Toward 1845, Holcomb tells us, “one after another went into the business,” and indeed they did. At the American Institute Fair in New York that year a gold medal was given Henry Fitz “for the best achromatic telescope.” In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Alvan Clark is supposed to have already taken up the hobby of lens and mirror making. And in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, an amateur telescope-maker now known only as “Squire Wampler” made a small achromatic refractor which he demonstrated in 1849 to a 9-year-old boy named John Brashear, of whom more later. Some of Holcomb’s telescopes must have come to the attention of Henry Fitz during his wide travels as a locksmith after 1830, if, as is reported, he was at that time pursuing his avocational interest in astronomy. It is interesting to note that both Holcomb and Fitz seem to have pursued feverishly the new photographic process of Daguerre in 1839, the former near the end of his career as a telescope-maker, the latter near the beginning of his. The decade before 1845, when “one after another went into the business,” seems to have been marked by the flowering of observational astronomy in the United States. The professional work of the Navy’s Depot of Charts and Instruments (forerunner of the Naval Observatory) began about 1838. In 1844 the first instrument larger than 6 inches came to this country, an 11-inch refractor for the Cincinnati Observatory. The Bonds established what was to be the Harvard Observatory in 1839, and by 1847 Harvard had obtained its famous 15-inch refractor from Merz and Mabler.[6] Fitz was to have a more sophisticated market than had Holcomb. Despite the glowing recommendations of the Franklin Institute committee,[7] no actual use of Holcomb’s instruments by astronomers has come to light. We may owe to the rapid progress of American astronomy after 1840 the fact that we have evidence of a more distinguished history for some of Fitz’s instruments. It will also be recalled that Holcomb specialized in Herschelian reflectors. Fitz, on the other hand, made few reflectors. He specialized in achromatic telescopes mounted equatorially, the type of instrument which was in greatest demand among professional astronomers at the time.