Early American Scientific Instruments and Their Makers — John Shaqi
Early American Scientific Instruments and Their MakersBedini, Silvio A.
History
Early American Scientific Instruments and Their Makers
Bedini, Silvio A.
Scientific apparatus and instruments
In the May 21, 1753, issue of _The New York Gazette or The Weekly Post
Boy_ there was an announcement by the widow of Balthaser Sommer who
lived on Pot-Baker's Hill in Smith Street in New York City and who
advertised herself as a "grinder of all sorts of optic glasses, spying
glasses, of all lengths, spectacles, reading glasses for near-sighted
people or others; also spying glasses of 3 feet long which are to set on
a common Walking-Cane and yet be carried as a Pocket-Book."
John Benson emigrated from Birmingham, England, and established a
lapidary and optical store in May 1793 at 12 Princess Street in New
York, where he produced miniatures, lockets, rings, glasses, "as well as
Spectacles, single reading and burning glasses, and where he also
polished scratch'd glasses." In July 1797 he moved to 106 Pearl Street
where he sold green goggles, thermometers, and opera and spy glasses, in
addition to an assortment of jewelry. In September 1798 he was
established at a new location, 147 Pearl Street, "At the sign of The
Green Spectacles" where he specialized in optical goods. He featured for
rent or sale a "Portable Camera Obscura" for the use of artists in
drawing landscapes. His advertisements chronicled each change in
location in the issues of _The New York Daily Advertiser_.
A craftsman whose name is well known in scientific circles was Anthony
Lamb, who advertised in 1753 as a mathematical instrument maker living
on Hunter's Key, New York. He claimed that he could furnish
Godfrey's newly invented quadrant, for taking the latitude or other
altitudes at sea; hydrometers for trying the exact strength of
spirits, large surveying instruments in a more curious manner than
usual; which may be used in any weather without exception, small
ditto which may be fixed on the end of a walking stick, and
lengthened to a commodious height, gauging instruments as now in
use, according to an act of assembly with all other mathematical
instruments for sea or land, by wholesale or retail at reasonable
rates.[15]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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