Measuring & Mapping

Where, how far, and how much? People have invented an astonishing array of devices to answer seemingly simple questions like these. Measuring and mapping objects in the Museum's collections include the instruments of the famous—Thomas Jefferson's thermometer and a pocket compass used by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their expedition across the American West. A timing device was part of the pioneering motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge in the late 1800s. Time measurement is represented in clocks from simple sundials to precise chronometers for mapping, surveying, and finding longitude. Everyday objects tell part of the story, too, from tape measures and electrical meters to more than 300 scales to measure food and drink. Maps of many kinds fill out the collections, from railroad surveys to star charts.

The earliest domestic clocks in the American colonies were English-made "lantern" clocks, with brass gear trains held between pillars.
Description
The earliest domestic clocks in the American colonies were English-made "lantern" clocks, with brass gear trains held between pillars. Along with fully furnished "best" beds, looking glasses, sofas, silver, and case furniture, such clocks were the household objects consistently assigned the highest monetary value in inventories of possessions.
By the 18th century, the most common style of domestic clock came to look more like a piece of household furniture. A wooden case enclosed the movement, weights, and pendulum. Through a glass window the dial was visible.
In 1769, Pennsylvania clockmaker and millwright Joseph Ellicott completed this complicated tall case clock. On three separate dials, it tells the time and shows the phases of the moon; depicts on an orrery the motions of the sun, moon, and planets; and plays selected twenty-four musical tunes on the hour.
The musical dial on the Ellicott clock allows the listener to choose from twelve pairs of tunes. Each pair includes a short tune and a long one. On the hour only the short tune plays, but every third hour, both play. During a tune, automaton figures at the top of the dial appear to tap their feet in time to the music, and a small dog between them jumps up and down.
Joseph Ellicott moved from the Philadelphia area to Maryland in 1772 and, with his brothers Andrew and John, set up a flour-milling operation in what is now Ellicott City. The clock was a centerpiece in Ellicott family homes for generations.
Who else owned clocks in early America? Clock owners, like the American colonists themselves, were not a homogeneous group. Where a person lived influenced the probability of owning a timepiece. In 1774, for example, New Englanders and Middle Atlantic colonials were equally likely to own a timepiece. In those regions, roughly 13 or 14 adults out of 100 had a clock in their possessions when they died. Among Southern colonists at that time, only about 6 in 100 had a clock.
Date made
1769
user
Ellicott, Joseph
maker
Ellicott, Joseph
ID Number
1999.0276.01
accession number
1999.0276
catalog number
1999.0276.01
Thomas Kitchin (1718-1784) was an English engraver and cartographer, many of whose maps were published in the London Magazine. This one appeared in the issue for November 1761. It extends from lat.
Description
Thomas Kitchin (1718-1784) was an English engraver and cartographer, many of whose maps were published in the London Magazine. This one appeared in the issue for November 1761. It extends from lat. 36°10' to 39°55' north, and from 75°40' to 82°25' west of London; and from 0° to 7° west of Philadelphia. The text at top reads “For the Lond: Ma;” It would have been of interest to readers following the course of the French and Indian Wars.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1761
ID Number
PH.317828
catalog number
317828
accession number
231759
The Ryerson family, prominent 18th-century landowners in Brooklyn, New York, purchased this clock about 1760.
Description
The Ryerson family, prominent 18th-century landowners in Brooklyn, New York, purchased this clock about 1760. The imported clock, made in England in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, was a rarity in its time and signaled the purchasers’ wealth, taste and status in colonial society.
The clock features an eight-day, weight-driven brass movement that strikes the hours. The brass dial features a date aperture, a silvered chapter ring with Roman hour numerals and silvered signature plaque signed “Isaac Rogers/London.” The case features a blue finish made to imitate the then-mysterious techniques of Japanese and Chinese lacquer work.
Isaac Rogers had a trade establishment and watchmaking business at White Hart Court, Lombard Street, London. Timepieces for the Ottoman market were among his specialties. His son, also Isaac Rogers, succeeded him in business and became a master in the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, London.
Reference:
Rogers, Isaac. The Dictionary of National Biography, 1897.
Location
Currently not on view (case fragments)
Currently not on view (dial frame)
Currently not on view
Currently not on view (pendulum; weights)
date made
ca 1760
maker
Rogers, Isaac
ID Number
1987.0852.01
catalog number
1987.0852.01
accession number
1987.0852
This map extends from 36°45' to 40°15' north latitude and from 75° to 82°30' west longitude from the meridian of Paris.
Description
This map extends from 36°45' to 40°15' north latitude and from 75° to 82°30' west longitude from the meridian of Paris. It was probably based on Robert de Vaugondy’s 1755 copy of the Fry & Jefferson map, and published in Le Petit Atlas Maritime (Paris, 1764) issued by Jacques Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772), a productive cartographer in Paris. An inscription at the upper right reads “Tome I. No 35.”
“Ft Cumberland ou de la Compag d’Oyo” at the western side of this map would have interested those following the course of the French and Indian Wars. “Charles Town détruite” in southern Maryland refers to the small town that served as the seat of Prince George’s County from 1695 until 1732, when the seat was moved to Upper Marlboro (not shown on this map). London, near Annapolis, refers to London Town (or Londontowne), a once thriving seaport established in 1683. A town on the Virginia side of the Potomac River is termed “Belhaven ou Alexandrie.”
Ref: P. Lee Phillips, “Virginia Cartography,” Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 37 (1898).
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1764
ID Number
PH.317822
catalog number
317822
accession number
231759

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