David Rittenhouse: Astronomer-Patriot, 1732-1796 [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512815993

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PENNSYLVANIA

LIVES

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

PENNSYLVANIA (Volumes

previously

LIVES published)

JOHN W H I T E GEARY Soldier-Statesman, 1819-1873 by Harry Marlin Tinckom JOHN AND WILLIAM BARTRAM Botanists and Explorers, 1699-1111 and 1139-1823 by Ernest Earnest JOHN ALFRED BRASHEAR Scientist and Humanitarian, 1840-1920 by Harriet A. Gaul and Ruby Eiseman JAMES BURD Frontier Defender, 1126-1193 by Lily Lee Nixon JOHANN CONRAD BEISSEL Mystic and Martinet, 1690-1168 by Walter C. Klein RICHARD RUSH Republican Diplomat, 1180-1859 by J. H. Powell WILLIAM SMITH Educator and Churchman, 1121-1803 by Albert Frank Gegenheimer ALEXANDER JAMES DALLAS Lawyer—Politician—Financier, 1159-1817 by Raymond Walters, Jr. RICHARD PETERS Provincial Secretary and Cleric, 1104-1176 by Hubertis Cummings

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

DAVID RITTENHOUSE Astronomer-Patriot 1732-1796

By EDWARD

FORD

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS PHILADELPHIA 1946

Copyright 1946 U N I V E R S I T Y OF P E N N S Y L V A N I A

PRESS

Manufactured in the United States of America

LONDON GEOFFREY OXFORD

CUMBERLEGE

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

FOREWORD

lived sixty-four years, from 1732 to 1796. For thirty-five years he was an obscure countryman in Norriton township, a farmer, maker of clocks and mathematical instruments, and local surveyor. From childhood he had a curious mind. He read, figured, and tinkered. He mastered mathematics, astronomy, and Newton's Principia. He undertook to build an orrery. Soon the president of the College of New Jersey and the provost of the College of Philadelphia came to Norriton to see it. T h e y vied with one another to secure the instrument. A transit of Venus was due to occur in June 1769. For the American Philosophical Society he built and equipped the Norriton observatory. When the observations were reported and the results were calculated, Rittenhouse was an astronomer of international reputation. Influential friends persuaded him to move into Philadelphia. Twenty miles down the Germantown road was a long move in 1770. DAVID R I T T E N H O U S E

In the metropolis the countryman became prominent citizen, member of the Philosophical Society, engineer of public works, active Whig, member of the Assembly, trustee of the Loan Office, and treasurer of Pennsylvania during the Revolution. But he was still scholar and scientist. Meetings of the Philosophical Society, astronomical and physical problems, clocks and telescopes were the satisfactions of his life. The fires of war sank to embers and fell into ashes. Whig and Loyalist forgot their quarrels and became citizens of the Republic. Rittenhouse, still scholar and citizen, became president of the Philosophical Society, fellow of the Royal Society, trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, surveyor of state boundaries, and first director of the Mint. David Rittenhouse has been dead one hundred and fifty years, but Rittenhouse clocks still strike the hours. The orrery ν

vi

FOREWORD

is still a marvel of the mechanician's art. On the hillsides at Norriton, around State House Square, and in the halls of the Philosophical Society his spirit lingers. Streets, parks, a social club, a school, and a scientific body bear his name. "The things that truly last, when men and times have passed" were all in Pennsylvania in Rittenhouse's day. THOMAS

University of Pennsylvania January 1946

D.

COPE

CONTENTS

DAV1D R I T T E N H O U S E Painting by Charles W. Peale at the University of Pennsylvania Frontispiece Chapter FOREWORD By Thomas D. Cope I

Page ν

PAPER MILL

ι

II FARM CHORES AND N E W T O N

7

III CLOCKMAKER

13

IV

PROVINCIAL SURVEYOR

21

SOLAR SYSTEM IN BRASS

29

VI

ASTRONOMER

35

VII

PHILADELPHIA

44

DISILLUSION

ji

IX

W A R CLOUDS

60

X

LIBERALS AND LIBERTY

70

T R E A S U R E R IN EXILE

82

V

VIII

XI

XII PRIZE MONEY

93

XIII

FISCAL FIASCO

103

XIV

OPTICS A N D MAGNETISM

112

XV

WILDERNESS BREAKER

123

DR. FRANKLIN'S FRIENDS

131

DOCTRINE A N D FAITH

141

XVI XVII

vii

viii XVIII

CONTENTS STEAM ON T H E D E L A W A R E

152

MATHEMATICIAN T O JEFFERSON

164

XX

PHILOSOPHER

i7o

XXI

M I N T BUILDER

i77

DEMOCRATS A N D WHISKEY

188

XIX

XXII

XXIII R E T U R N T O SCIENCE

198

XXIV

205

CALM

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL N O T E

213

INDEX

119

I

PAPER MILL was born April 8, 1732 (Old Style), in an unpretentious stone house built by his great-grandfather, the first paper maker in the American colonies, near his mill on a small tributary of Wissahickon Creek at Roxborough, Pennsylvania. David's birth had been awaited with perhaps more eagerness than is usual in the case of a fifth child, for two brothers born previously had died in infancy, and David's father wished an heir. The wish was fulfilled, but David was not a strong child, and this was no comfort to a father who could hope to prosper only through his own industry and that of his children. Not only David's father but his grandfather and greatgrandfather as well had made their way through careful planning and hard work. A good deal of imaginative effort has been put forth to trace the family's ancestry back to Maximilian I of Austria, but the evidence of royal descent is tenuous and has been rejected by competent genealogists. Authentic records of the family are dated no earlier than 1644, the year in which Wilhelm Rittinghausen, or Rittinghuysen, was born near Mülheim on the Ruhr. Wilhelm, already married and a father, left Mülheim when he was about thirty and settled in Amsterdam. Details of his early life are few, but it is not unlikely that he was attracted to Amsterdam by the religious tolerance of the Dutch. He was a follower of Menno Simons, and the lot of the peaceloving Mennonites in Germany had been one of ceaseless persecution. Holland, on the contrary, had so far favored the sect as to exempt its members from military service, oath-taking, and all obligation to hold public office. For several years Wilhelm found the more enlightened atmosphere congenial. He obtained employment with Dutch paper makers, who at the time led the world in the production of fine-textured paper. D A V I D RITTENHOUSE

I

2

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

In 1679, Wilhelm, who was now to be known as Willem, became a citizen of Amsterdam. The Dutch about this time lost control of N e w Netherlands to England, and a charter of liberties and privileges, adopted by the assembly called in N e w York by Colonel Thomas Dongan in 1698, provided for religious freedom. Thither Willem sailed with his sons, Klaus and Gerhardt, and his daughter, Elizabeth, some time before 1688. The family paused only briefly at N e w York, but long enough for Klaus, then twentythree, to fall in love with a Dutch girl, Willemijntie de Wees. T h e y were married at the Dutch Reformed Church on May 29, 1689. Willem could not expect to find wider freedom of conscience elsewhere in the Colonies; but Pennsylvania was certainly no less tolerant than N e w York and, being a younger settlement, offered alluring opportunities in a material way. In 1683, thirteen German families from Crefeld, led by Francis Daniel Pastorius, had settled in hilly country a few miles northwest of Philadelphia, and six years later were still struggling none too successfully to establish the village of Germantown. Artisans rather than farmers, they realized that industry and not tillable lands was needed if the promise of the N e w World was to be realized. Their language and customs made them comparative strangers to the English at Philadelphia, and for the first few years new arrivals from Germany were few. Turning to N e w York, they induced a party of German Mennonites to join the settlement. Willem and his three children and daughterin-law were in the party. Whatever the considerations that took Willem to Germantown, the task that awaited him was the construction of a paper mill. Philadelphia, already giving evidence of future growth, offered a market for paper of all kinds, especially book papers. William Bradford since 1686 had been printing his almanac, America's Messenger, on paper imported from France, Germany, and England. Willem lacked funds of his own with which to build a mill, but this need was readily met by Samuel Car-

PAPER MILL penter and R o b e r t

Turner,

holders of

3 land grants

from

William Penn, b y T h o m a s Tresse, an iron founder, and a little later b y Bradford. Willem was at some pains to find just the right location f o r the mill. T h e spot he chose finally was on Monoshone Creek near that rivulet's confluence with the Wissahickon. Neither Carpenter nor T u r n e r owned this particular land, but Carpenter leased 100 acres, and then verbally sub-leased a fifth of the tract to Willem and his company f o r 999 years. T h e undershot wheel of the log-and-clapboard mill began to turn in 1690, producing the first paper made on the American continent. W h i l e building the mill and f o r some years afterwards, W i l lem with his children occupied a house on the main street of Germantown, which was no more than a scattering of dwellings along the trail to Philadelphia. T h e road was by turns dusty and muddy, but the settlers, with G e r m a n thrift, had softened the settlement's r a w outlines b y planting peach trees along the sidewalks, thus providing fragrance and color in spring, shade in summer, and, finally, fruit in autumn. T h e trip to the mill was long and the w o r k exhausting, f o r paper making was still largely a manual trade. T h e linen rags were pounded to pulp b y a power-driven stamping machine, but the pulp had to be laid in the molds and turned out b y hand, and the presses that squeezed out the moisture were operated b y hand. T h e output in a year, with the greatest effort, probably did not exceed 1,200 reams. W o r k inside the mill was not the whole of it. T h e valley at the point where the mill was situated is in reality a deep gorge. Rags that were to be converted into paper w e r e brought f r o m Philadelphia to G e r m a n t o w n b y cart, but the walls of the gorge were too precipitous f o r a vehicle, and so the rags were carried the rest of the w a y on horseback. T h e finished paper was taken to Philadelphia in the same primitive manner. Willem, f o r all the long hours of w o r k and the cares of management, f o u n d time enough f o r religion. In this respect, he was not different f r o m other Germans in and about the

4

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

village, for most of them were pious, even though their doctrines were worlds apart. Pastorius, though born a Lutheran, was now, like most of the families that accompanied him, a Quaker. Late comers included not only Mennonites but also Pietists and Chiliasts. The Mennonites, insisting upon the freedom they had so lately won, soon organized their own meetings, holding them at the home of liberal Jacob Isaac Van Beber on Main Street, where the other sects were as welcome at different times as the unworldly Mennonites. Willem, nearing fifty but by no means a patriarch, was chosen the first Mennonite minister. T h e mill, during these years, was prospering in a modest way, not merely because it was the one paper mill in the Colonies, but also because its product was highly regarded. William Bradford was forced to leave Philadelphia in 1698, after he had incurred the wrath of orthodox Quakers by publishing a pamphlet by George Keith, the dissident Scotsman, but he retained his interest in the mill. Appointed royal printer for N e w York, he continued to consume all the printing paper the mill could supply. Despite the steadily widening market for its paper, the enterprise collapsed in 1700. Heavy spring rains swelled the Monoshone until its banks could no longer contain it, and the flood rolled down the narrow valley with the power of a battering ram. Sturdy as it was, Willem's mill was crushed. Profits had been gratifying during the eleven years it had operated, but not sufficient to set up a reserve against such a catastrophe. Fortunately the mill had become a source of pride and a need in the Colony, and its loss was widely felt, even by William Penn, the Proprietor, who asked "such persons as should be disposed" to assist in its reconstruction, and set an example of liberality himself by contributing £ 2 5 . The new mill, despite the danger of floods, was built close to the site of the old, and began operation in 1702. Five years later, Willem and Klaus built a home in the valley, a move dictated largely by the growth of the family. Elizabeth

PAPER M I L L

5

and Gerhardt had married and set up separate establishments, but b y 1703 six children had been born to Klaus and W i l lemijntie, and the house in G e r m a n t o w n afforded less than ample room. In 1703 Matthias, the father of David Rittenhouse, was born. T h e house in the valley was set on a slope not many yards f r o m the mill. It was a solid, t w o - s t o r y house of plastered native stone, which turned its back on the swift-flowing creek. T h o u g h no larger than the needs of the family demanded, it was built to endure, and stands today in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, the oldest of several colonial homes still preserved within the park. B y the time he moved into the new house with Klaus's family, W i l l e m had become sole proprietor of the mill and lessee of the land. B r a d f o r d withdrew f r o m the company in 1704, though remaining a customer f o r printing paper, and when the lease was put into writing on September 29, 1705, Willem was the only grantee named. T h e lease was to run f o r 975 years f r o m that date, and the annual rent was to be five shillings sterling. In the lease Willem's name appeared as William Rittenhouse, the first time this English f o r m had been used, but it is questionable whether it was adopted w i d e l y b y the family at the time. Klaus modified the original only slightly to Rittenhausen and employed it throughout his lifetime, as did David's father. Klaus, as the elder son, inherited the mill property in 1708 upon the death of Willem. A f e w years before, Willem had been elected bishop b y the Mennonites, and he was one of the first of their number to be buried in the y a r d of the church they built in G e r m a n t o w n the y e a r he died. Klaus took his father's place as minister. Succeeding years brought increasing prosperity to Klaus. Philadelphia was g r o w i n g rapidly, swelling the demand f o r wrapping paper and writing paper and, though William Bradf o r d had ceased to monopolize the output of printing paper when he withdrew f r o m the company, the market was sustained b y his son, William, J r . , w h o w i t h J o h n Copson began to

6

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

publish the American Weekly Mercury, the colony's first newspaper, in 1719. Matthias, like his brothers William and Henry, entered the mill as soon as his schooling had been completed. All three boys attended the school established at Germantown in 1702 by Pastorius with funds contributed by nineteen subscribers in the neighborhood, including Gerhardt Rittenhouse. How earnestly Matthias applied himself to paper making it is impossible to say, but he must have been conscious of the fact that, under the rule of primogeniture, his eldest brother William would inherit the mill property, and it may be doubted that he ever seriously considered following the family calling. In religion, at least, he broke with the strict family tradition, leaning more to the quiet simplicity of the Quakers than to the almost defiant plainness of the Mennonites. He was influenced in great measure by the comeliness of the adopted daughter of Richard Jones, a Welsh Quaker who had lately come to Germantown. Elizabeth was the daughter of Evan Williams, a relative of Jones's, who had died when his daughter and two sons were quite young. Jones had taken the children to bring up and had denied them little that the children of artisans had the right to expect. He sent the boys to school and apprenticed David, the elder, to a joiner. It was not the eighteenth-century fashion in Pennsylvania to waste education upon daughters, least of all adopted daughters, and Elizabeth grew to womanhood without the benefit of even rudimentary schooling. Nevertheless she was vigorous in mind as well as body, and Matthias fell in love with her. They were married at Germantown in October 1727, when Matthias was twenty-four and Elizabeth twenty-three.

II

FARM CHORES AND NEWTON THE first year of David's childhood was a time of anxiety for his parents. During the summer of 1732, a smallpox epidemic scourged Philadelphia and panicky residents fled the city in such numbers that it was almost impossible to keep the Assembly in session. Temporary refugees took up residence in Germantown and other outlying communities, and so spread the terror. T h e succeeding winter was more rigorous than any the colonists could remember, with ice forming on the Schuylkill, into which the Wissahickon flowed a mile or so below the Rittenhouse property, to the unprecedented thickness of fifteen inches. Spring brought relief from the cold, but with the ensuing summer came a protracted wave of scalding heat. Though a delicate infant, David somehow survived the threat of disease and the vagaries of weather, but Elizabeth grew no less apprehensive. T w o sons had already died, and the picturesqueness of the valley's turnings and r o c k y escarpments was outweighed in her mind by the ever-present dampness. She was fearful, too, for the health of her young brothers, both of whom had come to live with her, and who already seemed predisposed to tuberculosis. She urged Matthias to find a home somewhere on healthier ground. T h e suggestion was not unwelcome to Matthias, for Klaus was now sixty-seven and Matthias' connection with the mill would soon end unless he chose to work f o r William, who must almost certainly inherit the mill. Henry, the second brother, had already bought a piece of farmland about ten miles northwest of Germantown in the district once known as Williamstadt and later as Norriton township. Penn had given the tract to his son William, but the latter needed cash with which to finance his expensive and scandalous social tastes, and sold the land within a year or two. It was owned in 1733 b y Isaac Norris, a Philadelphia merchant and old friend of the founder. 7

8

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

Matthias chose one hundred acres on high ground about three miles north of the Schuylkill on the road that was, at a later date, to lead to Reading, where two relatives of Penn had settled that very year. It would be impossible to move from the Wissahickon home just yet, since land had to be cleared and a house built. If it followed the plan of many farmhouses of the period, the first home built by Matthias was a simple, rectangular structure of logs, no more than adequate for the rather large family. Before the house was occupied, Klaus died, and the paper mill passed to William, his eldest son. Henry and Matthias, so the will explained, had received their portion during Klaus's lifetime, the gift doubtless being the source of the funds with which Matthias bought the farm. Klaus was sixty-eight when he died, no longer the only paper maker in the American Colonies, but the best-known and, like his father, a Mennonite leader. Matthias, with his family and his wife's two young brothers, moved to the Norriton farm a few months after William became proprietor of the mill. He was not a farmer and the family had no farming background, but Matthias observed well and learned quickly, and toil won him a moderate success. There was no end to the toil, for the colonial farmer had the help of no power but that of his horses or oxen and of his own strong hands. Fields were plowed laboriously with wooden shares, reinforced with iron strips, and all seed was sowed by hand. Wheat and rye were mowed with scythes, raked by hand, and threshed by flailing on barn floors. Only those as determined and stout-muscled as Matthias could hope to succeed. Surviving records of David's early years on the farm are sketchy, and his education is a matter of conjecture. As David grew older, Matthias may have taught him the rudiments of writing and figuring, and there seems little doubt that he had the benefit of some formal instruction. Norriton had no schools as yet, but Christopher Dock taught at both Skippack and Salford, there was a Quaker school at Plymouth, and a few pupils were taught privately by a clergyman at Whitemarsh and by

FARM CHORES AND NEWTON

9

Patrick Menan, a farmer and surveyor, at Marble Hall. A l l these schools have been mentioned in connection with David's b o y hood education. Although proof is wanting, circumstances point to Menan's as the one in which David received his brief formal education. Menan was an accomplished mathematician. One of his pupils was A n d r e w Porter, w h o attained the rank of general during the Revolution. Porter was so well instructed that he could later open his own school at Philadelphia and teach mathematics; a move, incidentally, that was encouraged b y David, who b y then had attained a measure of repute. Further evidence of Menan's influence is, possibly, to be found in the fact that he was skilled as a surveyor and that some of David's most important w o r k in later life was done in connection with land surveys. W h o e v e r his teacher, David had an amazing aptitude f o r absorbing every scrap of information that came his w a y and f o r putting much of it to use with his talented hands. W h e n he was only eight years old, he constructed a working model of a water-powered mill, an idea no doubt inspired b y visits to his uncle's mill on the Wissahickon. Matthias, as he watched the child at w o r k on the toy and noted his frailty, must have had misgivings about his future as a farmer. K n o w i n g nothing of Sir Isaac N e w t o n and his childhood propensities f o r making mechanical models, he could not console himself with the knowledge that his delicate son would one day be inspired by Newtonian philosophy and become one of its ablest champions in the Colonies. David's religious training during this period was not so careful as his father's had been. In 1735 Matthias sold a corner of the f a r m to Presbyterians w h o had settled in the vicinity, and the elders the same year built the stone church that remains today the oldest Presbyterian church in Pennsylvania. W i t h a Mennonite father and a Quaker mother, David was under no compulsion to visit the church, yet it is not improbable that he did, f o r , when he attended services on rare occasions in his

ίο

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

mature years, the church he invariably chose was Presbyterian. As a boy, David had few companions on the remote farm except those within the family. T h e only other living children, when the family moved to Norriton, had been Margaret and Esther, sisters both older than David, but during the next ten years five more children were born, four of whom still survived, including a brother, Benjamin. David was fond of his sisters, Esther particularly, but girls did not take the proper attitude toward tinkering, and Benjamin was still an infant. His mother's brothers, though older, were more nearly his own age and interested in matters that were important to a boy. T h e elder uncle, for whom he had been named, was hardly ever well but completely fascinating. Unlike other youths whom David knew, the uncle was not shackled to farm chores, but traveled the countryside working at his trade of joinery, and went often to the T o w n of Norris and sometimes all the twenty miles to Philadelphia. At night, or when no work was to be had, he read strange books filled with cabalistic signs, or fashioned trifles with woodworking tools from a chest which, so it seemed to David, contained every instrument the arts of men would ever require. T h e higher elevation and life in the open had a beneficial effect on David's health and, to Matthias, he looked sufficiently robust at twelve to begin his apprenticeship as a farmer. Matthias took him into the field and taught him to plow a straight furrow, how to break the clods with the wooden-spiked harrow, how to sow the grain broadcast, and how to look after the stock. David was willing enough, but his slender body ached with the long toil and his quick mind rebelled against the dullness of repetitious and never-ending tasks. What farm work lacked most was the need for calculation. He had learned arithmetic, yet in plowing one simply took a visual bearing on two trees or other objects in an adjoining field, chirruped to the horses, and went ahead. And there was no delicacy to the work, such as would be required to scribe a line on a clean board.

