The University of Michigan moved to Ann Arbor in 1841, and began classes in natural philosophy (what we now call physics) two years later. This forcing and lifting pump came from that school, and may have been used at an early date.
Ref: Benjamin Pike, Jr., Pike’s Illustrated Descriptive Catalogue of Optical, Mathematical, and Philosophical Instruments (New York, 1848), vol. 1, pp. 233-235.
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