USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. IV > Part 64
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" That the thanks of the Corporation be given to Samuel Eliot, Henry Hill, and Aaron Dexter, Esquires, - managers of a lottery granted by the Honorable General Court to purchase for the college an orrery made by Mr. Joseph Pope, - for their great attention to the business ; by which the design was so speedily and happily carried into execution. And while they view with pleasure this noble and useful machine, which does so much honor to Mr: Pope, they feel highly grateful to the managers of the lot- tery for their politeness and generosity in freely giving their time and trouble, by which means a handsome sum has been received into the treasury of the college."
The bonds given by the managers were cancelled April 14. The or- rery is still in good condition; but a century has made a change in the estimation in which orreries are held.3
1 Centinel, December 10 and March 18.
2 Also Salem Mercury, March 3.
8 At this period lotteries were in good re- pute, and presented an easy and convenient way
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We resume the biographical sketches : -
Samuel Webber was born in Byfield in 1760 ; graduated at Harvard College in 1784 ; was tutor in 1787-89, professor of mathematics and natural philosophy from
of raising large sums of money ; as fairs do nowa- days. This device is not of American or Eng- lish origin. Lotteries were instituted in Florence as early as 1530; in France in 1539; in England in 1569; and in Germany in 1699. The people's lottery of 1863, in aid of the fund for completing the Cathedral of Cologne, proves that they are still held in Europe to be respectable. Govern- ments have not scrupled to profit by this fertile expedient. Between 1816 and 1828 the French government derived an annual income of fourteen millions of francs from lotteries. The drawing of the first English lottery took place at the west door of St. Paul's Cathedral, and the proceeds were applied to the repair of the harbors; there were forty thousand shares at ten shillings a share. In 1747 a million pounds was raised in a similar way, the prizes being paid in perpetual annuities at four per cent. The first parliamen- tary lottery was in 1709; but in 1612 the Virginia Company was authorized to raise money by a lottery. It is not strange that an institution so strongly indorsed, and appealing to the charity as well as to the cupidity of the community, took deep root in this country, where everything was to be done and where there was little money to do it. In this way, roads, bridges, ferries, wharves, were built or repaired ; and hospitals, academies, and colleges were endowed.
In 1744 authority was given in this province to raise £7,500 to replenish the public treasury ; but the managers were forbidden to sell tickets to Indians, negroes, or mulattoes ; and if by ac- cident one of these drew a prize, it was forfeited .* In 1749, the town of Swansea was allowed a lot- tery in order to repair Miles's bridge. In 17 50 the town of Newbury was permitted to raise £12,000 to build a bridge. In the same year the public treasury received $26,700. In 1755 the town of Teticut was granted a lottery for build- ing a bridge. In 1757 a lottery was sanctioned to encourage the manufacture of glass in Braintree. In 1772 a lottery was authorized in the interest of Harvard College, for building Stoughton Hall ; and the privilege was renewed in 1794.t As all the tickets were not sold, the managers asked the College to take them. This may explain a state- ment in the Massachusetts Magazine that the Col- lege had drawn $10,000 in a lottery. The sum realized by the treasurer in 1804 was $18,400. In 1778 a lottery was granted for the benefit of the officers and soldiers of the State. In 1779 three
* Acts and Resolves of the Province of Mass. Bay, vol. iii. p. 195 (1878).
t Acts and Lus of Commonwealth, ii. 405.