FARM CHORES AND NEWTON

II

Matthias persisted in the effort to make a farmer of his son, but something stronger than Matthias' will had foredoomed him to failure, as Newton's widowed mother had failed to interest her son in the farm at Woolsthorpe. She sent Isaac to watch the cattle, but he would take along a book and, when he tired of reading, he whittled, and the cattle wandered off, and someone not destined to become a scientist would have to round them up again. In 1744, the elder uncle died and left David not only the chest of tools he so greatly admired and, perhaps, secretly desired, but also a number of books and papers. The legacy, except for the tools, would have been considered rubbish by any of the farmers in the community, since the calculations to which the young joiner had been so devoted were unintelligible and the books had scant relation to practical affairs. Yet among the books was one that changed the course of David's life, just as, when first published a lifetime before, it had changed the course of scientific thought. It was an English translation of the First Book of Newton's Principia. Great care was taken by one of David's nephews in the next century to show, by analogy with the careers of certain other noted men, that understanding of even the most abstruse matters comes full-blown to genius. Without this postulate, he considered it impossible to explain how David could grasp the meaning of Newton's deliberately obscure exposition of his laws of gravitation. It is, admittedly, a surprising thing that David's uncle should have had the book, but too little is known of his education to say that he did not understand it. If he did, he must surely have expounded it to his keen-witted and admiring nephew. However knowledge of it was acquired, David came in time to cherish the book. Its concern with universal truths widened his horizons not by miles but by infinity, and gave meaning to the heavens, upon which until then he had looked with boyish awe. Soon he was making calculations of his own. The claim has been set forth that he actually invented a method of fluxions,

I2

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

the forerunner of the calculus, before learning that N e w t o n and Leibnitz years before had contended f o r that honor, but D a v i d himself never pretended to such precocity, and mathematicians since have scouted the story. T h e allure of the b o o k and the chest of tools soon quenched whatever flicker survived of David's interest in farm w o r k , and Matthias was compelled to admit defeat. In 1749, Matthias had laid b y enough to build another house, but the new structure of rubble masonry, larger and more comfortable than the old, w a s incomplete as far as David was concerned, since it contained no convenient corner where he might seriously put to use his uncle's w o o d w o r k i n g tools. N o w seventeen, he begged his father's leave t o build a w o r k s h o p of his o w n . Matthias k n e w that the shop, once completed, w o u l d write finis to David's flagging

career as a farmer but, w i t h possibly a w o r d of en-

couragement f r o m his wife, he not only consented but even provided the m o n e y f o r the materials. David, selecting a spot beside the road, built his shop and equipped it himself. T h e uncle's assortment of tools lacked nothing a joiner w o u l d need, but it was not varied enough f o r the plans already forming in David's active mind. Presently David was making tools of his o w n , and their like had not been seen in a carpenter's shop. Before the year was out. he had built his first clock.

III

CLOCKMAKER FOR the next several years, young Rittenhouse applied himself assiduously to work and study. He mingled with few persons outside his own family and the patrons of his shop, and formed no close friendships. His avoidance of companions was deliberate. Since he was naturally shy, it was not easy for him to strike up acquaintances, but even when he did he refused to permit them to ripen further. The reason was not a dislike of people, for he was fond of them collectively, but rather a want of common interests, since no other youth at Norriton was capable of discussing Newtonian philosophy. Indeed, few scholars in the Colonies understood it thoroughly and still fewer accepted it without reservation. Sixty-odd years had passed since the publication of the Principia, yet many of its conclusions were still to be proved. While the English-speaking world had never been so hospitable to Descartes and his vortices as some European countries, Newton's gravitational theory was so radical and all-embracing that it made only slow headway. Thomas Robie and others had taught it at Harvard early in the century but only from paraphrases of the Principia, since they had no copy of the Latin original, and it was not until 1739, when John Winthrop became Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, that Newton really gained the ascendancy. At Yale, serious teaching of Newtonian principles was delayed until a year later, when Thomas Clap became President. Philadelphia had been somewhat more receptive, a fact that can be credited to the efforts of James Logan, the scholarly secretary to William Penn. Logan in 1708 was the first man in the Colonies to import a copy of the 1687 edition of the Principia. Franklin's Junto acquired a copy in 1732, the year of Rittenhouse's birth, and in subsequent years most of Philadelphia's thinkers ceased to quarrel with the principles enunci»3

14

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

ated in the monumental work. Nevertheless a Cartesian here and there continued to assail the gravitational theory. Rittenhouse was not yet prepared to defend N e w t o n with the vigor and fearlessness he displayed in later life; in 1750 he was still intent upon mastering the subject and, to support himself, was still making clocks. His first timepiece, built when he was only seventeen, had works of wood, like most thirty-hour clocks of the period, but it was accurate enough to attract some notice in the township. It must have been difficult for neighbors to believe that a fanner's b o y could produce such a timepiece, particularly when that boy seemed averse to physical labor and had never served an apprenticeship to a clockmaker. There could be no mistake about it, however, for Rittenhouse soon surpassed his earlier effort with an eight-day clock which had works of metal. A l though this achievement left no question as to his skill, he could not yet hope to rival the great colonial masters of the craft. William B. Davis had been making clocks at Boston since 1683, and Everardus Bogardus was well established in N e w York by 1698. A f t e r the turn of the century, William Claggett at Newport, Ebenezer Parmele at Guilford, Connecticut, Benjamin Bagnall at Charlestown, and others began to produce clocks of beauty and a high degree of accuracy. Philadelphia had several distinguished clockmakers before 1749. Edward Duffield was perhaps the best known, but Christopher Sowers, of Germantown, and Odran Dupuy were building clocks so durable that some still survive. Few of the forty or more existing Rittenhouse clocks are authentically dated, making it impossible to trace the development of the maker's art, but it must have been fairly rapid. Within ten years Rittenhouse was making clocks of an accuracy not surpassed by any of his contemporaries. All but one of the surviving Rittenhouse clocks are long, or "grandfather," models, and it is probable that he made few others. T h e weight-driven pendulum clock, which had been introduced into England in 1681, had become popular by 1700,

CLOCKMAKER

I ζ

and English clockmakers, who began to arrive in the Colonies soon after, brought with them an enthusiasm for long clocks. The type retained its popularity until long after Rittenhouse had quit the craft. The actual work, of course, was done by hand. The train of wheels and the escapement were cut from brass, and the weights were cast from lead. It is probable that Rittenhouse fashioned some of the clock cases himself, at least while he lived at Norriton, but most clockmakers of the day held aloof from cabinetwork. Sometimes, when they received an order for a clock, they engaged a cabinetmaker to build the case; sometimes they sold the works uncased. In the latter instance, the purchaser contracted for the cabinet work, selecting the style and wood that suited his fancy and his purse. The clocks themselves did not bring high prices, but the more affluent purchasers often insisted upon cases of walnut or mahogany. Frequently the cases were inlaid with satinwood or other costly materials, crowned with a pediment, and embellished with scrolls and other ornamentation. Buyers of more modest means contented themselves with the plainest pine. Often no case at all was used. The works were simply suspended from a peg in the wall, leaving the weights and pendulum to hang clear. Because the oscillation of the pendulum was instantly apparent to an observer, this type of clock soon came to be known as the "wag on the wall." Before Rittenhouse achieved any wide repute as a clockmaker, he was to make the acquaintance of Thomas Barton, a meeting that ultimately was to shape his career. Barton arrived at Norriton in 1751, a purposeful Irish youth of twenty-one. Educated at the University of Dublin, he possessed boundless self-confidence and a determination to wrest from the Colonies the position denied him in Ireland. While at the university, Barton had expected, as an eldest son, to inherit the lands which the family had held for nearly a century in County Monaghan, but the father's managerial

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ability was not so high as the son's hopes. The estate, when the elder Barton died, was found to consist of debts, and Thomas Barton, as soon as he left the university, departed for the Colonies. A t Norriton he established a school. Precisely how he met Rittenhouse it is not possible to say, but it is certain that the meeting occurred soon after his arrival. Barton's immediate quest was for pupils, but in Rittenhouse he discovered, no doubt to his amazement, a country lad who knew mathematics quite as well as he did himself and possibly better. Barton was attracted to the diffident, introspective youth whose manner was so unlike his own. He recognized the incompleteness of Rittenhouse's education, and encouraged him to pursue the study of philosophy and languages. The assertion has been made that Barton taught Rittenhouse mathematics and philosophy, as well as Greek, Latin, German, and French. While it must be admitted that Barton's influence on Rittenhouse was great and that it was Barton who later brought him to the attention of influential men in Philadelphia, Barton remained at Norriton only a year. That fact makes it doubtful that much instruction could have been thorough. School teaching, especially for young men so aspiring as Barton, was not the path to position. Schoolmasters outside Philadelphia were compelled to supplement their income through farming or, like Patrick Menan, through the exercise of some extrascholastic skill. After a year at Norriton, Barton must have discovered this hard truth for himself; in 1752 he became an usher, or under teacher, in the English school at the Academy and Charitable School, which had opened the year before at Philadelphia. Despite the fact that Barton's new position required his removal to the city, Rittenhouse continued to see him frequently, although the long rides to Norriton were not made primarily on his behalf. Barton, from his first meeting with the family, had been captivated by Esther Rittenhouse, David's favorite

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sister, and Esther, it may be assumed, was flattered b y the addresses of a y o u n g Irishman whose education, polish, and quick wit set him above the simple country youths of Norriton. T h e y were married December 8, 1753, at Old Swedes Church, Philadelphia, and the bonds between Rittenhouse and Barton w e r e measurably strengthened. It is not certain that Rittenhouse attended the ceremony. Earlier in the year, illness had compelled him to f o r e g o both w o r k and study. T h e exact nature of the ailment apparently was never understood during Rittenhouse's lifetime. His family and friends believed that the illness had been induced b y long hours of w o r k in the shop and b y the avidity with which Rittenhouse pursued his studies at night. Rittenhouse himself described the complaint in a letter to Barton, w h o m he n o w called "brother," as "a constant heat in the pit of the stomach, affecting a space not exceeding the size of half a guinea attended at times with much pain." A modern physician would have diagnosed the ailment as gastric ulcers. T h e severity of the abdominal pain, which usually reduced Rittenhouse to helplessness, its periodic recurrence, and the f a c t that, during the first attack at least, chalybeate spring waters hastened recovery all tend to support this view. T h e attacks varied in intensity but they persisted as long as Rittenhouse lived, handicapping him in his social life as well as in his professional duties and scientific research. Soon after he fell ill in 1753, Rittenhouse retired to Y e l l o w Springs, a watering place in Chester C o u n t y about fifteen miles f r o m Norriton, n o w known as Chester Springs. There he rested and drank the chalybeate, and within a f e w weeks he had so far recovered that he was able to return to Norriton. H e immediately resumed his clockmaking and his studies. T h e demand f o r his clocks seems to have been constant, but he was still unknown outside the township, and the prices he received could not have been princely, since most buyers regarded clocks as necessities and set a corresponding value upon

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them. With his studies Rittenhouse made more substantial progress. Again, it was Barton who made it possible. Soon after the Reverend William Smith arrived at Philadelphia in 1754 to preside over the Academy, Barton resigned his position and sailed for England to take orders in the Church of England. When he returned, perhaps early in 1755, as a missionary for the church's Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, he brought Rittenhouse a number of books on scientific subjects. From the interest in telescopes which Rittenhouse began to display, together with his esteem for Newtonian principles generally, it may be conjectured that one of the volumes was Newton's Optics. T h e earliest evidence of Rittenhouse's knowledge of astronomical instruments is contained in a letter which he wrote to Barton in 1756. The latter had established a mission near Sulphur Springs, the modern York Springs in Adams County. It was a more daring venture than Barton had suspected, for the Delawares and Shawnees, emboldened by the defeat of General Braddock in his rash march on Fort Duquesne the year before, had fallen upon many frontier settlements, burning and scalping with their usual abandon, and as early as November 1755, Barton found himself obliged to raise a party of volunteers to help defend Carlisle, a few miles north of his mission. Barton's letters to Governor Robert Hunter Morris and Richard Peters, the governor's secretary, early in 1756, describe some of the horrors of the Indian attacks. Fathers and mothers were scalped and their children carried off, and their homes burned. Once, Barton wrote, the Indians invaded a churchyard as a funeral service was being read, and, when they had put the mourners to flight, wrenched the corpse from the coffin and scalped it. The hill people fled in panic toward the Susquehanna and fancied safety. "In short, sir," Barton wrote to Peters, "it appears as if this Part of the Country breath'd it's last.—We expect nothing but Death & Ruin every night." Since Barton and Rittenhouse maintained regular correspondence, it is probable that the latter was kept informed of some

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19

of the outrages, for one of his letters reveals his disappointment at not being able to take up arms. I have not health for a soldier [he wrote Barton in a boyish attempt at self-dramatization], and as I have no expectations of serving my country in that way, I am spending my time in the old trifling manner, and am so taken with optics that I do not know whether, if the enemy should invade this part of the country, as Archimedes was slain while making geometrical figures on the sand, so should I die making a telescope. Strangely enough, he was to come closer to the enemy that year than to any considerable accomplishment in the field of optics. Failing health once more made work and study impossible, and Barton and his sister urged him to take the baths at Sulphur Springs. He accepted, and again the mineral waters effected an apparent cure. He had so far recovered before the summer was out that he could make the return trip of considerably more than one hundred miles on horseback. If his physical condition denied him the pleasure of tools and books at Sulphur Springs, it could not still his active mind. A clock which he made for the Bartons that year, possibly as a token of his appreciation for their hospitality, suggests that he devoted some of his leisure at least to taking inventory of his accomplishments, and the results were not satisfying. On the upper dial plate of the clock he inscribed the words "Tempis Fugit" and below the motto "Mind Your Business." It cannot be argued, of course, that Rittenhouse summed up his accomplishments and his resolutions for the future in these commonplace phrases, yet he could well have done so. He was now twenty-four and had achieved little. He had trained his hands to the exacting tasks of constructing clocks and telescopes and had done a prodigious amount of scientific study, but the clocks promised him no more than a livelihood and, in a land still largely concerned with subduing the wilderness and its savage people, the telescopes and science promised even less. It must have been apparent to him even then, as he acknowledged ruefully in later life, that time is indeed fleeting and there-

20

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

fore precious. Perhaps he resolved to prosecute his work with greater energy; at least the next few years were his most productive as a clockmaker. The correspondence with Barton was interrupted by the resumption of military operations against the French at Fort Duquesne. When Brigadier General John Forbes arrived in Pennsylvania to organize a second expedition, Barton was seized with a desire to accompany the troops as chaplain. Through Richard Peters he gained a commission as chaplain to the Third Battalion of Forbes's troops, but became incensed at the efforts made by what he called "bigoted" elements in the army to prevent his going and refused to act under the governor's commission. Instead, he appealed to General Forbes for permission to serve as a volunteer, a request which Forbes granted. Barton was with the troops when they occupied Fort Duquesne in November and did not return East until April 1759, when he accepted a call to an itinerant mission in Lancaster County, which included St. James' Church in the borough of Lancaster, St. John's Church at Pequea (now Compass in Chester County), and the Bangor Church at the Welsh settlement of Carnavon, which is the present-day Churchtown. Here he remained nearly twenty years, preaching successively in the three churches, riding into the frontier country to visit Indian schools, writing a book of prayers for family worship, and studying natural philosophy. From the rectory at Lancaster he wrote encouraging letters to Rittenhouse and, when occasion offered, he visited Norriton. In 1777, General Howe's seizure of Philadelphia was to make Rittenhouse a temporary resident of Lancaster, but the brothers-in-law were fated not to meet. The shifting currents of political loyalties and the swelling tide of political passion had torn Barton from his meager living.

IV

PROVINCIAL SURVEYOR had several years still to live in obscurity at N o r riton. He improved the time by producing some of his finest work and by widening his studies, which now included physics and astronomy. In this effort he must certainly have been his own tutor, for the readiness with which his superior grasp of science was acknowledged by the learned men of the province, once he had been brought to their attention, is evidence enough that few if any in Pennsylvania could have taught him. Although his interests were turning more and more to astronomy and astronomical instruments, clockmaking was still his livelihood. It is impossible even to estimate the number of clocks that left the roadside workshop. While most of them were simply made, Rittenhouse could not have been unaware of the elaborate and sometimes whimsical creations of his rivals. It was being discovered that the weights which actuated the clock movements would also operate chimes and that, since clocks measured time, they could be made to indicate the phases of the moon as well as to mark the hours. T h e chimes especially seemed to fascinate some colonial clockmakers, and they offered clocks that played any one of a dozen tunes on the hour. Later on, Rittenhouse would emulate the ingenuity expended on these horological curiosities, but his purpose would be more serious. He was not yet ready for moons and music boxes, and was satisfied for the moment to produce strictly utilitarian timekeepers. During this period Rittenhouse seems not to have been interrupted by a recurrence of his old ailment and had leisure, after a day of work in the shop and an evening with his textbooks, to acquaint himself with a few of the literary productions of the day. His taste, for a young man who had already ventured far into the realm of pure science, was curious. T h e volume that was 21 R I T T E N HOUSE

22

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

oftenest in his hands in the farmhouse at Norriton was Bunyan's Pilgrim's

Progress.

