Colton was born on May 23, 1802 in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, the son of Levi and Freelove (Chandler) Colton. No information is available about his childhood and youth except that he lived in New York. As a young man he was apprenticed in the craft of silversmithing and the jewelry trade, probably in New York City. In 1833 he married Rachel Kent of Caldwell, New Jersey.


In due course Colton learned how to make surveying instruments, and was employed by the instrument maker Richard Patten for some time. In 1846 the mathematical instrument maker Richard Patten, wrote to Alexander Dallas Bache, Superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey: “The bearer, Levi Colton, has been in my employ for upwards of six months. He is quite steady and industrious man. He wishes to get employment, if you have any for him in the Inst. Shop. I think he would be a serviceable and he is very handy at form work.” Colton apparently did not get the job, as he soon went into business for himself, advertising as a jeweler, and making surveying compasses.


His period of activity in this field appears to have been from 1846 to 1851, during which he worked in various cities in which he established himself for limited periods. He was of a restless inclination and moved from one form of employment to another and from one city to another, from New York, to Boston, Hartford, Utica, and New Haven, Connecticut, where he died. His peregrinations can be traced through the inscriptions of his surviving instruments. In 1854 he was listed in the Geer’s city directory of Hartford, Connecticut with his home on Russell Street. His last years were spent in New Haven, where he listed himself as optician and/or jeweler. Several of his surveying instruments are signed with just his name "L. Colton," and others occasionally have the added words "New York," or "New York, Warranted."


The records of the W. & L.E. Gurley Company indicate that the firm repaired three compasses by Colton between 1885 and 1921. Surveying instruments by Colton are in the Witt Memorial Museum in Texas, and the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford. Two of Colton's surveying compasses presently are in the collection of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, one complete with the original chain and tripod. The instrument's needle is lacking, however.