was another lottery for raising £60,000 to repair the streets of Charlestown, and £250,000 to re- pair Long Wharf. In 1780 resort was had to a lottery for obtaining $200,000 to mnend the roads in the counties of Hampshire and Berkshire. In 1806 Harvard College received $29,000 from a lot- tery to help in the building of Holworthy .* In 1812 a lottery was granted in order to obtain $16,- 000 for repairing Plymouth Beach. This grant eventually brought the subject to a crisis. In 17 50 there was a lottery in Connecticut in aid of the fund for erecting a new edifice in Yale College. t
The obvious evils of the system were not slow to manifest themselves here as elsewhere. The spirit of gambling was disguised under the garb of charity, and moral distinctions were con- founded. The temptation was irresistible to those who had but little to invest, and the poor were the greatest sufferers. As a tax it fell most heavily upon them. After the suppression of lotteries in France about 1830, the funds in savings-banks increased one year by 525,- ooo francs. It is stated that an assembly of ministers in Boston in 1699 denounced lotteries as cheats. In reference to private lotteries, the General Court declared and enacted in 1719 " that all such lotteries and all other lotteries are common and publick nusances." # More stringent laws were passed in 1733, 1753, and 1785. The sale of tickets in foreign lotteries (not authorized by a State or the United States government) was forbidden. Finally, in 1821, a joint committee of the Senate and House of Representatives (of which Peter C. Brooks § was the moving spirit) disclosed the abuses of the system of State lotteries ; showing that in a recent case nearly half a million dollars had been collected from tickets, and a larger sum sunk in expenses and prizes. An embezzlement and a sui- cide in Boston exposed the frauds perpetrated by dealers in lottery tickets, and on the recommen- dation of Governor Lincoln a law was passed in 1833 which gave the final blow to the sale of tickets in this State.|| Most of the other States imitated the example of Massachusetts. In 1823 Great Britain followed, both as regards domestic lotteries and the sale of tickets in foreign ones.
* Laws of the Commonwealth, iii. 361 (1807). Quin- cy's History, ii. pp. 162, 273, and 292.
t Holmes's Life of President Stiles, p. 391.
# Acts and Resolves of the Province of Mass. Bay, vol. ii. p. 149.
§ N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., ix. 26.
#] House Documents, 1833, No. 44, p. 28. Laws of Commonwealth, xii. 721.
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1789 to 1806, and president from 1806 to the time of his death in 1810. He observed the annular eclipse of the sun on April 3, 1791 ; and in 1796 was appointed by the Government to ascertain the boundary between the United States and Canada. In 1801 he published a System of Mathematics in two volumes.
Walter Folger was born in Nantucket in 1765. The common schools in which he was educated were so poor that the pupil was soon able to instruct the teacher. By himself he conquered algebra, geometry, and the elements of the calculus. He learned French in order to be able to read Lalande's Astronomy. He elevated the position of ship-masters by teaching them navigation. In 1790 he calculated and printed an almanac. He inherited an aptitude for mechanics, and made refracting and reflecting telescopes. His greatest achievement in this line was a clock which indi- cated the year and day as well as the hours and minutes, and also the changes of the moon. In this complex mechanism one wheel made only one revolution in a century. Mr. Folger's observations 1 of the comets of 1807 and 1811 were used by Dr. Bowditch, with others, in calculating their orbits. He also observed the total eclipse of 1806. He studied law for his own benefit and that of his neighbors, and was sent to Congress. He wrote a memoir upon aerolites, and made voluminous calculations on Encke's comet, but most of his work exists only in manuscript. He died in 1849.
Epaphras Hoyt was born in Deerfield in 1765, and died there in 1850. He declined a place in the army offered to him by Washington, but he rose to be major- general of the militia. He published several books on military affairs, and left others in manuscript. In 1824 he published Antiquarian Researches. His scientific work consisted of observations of the lunar eclipse of Jan. 15, 1805 ; the solar eclipse of Sept. 17, 1811 ; an occultation of Aldebaran by the moon on Oct. 29, 1811 ; and the meridian altitudes of several celestial bodies. From these observations he deduced the latitude and longitude of Deerfield. He also made observations on the declina- tion of the magnetic needle.2
Elisha Clap was born in Dorchester in 1766. He graduated at Harvard College in 1797 and was tutor there in 1801-3. He studied for the ministry, but in- 1804 he was appointed principal of the Sandwich Academy where he remained ten years. Between 1816 and 1826 he had a private school in Boston, and died there in 1830. He devoted much of his time to mathematics and astronomy; worked with Chief- Justice Parsons upon the orbit of the comet of 1807 ; and prepared for the press Dr. Holyoke's meteorological observations for twenty-six years, 1793-1818.3
The nineteenth century opened with a prospect more encouraging to science than that which greeted the eyes of its predecessor. In 1780 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which held its meetings alternately
1 Published in the Boston papers.
2 Mem. Amer. Acad., iii. 305.
3 Hist. Soc., i. 438. Mem. Amer. Acad., iv. 361. The preparation of an almanac implies a certain amount of astronomical and mathematical ac- quirement. Mr. Holyoke published in Boston An Almanack of the celestial motions, aspects, and eclipses, etc., for the years from 1715 to 1723 in- clusive. - Dr. Nathaniel Ames of Dedham was eminent as a physician and mathematician. He published an Astronomical Diary or Almanack
for forty years 1725-65. It was held in such repute throughout the country that after his death in 1766 it was continued under his name until 1775. - Dr. William Douglass was a native of Scotland, but came to Boston in his youth. He was a mathematician and published an alma- nack for 1743 and 1744 under the name of Mer- curius Novanglicanus. [See Vol. II. Index. - ED ] Still more short-lived were the almanacs of Eddy for 1760, of Pope for 1792, and of Chandler for 1798.