T h e one intrusion upon the tranquillity of his cloistered life was the death in 1762 of his sister Anne. This, his first bereavement as an adult, affected him deeply. For all his shyness and reticence, he formed strong attachments, and the death of Anne robbed him f o r a while of all interest in his usual affairs. His grief, and his seclusion as well, were shortened b y a turn of events that could have had little meaning for him at the time. Quite unexpectedly he was called from Norriton in 1763 to serve the Proprietors in their protracted and rancorous dispute with Lord Baltimore over the Pennsylvania-Maryland boundary. William Barton, w h o wrote the first biography of his uncle, asserted that Rittenhouse was employed b y the

Reverend

Richard Peters, the provincial secretary, to run the circle which divided Pennsylvania and the L o w e r Counties. Records do not show that Rittenhouse actually ran the circle, but he did play a part in the settlement of the boundary quarrel, which had dragged on f o r more than eighty years. T h e agreement signed b y Charles Calvert, the fifth Lord Baltimore, in London in 1732 had apparently ended earlier contention, and the Penns had marked the boundary on their own account in 1739. Baltimore, however, on reaching Alaryland asserted that he had been victimized. T h e map on which the agreement was based had been drawn up at the instance of the Penns and had, inadvertently or otherwise, placed Cape Henlopen, the point f r o m which the southern boundary of the L o w e r Counties was to be drawn, twenty-five miles south of its actual position, thus depriving Baltimore of more than eight hundred square miles of territory to which he felt entitled. H e sued, but in 1750 Lord Chancellor Hardwicke sustained the Penns and directed that a survey be made. Despite the decision, bickerings continued and, after Charles Calvert died in 1750, excuses were found to delay the survey. Frederick Calvert, sixth Lord Baltimore, signed a final agree-

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ment with the Penns in 1760 and with them appointed Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, the English astronomers and mathematicians, to run the line. The agreement provided that the southern boundary of the Lower Counties be drawn westward from Cape Henlopen to a point halfway across the peninsula. Thence another line was to be drawn northward until it touched the circle that delimited the northern extent of the Lower Counties. From that point a line was to be run due north until it reached a point fifteen miles south of Philadelphia, and from the northern end another line was to extend westward. T h e circle, which according to William Penn's original grant was to have a radius of twelve English statute miles from New Castle, thus assumed great importance in the survey. The Barton biography asserts that Rittenhouse ran this circle before the arrival of Mason and Dixon, and that the surveyors were so impressed with the accuracy of the line they accepted it without question. Actually Rittenhouse did no more than observe the latitude at Middle Point, which is the southwest corner of the present state of Delaware, and at New Castle. For this work, Richard Peters paid him £ 6 on January 30, 1764. Rittenhouse considered the remuneration more than ample. In a letter to Thomas Barton dated February 16 the same year, he said: M y attention for some time past has been engaged with such a multiplicity of things that I may with some reason claim your indulgence for my not writing. . . . I waited on Mr. Peters, as you desired me to do. He treated me kindly and made an offer of doing me some services; for which I am greatly obliged to him. He likewise paid me for my attendance at New Castle, and much more generously than I expected;—though I found it a very laborious affair; being obliged, singly, to go through a number of intricate calculations. A possible clue to the purpose of Rittenhouse's labors is found in a letter which Thomas Penn wrote to Peters on February 1 1 , 1764, in which Penn revealed that Mason and Dixon proposed to run the tangent line again, despite Peters' assertion

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DAVID RITTENHOUSE

that it had been properly marked in 1739. Since Peters himself had helped to run the earlier line, it does not seem improbable that he sought Rittenhouse's aid in defending its accuracy. Although the sum received for his services was small, Rittenhouse was well rewarded in other ways. Peters, as secretary to the governor, wielded considerable influence in the province, and was a friend of Dr. William Smith, who was now provost of the College and Academy of Philadelphia, the more mature successor to the Academy and Charitable School. Within a few years Dr. Smith was to single out Rittenhouse for special honor and aid. Meanwhile Rittenhouse's manner of living underwent a radical change. The Norriton farm had responded so handsomely to care and labor that Matthias was able to buy a new and larger farm in the adjoining township of Worcester. In 1764 he gave the Norriton home to Rittenhouse, together with some acres of land. N o doubt the change was welcomed by Rittenhouse at first. Alone in the house, he could work, read, or study as he chose, without being interrupted by the goings and comings of others in the family. Perhaps because he was shy or because he felt himself to be financially insecure, he had not married, nor, so far as can be learned, had he considered marrying. Acquisition of the farmhouse, crowded enough when the whole family lived there but empty and painfully still when a man occupied it alone, brought a gradual alteration in his plans. Rittenhouse began to pay court to the demure daughter of Barnabas Coulston, a Quaker farmer who owned more than three hundred acres at Plymouth, a few miles from Norriton on the road to Philadelphia. The slender, studious clockmaker was a strange figure among the swains that sued for the hand of Coulston's three other daughters, but he was by no means unwelcome. It may be imagined that he had difficulty with a proposal that could not be stated in mathematical terms, but Eleanor Coulston was quick to

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grasp his meaning. T h e y set February 20, 1766, as the wedding date. Rittenhouse suggested that his old friend, the Reverend Thomas Barton, still at Lancaster, be asked to marry them. Eleanor agreed, and Barton was at Norriton on the appointed day and solemnized the marriage. Though both Rittenhouse and Eleanor were grateful to Barton for the favor, the fact of his being a priest of the Church of England led to embarrassment for the bride and for her family as well. Eleanor's grandfather had been overseer of the Friends' Meeting at Plymouth, and good Quakers did not marry out of meeting. A f t e r Eleanor permitted herself to be married b y Barton, the meeting at Gwynedd, of which Barnabas Coulston was now a member, was shocked, and in due time it took disciplinary action. Eleanor did not admit her indiscretion until after her first child had been born. She expected a boy and planned to name him Thomas, after Thomas Barton. Her expectations were not fulfilled, f o r the child, bom on January 23, 1767, was a girl, who was named Elizabeth, after her paternal grandmother. Eleanor did not rally and Rittenhouse became distraught. It was nearly a month before Eleanor's recovery seemed assured and six months before she was strong enough to concern herself about her standing with the G w y n e d d Meeting. On June 30, she and another penitent confessed to the meeting that they had acted imprudently. T h e minutes of the meeting show that her forgiveness was conditional: Eleanor Rittenhouse 8c Mary Updegraft sent into this meeting their papers, wherein they acknowledge that f o r want of adhering to the dictation of Divine Grace they so far erred from the wholesome rules established among Friends as to proceed in their Marriages before a Priest; and they express their sorrow f o r the same; they both desiring to be continued under Friends care and notice as they may deem them worthy; which papers are received on trial of their future conduct.

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Apparently Barnabas and his wife were not so easily moved, though a committee had been appointed to visit them "respecting their conniving at their Son and Daughters keeping company and marrying before the Priest." Barnabas, who himself had married out, insisted that he had not formally consented to the marriages, and another committee was named to "visit them and endeavor to bring them to a Sense of their misconduct." This group, too, failed to sway Eleanor's parents, but the meeting would not yet admit defeat, and on September 22, according to the records: Barnabas Coulston and his wife gave in a paper wherein they acknowledge their sorrow for countenancing their Children keeping company, and their marrying before a Priest: the which is received by this Meeting as satisfaction. Rittenhouse would have been curiously insensible if he had not been disturbed by the friction between Eleanor and the meeting, yet his investigations and experiments during this period assumed a new breadth and importance. One study to which he devoted much time attracted some attention during 1767. This was an attempt to demonstrate the compressibility of water. His interest was aroused by the experiments being conducted by Dr. Ebenezer Kinnersley at the College of Philadelphia, and he resolved to carry through one of his own. For the purpose, he constructed a piezometer, a glass ball 1.6 inches in diameter, joined to a glass tube 4.2 inches long, with a bore of .01 inch. He first filled both ball and tube with mercury and then, by comparing the weight of the mercury in the tube with that contained in the ball, he was able to calibrate the tube. He next filled the ball and part of the tube with water. With an air pump, he exhausted the air in the tube so that he might detect any expansion of the water. Next, with the aid of a condensing engine, he compressed the air above the water in the tube. T h e result satisfied him that water actually could be compressed, but he was not pleased with the experiment, and

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ΐη

made no claim as to its accuracy. More than half a century was to pass before the compressibility of water was to be announced by Jacob Perkins in England as a proved fact. About the same time, Rittenhouse developed a metallic thermometer, an undertaking that had been suggested possibly by Newton's writings on thermometers and the cooling of solids. His description of the device does not indicate the metals he used, but their coefficients of expansion differed enough to actuate a needle, which moved over a sector of a semicircular dial, calibrated according to the Fahrenheit scale. The dial and needle were protected by glass and the whole was small enough to be slipped into a pocket. Since Rittenhouse made several of the thermometers and took the trouble to invent the name "Metaline" for them, it is likely that he hoped that they would displace the mercury or alcohol thermometers already in favor. If he did, the reception accorded the Metaline was a disappointment. In time others claimed credit for the invention, and metal thermometers were used for measuring deep-sea temperatures, but that day was far in the future. The desire to find wider fields for his talents must have been great, yet Rittenhouse was slow to seek them. Since his first contact with Richard Peters and Dr. Smith, in Philadelphia, he had made other friends in the city and his scientific bent of mind came to be esteemed by all who knew him. His reputation as a clockmaker was firmly established throughout the province, and his friends realized, even if Rittenhouse did not, that far more significant achievements lay within his power. From Lancaster, Barton tried to persuade Rittenhouse that his future could best be secured by seeking appointment to a sinecure in Philadelphia so that leisure would be available to him to conduct his investigations. Rittenhouse agreed, but nothing came of it at the time. Naturally self-effacing, he eschewed any action that savored of self-seeking. Furthermore, he had already decided to construct a planetarium, a project which he had been planning for some time. Plans for the planetarium excited enthusiasm among

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his friends, and it was the boldness of the venture as much as his profound knowledge of mathematics and the clarity of his thinking that brought him the distinction of an honorary master of arts degree from the College of Philadelphia. The degree was conferred by Dr. Smith, the provost, at the public commencement on November 17, 1767. Smith said: The trustees of this College (the faculty of professors cheerfully concurring), being ever desirous to distinguish real merit, especially in the natives of this province,—and well assured of the extraordinary progress and improvement which you have made, by a felicity of natural genius, in mechanics, mathematics, astronomy, and other liberal arts and sciences, all of which you have adorned by singular modesty and irreproachable morals, —have authorized and required me to admit you to the honorary degree of Master of Arts in this seminary. N o mention was made of the planetarium which Rittenhouse proposed to build, but Dr. Smith was taken with the idea, and already desired the instrument for the college. If this fact was a consideration in conferring a master's degree on a little-known mathematician from the back country, it was the least of Dr. Smith's efforts in behalf of Rittenhouse. The honor bolstered Rittenhouse's self-confidence. Family and friends might praise his facility in mathematics and the deftness of his workmanship on clocks and telescopes, but there was always the chance that the praise might be adulterated with flattery. The degree was the considered judgment of scholars. Before the year was out, Rittenhouse had mustered the courage to challenge the statement of a correspondent to the Pennsylvania Gazette, who aspersed Archimedes' familiar boast that, given a place to stand, he could move the earth. Archimedes could just as well have dispensed with mechanical aids, Rittenhouse wrote to the same journal, since a man, lifting 200 pounds steadily, could move the earth one inch in 105 years. In deference to the custom of the time, Rittenhouse concealed his identity under the pseudonym "Mechanic."

ν SOLAR SYSTEM IN BRASS THE planetarium was begun in 1767, and absorbed most of Rittenhouse's effort, both manual and intellectual, for the next four years. Such an instrument as he envisioned would be the most faithful mechanical reproduction of the solar system yet seen. The orbits of the planets would be true ellipses, and their nodes and apsides would be absolutely accurate. It was his design not to amaze or amuse the layman who, as Rittenhouse bluntly put it, was "ignorant of astronomy," but to instruct the serious-minded in the motions of the solar bodies. He achieved his goal, but not before he had mystified and distressed his friends b y an action so foreign to his character that it cannot yet be fully understood. Dr. Smith was impressed at once with the projected instrument and expressed the hope that it could be obtained for the College of Philadelphia. He thought the provincial Assembly might be persuaded to contribute toward its purchase, but if this could not be arranged he was prepared, he said, "to beg the money." Barton, to whom Rittenhouse regularly communicated his plans, praised the idea warmly and urged Rittenhouse to set to work on it without delay. T h e idea of the planetarium was not original with Rittenhouse, of course. Its difficulties had appealed to astronomers for centuries. Both Archimedes, the Greek mathematician, and Boethius, the sixth-century Roman senator and savant, constructed planetaria on the Ptolemaic system, and in the seventeenth century George Graham, the English clockmaker, had built an instrument embodying the theories of Copernicus f o r the Earl of Orrery. Although the orbits of its planets were circles rather than ellipses and the instrument was inaccurate in other respects, the planetarium was so widely acclaimed f o r its ingenuity that the name of Graham's patron became inseparably 29

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RITTENHOUSE

associated with instruments of this type, and Rittenhouse from the first referred to his own creation as an orrery. In a day when the Zeiss projection planetarium is familiar even to school children, it is not easy to appreciate the interest and wonder aroused by Rittenhouse's orrery, although its precision and handsome workmanship still command admiration. T h e motions of the planets, reproduced in accordance with Kepler's law of equal areas, might have been enough to tax the resourcefulness of less gifted and painstaking men, but to a representation of the planets Rittenhouse added the satellite systems of Jupiter, Saturn, and the earth. T h e orrery, as finally completed, had three faces, the largest of which, about four feet square, contained a brass ball to represent the sun and smaller ivory balls to represent the known planets. By a turn of a crank, the latter were made to revolve in a vertical plane about the sun. Pointers on three graduated plates indicated the day, month, and year. The position of a planet on any day, within the 2,500 years before 1767 and 2,500 after, could readily be determined once the pointers were set at the desired date. A small telescope, placed on the ball that represented the sun, was directed at the planet being studied. T h e planet's heliocentric position, i. e., its position in relation to the sun, could then be seen in its proper place in the Zodiac, which was represented by a graduated circle. A planet's geocentric position, i. e., its place in the solar system in relation to the earth, was determined by placing the telescope on the sphere that represented the earth, directing it at the planet, and reading off its position on another circle. One of the side faces, only half as wide as the middle one, exhibited Jupiter with its four known satellites and Saturn with its rings and moons. T h e other contained representations of the sun, moon, and earth, with which it was possible to demonstrate a solar eclipse, the moon's phases, and the apparent motion of the sun in declination. Dials permitted the observer to equate true and apparent solar time. A t one time during the construction of the orrery, Ritten-

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house proposed to include an elaborate system of chimes, which would play as the instrument was operated. Happily he gave over the idea, and his first orrery, as well as his second, remained stricdy astronomical in concept and execution. Dr. Smith was several times at Norriton while the orrery was building and followed its progress eagerly. He had no doubt that his close association with Rittenhouse gave him first claim upon it and that the possession of the only instrument of its kind in the Colonies and the finest in existence would reflect credit on the College of Philadelphia. He was dumbfounded to read in the Pennsylvania Journal one day in April 1770, that Rittenhouse had sold the orrery, still unfinished, to the College of New Jersey at Princeton. Many excuses might be offered for the incident. N o written agreement existed, and Rittenhouse was not legally bound to sell the orrery to Dr. Smith, yet the latter had done as much as any other man to raise Rittenhouse from obscurity, and certainly had a moral claim. Yet, when Dr. John Witherspoon, the Scotsman who had assumed the presidency of the College of New Jersey only two years before, rode out to Norriton on April 23, 1770, to see the orrery and, in his enthusiasm, offered / 3 0 0 for it, Rittenhouse sold it without hesitation. Possibly he was motivated by a pressing need for ready money. He had already spent the better part of three years on the task and had neglected many opportunities to increase his earnings. He weighed every demand upon his services as a clockmaker against his impatience to complete the orrery. As he once wrote to Barton: "I am off to Reading at the request of the Commissioners of Berks County, who wrote to me about their town clock. . . . If I should undertake to finish it, this will likewise retard the great work." Dr. Smith was hardly in position to bid against Dr. Witherspoon. Not many years earlier, it had been necessary for him to visit England to raise funds for his college, and the Assembly could not be persuaded to appropriate funds for a machine which only a handful of scientific men could appreciate.

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T h i s niggardliness was in sharp contrast to the dazzling prospects painted b y Barton when Rittenhouse began the orrery. Accustomed to taking a rosy view of his o w n future, Barton could

not restrain his enthusiasm

when

Rittenhouse

first

sketched out the ideas f o r the undertaking. I beg y o u will not limit yourself in the price [Barton w r o t e ] . I am perfectly convinced that y o u can dispose of it to advantage. . . . In fact, I have laid such plans f o r the disposal of it, that I have almost a moral certainty of having a demand f o r more than one of the kind. Barton's son, in his biography of Rittenhouse, suggests that his father assumed a share of the cost, a supposition that is hardly borne out b y Barton's financial condition. A t the time, he was importuning Richard Peters to find him another church, complaining that his income at Lancaster did not permit him to keep his g r o w i n g family above want. W h i l e it was true that G e o r g e I some years before had paid a thousand guineas f o r an orrery that contained only the sun, earth, and moon, there were no royal patrons in Pennsylvania, a fact upon which Rittenhouse b y 1770 had ample opportunity to reflect. D r . Witherspoon's offer, while not magnificent, was substantial enough to be irresistible. D r . Smith made no attempt to disguise his disappointment. " I have never met with greater mortification," he later wrote to Barton. But he was not a man to sit by and grieve. T h e very day on which he read of the sale, he rode to Norriton and demanded an explanation. Even before he arrived, Rittenhouse had begun to regret the hasty bargain. H e made no excuses, realizing, perhaps, that none could explain, but he did make a proposal that soothed Dr. Smith's wounded pride. H e offered to make a second orrery and sell it to the College of Philadelphia and, possibly, suggested a method w h e r e b y Dr. Smith should be the first to receive an instrument, f o r the evidence shows that the College of Philadelphia was in possession of an orrery before the one purchased b y Dr. Witherspoon reached Princeton. W h a t e v e r the agreement, Dr. Smith undertook personally to

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raise £ 300 by lecturing publicly on the orrery when it should be completed. Richard Peters said that he raised the whole sum. Rittenhouse, w h o moved to Philadelphia before the orreries were completed, and explained its operation to two hundred persons in groups of ten to twelve, asserted later, when Dr. Smith was trying to recover from the College the money he had advanced f o r the purchase of the orrery, that the latter actually raised only £ 6 5 . It cannot be shown that the orrery which Rittenhouse made for the College of Philadelphia was the first to be completed, but it is certain that it was on exhibition at the College a month before the College of N e w Jersey instrument was shipped from Philadelphia to Princeton on April 4, 1 7 7 1 . On March 8, members of the provincial Assembly had already seen the orrery at the College of Philadelphia, f o r on that day they ordered: " T h a t the sum of three hundred pounds be given to Mr. Rittenhouse, as a Testimony of the high sense which this House entertain of his Mathematical genius and Mechanical ability." Their prejudice had so far been dispelled that they further ordered a committee to contract with Rittenhouse f o r a third orrery, larger than the other two, at any price up to / 4 0 0 , " f o r the use of the public." Events were so shaping themselves that Rittenhouse would have neither the time nor the inclination to build the third instrument, but the first two enhanced his reputation among men of learning in the Colonies and won him a trifle of popular acclaim, even if they did not benefit him greatly in a financial way. H e wrote in 1792 that, after paying for the cabinet of the College of Philadelphia orrery, he had only / 4 2 / 1 0 left f o r himself, but since he was writing in reference to Dr. Smith's claims it is doubtful that this figure included the / 3 0 0 presented to him by the Assembly. T h e cabinet which was built f o r the orrery is so handsome an example of colonial woodworking that much patient effort has been devoted to learning the names of the craftsmen who made it. T h e search was unsuccessful until comparatively re-

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cent years, when the cabinetmakers were identified as John Folwell, Jr., and Parnell Gibbs. Folwell was a woodcarver as well as cabinetmaker of local note. A fine example of his surviving work is the pulpit in Old Christ Church, Philadelphia. Little is known of Gibbs except that he made some of the ornate fire pumps of the day. Though the venture was a financial disappointment to Rittenhouse and had placed a certain strain upon his friendship with Dr. Smith, the orreries attained to a repute equaled by few colonial mechanical productions. They were objects of wide solicitude when they fell into British hands during the occupation of Philadelphia and Princeton during the Revolution, and did as much to keep Rittenhouse's name before the general public as anything he had yet done. So highly was the orrery esteemed by the University of the State of Pennsylvania, which succeeded the College of Philadelphia, that its likeness was incorporated in the official seal adopted in 1782 and employed by the University of Pennsylvania until 1812 and again from 1840 to 1848. While both instruments were welcomed as valuable aids to instruction in astronomy and represented mathematical and mechanical genius, Rittenhouse's reputation as a scientist had already been established, since he had paused long enough in his work on the first orrery, late in 1768 and early in 1769, to observe the transit of Venus. The accuracy of his observation and of his calculation of the solar parallax had earned him a place among the world's astronomers.

