Contributions from
The Museum of History and Technology:
Paper 26
Holcomb, Fitz, and Peate:
Three 19th-Century American Telescope Makers
| INTRODUCTION—Robert P. Multhauf | 156 | |
| I. | Amasa Holcomb—Autobiographical Sketch | 160 |
| II. | Henry Fitz—Julia Fitz Howell | 164 |
| III. | John Peate—F. W. Preston and William J. McGrath, Jr. | 171 |
HOLCOMB, FITZ, and PEATE:
Three 19th Century American Telescope Makers
Practically all the telescopes used by amateur scientists in 18th-centuryAmerica were of European origin. Our dependence uponforeign sources for these instruments continued well into the 19thcentury, and the beginning of telescope making in this country hasconventionally been associated with the names of Alvan Clark andJohn Brashear, whose work dates from the 1860’s.
Presented here are biographical sketches of two predecessors and acontemporary of Clark and Brashear whose obscurity is not deserved.The accounts relate some hitherto little-known aspects of telescopemaking in America as it progressed from mechanic art to science.
The Author of the Introduction, Robert P. Multhauf, is headcurator of the department of science and technology in the UnitedStates National Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Introduction
Robert P. Multhauf
The telescope was invented about 1600. It wasbrought to America about a half-century later,and within another century had become a commonplaceappurtenance to the library of the cultivatedgentleman.[1]
Throughout this period, from Galileo to Herschel,the telescope found use in scientific astronomy, althoughthe possibility of contributing to the scienceof astronomy by simple observation diminished continuouslyafter the time of Galileo. Herschel’s workhad aimed at the advancement of scientific astronomythrough increasing spectacularly our powers ofvision, just as had that of Galileo in the 17th centuryand of Hale in the 20th. But even in Herschel’stime the monstrous size of the instrument requiredmade the project something of a national effort.The telescopes of the 18th-century American gentlemanwere already toys, as far as the astronomer wasconcerned.
However, the telescope had another, if less glamorous,use in the 18th century. This was its use inpositional astronomy, in the ever more precise measurementof the relative positions of objects seen in theheavens. Measurement had been the purpose servedby pre-telescopic astronomical instruments, the sightingbars of the Ptolemaic observers of Alexandria andthe elegant quadrants of Tycho Brahe. For a time[157]after