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in Boston and Cambridge, had been founded.1 Count Rumford's bequest in 1796, while it extended the usefulness of the Academy, indicated the con- fidence inspired by the high character of its membership. At its centennial celebration in May, 1880, the Academy could point to its fourteen quarto volumes of Memoirs and its fifteen volumes of Proceedings as the justifica- tion of its existence. All these publications, except two volumes of the Memoirs, belong to the present century. We return again to the biograph- ical sketches: -
The most conspicuous figure among the scientific worthies of the first half of the century is Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch. He was born in Salem in 1773, and removed to Boston in 1823, where he died in 1838. Though Dr. Bowditch was his own teacher in mathematics, he was competent, at the age of twenty, to detect flaws in a mathemat- ical demonstration published in the second volume of the Memoirs of the Academy. After he became a Fellow of the Academy in 1799 he furnished twenty-three 'articles for its printed volumes. The first was of great interest to the navigator, being "On a new method of working a Lunar Observation." 2 Although Dr. Bowditch is best known by his mathematical achievements, he lost no opportunity while he lived in Salem of observing comets, eclipses, and occultations, as material for his computations. He thoroughly discussed the eclipses of 1806 and 1811, and all other eclipses and transits which had ever been observed in the vicinity, and deduced from the whole mass of evidence the most probable value for the longitude of Cambridge. He col- lected all the observations upon the great meteors of 1807 and 1819, and computed the height and the velocity of these strange visitants to our sky. - He fitted out the blaz- ing comets of 1807, 1811, and 1819 with appropriate orbits, and sent them on their way. He made careful observations on the Declination and Inclination of the mag- netic needle, for the purpose of estimating the changes in the direction and intensity of the force of terrestrial magnetism. His computations upon the contemporaneous observations made with barometers in 1804 at Salem, Boston, and the White Moun- tains brought down the height of Mount Washington from ten thousand feet (as given by Dr. Belknap) 3 to seven thousand one hundred and eight feet. This figure is too great, but the fault was in the barometers of that day. Dr. Bowditch's analysis of the motions of a pendulum suspended from two points, with his experimental illustrations, have a fresh interest at this time, as anticipating by more than half a century the famous Lissajous curves which now play an important part in the science of acoustics.4 In the realm of pure mathematics Dr. Bowditch's mind worked with an accuracy equal to its power, and enabled him to detect oversights in the work of such profound mathema- ticians as Poisson and Laplace. The crowning glory of Dr. Bowditch's scientific life was his translation of Laplace's Mécanique Céleste, and his invaluable commentary upon it. This vast work was done at Salem between the years 1815 and 1817. Dr. Bow- ditch's removal to Boston facilitated, and perhaps made possible, its publication ; which extended over the ten years from 1829 to 1839. And all this, be it remembered, was only a brilliant scientific episode in a life never released from the labors and anxieties of business.
1 [See the chapter on "Education " in the present volume. - ED.]
2 Memoirs Amer. Acad., vol. ii. I.
8 Hist. of New Hampshire, iii. 49. VOL. IV. - 64.
4 [Professor Lovering presented a paper to the American Academy on the " Anticipations of the Lissajous Curves," which is printed in its Proceedings, xvi. p. 292. - ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
John Farrar was born in Lincoln in 1779. His father destined him to a farmer's life ; but a trifle turned the boy's thoughts in a different direction. On a visit to his brother who was in college he saw the students practising with a fire-engine, and the fascinations of college life were irresistible. After graduating at Harvard College in 1803, he studied for the ministry, but was soon brought back to Cambridge. From 1805 to 1807 he was tutor in Greek, and from 1807 to 1836 professor of mathematics and natural philosophy. Professor Farrar's attractive style of lecturing supplied the deficiency which existed in his means of experimental illustration. He
Nathe Bowditch
rendered great service to his department by translating and publishing, between 1818 and 1828, eleven of the best French treatises, which became the text-books generally used at colleges for many years. His observations on the comet of 1811 were pub- lished, with a description of it, in the Memoirs of the Academy, which he served as secretary from 1811 to 1824, and as vice-president in 1829-30. Five or six essays on scientific subjects were written by him for the North American Review. He retired partially in 1831, and wholly in 1833, and visited Europe twice with the hope of
1 [This portrait of Dr. Bowditch was begun
heirs of Stuart by the sitter, and is now in the by Stuart for the East India Marine Society ; possession of Wm. I. Bowditch, a son of Dr. but being left unfinished, it was bought of the
Bowditch. Mason's Stuart, p. 149. - ED.]