VI

ASTRONOMER RITTENHOUSE owed his opportunity to assist in the observation of the transit of Venus, in June 1769, to the influence and energy of Dr. Smith. T h e latter, a year earlier, had been elected to the original American Philosophical Society, the membership of which, drawn chiefly from the aristocratic proprietary party, included Governor Andrew Hamilton, its president, Reverend Richard Peters, Dr. Kinnersley, Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College, and John Winthrop, Harvard's professor of mathematics. On January 12, 1768, a week after Dr. Smith became a member, Rittenhouse was elected. A few months later, Dr. Smith was appointed chairman of one of the committees chosen to undertake the observation of the transit, and selected Rittenhouse as one of the men best qualified to assist him. T w o years earlier, Nevil Maskelyne, the astronomer royal of England, had given Thomas Penn the Royal Society's instructions f o r observing the transit in Pennsylvania, and Penn had forwarded them to Reverend John Ewing, professor of natural philosophy at the College of Philadelphia. E w i n g brought the matter to the attention of the Philosophical Society which, when the scope of the w o r k was fully realized, appealed to the Assembly f o r financial aid. T h e Assembly obliged with £ 100, and the society proceeded with elaborate preparations. Interest in the transit was world-wide, not because it was expected to reveal facts about Venus that were not already known, but because it would enable astronomers to measure the solar parallax and so permit them to recheck the estimated distance between the earth and the sun. Although this distance is a fundamental unit in astronomical measurements, opportunities to calculate it b y means of a transit of Venus are rare, since the planet crosses the disk of the sun not more than twice a century. Before 1 7 6 1 , when the last previous transit had occurred, the parallax of the sun was believed to be not less than ten seconds, 35

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a guess that placed the sun approximately eighty million miles f r o m the earth. Measurements of the parallax had been based upon the observations made b y Jeremiah Horrocks and W i l liam Crabtree in 1639. Unfortunately this transit occurred on Sunday, and H o r r o c k s was conducting church services when the planet first made contact with the limb of the sun. Since the data obtained under these circumstances could not be relied upon, careful preparations were made to observe the next transit, w h i c h was to occur in 1 7 6 1 . C l o u d y weather prevented accurate observation at most European stations, but many astronomers viewed the transit in the north and south of Europe, as well as in A f r i c a and India. T h e i r calculations of the parallax varied f r o m 8.5 to 10.5 seconds, and a mean of all the observations was calculated at 8.52 seconds. T h e mean figure would have placed the sun not eighty million miles f r o m the earth, but ninety-six million. Since in that day the accepted w a y of checking the correctness of the figures was the observation of another transit of Venus, the next occurrence of the phenomenon in 1769 was awaited impatiently b y European astronomers. It may be doubted that Maskelyne, in asking Penn to arrange f o r an observation in Pennsylvania, deluded himself with any hope of obtaining indisputable data, since he must have known that telescopes and other necessary instruments were rare in the Colonies and that observatories in the European meaning of the w o r d simply did not exist. A n d he could not have had unqualified confidence in the ability of colonial scientists and mathematicians. His object was to do the best he could under existing conditions, f o r in Europe the transit would begin too late in the day to permit astronomers there to observe the completion. Furthermore, adverse weather was always a hazard, and this would be minimized by having stations on both sides of the Atlantic. T h e method to be used was that proposed b y Halley. Observers at t w o different stations, one south of the other, see the planet describe different paths across the sun's disk. Measure-

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ment of the distance between the two paths provides the means of determining the difference in the parallax of Venus and the sun. From this it is possible to calculate the value of the solar parallax. T h e most convenient and accurate way to measure the distance between the paths described by Venus is for each station to observe the time required for the transit. T h e more numerous the stations, the less chance of error. T h e Philosophical Society decided to erect three observatories. T h e first was to be located in the yard of the State House at Philadelphia, the second at Cape Henlopen in the Lower Counties, and the third on the Rittenhouse farm at N o r riton. Owen Biddle, elder brother of Clement Biddle, w h o was to achieve note as a soldier during the Revolution, was chosen to supervise the observation at Cape Henlopen. John E w i n g and Dr. Hugh Williamson were assigned to the observatory to be erected at the State House. Although the third station was to be located on his farm, Rittenhouse was to serve as assistant to Dr. Smith, who was to have the additional help of John Lukens, the provincial surveyor-general, and John Sellers, a member of the Assembly for Chester County. Despite the fact that Dr. Smith was nominally in charge of the Norriton station, the laborious and exacting toil of preparing the observatory and the necessary instruments devolved upon Rittenhouse. He was impatient to get on with the orrery, but put it aside in the fall of 1768 to start work on the observatory. It was a simple log cabin with a sliding door in the southern slope of the roof to permit observation of the heavens, and with no floor but the ground. T h e winter was severe and, as Rittenhouse had difficulty in finding workmen willing to brave such weather, progress was slow. Meanwhile he began the several instruments which he believed the transit demanded. T h e first was a good telescope. A t the time the only one in Pennsylvania that was considered suitable was the refractor which John Penn had furnished for the use of Mason and Dixon and had then presented to the Library Company of Philadelphia. This lacked a micrometer, which in the view of Dr. Smith and

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others was indispensable. With the £ ioo supplied by the Assembly, the Philosophical Society bought a micrometerequipped reflector in London and installed it in the State House yard observatory. The Library Company telescope was sent to Cape Henlopen. As this disposition of available telescopes left none for the Norriton observatory, Rittenhouse volunteered to construct a transit telescope, in addition to an equal-altitude instrument and an eight-day clock. B y now, demand for his clocks and optical instruments was steady enough to enable him to employ journeymen as well as apprentices in his shop, but even with their assistance it was questionable whether all three instruments could be finished in time. When Dr. Smith suggested that he also make a micrometer, Rittenhouse pleaded that time would not permit it. Dr. Smith then sought the aid of Thomas Penn, who responded promptly with a twenty-four-inch Gregorian reflector, equipped with a Dollond micrometer. Four different eyepieces permitted it to be used with magnifying powers of 55, 95, 130, and 200. After use, the telescope was to become the property of the College. The refractor planned by Rittenhouse was to have a magnifying power of 144 and its objective a focal length of thirty-six feet. It presented no particular difficulty, and even the equalaltitude instrument was completed nearly three months before the transit was to take place. Because the success of the observation depended upon absolutely accurate time, Rittenhouse lavished care on the clock. He planned to provide it with a compensating pendulum so that its rate would not be affected by variation in temperature, but he could not find the opportunity. Do what he might, he could not regulate it to his satisfaction and was constantly adjusting it up until two weeks before the transit. The observatory was finished by April 1769, and the completed instruments installed. Dr. Smith sent out the reflector which he had received from Penn, and an astronomical quadrant

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which he had borrowed f r o m William, Earl of Stirling, the surveyor-general of N e w Jersey. Lukens sent a

140-power

refractor which had been intended f o r Harvard College but had arrived at Philadelphia too late to be forwarded. A s the day of the transit approached, Rittenhouse tested all the instruments and tested them again, and established the longitude and latitude of the observatory. H e knew as well as anyone that he was gambling his labor, since a perverse cloud or t w o at the fateful moment of the transit would undo it all, and another such transit would not occur until 1874. But that was a chance astronomers had to take. T h e strain of the last f e w weeks was exhausting, but Rittenhouse kept doggedly on, spurred to a degree, no doubt, b y the knowledge that preparations were being made elsewhere in the Colonies. J o h n Winthrop at Harvard and L o r d Stirling at Basking Ridge, N e w Jersey, w e r e making elaborate plans. Reverend Samuel Williams and Tristram Dalton had everything in readiness at N e w b u r y , Massachusetts, and Benjamin W e s t was awaiting the event at Providence, Rhode Island. Rittenhouse dismantled the clock on M a y 20, cleaned and altered it, and regulated it. Nothing remained but to wait. F o r Rittenhouse, w o r n out with the months of labor, the suspense became almost unendurable when the weather late in M a y turned stormy. D r . Smith and Lukens arrived at Norriton on J u n e i, t w o days before the transit, to help him make a final check of the instruments. T h e y found him depressed, f o r the sky was still overcast. During the afternoon the weather cleared and Rittenhouse became more cheerful, but there was no guarantee that the weather would hold f o r t w o days more. W h e n J u n e 3 dawned, no hint of a cloud could be seen. A great many details had to be attended to during the morning. A s D r . Smith had appropriated the observatory, in which the reflector and the clock had been installed, it was necessary f o r Rittenhouse and Lukens to set up their refractors in the open. T o their surprise, the last-minute arrangements were watched

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by a crowd of country folk whose numbers continued to grow as the hours passed. Onlookers were awed into silence by the unfamiliar scene. A year before, Rittenhouse had calculated that Venus would make its first contact with the sun in the latitude and longitude of Philadelphia at eleven minutes past two in the afternoon. As the hour drew nearer, everyone in the party became edgy with excitement. A few minutes past two, Dr. Smith, Rittenhouse, and Lukens took their places at the telescopes. Because of the sun's altitude the telescopes had to be pointed almost directly overhead, and Rittenhouse and Lukens, to look into the eyepieces of their refractors, lay flat on the ground, with someone to support their heads. This office was performed for Rittenhouse by Thomas Barton, who had ridden down from Lancaster for the occasion. Each of the observers had assistants in the observatory, one to count the clock, the other to take a signal from him and record the exact moment at which Venus first touched the limb of the sun. Everyone grew tense. Minutes dragged, and finally the clock showed eleven minutes past two, the time predicted by Rittenhouse for the contact, but the planet had not yet reached the sun. Since none of the observers had previously seen a transit of Venus, Rittenhouse was ill prepared for the fantastic behavior of both the planet and the sun. He had assumed, like the others, that the contact would be sharply defined, like a dark penny touching the edge of a bright, circular mirror, but Venus had scarcely entered upon the sun when a triangle of flame seemed to leap out to embrace it. With the planet ringed in flame, the moment of its contact with the sun's limb was not easy to discern, yet the three observers did not differ much. Rittenhouse told Barton when it seemed contact had been made and the latter waved a handkerchief to the assistants in the observatory. The time was eleven minutes, thirty-six seconds past two, or thirtysix seconds later than Rittenhouse had expected. An early biographer wrote that Rittenhouse, weakened by

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the toil of preparing for the event and exhausted nervously by suspensive waiting, fainted as soon as he had seen the first contact. Since he had complained of ill health while building the observatory and instruments, it is not impossible that the climax of the months-long project was sufficiently overpowering to induce fainting. The fact that the account published in the Philosophical Society Transactions does not refer to such an incident does not rule it out, nor does the fact that Rittenhouse was able to observe the internal contact, since this occurred more than seventeen minutes later than the external contact. Although the observations were considered successful, the one significant discovery went almost unnoticed. Rittenhouse described to the others the strange diffraction of the sun's light at the moment of contact, and Dr. Smith thought it important enough to mention in the report he sent to Maskelyne. T h e phenomenon was caused, Maskelyne suggested in his reply, by the atmosphere of Venus, which up to that time was not suspected. If it seems odd that Rittenhouse, who first observed it, failed to deduce the truth from his discovery, it must be remembered that no other astronomer attached great importance to it for a century. Conclusion of the observations was only the beginning for Rittenhouse of a task which, in its way, was as arduous as the work that had gone before. It is difficult to separate his work from that of Dr. Smith in the published papers on the transit. The latter was quite emphatic in his insistence that he had made many of the calculations alone and that in the others Rittenhouse had merely assisted. Rittenhouse, though he did not dispute Dr. Smith publicly, felt that he was entitled to more credit than the provost gave him. He wrote Thomas Barton more than a month later: I have delineated the transit, according to our observations on a very large scale, made many calculations and drawn all the conclusions I thought proper to attempt until some foreign observations come to hand to compare with ours; all of which have been or will be laid before the Philosophical Society. T h e

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Doctor has constantly seemed so desirous of doing me justice in the whole affair, that I suppose I must not think of transmitting any separate account to England. Months elapsed before the reports of European observations reached Philadelphia. When Rittenhouse and Dr. Smith compared them with the data obtained at Norriton, the latter, again giving Rittenhouse credit for only part of the calculations, found the parallax at mean solar distance to be 8.805 seconds. This value placed the sun roughly ninety-three million miles from the earth. Although different and far more accurate methods of determining the parallax are now available, the mean of present-day calculations is 8.803 seconds. Some values, calculated by the most modern methods, vary from the mean by more than did the estimate of Rittenhouse and Dr. Smith in 1769. As a corollary of the transit observations, Rittenhouse published in the Philosophical Society Transactions an "Easy Method of Deducing the True Time of the Sun's Passing the Meridian per clock from a Comparison of Four Equal Altitudes, Observed on T w o Succeeding Days." The method described, which was to be used of course when solar tables were not at hand, was practical and was considered interesting enough by Baron von Zach, astronomer to the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, to be reprinted in his Tables of the Sun in 1792. It had, however, the defect of dependence upon clear weather on succeeding mornings and afternoons, and apparently was seldom if ever used by other astronomers. Besides the satisfaction derived from contributing to an achievement of world-wide interest, Rittenhouse counted among his gains from the transit observations a reputation for exceptional mathematical skill. Newspapers of the day paid scant attention to the work at Norriton, but reports of the prominent role played by Rittenhouse were soon heard in other colonies, and a month or two later he was called upon to help establish the boundary between N e w York and N e w Jersey. As in the case of the Mason and Dixon Line, it is not easy to

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determine his part in the survey, but there seems little doubt that it was important. Commissioners were appointed b y royal writ in June 1769 to settle the boundary between the provinces. A f t e r a meeting at N e w Y o r k in J u l y , they assembled again in October and ordered a survey of the line, which was to run f r o m the Delaware R i v e r at its junction with what is now the Neversink R i v e r to the forty-first degree of latitude on the Hudson. T h e latter point had already been established b y the commissioners' surveyors and marked with a crow's foot in the f a c e of a limestone rock on the west bank of the river. E a r l y accounts of his activity at this period assert that Rittenhousc surveyed the boundary and thus brought the dispute between N e w Y o r k and N e w Jersey to a satisfactory conclusion, but this is an exaggeration. His name does not appear on the list of surveyors retained b y the commissioners to run the line. T h e survey, which was made in 1 7 7 1 , was later questioned and the line run again in 1884. T h e report of the commissioners on the 1884 survey notes that the latitude marks are "said to have been done by David Rittenhouse." If he did establish the marks, and no good reason exists f o r supposing that he did not, it was the first time that recognition of his talents had called him outside his native province.

VII

PHILADELPHIA A s SOON as his calculations in connection with the transit of Venus would permit, Rittenhouse resumed work on his orrery. H e still was encouraged b y the assurances of Dr. Smith that a w a y could be found to purchase it f o r the College of Philadelphia, and by the confidence of Thomas Barton that others would be eager to buy similar instruments. He interrupted his work for a few days in November to assist with an observation of a transit of Mercury. A commoner occurrence than the Venus transit, this did not create so much excitement, and an observatory and suitable instruments were available. Dr. Smith was again in charge, with John Sellers, Owen Biddle, in addition to Rittenhouse, as assistants. T h e morning of November 9 was cloudy but the weather cleared about one o'clock and remained perfect f o r observations. Dr. Smith, Sellers, and Rittenhouse made the observations and all three agreed to the second as to the time of the first external contact. Returning to the orrery, Rittenhouse worked steadily for the remainder of the year, but after N e w Year's his old illness returned. T h e attack became so severe by February 1770 that he ended a letter to Barton on a note of complete resignation: "If I live to write again . . ." He was little interested at the moment in the fact that Dr. Smith was busy with plans to place him in a sinecure at Philadelphia which would afford him a degree of financial security and provide him with leisure in which to pursue his studies and astronomical observations and to fashion astronomical instruments. Dr. Smith was well acquainted with Rittenhouse's proficiency in mathematics. He had referred to it specifically when conferring a master's degree on Rittenhouse three years before, and had been given an opportunity to see a practical demonstration of his skill after the transit of Venus. Dr. Smith was more in44

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terested in Rittenhouse as an instrument maker, however, or at least thought that the Assembly might be swayed more by considerations of utility than by any mention of Rittenhouse's speculative inquiries. I set on foot [he wrote to Thomas Barton] a project, assisted b y my neighbors, the Wissahickon millers, to get him recommended to the Assembly, to be put in as a trustee of the loan office. I first broke the matter to the Speaker, telling him Mr. Rittenhouse ought to be encouraged to come to town, to take a lead in a manufacture, optical and mathematical, which never had been attempted in America, and drew thousands of pounds to England f o r instruments often ill-finished. T h e proposed Loan Office, in which Dr. Smith hoped to install Rittenhouse, with the aid of the governor and the Assembly, was one of the stormiest issues of the day. It had been created originally in 1733 to issue bills of credit as a circulating medium in lieu of specie, which was constantly being siphoned off from the Colonies as payment for goods imported from England. T h e bills at first were secured by mortgages on land and were issued f o r short terms, but as the need for currency increased the term was gradually lengthened to twelve, sixteen, and even twenty-five years. Emission of bills of credit in Pennsylvania was never attended b y the flagrant dishonesty that characterized the practice in some other colonies, yet the bills constantly depreciated, and the belief persisted in many quarters, especially among speculators, that this defect could always be remedied by another issue. T h e Board of Trade in London opposed the practice with unflagging zeal, and in the Colonies advocates and opponents soon split into "hard money" and "paper money" groups. A s always happens, the creditor class, which stood to lose through the depreciation of currency, fought stoutly for specie payment, while the debtor class, which could only profit, battled as resolutely f o r payment in paper. Debtors, of course, outnumbered creditors and, in Pennsylvania, had no less a powerful champion than Franklin, who issued a pamphlet in defense of

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paper money and went to London to argue its merits before Parliament when the Board of Trade demanded that restrictions be placed upon the emission of bills by the Colonies. In 1764 the Board of Trade finally had its way, and Parliament forbade any of the American Colonies to make bills of credit legal tender or to extend legal-tender quality to bills outstanding beyond the term for which they had been issued. The advocates of paper money were inconvenienced but not discouraged. Some colonies began to emit "treasury notes" and "treasury orders" and other subterfuges. In Pennsylvania the Assembly proposed in 1767 to issue £ 20,000 in bills, redeemable out of excises within four years. Then, in 1769, it passed a relief bill, calling for the issue of £ 14,000 in bills of credit, and another bill authorizing the emission of £ 16,000. Governor John Penn, fearing the displeasure of Parliament, withheld his approval. The paper money party still refused to admit defeat. In January 1770, the Assembly adopted another resolution, providing for the emission of £ 120,000 in bills of credit, which were to be secured by loans on real property. The Loan Office was to be reestablished to grant loans, issue the bills, and redeem them. When the Assembly took up the matter of nominating trustees for the office, Dr. Smith not only proposed the name of Rittenhouse to Joseph Galloway, the speaker, but also called on Governor Penn to satisfy himself that the nomination of Rittenhouse would not be objectionable. It may be assumed that Rittenhouse had already consented to serve. When Thomas Barton suggested that he seek the help of Richard Peters in obtaining a similar appointment in 1767, while the Assembly was debating an earlier bill to reestablish the Loan Office, Rittenhouse had demurred. He agreed to call on Peters, but expressed the fear that the duties of the office would delay his work on the orrery. Now, in 1770, with the orrery nearing completion, he found no ready excuse and perhaps looked for none, since the attractiveness of the £ 200 salary as Loan Office trustee could not be denied. T o his friends it seemed glittering. Thomas Barton wrote Dr. Smith that Esther Barton, on reading

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in a note from the latter that Rjttenhouse was to be appointed, "wept with gratitude." Dr. Smith and his friends made admirable progress at first. When the names of the trustees were proposed, the whole Assembly, in the words of Dr. Smith, "rose for Rittenhouse's name." Nothing was needed now but the approval of the Governor to relieve Rittenhouse of the distracting details of business and, except for the nominal duties of Loan Office trustee, of physical labor, leaving him entirely free for intellectual pursuits. Unhappily for Rittenhouse, although not so unfortunately, perhaps, for the province, Thomas Penn raised objections to the bill. He insisted that he had the right not only to pass upon the nominations of trustees but also to make nominations of his own. Furthermore, he asserted the right to specify the use to which the funds accruing from the loans were to be put. Possibly he had misgivings about the reaction of Parliament. In any event he remained adamant, and the Assembly was not minded to compromise, and in February the bill was dropped. Though Dr. Smith was vexed with the Governor, Rittenhouse was too busy in his shop and study at Norriton to lament the outcome of the affair. The discovery of a comet in June turned his thoughts and energy in a new direction. "The comet which appeared a few weeks since," Rittenhouse wrote to Barton, "was so very extraordinary that I could not forbear tracing it in all its wanderings, and endeavoring to reduce that motion to order and regularity, which seemed devoid of any. This, I think, I have accomplished, so as to be able to compute its visible place for any given time." He observed the comet daily for nearly two months. This required his leaving bed before daybreak to view its rising and then returning to his telescope about noon to observe its meridian transit. He took issue with John Winthrop as to its course through the heavens, and had the satisfaction some time afterward of learning that the French astronomer, Charles Messier, agreed with his findings.

