Beautiful Compass Made by Rittenhouse & Potts

The following three paragraphs are based on Bedini's Article on BR and his Business Partners and Apprentices:

The Federal Land Ordnance of 1785 brought about a renewed demand for surveying compasses, specifying that the vernier surveying compass was favored so that Benjamin Rittenhouse turned once more to making them. He returned to Worcester Township from Philadelphia and once again advertised for an apprentice in the May 14, 1785 issue of the Pennsylvania Packets shortly before Lewis Michael had completed his apprenticeship.

The very year that he advertised, Rittenhouse hired William Lukens Potts (1771-1854) the son of the millwright Thomas Potts, who had served in the Provincial Assembly just prior to his death in 1776. William was born on July 17, 1771 and had turned fourteen in 1785. It is believed that he may have served an apprenticeship for a time with his cousin David Shoemaker before Rittenhouse subsequently took Potts as his partner. In 1796, when he was twenty-five, Potts worked in Rittenhouse's clock shop in Worcester Township in Montgomery County, and it is said that he remained with Rittenhouse for two years during which they produced compasses inscribed with the name "Rittenhouse& Potts," several of which have survived. Potts subsequently left Montgomery County and was recorded to be working in Pitts Town, New Jersey.

In 1807 Potts moved to Nockamixon Township in Bucks County where he was a clockmaker, instrument maker and silversmith until 1816. In that year he moved to Philadelphia to become an iron merchant. He died on January 17, 1854.

Like BR's compasses, the compasses made by BR and his partners are Eye-Candy. This isn't surprising since BR trained his two main partners (Potts and Evans) before entering into a partnership with each one of them.

Nobody knows how many compasses BR and his partners made. The compasses made by BR and his partners are all high quality and mostly vernier compasses. They are all lustworthy, just like a BR branded compasses. They seem to fall in the same price range too.