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restoring his health ; but he returned no better than when he left, and remained an invalid until released by death in 1853.
Ichabod Nichols was born in Portsmouth, N. H., in 1784, graduated at Harvard College in 1802, and officiated as tutor in mathematics at the College from 1805 to 1809. He was settled over a church in Portland in 1809, at first as a colleague. Eminent in his profession, he always retained his interest in mathematics and astron- omy, and took careful observations on the solar eclipse of Sept. 17, 1811. In 1855 his society released him from active service, and he passed his retirement in Cambridge and died there in 1859.
The foundation of the astronomical observatory at Cambridge marks a new epoch in the cultivation of astronomy in this vicinity. Previously no adequate means existed for making observations of precision with fixed in- struments, as contrasted with what might be done with ordinary telescopes by amateurs. In observing the comet of 1811 Professor Farrar relied upon a sextant for position and a watch for time. The best map of the States rests upon a trigonometrical survey of excellent quality, but with no better astro- nomical support than was given to it by latitudes and longitudes obtained with sextants and chronometers. W. C. Bond, who died in 1859 at the head of a great observatory and with a world-wide reputation, began life with few external advantages. He was born in Portland in 1789; but his father moved to Boston in 1790, and the son received here his pittance of education. The father was a watchmaker of narrow means, and required the assistance of his son in his business " before he had learned the multiplication table ; " but the delicacy of touch and vision which he acquired in his trade were not wasted upon him in his scientific work,- and Joseph Henry probably profited by the same hard discipline. The total eclipse of the sun in 1806, when Bond was only seventeen years old, made him an astronomer. He extemporized rude instruments for taking the altitude and transit of stars. His vigilance in detecting the comet of 1811, four months before it was seen in Cambridge, brought him to the notice of Dr. Bowditch and Professor Farrar. Through their influence he received a commission from the Cor- poration of Harvard College to visit the principal observatories of Europe. Between 1820 and 1842 he observed eclipses and occultations at his home in Dorchester with instruments bought at his own expense, among them a meridian instrument for getting correct time. During the last part of this period he was employed by the United States Government in making obser- vations in co-operation with the officers of the United States antarctic expedition. In 1842 he was induced by President Quincy to come to Cambridge,-the College furnishing a house, which served as a primitive ob- servatory, and Mr. Bond providing all the instruments which were of much value ; but an astronomer without an observatory was an inconsistency too glaring to continue long. In this emergency the comet of 1843 blazed almost at midday in the very face of the sun, awakening a popular interest in astronomy which the august and solemn motion of the stars could not excite. President Quincy and Professor Peirce took advantage of the event
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to make an effectual appeal to the liberality of the citizens of Boston. In 1844 the observatory was built; in 1847 an equatorial telescope, unrivalled in its day, was placed under the large dome; and in 1848 the meridian circle was ready for work.
Under the wise and able direction of the two Bonds and Professor Win- lock (the endowments of each happily supplementing those of the others) the observatory soon acquired, and afterward maintained, a high rank with the best equipped and most fully appointed observatories of the Old World, and stimulated other institutions and the national government to follow the example. Here, for the first time in this country, was an addition made to the permanent bodies of the solar system when the elder Bond discovered the eighth satellite of Saturn and its dark inner ring. His researches on the nebulæ of Orion and Andromeda, and on the physical aspect of the planets, especially of the Saturnian system, revealed the delicacy of his vision no less than the excellence of his instruments.