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The paper which Rittenhouse published in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society, so he told Dr. Smith, represented "the fruit of three or four days' labour during which I have covered many sheets, and literally drained my ink-stand several times." Computing the elements of the orbit, he concluded that the comet was the same one he had seen ten or twelve years before, although on this visitation it was brighter than it had been or would ever be. "In any future returning," he wrote, "whilst it continues to move in the same orbit, it can never approach the earth nigher than it did this time. "Perhaps," he added, "if the apparent distance of the nucleus from some fixed star near which it passed had been measured with a micrometer, at different places on the earth conveniently situated, the sun's Parallax might, by this means, have been determined nearer than we can ever hope for, by any other method." In making this suggestion, Rittenhouse was probably the first astronomer to call attention to the advantage of determining the solar parallax from a body closer to the earth than either Venus or Mercury, anticipating by many years the present-day method of employing the tiny asteroid Eros, which approaches within fourteen million miles of the earth. Early in July, Rittenhouse was forced to drop all other work to supply a detail in connection with the transit of Venus. Maskelyne was not yet satisfied with the comparisons of data which had been obtained at various stations, and desired further information on the Pennsylvania observations. Interested particularly in the difference in longitude between Philadelphia and Cape Henlopen and between Philadelphia and Norriton, he wrote to Dr. Smith for data, and the latter again sought the aid of Rittenhouse. The only way to determine the difference, since Rittenhouse had established the longitude of Norriton astronomically in 1769, was to make a terrestrial measurement. With the aid of two surveyors, Dr. Smith and Rittenhouse began the tedious job on July 2 and completed it on July 4, finding the difference to be fifty-two seconds of time, precisely the same

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as that shown b y Rittenhouse's calculations the year before. Despite the fact that his time was so f u l l y occupied during the summer, Rittenhouse was preparing to take a decisive step. T h e object of Dr. Smith's efforts to obtain the Loan Office appointment f o r him was to enable him to set up business in the city and come into closer contact with men of affairs. T h e Governor's opposition to the loan bill had thwarted this design, but it did not detract from the advantages of dwelling in the city, nor did it lessen Dr. Smith's determination to lure Rittenhouse from Norriton. T h e doctor's best arguments were needed, for the farm was not without its own advantages. On January 12, 1770, while his appointment was being promoted by Dr. Smith, Rittenhouse had added to his land holdings by purchasing 71 acres and 148 perches from his father for £200. He grazed six head of cattle on the land, kept two horses, and had the help of a bondservant. Together with the income that could be expected from the sale of clocks and optical instruments, the produce of the farm seemed infinitely more attractive than the mere chance of making profitable connections in the city. Still Dr. Smith persisted, painting an alluring picture of the benefits to be derived from association with influential men, and in the end his eloquence won. As soon as the crops had been harvested in the fall, Rittenhouse moved to Philadelphia. T h e house he chose was a comfortable brick dwelling on the southeast corner of Seventh and Mulberry, or Arch, streets, owned by Thomas Clifford, a leading merchant of the city. It was amply large for his family, which now numbered four, as another daughter, Esther, had been born at Norriton about December 1768. Another child was expected during the winter and Rittenhouse, remembering the difficult time Eleanor had in childbirth, grew apprehensive as her time approached. Otherwise the future seemed promising enough, even without the assurance of a regular income. Philadelphia in 1770 had much to o f f e r a man of ability and enterprise. Its manual labor, even when skilled, was often per-

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formed by black slaves and white bondservants, and class consciousness was marked, yet trade and the professions provided opportunity for a purposeful man to gain some measure of material comfort. Commercially, the city was just emerging from the stagnation which had followed the enactment of the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts. The former was repealed in 1766 and the latter, except for the tax on tea, were repealed in 1770. N o reason remained for the smuggling or for the mob attacks on informers which had come in the train of the Non-Importation agreement among the port cities, and Philadelphia was rapidly adjusting itself to a period of comparative prosperity. Ships were arriving daily from Europe and the West Indies with infinitely varied cargoes, and the docks and warehouses hummed. Philadelphia society, for those adjudged acceptable, was stimulating. With Quaker influence waning, its amusements were gayer. Dancing was becoming popular, and secular music and theatrical productions, when properly disguised, were heard and seen with increasing frequency. Native talent in painting and literature was breaking its shell. In the American Philosophical Society the city had the only learned body of the Colonies and, in the medical school at the College of Philadelphia, the older of two such institutions then existing in the provinces. Physically, Philadelphia was still the trim, red-brick, treeshaded town which Penn had founded, though much larger. Its population was approaching thirty thousand, and most of its streets were tolerably well paved. The built-up section was a triangle, with its base, about two miles long, on the Delaware River and its apex eight blocks west on High, or Market, Street. T h e dwelling leased by Rittenhouse at Seventh and Mulberry streets stood outside this triangle on comparatively high ground, with few buildings near-by to obstruct the sweep of a telescope. It was into such a city—prosperous, worldly, and politically alert—that Rittenhouse ventured in the autumn of 1770, a country-bred, retiring man of science.

VIII

DISILLUSION As SOON as he had settled his family in the new home and had arranged the shop to his liking, Rittenhouse found a variety of work to occupy him. A f t e r nearly four years of intermittent work he was eager to complete the orreries and engaged Henry Voight, a Philadelphia watchmaker, to help him. Thomas Barton and others suggested that he take one of the completed instruments to Europe and deliver a series of lectures upon it, but his experience with lecturing in Philadelphia dissuaded him. He undertook to deliver twenty talks upon the College of Philadelphia orrery when it was finished, but his voice did not have the power and timbre required for successful speaking. His aversion to public appearances, even before the small groups that attended his lectures, was so deep rooted that the chore exhausted him. He would have welcomed a respite, but rest was not part of the plans of Dr. Smith, who had brought him to Philadelphia so that he might meet men of like interests, whose influence might be turned to his advantage. And Dr. Smith was not easily swerved from his goal. N o w that Rittenhouse lived in town, Dr. Smith insisted that he attend the meetings of the Philosophical Society, which in 1769 had united with the American Society for Promoting and Propagating Useful Knowledge, Held at Philadelphia, and was known now as the American Philosophical Society Held at Philadelphia f o r Promoting Useful Knowledge. Though Franklin, the president of the combined societies, was in London, many of the other members wielded political power, and virtually all of them, if not actually engaged in scientific inquiry, were at least attracted to it and eager to encourage it. Some of the deliberations would fall strangely upon the ears of modern scientists. Papers were read on a new method of quilling a harpsichord and, at one meeting, a "piebald mulatto b o y " was exhibited and 5«

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discussed in learned language. Yet the prevailing spirit was truly scientific and the papers almost always revealed profound and sometimes original thinking in the fields of astronomy, medicine, meteorology, electricity, mechanics, and optics. Rittenhouse, soon after his removal to the city, prepared and read a paper on the charming of birds by snakes. The text has not been preserved but it seems to have been well received. Because of the conspicuous part he had played in the observations of the Venus transit, Rittenhouse was already favorably known to many members of the society. In January 1771 he was proposed as one of the four secretaries along with Dr. Smith, Reverend John Ewing, and Robert S. Jones, and was later elected. There were many men outside the Society who could help a newcomer to the city, and Dr. Smith saw to it that Rittenhouse met as many of them as possible. " A good deal of time was given," he wrote to Thomas Barton, "to getting our dear friend Rittenhouse brought into as advantageous light as possible on his first entrance into the town as an inhabitant." His "dear friend" by 1771 had acquired the dignified bearing and manner of a scholar. At thirty-eight, Rittenhouse carried his tall, spare body consciously erect, and his gray eyes were steady and sober. His skin was fair and his forehead high, but his nose, rather Greek than Roman, was large, and his jaw was too long and narrow for beauty. His hair, though concealed by a wig, was still abundant and brown. Among friends his manner was easy, and most of the men in Dr. Smith's circle, already familiar with his accomplishments, liked him for his simplicity and sincerity. The effort to gain him favorable attention, Dr. Smith wrote, "succeeded to our utmost wishes." One of the first subjects to which Rittenhouse gave his attention on moving to the city was meteorology. The exact date on which he began to keep a daily record of barometric pressure, temperature, and other pertinent weather data is not known, but the fact that the Philosophical Society voted after his death to

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"procure Rittenhouse's meteorological observations for twentyseven years in continuation" would indicate that he made his first observations about 1770. In later life he kept a daily record, but f o r the first several years it is probable, because of his frequent and often protracted absences from the city, that his notations were incomplete. W o r k in the shop went on doggedly f o r some months, but a personal tragedy extinguished f o r a time Rittenhouse's interest in instrument making and even in the everyday business of living. Eleanor's condition became alarming as her time approached. On February 21, 1771, she was delivered of a stillborn son, and her strength swiftly ebbed. T w o days later she died. With the child, she was interred in the Friends' Burial Grounds, only four blocks east of the Rittenhouse home on Mulberry Street. Rittenhouse's grief amounted almost to despair. For a time, he gave over work entirely and withdrew from all social intercourse. Attempts by friends to lift his spirits met with polite rebuffs. Thomas Barton, whose own w i f e had recently recovered from a serious illness, wrote to remind him that grief is no boon to the dead and that the living must concern themselves with things that sustain life. Rittenhouse was not to be so easily consoled. "Neither money nor reputation has any charms," he replied, "though I must still think them valuable because absolutely necessary in this unhappy life." Sorely as he missed the affection and encouragement of Eleanor, Rittenhouse was disturbed, too, b y the disarrangement of his routine. He had grown accustomed in five years to the comfortable ease of domesticity, and its sudden loss brought a discontent he had never before known. He turned to his work after a time, but it was no solace now, as it had been a f e w years earlier when his sister Anne died. When the suggestion had been made the previous year that he make a voyage to England, Rittenhouse did not entertain the idea seriously, but now the desire to escape painfully familiar

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scenes and associations made it seem alluring. A month after Eleanor died, he wrote Barton that he was considering "a ramble in Europe," but he put off making a decision, debating the matter for months. As he did, orders for astronomical and surveying instruments came to him unsolicited, and his questioning mind found new problems to investigate. Few of the instruments he made were noteworthy, but some of his studies were of considerable interest. During the summer he worked on a leveling instrument for Benjamin Lightfoot, a merchant and landowner of Reading who did surveying, and later he began a barometer. He obtained the tube for the latter from "Baron" William Henry Stiegel, the renowned glass maker of Mannheim, and declared the glass to be as fine as any from England. Some time in August, the Reverend Ebenezer Kinnersley, professor of English and oratory at the College of Philadelphia, who had assisted Franklin in his electrical experiments, obtained a specimen of Gymnotus electricus, or electric eel, and invited Rittenhouse and others to help him conduct a series of experiments to determine whether the current generated by the piscatory dynamo was actually electricity. Henry Cavendish, as well as other English and European physicists, either then or a bit later experimented with both the eel and a ray known as the Surinam torpedo. The experiments with the eel at Philadelphia, numbering nearly twenty, consumed three full days of Rittenhouse's time. Catfish were placed in a tank with the eel, which shocked them until they turned belly-up and floated to the surface. Rittenhouse and the others then clasped hands around the tank, while those at the ends of the line touched the eel. The shocks they received were "smart" and "severe" and even "violent." Next, the experimenters broke the circuit about the tank. Instead of clasping hands, they held the ends of a glass tube to determine whether the current from the eel, unlike static electricity from familiar sources, would pass through it. Finally, wires were attached to the eel and the ends touched together to learn whether

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the voltage was sufficiently high to generate a spark. Rittenhouse, alone of the company, declared that a spark was visible. In the end, the experimenters were convinced that the current produced by the eel actually was electricity, the behavior of which was well understood. T h e y may have been curious as to the manner in which the eel could generate electricity but they did not undertake to explain the mystery. Rittenhouse in the fall was paid the compliment of being engaged as an instructor b y the College of Philadelphia. T h e appointment, which was only temporary, was undoubtedly suggested b y Dr. Smith before the latter's departure f o r South Carolina. T h e College, as always, was in need of funds in 1 7 7 1 , and D r . Smith had already demonstrated his ability to meet such an emergency. Since the College at the time had thirty students f r o m South Carolina, the idea occurred to the trustees that the interest shown by that colony might be turned to good account. Dr. Smith was forthwith sent south. H e sailed f r o m N e w Y o r k on N o v e m b e r 14, and five days later Richard Peters, president of the board of trustees, wrote Rittenhouse, inquiring whether he " w o u l d be so kind as to take charge of the Philosophical Apparatus, and occasionally assist M r . M c D o w e l in lecturing upon the Experimental Parts of Natural Philosophy." Rittenhouse " v e r y obligingly consented." In t w o respects, Rittenhouse's appointment was unusual. H e was not a university graduate, and a degree ordinarily was considered essential to a college instructor. Furthermore, he was not a clergyman. Eight of the nine American colleges then existing were frankly sectarian, and even at K i n g ' s College in N e w Y o r k and at the College of Philadelphia, where deliberate efforts w e r e made to avoid narrow sectarianism, teaching was almost exclusively in the hands of the clergy. His duties at the College required Rittenhouse to attend classes every seventh day to demonstrate b y laboratory experiment the facts touched upon in the lectures given during the previous week b y M c D o w e l . Laboratory classes entailed as little

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speaking as any, but enough to make Rittenhouse dislike the work. As a result, his teaching was uninspired and he was glad enough, when Dr. Smith returned the following February with the more than £ ι ,000 sterling he had raised in South Carolina, to retire to more congenial work. Yet something more than release from teaching was needed to lift his spirits. His election as a curator of the Philosophical Society in January gave him little satisfaction. His days, he wrote to Barton, were spent in "comfortless toil," and, though he tried to amuse himself with a volume of poetry or fiction in the evening, life had lost all savor: I would have you expect nothing of me in future. I no longer feel any inducement to exert myself; everything—even life itself—is insipid. Yet you will be told, I suppose, that I am paying my addresses to some one. I sincerely wish sad experience may never teach you to reconcile these contradictions. It is still my intention to go to England as soon as my business will permit. The "sad experience" at which Rittenhouse hinted was the possibility of Barton's losing his own wife. Not long before, Esther's life had been despaired of and even now her health was not good. If the remark was unkind, the blame was Barton's. His banter in an earlier letter had stung Rittenhouse. "If you will promise to pardon your saucy niece," Barton wrote relative to Rittenhouse's despondency, "I will tell you what she attributes it to. She says you are in Love; and, really, you seem to insinuate as much, yourself." If Rittenhouse was in love in February 1)72, he did not realize it. His thoughts were taken up with matters that had little to do with romance. Business affairs were not proceeding so favorably as he had been led to expect and, although orders for instruments seem to have been fairly regular, the work was not highly profitable. Even when he returned to clockmaking, he discovered that the prices he must charge were often considered prohibitive. While he was now a curator of the Philosophical Society and

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was steadily gaining stature as a scientist, his finances remained a problem. A t home, he longed f o r the quiet evenings he had enjoyed while Eleanor lived. H e had the responsibility now of caring f o r the lonely house, as well as that of rearing t w o small daughters, Elizabeth, w h o was

five,

and Esther, w h o was t w o

years

younger. His temper g r e w short and trifles irritated him. Barton, with a stubborn lack of understanding, chose this period to send him some mathematical problems which had been posed b y a German school teacher in Lancaster C o u n t y . I entreat y o u [Rittenhouse replied with acerbity], not to insist on m y measuring heads with any pragmatical schoolmaster, w h o is heartily welcome, f o r me, to divert himself with his x, y , z's, at which he may be v e r y expert, but yet be, as y o u say, both ignorant and conceited. His first question may be answered b y any y o u n g algebraist. T h e blackness of Rittenhouse's mood lightened somewhat during the next f e w months. In the spring he journeyed to Princeton to receive an honorary master of arts degree f r o m the College of N e w J e r s e y , a belated mark of appreciation f o r the orrery. Presently his spirits so f a r revived that he permitted Charles Willson Peale to sketch a portrait, and was not offended b y its unflattering faithfulness. " I drew his portrait," Peale wrote later, " w i t h an Intent to make a print f r o m it. Being in company with the late R e v . M r . Peters, I asked him what I should put at the bottom of the plate. H e gave it to me in Lattin, which he then Englished to me thus: 'He is much better than he looks.' " T h e improvement in Rittenhouse's disposition was so rapid and so pronounced that his business and professional affairs could not explain it. O n l y his renewed friendship with Hannah Jacobs could have so quickly dispelled his despondency. H e had known the Jacobses f o r some years. T h e family owned a place on the Schuylkill near the modern town of Betzwood, only a brief ride or pleasant walk f r o m Norriton. Rittenhouse and Hannah's brother, Israel, became close friends. W h e n Rittenhouse bought the additional land f r o m his father in 1770,

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Israel had been one of the witnesses to the transaction. It is unlikely that Rittenhouse failed to meet the other members of the family, including Hannah. There was a tradition of public service in the Jacobs family. T h e maternal grandfather of Israel and Hannah, Richard Hayes, Jr., had immigrated to the province soon after its founding, and became a successful miller. He had served for seven years as a member of the Assembly, was a justice of the Chester County Court, and a commissioner of the Loan Office. Both Israel and his brother John were members of the Assembly for some years and resided in Philadelphia during the sessions. Even if Hannah did not visit the city at this time, Rittenhouse lacked no opportunity to meet her, for he usually spent some weeks on the Norriton farm in summer to escape the sultriness of Philadelphia. Hannah in 1772 was thirty-seven and had never married. According to current standards her education had been exceptional, her judgment acute, and her energy unbounded. Rittenhouse at forty found these qualities, if not romantic, at least comforting. If Thomas Barton had erred the winter before in ascribing Rittenhouse's discontent to love, his fault had been anticipation. By late summer Rittenhouse found himself captivated by Hannah's interest and sympathy. The date and place of the marriage are unknown. Rittenhouse and Hannah obtained a marriage license from the provincial secretary on December 31, 1772, a precaution usually taken by couples that wished to avoid the publication of banns or to be married out of church. As when Rittenhouse wed Eleanor, this second marriage also exposed his bride to disciplinary action by the Friends, though in this case action for some reason was long delayed. Six months after the birth of a child in October 1773, Hannah obtained a certificate of transfer to the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting and was accepted. Then in December 1774, the Philadelphia meeting appointed a committee to "treat with" her. The committee found her obdurate, so in February 1775, the meeting adopted a resolution:

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Hannah Rittenhouse (late Jacobs) hath through unfaithfulness to our Christian Testimony and principle been married to a person not a member of our Religious Society and before an Hireling Priest . . . and as it does not appear that she is so sensible or the nature and tendency of her Transgression, as to be able to condemn it to the satisfaction of her Friends— therefore this Meeting doth certify that by thus going out from us she hath made it manifest that she is not of us until from a just sense of her deviation she condemns the same. Hannah saw nothing in her action, either then or ever, to condemn.

