Compasses

This compass is possibly made of cherry wood. It is 12.2" long, has 4" high sights and a 4.2" long needle. The paper compass card shows a man in a red coat looking out to sea with a quadrant instrument, and a sailing vessel on the horizon. The card has printed divisions of 0° to 90° in each of the four quadrants. There is some damage to the divisions in the vicinity of S 15° W, considering that W is on the E side of the card as customary. The paper compass card was possibly printed by Paul Revere. With the compass is a contemporary hand-carved 54" hickory tripod.

The inscription on the compass card reads "Made by Thomas Greenough, Boston, New England." Compasses by Thomas Greenough are pictured and described in Silvio Bedini's Early American Scientific Instruments and Their Makers, 1964, at pps. 85-93.

Probably made by David Rittenhouse rather than by his brother, Benjamin (see RITTENHOUSE, 5:1, Nov. 1990, pps. 1-16, w/picture pp. 8). This compass has an automatic needle lifter, and is believed to be the first instrument with such a device. David Rittenhouse was a leading American scientist of the revolutionary war period. He was very inventive and not inclined to decorate all of the compasses he made. All known compasses by Benjamin are highly decorated (see Bedini: THINKERS AND TINKERS, pp. 211).

This instrument is inscribed "RITTENHOUSE, PHILADELPHIA." It has a simple compass dial absent of decoration. Three other compasses are identified only with the Rittenhouse family name. One belonged to George Washington and is now in the National Museum of American History. Another privately owned one is highly decorated in the style of Benjamin Rittenhouse, who is known to have worked for David.

This Rittenhouse compass is 14.2" long, has removable sights 6.3" high, a 5.5" needle, brass cover to compass box, and a contoured wood case.

This is one of the earliest known compasses by Whitney. It has no serial number and is of noticeably different construction than the do have serial numbers. It is reportedly identical in some of the parts to compasses by Thomas Biggs. Biggs was an instrument maker of the 1880's and 1890's with a shop in 1892 on the same street as Whitney. The instrument is 14" long, has 6" high sights, and a 5.2" needle. There is but one spirit level located on the south arm, and it has a sliding brass cover for protection. The instrument is inscribed "Thos. Whitney, Maker, Philadelphia." The vernier is located on the north sighting arm, and is divided from -25° to +25°, but due to limitations in its internal mechanism can only be used from -10° to +10°. There is a wooden case with the penciled name "John J. Harris, Redding, California." The letters "J.J. Harris" are also lightly but crudely scratched into the top of the south arm of the compass. The ball & socket unit for adapting to a tripod or staff are missing.

This instrument is 15" long, has sights 7.4" high, and a 5.1" needle. There is a brass cover for the compass box, all fitting into the original wood case. The original ball & socket unit for attaching to a tripod or staff is missing. There are two spirit levels on the south arm located next to one another, and at right angles to each other. The case has a 1" sticker indicating the sale price w/o tripod 9/50 is $36.00. Underneath is an earlier sticker indicating the previous asked price was $35.00.

This compass is 15.8" long, has sights 7.9" high, and a 6" magnetic needle. The compass dial is black. The vernier is located on the south arm outside the compass box. There are two spirit levels, one on each arm, both with clear glass and black lines. An open tapered hole in the south arm suggests a possible missing part, which is not the case. An illustration of this exact instrument appears on pp. 26 of the 1889 edition of Thomas Bagot's A Manual of Plane Surveying. This print shows the same open tapered hole as the present instrument.

This plain surveyor's compass has brass sighting vanes and compass ring on a mahogany base. The overall length is 15", the compass box is 6 3/4" diameter, the needle 5" long, and the sights are 4 3/4" high. The paper compass card at the north end is imprinted Browning, Boston and at the center is marked Browning Maker from London. An identical instrument is in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan and described in Charles Smart's book. Samuel Browning is listed in Boston directories from 1803 to 1841 and from 1816-1825 as a mathematical instrument maker.