One other astronomer deserves to be noticed: -
William Mitchell was born in Nantucket in 1791. He was educated on the Island, but none of his teachers ever inspired him with a love of books. At the age of fifteen he was put to learning the trade of cooper. From eighteen to twenty-one he was a teacher. Then for ten years (1812-22) he was in business with his father. From 1822 to 1830 he was again employed in teaching. From 1830 to his retire- ment in 1861 he was an officer in an insurance company or a bank. At times and in several capacities he represented the Island at the State Capital. He inherited a love of astronomy, and diffused a scientific atmosphere around his home and neighborhood. He had taught himself enough of mathematics to enable him to calculate the annular eclipse of Feb. 12, 1831, which he had also the satisfaction of observing. He was probably the first in the country to welcome Halley's comet on its return in 1835. The Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey employed him in making observations for determining the latitude and longitude of Nantucket. In 1860 he received an honorary degree from Harvard College. He removed to Lynn in 1861, and to Poughkeepsie, N. Y., in 1865, and died there in 1869, leaving as a legacy to his daughter (Miss Maria Mitchell) that love of astronomy which he had received from his father.
II. PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY. Brief notices of some of the most emi- nent in these departments here follow : -
The name of Benjamin Franklin cannot be wholly omitted from this portion of the memorial, although he has been specially commemorated in the second volume.1 Born in Boston in 1706, and educated at the common schools, he left it at the age of seventeen for Philadelphia, where he died in 1790. Having seen some electrical experiments on a visit to Boston in 1746, he soon became a conspicuous figure in science by his bold experiments, his original discoveries, and his beautiful theory of electricity. Though public affairs engrossed most of his time at a later period, he con- tinued his contributions, practical, experimental, and speculative, in various branches
1 P. 269.
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Edward Bromfiets 1
of science. He was one of the founders of the University of Pennsylvania, and was influential in inaugurating the Philosophical Society in the city of his adoption, - the oldest association in the country dedicated to science.
Edward Bromfield, who was descended from an old family of influence and prop-
1 [This cut follows a copy made by Miss E. S. Quincy of a likeness, supposed to be by Smi- bert, which was in the possession of the late Mrs. Blanchard of .Harvard, Massachusetts, grand-
daughter of Henry, a younger brother of Ed- ward Bromfield, Jr. See account of him and his family by D. D. Slade in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg. January, 1872, P. 37. - ED.]
·
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erty in Wales, emigrated from Hampshire, England, to Boston in 1675. Here he be- came an eminent merchant. His mansion-house stood in the street which now bears his name, but it was then surrounded by fields and groves. His son, of the same name, was born in Boston in 1696, and was also a merchant of high character. He built the first house on Beacon Street,1 where it remained until 1845, having been sold in 1756 to William Phillips, the son-in-law. In this house Edward Bromfield the Third was born in 1723, and died Aug. 18, 1746, after graduating at Harvard College in 1742. He lived long enough, however, to develop a character and exhibit tastes and talents which have embalmed his name in the memory of succeeding generations, and he might have achieved great distinction in science if his life had been spared. His love of music, united with much mechanical skill, induced him to undertake the construction of an organ (the first built in America), though he had seen only two or three which had been imported from England. This organ was of excellent workman- ship, with two rows of keys, and was intended for twelve hundred pipes, though he did not live to complete more than a few hundred. During the siege of Boston the organ and the library of Josiah Quincy, Jr., were removed for safety to a store belong- ing to William Phillips, where unfortunately both were burned. Young Bromfield was also the first in America to make a microscope, grinding and polishing his own lenses. Possibly he had read a description of the instruments made and used by the famous Dutch microscopist, Leeuwenhoek, which was published in 1740 ; 2 but he must have depended mainly on his own resources. Dr. Thomas Prince has described in glowing terms the wonderful insight into the mysteries of creation imparted by Bromfield's lenses. He says of the inventor that " he seemed to be making haste to the sight of the Minima Naturalia, or the very minutest and original atoms of mate- rial substances."3 For ninety-nine years after he was dead, the sun still shone through the hole in the shutter of the attic window in Beacon Street, which he had cut for his solar microscopes, and a few relics of his instruments are possibly preserved. The only book of his library which has been preserved is Hooke's Micrographia, London, 1666. This was given to Miss E. S. Quincy in 1848 by a relative of Edward Brom- field, and was presented by her in 1870 to the library of the Boston Society of Natu- ral History. It contained an autograph and some notes, to which Miss Quincy added a photograph of the portrait which is given in the text.
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