IX

WAR CLOUDS WHEN 1773 opened, Rittenhouse was settled in mind and ambitious to resume his scientific inquiries, but the public, including some of the outstanding thinkers of the day, were distracted by politics. Resentment against the tax on tea, the last of the Townshend A c t imposts, was mounting dangerously, and feeling against other restrictive acts of Parliament was running high. Though they might dislike the tax, the people liked tea and would have it, even if it had to be smuggled. Occasionally a smuggler was betrayed to the authorities, but only the hardiest dared turn informer. When discovered, tipsters were mobbed and beaten or tarred and feathered and marched through the streets, followed by the jeers and abuse of hostile onlookers. Merchants met and resolved not to import taxed articles, and accused those who sold tea and those who bought it of being enemies of the country. T h e Philosophical Society continued to meet and Rittenhouse attended regularly, yet it was obvious to him that interest in science was declining. Economic and political difficulties touched individual lives more intimately than speculation about physical forces. Along with crystallizing opposition to the arbitrary enactments of Parliament was emerging a national consciousness and a desire to develop colonial resources. In Pennsylvania, pioneers had already broken the wilderness northward along the Delaware and westward beyond the Susquehanna to the slopes of the Alleghenies. Roads were being pushed almost to the frontiers but they were, as yet, largely unsurfaced and virtually impassable in wet weather. T h e rivers afforded an easier and less expensive transport and were used wherever practicable. T h e Schuylkill, flowing past Reading and other inland towns through rich timber and agricultural country to Philadelphia, was potentially a great traffic artery, but its descent was im60

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peded at several points b y rapids and falls. Furthermore, it rose to the northwest of Philadelphia and so did not reach the western counties of Lancaster, Y o r k , and Cumberland, which w e r e rapidly becoming more populous and more fruitful. Inhabitants of the inland counties desiring easier access to the inviting Philadelphia market, and Philadelphians wishing to enjoy the products which, as often as not, were sent d o w n the Susquehanna to Baltimore, had petitioned the Assembly either to improve the roads or to provide navigable waterways. On January 23, 1 7 7 1 , the Assembly appointed a commission to survey the waters of the Susquehanna, Schuylkill, and Lehigh rivers. It was hoped that a canal linking the Susquehanna and Schuylkill might be found feasible. Little was accomplished by the commission and another was named the following year, but the second, like the first, procrastinated, so in September the Assembly appointed Rittenhouse to the group and authorized any three commissioners to proceed with the work and report to the next meeting. Rittenhouse apparently owed his appointment to Samuel Rhoads, a member of the Philosophical Society, and long active in the Assembly. T h i s v i e w is supported b y the fact that Rittenhouse assisted Rhoads when the latter, in January 1772, leveled the waters of the Schuylkill, an effort that ended when Rittenhouse fell ill. " I . . . was out of town with the ingenious David R i t tenhouse on an examination of the ground, in order to judge of the practicability of a canal," Rhoads wrote to Franklin. " A s he was taken sick on the road and I was not v e r y well, our discoveries are y e t too imperfect to communicate to thee." A f t e r the appointment of the commission had been renewed in September 1772, Rhoads and Rittenhouse resumed their survey and reported to the Assembly on J a n u a r y 30, 1733, that they had not only leveled the Schuylkill but had journeyed as f a r west as the Susquehanna, thence as f a r east as the Lehigh. A canal extending the whole distance was practicable, they concluded, but they were unable as yet to recommend a route. T h e Assembly ordered that the recommendations be incorporated in a bill, but

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other matters were pressing, and no canal was undertaken until after war had come and gone. Released for the time from public employment, Rittenhouse was able to return to more familiar pursuits, although for months these were restricted largely to making such instruments and clocks as he could sell. The chief product of his shop at this period seems to have been clocks. While it is impossible to date most of the timepieces he built in Philadelphia, his occupations became so varied during the Revolution and after that he could have devoted little time to clockmaking after his first years in the city. Some of his finest productions probably date from the pre-Revolutionary period. They include the one now known as the George W . Childs clock, which many consider his masterpiece and indisputably is his most elaborate. The Childs clock shows not merely hours and minutes, but also the day of the month and the month of the year. Furthermore, a dial equates true and mean solar time. Above the face, a simplified orrery indicates the motions of planets then known and the phases of the moon are shown on the dial. An elaborate set of chimes permits any one of ten different tunes to be played on the quarter or half hour, on the hour or every two hours. A bell may be set to strike at these intervals if the chimes are not desired. Rittenhouse built the clock for Joseph Potts, a Quaker ironmaster, but Potts was not sufficiently impressed with it to pay the equivalent of $640, which was the value Rittenhouse set upon it. Rittenhouse, in 1774, sold it to Thomas Prior, a fellow member of the Philosophical Society, then made a wall-model "half" clock for Potts. Another clock, probably made about the same time, still stands in the office of the University of Pennsylvania's president. It differs from practically all other timepieces of the Colonial era and is unique among surviving Rittenhouse clocks. Instead of hands, it has a rotating dial, marked with hour numbers. The hour is shown by the appearance of a number in the rectangular

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opening in the face. Furthermore, it runs for thirty days instead of the more usual eight. Despite the novelties embodied in the clocks, Rittenhouse did the work for the money they would bring, and his larger talents were seldom employed. He neglected astronomical observations almost entirely for a while. His observatory was still at Norriton, and the trip of twenty miles required more time than he could regularly spare. Then, too, the temper of the public did not encourage such pursuits. Of far greater importance as 1773 closed was resistance to the tea tax. News of the Boston Tea Party reached the city on Christmas Eve and set the public's smoldering anger ablaze. The ship Polly was already on her way up the Delaware to Philadelphia with a cargo of tea, and the captain, no doubt warned by the pilot that popular feeling was rising, put in at Chester. On December 27, more than eight thousand Philadelphians met and protested against the ship's nearer approach to the city. The Polly ventured as far as Gloucester Point, where she was moored while the captain proceeded to Philadelphia in a small boat. Convinced by personal observation that an attempt to land the tea would precipitate a riot, he left hurriedly, and the Polly stood down the river with her cargo of tea intact. The effect on Rittenhouse's career of public resentment against the tax did not readily become apparent. Although the people smarted under a sense of injustice, anger subsided and life in the city went on as before. The opening of 1774 brought Rittenhouse new opportunity and new, if inconsiderable, income. For a year he had been making the astronomical calculations for The Universal Almanack, published by James Humphreys, Jr. The issue of 1773 carried this publisher's notice: As to the calculations he has not the least doubt that they will prove fully pleasing and satisfactory, for they may be depended upon as performed with the nicest truth and exactness; nor do I doubt that it will be in the least doubted, when I assure you they are entirely the performance of that ingenious

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Master of Mathematicks, Mr. David Rittenhouse, A.M., Of this city. Apparently the calculations were found to be as accurate as Humphreys promised, since Rittenhouse did the work for Humphreys each year until 1776, and soon attracted the attention of other almanac publishers. John Dunlap, proprietor of the influential Permsylvania Packet, engaged Rittenhouse to make the calculations for the 1774 issue of his Father Abraham's Almanack, so named for the putative author, Abraham Weatherwise. Like Humphreys, Dunlap sought to capitalize on Rittenhouse's reputation. "Our kind customers," said a notice on the last page, "are requested to observe, that the ingenious David Rittenhouse, A.M., of this city, has favoured us with the astronomical calculations of our almanack for this year, therefore they may be most firmly relied on." The next year both he and Humphreys placed the notice on the cover of their almanacs, and in the same year The Lancaster Almanack (Improved), which was published at Lancaster by Stewart Herbert, Jr., carried a similar notice. How long Rittenhouse contributed to almanacs is not known, but he continued to supply calculations for Dunlap up to the issue of 1777, the year the British occupied Philadelphia. While living at Lancaster, Rittenhouse either made, or completed arrangements to make, calculations for the German almanac, Garttz Verbesserte Nord-Americanische, published by Francis Bailey. T h e 1779 issue credits the calculations to "David Rittenhaus, A . M . " On January 25, 1774, Rittenhouse received his first appointment to permanent public employment. The position was that of city surveyor of Philadelphia. It signified little beyond the fact that an astronomer and mathematician of exceptional talent was so lightly valued by the Assembly that it deigned to offer him one of its smallest favors and that Rittenhouse felt he must accept it. He had only a few months in which to serve, as the tempo of political developments was being accelerated and he found himself carried along almost irresistibly.

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Paul Revere arrived in Philadelphia on June 1 with the astounding news that General Thomas Gage, governor of Massachusetts, had closed the port of Boston to penalize it for the Tea Party. Revere's mission was to test sentiment in the other colonies and, if possible, exact pledges of support for Massachusetts if that province openly defied Gage's order. The more radical circles received the news with demonstrations of complete sympathy for the offending port. Flags were flown at half staff and some shops closed. Clergymen took Gage's action as a subject of sermons. A demand was made upon Thomas Penn, who had returned to Pennsylvania as governor the year before, to call a special session of the Assembly, but Penn refused. Aroused citizens then called a mass meeting for June 15 to discuss Revere's mission. Five days before that date, the mechanics of the city met and appointed a committee to confer with the merchants and reach an agreement as to the course to be pursued, the decision to be presented to the general meeting. Rittenhouse was one of those who served on the mechanics' committee. As yet, association with even the most outspoken critics of Parliament did not involve any question of loyalty. The problem was economic and the goal was repeal of restrictive legislation. Several of Rittenhouse's friends, including Edward Duffield, the clockmaker, and Thomas Prior, both widely respected, were appointed to the committee and it is questionable whether Rittenhouse, any more than the others, foresaw the far-reaching consequences of the action they now recommended. That action envisaged a general congress of the Colonies and the appointment of delegates. The delegates met July 15 and pledged Pennsylvania to act in concert with the other provinces. Rittenhouse took no further part in the preparations for the First Continental Congress, which convened on September 15. In fact, not. many weeks after this epochal event, he was employed by Thomas Penn to run the boundary between Pennsylvania and N e w York. Although it lacked the bitterness that had characterized the Perm's quarrel with Lord Baltimore, the dispute between Penn-

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sylvania and N e w York had its basis in a similar conflict of grants, particularly in the ambiguous language employed in Penn's charter. The New York grant in 1664 apparently was intended to cover all territory south of Massachusetts, but the land later given to Penn lay within this area, even though its exact northern limit was not clearly stated. At one place in the Penn charter, his land was said to "extend into the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude," but elsewhere it was said "to bee bounded on the north by the beginning of the three and fortieth degree." N e w York construed both statements as meaning that Pennsylvania should end at the forty-second degree, which of course is also the beginning of the forty-third. The Penns insisted that the phrase "into the forty-third degree" entitled them to all the country as far north as the forty-third degree, or more than thirty miles north of Albany. T h e contention went on until August 1774, when Thomas and John Penn suddenly wearied of it and petitioned the King to let them mark the northern boundary of the province at the forty-second degree. Rittenhouse was chosen by Thomas Penn to act for Pennsylvania, and New York, being agreeable to such a favorable end to the quarrel, designated Captain Samuel Holland, former surveyor-general of Quebec. Although Rittenhouse began in the early fall to survey the Delaware, Holland did not receive his commission until November 8, and no attempt could be made to fix the latitude of the northern boundary until after that date. When the latitude was finally determined by Rittenhouse and Holland, they marked it by planting a stone in an island of the Cookhoose, or Mohocks, branch of the Delaware, now known simply as the West Branch, about four miles northwest of the modern town of Hancock. On one side the stone bore the legend " N e w York," and on the other the latitude and compass variation. Then, to make the stone easier to find, they heaped up stones at the high-water mark on the west bank of the river. Four perches west they set another stone, this one marked

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"Pennsylvania" and bearing the latitude and variation. Finally they blazed an ash tree eighteen perches west. T h e onset of severe weather forced them to abandon the project. Rittenhouse returned to Philadelphia in December and made his report to the Assembly. H e spent five days completing the survey of the Delaware early the next year, but even w i t h this extra work it was not an unprofitable appointment. H e had to wait until August 20, 1775, f o r his money, but at that time he received ^ 1 2 7 , 10 shillings, in addition to £6 f o r provisions, and out of this had to pay only a surveyor. A s 1775 opened, Rittenhouse was saddened by the death on January 21 of the child which had been born to Hannah only fifteen

months before, but otherwise there was much to en-

courage him. H e was made librarian of the Philosophical Society on January 26, and then was selected to make the annual oration before the Society on February 24. Despite his positive dislike f o r writing and his inability to deliver a talk effectively, those w h o heard the oration, and they included the Governor, members of the Assembly, and other "gentlemen of the first distinction," were impressed with the scope of his interests and learning. Some of his auditors, in their enthusiasm, attempted to have the Assembly subsidize him, but it is not impossible that they w e r e swayed quite as much b y his appeal to W h i g sentiment as b y the purely scientific content of his discourse. Political argument had already given w a y to actual resistance with the repulse of the British troops that tried to seize the stores of the Massachusetts militia at Salem, and the determination of the extremists was fast hardening. Members of the Philosophical Society differed sharply over relations with G r e a t Britain,1 but Rittenhouse bluntlyJ assailed the excesses of Parliament. In the oration, he dealt principally with astronomy. A f t e r tracing the history of the science and describing recent discoveries, he discussed the possibility of life on other planets than the earth in the solar system. It was to be hoped, he said, that the inhabitants of Mars or Venus, if such existed, could not be

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reached by "British thunder, impelled by thirst of gain." He lashed out at tyrants and, though he named only Frederick of Prussia, whom he called the "scourge of the North," few listeners remained unaware that he had a nearer tyrant in mind. Believing that it was largely the demand for luxury goods that had led to the collapse of the non-importation, non-exportation agreements of a few years before, he pleaded with his hearers to "let our harbours, our doors, our hearts, be shut against luxury," since the love of easy living, in his opinion and that of many other Whigs, always brought tyranny in its train. From the standpoint of science, the address, in the light of present-day knowledge, was distinguished for bad guessing as well as for sound reasoning. Rittenhouse asserted, for instance, that sun spots were not caused by mysterious explosions, as some astronomers held, but actually were solid and permanent cavities. The study of comets, he said, was still to reveal unsuspected facts. Much has been learned about comets since 1775, but little to compare with Halley's already-known calculations of their orbits. On the subject of fixed stars, the study of which Rittenhouse said was still in its infancy, his statements were prophetic, since virtually all modern knowledge of their motions, sizes, distances, and physical composition has been gathered by later astronomers. He posed but did not answer an interesting question in connection with the moon. It was known, he said, that this satellite always presented the same side to the earth. This was so unlike the actions of planets that he wondered whether gravity, which held the latter to their courses, could be strong enough, in the case of the earth, to slow down the rotation of the moon. Sir William Herschel in 1792 was attracted by the same problem and, after observing that Iapetus, one of Saturn's moons, rotated once in every revolution, concluded that all planetary satellites were obedient to the same strange law. Later it was discovered that some of Jupiter's moons did not conform. Less than two weeks after Rittenhouse delivered the address, the Philosophical Society gave tangible expression to its ap-

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proval b y petitioning the Assembly to create the office of public astronomer f o r the province. " W e have a Gentleman among us, whose Abilities, speculative as well as practical, would do H o n o r to any Country, and w h o is nevertheless indebted f o r bread to his daily toil, in an occupation the most unfriendly both to health and study," the petition said. T h e n , to meet the possible objection that such an appointment would have no practical value, it suggested that the duties of the new office include also the surveying of high roads and water. Although he was not mentioned b y name, the petition left no doubt that the man to be appointed was Rittenhouse.

χ LIBERALS AND LIBERTY FEW prospects could have pleased Rittenhouse more than the expected appointment as provincial astronomer. In almost every respect it was more satisfying than the Loan Office position would have been in 1770. T h e latter would have entailed considerable work during the day and, with his delicate constitution, it is questionable whether Rittenhouse would have been able to sit at his telescopes as often or as long as he might have wished. N o w , it seemed likely, he would be free to conduct his observations and to pursue his studies without being plagued b y routine duties. Before photography came to the aid of the science, the hope of an astronomer to make significant discoveries was in direct proportion to the amount of time he could spend at his instruments and in reflecting upon the results of his observations. In the case of Rittenhouse, there was another important advantage to be gained from appointment as state astronomer. Instruments and apparatus were scarce in the Colonies and prohibitively expensive f o r a man in his circumstances. Although he was thoroughly competent to build his own, he could ill afford the lesser expense and the time necessary to construct them. It cannot be shown that he failed to carry through some of his experiments because he lacked the necessary apparatus, but this undoubtedly was true in more than one instance. In the proposed appointment lay the probability that most of these obstacles would be removed. Rittenhouse waited patiently f o r the appointment, but the Assembly, never hasty, failed to act during March and April, and then it was too late. A t five o'clock on the afternoon of April 24, an express galloped into the city bearing news of Lexington, and the following morning Philadelphia was in a warlike frenzy. Recruiting 70

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of volunteers f o r a Continental army began at once and radicals spoke openly of independence. T h e Second Continental C o n gress assembled on M a y 10, as r a w troops drilled in Center Square. Washington reviewed the troops on June 30 and departed the next day f o r Boston. W h e n the Assembly adjourned on June 30, it appointed a Committee of S a f e t y to call up f o r service the members of the Associators, λνΐιοιτι Franklin had organized during the French and Indian W a r , and to provide f o r defense against insurrection and invasion, as well as to encourage the manufacture of saltpeter f o r gunpowder. Astronomy could wait. Aside from serving with a group appointed b y the Committee of Safety, which viewed the Delaware R i v e r to select strategic points at which to erect fortifications, Rittenhouse had little part in the military preparations. This fact seems odd, at first glance, since O w e n Biddle and some of the others with w h o m he had been thrown into contact since moving to Philadelphia were active on the Committee of Safety. A possible explanation is his background, which had been anything but warlike. His service on the mechanics' committee in 1774 had not involved any question of war. T h e differences between the Colonies and Parliament had been critical at that time, but everyone had hoped for a peaceful solution. N o w , in 1775, the angry protests flamed into open rebellion and already blood was being let. Rittenhouse had never become a member of any church, y e t he had spent his life among those w h o abhorred killing. H i s mother was a Quaker and his father a Mennonite, and he had twice married Quakers. Both sects not only refused to bear arms but also declined to support the conflict even indirectly. W h e n war finally came, the Mennonites protested the imposition of taxes with which to finance it, and the Quakers promptly disowned any member who took up arms or otherwise aided in the struggle. O w e n Biddle, with w h o m Rittenhouse was closely associated throughout the war, was disowned f o r his services on various committees and commissions, and Benjamin Jacobs, one of Rittenhouse's brothers-in-law, was read out of the G w y n e d d

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Meeting later on f o r no greater offense than signing wartime paper currency. In view of these facts, it may be that Rittenhouse hesitated to throw his full support to the war party. It is true that his oration before the Philosophical Society had revealed strong Whig leanings, but he had stopped short of advocating an open break with England. It is possible, however, that his failure to serve the cause of independence more actively during the first f e w months after Lexington was due simply to the fact that he wanted an opportunity. He was respected as an astronomer and mathematician, but these were not callings for which the practical and energetic men who seized leadership in the revolutionary movement had great need. Until October 1775, Rittenhouse tried without success to content himself with his customary occupations. Clockmaking had ceased to be the monopoly of a f e w gifted individuals; a dozen or more in Philadelphia were bidding against one another f o r business. A market could still be found for compasses, levels, and other surveying and optical instruments, but at the moment it was not highly profitable. When Edward Duffield relinquished his post as keeper of the State House clock, Rittenhouse sought and obtained the appointment as his successor. It paid ^ 2 0 a year, small remuneration for a man who a f e w months before had hoped to be named public astronomer. On October 27, the Committee of Safety took the choice of activity out of Rittenhouse's hands by designating him as its engineer. Four days later he chanced to observe a meteor of notable brilliance and wrote a paper on it for the Philosophical Society, yet he could not fail to realize that only a celestial phenomenon of unprecedented magnitude could divert public attention from the war. Indeed, he seems not to have been inclined to ignore it himself, since in subsequent months he was employed constantly on innumerable phases of the Committee of Safety's work.

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Pennsylvania as yet had been spared actual fighting, but preparations for defense of the province were proceeding feverishly. In 1775 the vulnerability of Philadelphia to attack by the British fleet was recognized, and it had been suggested that a boom be thrown across the Delaware below the city. This was found impracticable and the committee then resorted to a device known, because of its resemblance to its dry-land counterpart, as a chevaux de frise. Consisting of sharpened logs, the chevaux de frise was submerged, leaving only a narrow channel through which pilots could guide friendly vessels. B y the next year the committee apparently lost confidence in the expedient and decided to fortify the river. On February 1, 1776, Rittenhouse was ordered to make a survey of the N e w Jersey shore of the Delaware from Newton Creek, a short distance below the city, to Billingsport, eleven miles downstream, with the aim of discovering the most suitable points to fortify. His report could not have been reassuring, for this stretch of the river was ignored in subsequent surveys. Later in the month he was plunged even deeper into political affairs. Franklin at this time was serving not only as a member of the provincial Assembly, but also as postmaster-general, as delegate to the Continental Congress, and as chairman of the Committee of Safety. Pleading that age prevented his giving proper attention to the manifold duties, he resigned, on February 27, as Assemblyman and as chairman of the Committee of Safety. He suggested that an election be held to select his successor in the Assembly. T h e election was held March 2, and Rittenhouse was returned the winner. He was seated three days later. If any date in Rittenhouse's career was fateful, it was the one on which he entered the State House as a member of the Assembly. His reputation had been won through intellectual effort, and his honors had been conferred on him by scholars in the Philosophical Society and in two colonial colleges. N o w he was pitted against problems that demanded shrewdness rather than learning, and most of his associates were more concerned with

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furthering their own political fortunes than with truth-seeking. His estrangement from science was to be more serious than he intended. How it came about that a man with no political experience whatever was chosen to succeed Franklin must remain something of a mystery. Rittenhouse's modest efforts on behalf of the Committee of Safety had brought him to the attention of the Assembly, and two of his brothers-in-law, John and Israel Jacobs, were members of that body, yet it may be conjectured that his comparatively humble origin rather than any statesmanlike quality recommended him to the now-dominant Whigs. His election, of course, reflected no popular demand, since the franchise was too closely restricted by property qualifications to give the public much voice in the matter. Hardly had Rittenhouse taken his seat when he w as appointed to a special group by the Committee of Safety. He was "desired to make experiments in rifling Canon & Musket-Balls, and to this end" he was "allowed to employ any person or persons under him for that purpose." Then, on April 9, the Committee of Safety made him a member, and new duties were thrust upon him in almost bewildering succession. One of the first was that of viewing Fort Island, in the Delaware below the city, and Billingsport, on the New Jersey shore, and reporting on their suitability as sites for forts. Next, as a member of a committee of five, he was asked to discover a quick means of casting needed cannon, and on May 7 he and Owen Biddle were instructed to make an inventory of all shot available in the province and report on its quality, and to make contracts with qualified shotmakers for any quantity he and Biddle thought necessary. Rittenhouse was directed to obtain "a quantity of cartridge paper for large canon." On the same day the shortage of shot, and even of lead from which to make it, seemed so serious to the Committee of Safety that Rittenhouse and Biddle were directed to collect leaden clock weights from local residents. They were further instucted "to prepare moulds for the casting of clock weights and send

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them to some iron furnace and order a sufficient number to be immediately made for the purpose of exchanging them with the Inhabitants of this city." These duties engaged the attention of Rittenhouse until June 6. On that date the committee appointed to look into the fortifications reported that it had conferred not only with general officers of the Continental army but also with the men who had surveyed the Delaware as far as Billingsport and had agreed with them that Billingsport was not a proper site. They felt that Fort Island was a more favorable location and recommended that a redoubt be built. Their confidence in the gunnery of the Continentals was not of the highest, however, for they pointed out that a gale or strong tide might drive a vessel past the fort "unless prevented by a casual shot." They urged that a boom or other obstruction be thrown across the river to insure the city's safety. The constant journeying about on the surveys and investigations was tiring for a man of Rittenhouse's frail build, but he did not complain and there is no evidence to show that his health suffered. In fact, he could spare time during June to defend Newtonian philosophy in a letter to Thomas Paine's Pennsylvania Magazine. Two clergymen, one signing himself "M. W . " and the other subscribing the initials "J. W . " , had praised Descartes and the Cartesian vortices to the disparagement of Newton. Although churchmen at first rejected Descartes, the mystic quality through which he accounted for the attraction of one particle of matter for another gave comfort to an occasional individual, since this one fact stood in the way of a completely mechanistic, and therefore godless, explanation of the universe. Rittenhouse, who, as he once wrote, cared "not a farthing for anything but sober certainty in philosophy," made a tart rejoinder to the clergymen: I am one of those who are ready to subscribe to the general maxim, That perfection is not to be found in anything human; and therefore do not suppose the Newtonian philosophy to be so perfect as not to admit of amendment. But I must confess,

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that almost all the attempts to controvert that philosophy, which I have met with, amount to nothing more than so many proofs, that those who made them did not understand it. Of this kind are the objections stated by your correspondent, J . W . I will venture to assure him, that the whole doctrine of Infinity, which he is pleased to call a sophism, will not produce one contradiction in a mathematical head. Those of another cast need not meddle with it. He would not have the leisure for many months to indulge his fondness for striking out at everyone who raised a dissenting voice against Newton, for political events were rushing to a climax, and Rittenhouse was swept along with them. Even as he wrote the letter to the magazine, Jefferson was at work on the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. When the document was read at noon on July 8 from the Philosophical Society observatory in State House yard, Rittenhouse very likely was among the auditors, since on that day Philadelphia, bowing to the demands of the radicals, elected delegates to the convention that was to draft a state constitution. Rittenhouse was one of those designated. The convention began its deliberations a week later and elected Franklin president. Its task, it became evident as time passed, was not only that of drafting a constitution but also of persuading the people that it was designed for their best interests. "Time is fleeting," Rittenhouse had inscribed on a clock more than twenty years before, and the summer of 1776 emphasized the fact. Besides almost continuous work in the convention, he had to attend the frequent meetings of the Committee of Safety which, after independence had been proclaimed, became the supreme authority in the state and, on July 24, changed its name to the Council of Safety. On August 6, Rittenhouse was elected vice-president of the Council. Thomas Wharton, Jr., the president, was frequently absent on other business, and on such occasions it became Rittenhouse's duty to preside. The demands on his time thus were excessive, since the volume of business to be transacted kept the Council in session every Tuesday, Wed-

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nesday, Thursday, and Friday f r o m nine o'clock in the morning until t w o in the afternoon. Before the summer was out, Rittenhouse had opportunity to study at first hand the fears and perplexities that confront a people when authority is overturned and a new power must be maintained b y force. During J u l y he served on one committee which instructed the state's delegates to the Continental Congress, and another which undertook to obtain weapons from Non-Associators to arm the Associators. With Owen Biddle and others, he served on a committee which defined high treason and misprision of treason and prescribed the punishment, as well as the penalty, f o r counterfeiting bills of credit. Persons who knew Rittenhouse often added to his burdens by suing f o r his assistance in obtaining aid more speedily than the council seemed minded to move. For example, Colonel Samuel J . Atlee, writing from Perth Amboy, where he was watching Washington fence with General H o w e f o r possession of N e w York, begged him to do something about clothing f o r his battalion of musketeers which was without shirts, breeches, or stockings. Rittenhouse had been denied appointment to the provincial Loan Office, but now he could not escape involvement in the fiscal affairs of the state. T h e Continental Congress, lacking power to tax, had sanctioned the issue of paper money, and Pennsylvania, as early as 1775, had emitted ^ 1 3 7 , 0 0 0 in bills of credit. T h e people at first were reluctant to accept the new currency, so Rittenhouse and Timothy Matlack were instructed b y the Council of Safety to draw up a memorial to be presented to the state Assembly, when it should be elected, "setting forth the dangerous consequences that will attend the refusal of the Continental Currency." Since Rittenhouse had been willing to accept the Loan Office appointment six years before, it must be assumed that he had no serious quarrel with the advocates of paper money in 1776, and the fact that he was chosen to draw up the memorial suggests that he was well grounded in their arguments. Faced with the necessity of financing the war and being denied any revenue from taxes, the Continental Congress

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was left with no alternative to printing-press money. Rittenhouse, like Franklin, reversed his opinion of paper money in later years, but in 1776 he was patriot enough to recognize the fact that a war had to be fought and that, if paper money was necessary to finance it, paper money must be printed. The labors of the state convention were completed on September 28 with the adoption of a Pennsylvania constitution. Although it had been fashioned by men who considered themselves liberals, and were called radicals by their opponents, the new frame of government actually was repressive in many respects and in others paid only lip service to political and even religious freedom. The preamble declared that "representatives of freemen" have a duty to devise laws "as will best promote the general happiness . . . without partiality for, or prejudice against, any particular class, sect, or denomination," but the body of the constitution scarcely recognized this premise. It placed restraints upon search and seizure, granted citizens the right to bear arms, and the right to trial by jury. And it promised religious liberty. Yet, over against these concessions to freedom, it denied civil rights to atheists, and its guarantee of protection to conscientious objectors was conditioned upon the objectors' paying the equivalent of military service. The franchise was restricted to citizens over twenty-one who had paid taxes during the voting year, but sons of freeholders were exempted from the tax provision. Although the constitution declared that office holders should not be required to take a religious test, it demanded that they declare their belief in God and in the divine inspiration of the Scriptures. In the framework of a state government which it provided, the constitution departed radically from the old proprietary charter. There was to be no chief executive, but a Supreme Executive Council which was to be appointed by the Assembly. The latter was to be unicameral. And, as a crowning oddity, the constitution was to be amended only on the recommendation of a Council of Censors, which was to be elected every seven years to determine whether the fundamental law had been vio-

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lated. If the Council so decided, it was to call a convention within t w o years to draft amendments. T h e curious instrument stirred an immediate storm of protest. M a n y Pennsylvanians, while willing to renounce allegiance to the crown, revered the old charter and w e r e alarmed at the dominant position now given the Assembly. Critics have laid the peculiarities of the first Pennsylvania charter to the inexperience of the men w h o drafted it. Admittedly, leaders with long service in government were rare in the convention, since some of them were to be found in the T o r y camp and some simply refrained f r o m active participation in the revolutionary movement. Y e t Franklin had been president of the convention and, though he attended its sessions only rarely, he had seen to it that his ideas on a plural executive and a unicameral legislature w e r e incorporated. H e was so well pleased with the constitution, in fact, that he took a draft of it with him to France to show his friends. A m o n g the other delegates could be counted lawyers, merchants, and educators. Actually the constitution, with all its defects, was not the unmitigated evil pictured b y its opponents of the day. T h e shortcomings of Pennsylvania government during the w a r and f o r some years after arose as much f r o m violation of the basic law b y the Assembly as f r o m adherence to its provisions. Rittenhouse's part in the convention had been f a r f r o m passive. T h e minutes were carefully revised before publication b y a committee on which Rittenhouse himself served, and consequently they throw little light on the deliberations and make it impossible to determine the contribution of individual delegates. T h e y do, however, show that Rittenhouse was a member of the committee that brought in the first essay of the constitution. W h e n the convention was made a committee of the whole to consider the draft, he assumed the chair, and early in September he presided again when the convention voted on revisions. T h e n , on September 25, as a member of a three-man committee, he helped to draft the preamble and the oath of allegiance. W i t h the convention dissolved, Rittenhouse was relieved of

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the necessity of attending the frequent sessions, but his other duties, both official and unofficial, increased. On September 3 he had been appointed a justice of the peace for the state. Then, as soon as the constitution was adopted formally, without giving the people an opportunity to express an opinion at the polls, Rittenhouse found himself toiling as hard in its defense as he had in its creation. The campaign for seats in the new Assembly gave the opposition the chance to voice its objections, an opportunity of which it made the most by holding mass meetings and circulating hand bills. The Constitutionalists defended the fruits of their labors with equal zeal. In the meantime, the city was thrown into panic by General Howe's defeat of the Americans at Fort Washington on November 16. Howe almost immediately swung his forces southwestward toward Philadelphia. Nevertheless an Assembly was elected. It met on November 28, but more than a third of the members refused to support the constitution and agreed to let the legislators proceed with their business only on condition that they call another convention not later than the end of the following January. Though unable to muster a quorum without the Anti-Constitutionalists, the radicals declined to bargain and the session was adjourned, leaving the city and state without an effective government. Some means had to be found to meet the emergency created by Howe's relentless progress toward the city, and toward this end a general town meeting was called the day the Assembly adjourned. It met in the State House yard and, in Wharton's absence, Rittenhouse, as vice-president of the Council of Safety, took the chair. Intelligence had been received, the people were told, that General Howe intended to invade the city and that the Congress had ordered the militia of the city and several surrounding counties to march into New Jersey to oppose him. General Thomas Mifflin, the quartermaster general of the army, who had been disowned by the Friends for his military activities, made a speech that moved the crowd to enthusiasm. " T h e people ex-

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pressed their cheerful approbation," says the record, "and most unanimous acclamations of joy ever observed on any occasion." T h e militia was ordered to assemble for review the next day. O n December 2, while Washington was still retreating across N e w Jersey with the British at his heels, Rittenhouse issued a drastic order: . . . it is the opinion of this Board that all the Shops in this C i t y be shut up, that the Schools be broke up, and the Inhabitants engaged solely in providing for the Defence of this City, at this time of extreme Danger. B y Order of Council, David Rittenhouse, V i c e President. Six days later, he addressed an appeal to commanders of state militia not already on their w a y to confront the British. T h o u g h explicit in its directions and sound in its estimate of existing conditions, it contained an emotional fillip so foreign to Rittenhouse's manner of expression that another author is indicated, even though Rittenhouse signed it. T h e r e is certain intelligence of General H o w e ' s army being yesterday on its march from Brunswick to Princetown, w h i c h puts it beyond a doubt that he intends for this C i t y . This glorious opportunity of signalizing himself in defence of our country and securing the Rights of America forever will be seized b y every man w h o has a spark of patriotic fire in his bosom. W e entreat y o u to march the Militia under y o u r command with all possible expedition to this city, and bring with y o u as many w a g g o n s as y o u can possibly procure, w h i c h y o u are hereby authorized to impress, if they cannot be had otherwise. Delay not a moment, it may be fatal, and subject y o u and all y o u hold most dear to the ruffian hands of the enemy, whose cruelties are without distinction and unequaled. T h e hasty summons of the militia and its dispatch to N e w Jersey failed to lessen the danger posed b y General H o w e ' s advance. Washington continued to fall back and yielded Trenton, and Philadelphia's apprehension g r e w day b y day. T h e Continental Congress made haste to Baltimore. T h e n , on Christmas night, Washington fell upon the Hessians at T r e n t o n , and Philadelphia f o r the time was saved.

XI

TREASURER IN EXILE the tension broken by Washington's surprising and heartening victory at Trenton and his subsequent defeat of the British at Princeton, life in Philadelphia returned almost to normal, and Rittenhouse for a few weeks could attend to his more urgent personal affairs and even steal a morning to observe the solar eclipse on January 9, 1777. Dr. Smith, whom he saw less frequently now, went over to the State House yard observatory with him and undoubtedly discussed the occurrence, but few others in the city interested themselves beyond a glance at the sky. For Rittenhouse, even rarer happenings were foreshadowed. WITH

The legislature, which had met a second time in December 1776, gathered once more in January. It failed again to reach agreement on the fate of the constitution, but it did transact some business, including the selection of state officials. Michael Hillegas, treasurer of the Continental Congress, had previously been appointed state treasurer, but he had gone to Baltimore with the Congress, leaving the position vacant. Rittenhouse immediately applied for appointment, and on January 14 he was chosen unanimously by the Assembly. By accepting the post, he disqualified himself under the constitution for any elective office. Neither the state treasurer nor a Loan Office trustee could ba elected to the Assembly, the Supreme Executive Council, or the Continental Congress. Previous training and experience gave Rittenhouse no particular claim to the position, yet the same had been true of the several posts he had filled since war began and had not prevented his acquitting himself creditably. Honesty and conscientiousness were qualities demanded for the treasurer's office, and Rittenhouse's integrity had never been questioned. The position entailed a mass of detail work, a burden that was not lightened by the fact that accounts had to be kept not alone in Pennsylvania currency but also in Continental currency and specie. Little 82

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enough specie was in circulation, but the constant depreciation of paper currencies made record-keeping difficult and tedious. A s one of the authors of the state constitution and n o w an office holder under it, Rittenhouse during the opening months of 1777 was called upon repeatedly to defend it. Many faults could be found with the constitution, and the conservatives were quick to detect them. T h e y objected particularly to the dominant position of the Assembly, which had been made superior to both the executive authority and the judiciary, but even more abhorrent than any article of the constitution was the test act which had been adopted b y the Assembly. Under this act no one could hold office or vote without swearing allegiance to the constitution, a provision that automatically

disenfranchised

Quakers and the members of other sects which objected to taking oaths, as well as those w h o could not conscientiously support the constitution. Dissatisfaction soon became widespread. T h e Assembly received a strongly worded petition f r o m opponents of the constitution, asking that a convention be called to revise it and recommending the election of delegates. T h e W h i g Society, headed b y Charles Willson Peale, accepted the petition as a challenge and launched a campaign to still the criticism. Although the Colonics were ostensibly engaged in a w a r to guarantee democratic government within their confines, the W h i g s argued that the times were too critical to permit a diversion of effort, even to such an important matter as democratizing Pennsylvania. Rittenhouse, an early member of the W h i g Society, together with Peale, T h o m a s Paine, and others, circulated agreements which the people were asked to sign. These pledged support of the Continental Congress and of the state, which in effect was asking some of them to concur in their own disenfranchisement. T h e W h i g s dramatized their argument b y appealing to the people's sense of f a i r play. A c t i o n on the constitution now, they pointed out, w o u l d take voters f r o m their war-needed tasks and would rob the soldiers in the field of an opportunity to express their preference. It would be better to endure present con-

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ditions, the argument continued, until the people had learned from their experience under the old instrument how to devise a better one. The stubborn fight at last drew a warning from the Congress that, if the state could not agree on a form of government, Congress itself would assume authority. The Conservatives yielded and, on February 7, new assemblymen were elected to replace those who had refused to take the oath. During the winter another question arose in connection with the new constitution. This was the legality of the Council of Safety, which had continued to function without specific authority from the new Assembly. The obvious solution was to dissolve the Council and appoint a new body in its stead. This was done on March 4 when the Supreme Executive Council first assembled. Rittenhouse was not among those chosen to serve in the new Council. When officers were elected next day, Thomas Wharton, Jr., who had acted as president of the Council of Safety, was chosen to head the new body, but Rittenhouse's place as vice-president of the old group was taken by George Bryan. Objections which had frequently been raised to the old Council were its lack of authority to make levies for the militia and also the diffusion of its energy over an almost limitless variety of responsibilities. The Council's successor was clothed with all necessary power, but after little more than a week it concluded that military and naval affairs could be handled more expeditiously by delegating responsibility, and on March 13 it created the Boards of W a r and Navy. Rittenhouse was one of the original nine appointed to serve on the Board of War. Additional members were appointed from time to time, as most of those who served were occupied with other duties and their frequent absences often made it impossible to muster a quorum at the almost daily meetings. If a permanent chairman was appointed, the minutes of the meetings do not reveal the fact, since various members, including Rittenhouse, occupied the chair from day to day. It had no part in military policy and strategy, yet the Board of W a r was responsible for

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recruiting Pennsylvania's land forces and for equipping and supplying them. T h e business it transacted until the approach of General Howe late in the summer consisted largely of paying the expenses of recruiting and of passing on the claims of those who supplied food, horses, arms, ammunition, and services for the militia. An exception was the duty thrust upon the Board when the Supreme Executive Council called for the arrest of John Penn, the last provincial governor and Franklin's old enemy, and his removal with Benjamin Chew, the provincial chief justice, to a place of security beyond the city. Both Penn and Chew at first refused to give their parole but later changed their minds. Nevertheless the Council, defying Congress, ordered them sent to Fredericksburg, and the Board of War complied. Engrossed with the problems of the treasurer's office and of the Board of W a r as he was, Rittenhouse had little leisure to reflect upon the gulf that was widening between himself and some of the men with whom he had once been closely, even intimately, associated. Political differences, which were severing ties of blood in some families and wrenching men of strong convictions from affiliation with pacifist religious sects, were alienating Rittenhouse from friends who still espoused, or were suspected of espousing, the British cause. One of the most painful experiences of the summer was the stand he was forced to take against Dr. Smith, the provost of the College. Dr. Smith, as an Anglican clergyman, owed more than political allegiance to Great Britain, since George III was not only king but also defender of the faith. Before Lexington, Dr. Smith had written a series of letters under the pseudonym "Cato" to the Pennsylvania Gazette in which he advocated reconciliation. After the Declaration of Independence everyone who had spoken against separation became suspect. A fellow churchman wrote that Dr. Smith was taken into custody during 1776, but there is no supporting evidence. His subsequent act on June 26, 1777, when he took the oath under the Pennsylvania test law, and so renounced allegiance to the King, could have been, for a

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man of lesser intellectual integrity than he, no more than an expedient, but Dr. Smith was a man of deep convictions and, once the irrevocable step had been taken by the Colonies, he ceased to plead f o r a peaceful solution. Nevertheless his " C a t o " letters remained fresh in the memories of the Whigs. Meeting on Sunday, August 31, the Supreme Executive Council called before it three officers of the militia and Rittenhouse to assist in compiling a list of persons who had "evidenced a disposition inimical to the cause of America." Records do not show which names, if any, were suggested by Rittenhouse, but the list when completed contained the name of Dr. Smith. It was resolved "that a suitable number of friends to the Public cause be authorized forthwith to seize & Secure the Persons . . . " Since it desired to "treat men of reputation with as much tenderness as the security of their persons & papers would admit," the Council directed that those willing to sign a parole should be permitted to stay in their homes, subject to orders of Council, and "do nothing injurious to the United Free States of North America, by Speaking, Writing, or otherwise." Dr. Smith gave his parole, from which he was released b y order of Council on June 30 the following year. T h e release was so welcome, incidentally, that he picked up his certificate of discharge only an hour or two after Council had authorized it. If the incident engendered ill will between Dr. Smith and Rittenhouse, the former soon forgot it. He was only one of many Anglican clergymen subjected to indignities and worse during the war years. F o r his part, Rittenhouse no doubt regretted the necessity of approving a list of suspects that carried the name of one of his oldest friends, and probably the one who had helped him most, yet by this time he had become such a thoroughgoing W h i g that he would hardly have let friendship stand in the way of performing a duty demanded b y the state. A still more distasteful test of his patriotism awaited him when the state government, along with the Continental Congress, left Philadelphia at the approach of General Howe. Thwarted on his overland march from N e w Y o r k by Wash-

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ington's stroke against the Hessians and against Cornwallis at Princeton, General Howe moved his army by sea to Chesapeake Bay and advanced upon Philadelphia from the southwest. Washington's hurried march southward to intercept him gave the city confidence at first, but the American defeat at Brandywine on September 11 threw both the state government and the Continental Congress into a furor. Both scurried westward to Lancaster before Howe entered Philadelphia on September 26. The Congress moved across the Susquehanna to York within a few days, but the Pennsylvania government remained. As state treasurer, Rittenhouse was obliged to accompany the official party. He was unwilling to leave Hannah and the children at the Mulberry Street home and tried to lease a dwelling at Lancaster, but the sudden influx of both state and federal officials created a housing shortage. The farm at Norriton was far enough removed from the city to be safe for ordinary citizens, and there Rittenhouse left his family while he went on to Lancaster, where he found lodging with William Henry, Lancaster County treasurer and one of the county's leading citizens. Despite the enforced separation from his family and his accustomed domestic comfort, Rittenhouse found life at the Henry home more congenial, perhaps, than at any other he could have chosen. He set up his office in the front room on the second floor, next to the one occupied by John Hart, a member of the Executive Council, and Thomas Paine, then secretary to the Congressional Committee of Foreign Affairs. Henry was a genius after a fashion. Rittenhouse had worked with him when the proposed canal route between the Susquehanna and Lehigh rivers was surveyed. A gunsmith of distinction, Henry provided arms for the Continental army in quantity and later was appointed a state armorer. But these occupations by no means encompassed his interests and speculations. He maintained a laboratory in which he was constantly experimenting with mechanical contrivances, among them a steam engine which, it has been claimed, was seen and studied by John Fitch before the latter built his successful steamboat at Philadelphia.

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T h e Henry home could not have been the least crowded in the county, or the quietest, since there were thirteen children, yet the companionship of Henry filled one of Rittenhouse's greatest needs at the moment. That was the opportunity to discuss mechanics and science with someone whose interest in the subjects was as lively as his own. The excessive demands made upon his time by official duties in Philadelphia had kept him from any serious scientific work, and the decision of the American Philosophical Society to suspend meetings for the duration denied him association with other scientifically minded men. H e was annoyed with the Society's action, since he believed it needless. "Even the meetings of our Society are discontinued," he had written to John Page, the Virginia patriot, on August 18, "rather through the disputes between Whig & Tory than any public necessity." At Henry's, too, he met other Philadelphia exiles and local men of inquiring minds, the latter attracted by Rittenhouse's reputation for learning. H e continued to function as state treasurer, and the duties often entailed the closest application, but in the beginning he seems to have been relieved of many of the other tasks for which he was constantly being drafted before he left Philadelphia, and he found the environment agreeable. Henry's son, John Joseph, who later achieved note as a jurist, wrote some years later: " M y greatest recreation . . . was to get into the chamber of Mr. Rittenhouse, whose conversation enlivened my mind . . . he was most affable." T h e new-found leisure was to be short-lived. On October ι Rittenhouse was again drawn into contact with all the cares of the state when the Assembly appointed a new Council of Safety. T h e Assembly, elected for only one year, would come to the end of its legal existence in November, and the British occupation of Philadelphia and the area surrounding the capital made an election impracticable. So that the state might have an interim government, the Assembly, although wanting authority, recreated the Council, consisting of members of the Supreme

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Executive Council and several others, including Rittenhouse, William Henry, and Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant, a young N e w Jersey lawyer who had been made attorney-general of Pennsylvania the previous July. Rittenhouse found himself attracted to the young attorney-general, who was later to marry the elder of his daughters. The new Council was given almost unlimited power, being invested with authority to "promote and provide for the preservation of the commonwealth" and to "proceed against, seize, detain, imprison, punish, either capitally or otherwise" anyone guilty of disobeying the laws of the state or orders of the Council. And it was specifically empowered to seize supplies for the army. Rittenhouse was strongly opposed to capital punishment, but he was spared the necessity of putting his convictions to the test. No capital offenses occurred during the committee's existence, a fact for which Rittenhouse was genuinely grateful. He thanked God, he told Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton in later years, that he had served on many juries but on none "where life and death were immediately involved. Of all murders, legal murders are the most horrid." Few members attended the Council sessions regularly, Rittenhouse only rarely. The business transacted was mostly routine, but there were diverting moments, such as when the price of whiskey in the state was fixed at eight shillings sixpence a gallon, except when sold by camp sutlers. The Council was dissolved December 6 when, as the minutes put it, "by the blessing of heaven, the progress of the Enemy has been restrained." A new Assembly was elected and assumed authority. The one pleasure Rittenhouse might have enjoyed most at Lancaster, if circumstances had been different, was the renewal of his close association with Thomas Barton, even though the latter was no longer his brother-in-law. Esther had died in 1774 and Barton had married again but, until the Revolution, there had been no break in his correspondence with Rittenhouse. However much the latter may have wished it, he could no longer call at St. James', for Barton was now a prisoner in the

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rectory, a fate not unusual for Church of England clergymen, and more especially for missionaries in such counties as Lancaster where the population was overwhelmingly dissenting. Barton himself estimated that less than two per cent of the county's inhabitants were communicants of the Anglican church. With the Declaration of Independence, Anglican clergymen who held their ordination vows sacred remained stubbornly loyal to the crown and so invited the hostility of patriots. Barton wrote the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 1776: I have been obliged to shut up my church to avoid the f u r y of the populace, who would not suffer the liturgy to be us'd, unless the collects and prayers for the King and royal family were omitted . . . Some of them [the missionaries like himself] have been drag'd from their Horses, assaulted with Stones and Dirt, ducked in water, obliged to flee for their lives, driven from their Habitation and Families, laid under arrest and imprison'd. He did not reveal that he had been accused of far more serious activities than praying for the King. George Bryan, vicepresident of the Supreme Executive Council, wrote Washington that Barton had been "very instrumental in poisoning the minds of his parishioners, who are of very disaffected principles as to the present contest." John Carothers, a county lieutenant, wrote William Henry from Carlisle: T w o of the Justices of this County have informed me that in the Course of the Examination of a Witness, touching a Plot or combination of several People to destroy the publick Magazines at Lane', York and Carlisle, the Rev'd Thomas Barton of Lan r , clerk, is named as one at least privy to the conspiracy. He is also charged with carrying on Correspondence with the Enemies of this state, and of the United States of America. . . . I make no doubt that you will cause Mr. Barton to be secured in such manner as your prudence shall direct. Barton was hardly guilty of plotting, since he was never brought to trial and his only punishment was confinement to the

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rectory, where he chafed at the inactivity and suffered with the gout. H e did on his o w n admission slip out at night to baptize infants, and it would have been possible f o r Rittenhouse to meet him on these occasions, but it would have been highly dangerous f o r a state official to keep clandestine rendezvous with a clergyman w h o had been branded as a T o r y . Rittenhouse could not concur in Barton's political opinions, nor could he publicly express sympathy, yet he was never w h o l l y estranged f r o m the man w h o had been his sister's husband and w h o had been one of the first to recognize Rittenhouse's talent f o r learning. A f t e r Barton had been held a prisoner f o r two years, the Supreme Executive Council acceded to his repeated requests f o r a pass f o r himself and his w i f e through the British lines. H e and Mrs. Barton went to N e w Y o r k in 1778, leaving seven of their eight children at Lancaster. His f o r m e r parishioners at Pequea and Carnavon w e r e so moved b y his plight that they paid up the arrears on his salary. William Barton, the eldest son and Rittenhouse's first biographer, was studying law in London and did not return to A m e r ica until after his father reached N e w Y o r k . W h e n his ship arrived at Baltimore, Rittenhouse learned of the fact and, though his letter had to pass through enemy hands, he immediately sent w o r d to the father. T h e r e a f t e r he continually used his influence to assist the sons. H e tried in 1779 to induce H e n r y Laurens, former president of the Continental Congress, to employ William Barton as secretary when the former went to Holland in an effort to b o r r o w $10,000,000 f o r the Congress, but Laurens chose Thomas Paine as companion on the trip. Even after T h o m a s Barton died at N e w Y o r k in 1780, Rittenhouse helped the sons whenever he could. H e failed to persuade T h o m a s W i l l i n g to employ W i l liam Barton in the Bank of the United States when that institution opened in 1 7 9 1 , or to have J e f f e r s o n make him assistant secretary of state, but it was on Rittenhouse's personal appeal to Washington that the eldest Barton son was appointed a federal judge of the Western territory. A s state treasurer, Rittenhouse

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retained him to execute bonds for him. Another son, Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton, was employed while still a youth on at least one of Rittenhouse's boundary surveys, and in 1795 Rittenhouse used his influence as a trustee of the University to have him appointed professor of materia inedica. In the closing years of his life, he retained Dr. Barton as his personal physician. Thus Rittenhouse, an ardent patriot, tried to discharge any moral debt he might have owed to the Reverend Thomas Barton, who died a Tory.

XII

PRIZE MONEY AFTER three months at Lancaster, Rittenhouse grew restive. Official duties were enough to keep him from idleness and life at the Henry home was stimulating, but he longed for the company of Hannah and the girls. On January 26, 1778, he wrote Hannah that he proposed to meet her at the home of either John or Israel Jacobs, depending upon the weather. Although the British still occupied Philadelphia and parties of horse made sorties into the surrounding counties, he felt reasonably safe in undertaking the long trip, since Washington was encamped at Valley Forge, a f e w miles above Norriton on the west bank of the Schuylkill. The letter to Hannah reflected the misgivings with which so many patriots viewed the war during that hard, disheartening winter. T h e struggle, Rittenhouse predicted, would go on for years but "the virtue and happiness of my fellow creatures has always been my principal object. I am, therefore, not at all distressed on my own account." His forebodings about the war were justified, but its center was soon to shift to other colonies, permitting him to resume a more nearly normal existence. Sir Henry Clinton, who had succeeded General H o w e as commander of the British forces, found the occupation of Philadelphia a fruitless enterprise and ordered evacuation of the city early in June. T h e Pennsylvania Assembly and the Supreme Executive Council lost no time in returning to the capital. T h e Council met at Lancaster for the last time on June 20, and Rittenhouse a few days later was in Philadelphia, where the nature of the occupation was amply attested by litter in the once tidy streets and occasional ash heaps that marked the site of houses. On June 24 the sun was totally eclipsed, and Rittenhouse, along with Dr. Smith, John Lukens, and Owen Biddle, viewed it through the telescopes at the old State House yard observatory. 93

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Conditions in the city were still too unsettled for even scholars to take much interest in their findings. Although Rittenhouse does not seem to have been greatly concerned, some of his friends had worried during his absence about the fate of the orrery at the College and of the other apparatus which he had been unable to take to Lancaster. T h e fears f o r the orrery were needless, since Dr. Smith had remained in the city and had persuaded General Howe to lock it up safely at the College. T h e Princeton orrery did not escape so easily, although the damage was done not by the British but by Americans. Nassau Hall had been used as a hospital after the battle of Princeton, and convalescent militiamen took home bits of the mechanism as souvenirs. Thomas Jefferson was one of those who inquired about the fate of the orreries, writing from Monticello on J u l y 19: H o w far the interests of literature may have suffered by the injury or removal of the orrery (as it is miscalled), the public libraries, and your papers and implements, are doubts which still excite anxiety. Jefferson took the occasion also to chide Rittenhouse for abandoning even temporarily his study and science in favor of political activity. A r e those powers . . . intended f o r the erudition of the world . . . like air and light the world's common property . . . to be taken from their proper pursuit to do the commonlace drudgery of governing a single state, a work which may e executed by men of an ordinary stature, such as are always and everywhere to be found? N o b o d y can conceive that nature ever intended to throw away a Newton upon the occupations of a crown . . . I doubt not there are many persons equal to the task of conducting government: but you should consider that the world has but one Rittenhouse and that it never had one before.

E

This was not the first time that Rittenhouse had been taken to task f o r devoting his energy and his intellectual gifts to the practical business of government. N o one knew better than J e f -

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ferson that statesmanship was a rare quality in men, calling for broad interests and discerning judgment, but he was himself a philosopher as well as statesman and he sincerely admired Rittenhouse's attainments in what was then generally called natural philosophy. Others among Rittenhouse's critics were less friendly. As early as 1777, a T o r y poetaster had penned four stanzas of bad verse for the Pennsylvania Evening Post. Three of the stanzas read: Meddle not with state affairs; Keep acquaintance with the stars; Science, David, is thy line; Warp not Nature's great design, If thou to Fame would rise. Politics will spoil the man Formed for a more exalted plan. Great Nature bids thee rise, T o pour fair Science on our age, T o shine amidst the historic page, And half unfold the skies. But if thou crush this vast design And in the politician's line With wild ambition soar, Oblivion shall entomb they name, And from the rolls of future fame, Thou'lt fall to rise no more. In September 1779, the Reverend Jonathan Odell, writing in Rivington's notoriously T o r y Royal Gazette in New York, taunted: The word of Congress sounded in his ears: He listened to the voice with strange delight, And swift descended from his dazzling height; Then mixing eager with seditious tools, Vice-President elect of rogues and fools, His hopes resigned of Philosophic fame, A paltry statesman Rittenhouse became.

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Rittenhouse was moved b y neither the friendly solicitude of Jefferson nor the ridicule of Tories. H e believed in the fight the Colonies were waging, and in the necessity of a strong state government. Much as he wished to return to his telescopes and his books, he recognized that science might be a doubtful blessing in the Colonies if the Revolution failed. Furthermore, he was under the necessity of earning a living for himself and his family, and science so far had been unable to supply this need and seemed unlikely to do so until the war ended, if then. Opportunities were not lacking f o r merchants, speculators, and contractors to profit from the war, but Rittenhouse had no liking or capacity f o r such enterprises. T h e position of state treasurer was the only opportunity that lay open to him, and he never thought seriously of relinquishing it, even though it sometimes called f o r extraordinary effort. While the Assembly was still at Lancaster, f o r example, it authorized the Loan Office, which had been reestablished in 1773, to emit £ 150,000 on loan, and Rittenhouse was ordered to abstract the act and publish it as an advertisement in Lancaster, York, and Burlington newspapers. Then in J u l y , after both the Assembly and the Continental Congress had returned to Philadelphia, he was required to journey a hundred miles to York to obtain $100,000 granted to the Supreme Executive Council b y the Congress to pay for uniforms. Philadelphia was not yet considered a safe repository for funds, and the $1,500,000 in silver lent b y France and much of the $10,000,000 in Continental currency printed b y Franklin's press was still at York. A round trip of two hundred miles b y either carriage or horseback was an ordeal f o r a sickly man, but Timothy Matlack, the quicktempered secretary of the Assembly, was not a person to w o r r y about another's physical handicaps. It is absolutely necessary that you possess yourself of this money as soon as possible [he wrote Rittenhouse], and f o r this purpose a journey to Y o r k will afford you an opportunity of exercise which will contribute to your health. . . . As a friend I much fear that this business will interfere with the necessary

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care of your family in their removal to this city. . . . My own family arrived in good health Sunday. After the trip, Rittenhouse was put on a committee to audit the accounts of the Council of Safety, but for once he was not ensnared. The committee, as soon as it had seen the tremendous amount of work involved, declined to serve. It was at this period that Rittenhouse, as treasurer, received a more or less routine payment of funds, which in later years was to embarrass his daughters and precipitate one of the first and most spectacular tests of strength between a state and the federal government. Gideon Olmstead and three other Connecticut fishermen were captured by the British off Cape Charles, Virginia, and taken to Jamaica. There the Americans were impressed as seamen on the sloop Active, which was loaded with arms for Clinton's forces in New York. As the sloop was beating northward off the New Jersey coast, Olmstead and his Yankees overpowered the British crew, seized the sloop as a prize, and made for Egg Harbor, a favorite haunt of privateers. Two days later, the Active was overhauled by the Pennsylvania cruiser Convention and the privateer Gerard. Captain Houston, of the cruiser, and Captain Josiah, who commanded the Gerard, insisted that Olmstcad's seizure was not complete, even though the British crew was confined in irons below deck. It was still possible, they said, for the prisoners to escape and recapture the vessel. When the case was heard in the Pennsylvania Admiralty Court, Olmstead's claim of prior seizure was virtually ignored, and he was awarded only one-fourth of the prize. Fourth shares were awarded also to the privateer, the crew of the Convention, and the state of Pennsylvania. This last share, amounting to £ 11,496/9/9, in Loan Office certificates, was delivered by Judge George Ross of the Admiralty Court to Rittenhouse on May i, 1779. Ross, knowing that the case would be appealed, demanded a bond for the amount. Acquiescing, Rittenhouse bound himself

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to return the sum to Ross in the event that the latter was ordered by the Court of Appeals to make a different division of the prize money. The Loan Office certificates were in the name of the marshal who sold the Active, but Rittenhouse had them funded in his own name. This was highly irregular, since the money belonged to Pennsylvania and not to him, but it must be remembered in extenuation that the bond given to Ross was a personal obligation. Its execution, if Rittenhouse had not funded the certificates, would have plunged him hopelessly into debt. That he had no intention of diverting the money to his own use is shown by his notes on a list of the certificates. "The above certificates," he wrote, "will be the property of the state of Pennsylvania when the state releases me from the bond I gave in 1778 (sic) to indemnify George Ross, Esq., judge of the Admiralty, for paying the 50 original certificates into the Treasury as the state's share of the prize." And in 1790 he wrote Governor Mifflin: "I must request the Hon'ble Council to take such measures as will extricate me from this difficulty." Olmstead was unsuccessful in his fight in the state courts, and Rittenhouse was never called upon to pay over the state's share of the prize money. Instead, he continued to draw interest upon the certificates throughout his life and willed them to Hannah upon his death. Hannah, in turn, left them to Rittenhouse's daughters. In 1803, Olmstead carried his fight to the federal district court, which awarded him the entire proceeds of the Active's sale and ordered Pennsylvania to pay over the share then held by Mrs. Elizabeth Rittenhouse Sergeant and Mrs. Esther Rittenhouse Waters. The verdict was ignored by both the state and the Rittenhouse heirs. Olmstead, still refusing to concede defeat, took the case to the United States Supreme Court which, in February 1809, ordered the Rittenhouse daughters to turn over the certificates to Olmstead. The Supreme Court had made it clear that the state was not a

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party to the dispute, since the money in question had never been placed in the Pennsylvania treasury, yet the state legislature chose to enter the case. In a special act, it declared that the federal government could not interfere with the state's right to raise its own revenue. Governor Simon Snyder threatened to call out the militia if federal authorities attempted to enforce the Supreme Court's order. Consequently when John Smith, the federal marshal, reached the Rittenhouse home at Seventh and Arch streets on March 25, 1809, he was met b y a wall of bayonets, and withdrew. T h e house forthwith was dubbed "Fort Rittenhouse," and the public sat back to enjoy the spectacle of an armed clash between the state and federal governments. Alexander J . Dallas, the federal district attorney at Philadelphia, on advice from Washington, authorized the marshal to recruit a posse comitatus of two thousand men and deliver the process. Instead of descending upon "Fort Rittenhouse" with a posse, a move that almost inevitably would have led to bloodshed, the marshal on April 13 scaled a back fence, climbed into the house through a rear window, and served the papers on Mrs. Sergeant. Both Rittenhouse daughters were held prisoners in the house until a plea for a writ of habeas corpus was heard. T h e plea was denied, but Governor Snyder, with funds meanwhile made available b y the legislature, paid the money to the federal government. Rittenhouse's daughters were released, and the superior authority of the government at Washington was affirmed. Rittenhouse naturally could not foresee in 1778 that his perspicacity in handling a sum of money paid him under court order would be made a cause celebre b y a brilliant lawyer thirty years later. T h e office of state treasurer was not yet highly remunerative, yet no fault was ever found with his accounts. Small as the income was in 1778, Rittenhouse was intent upon retaining it. On November 6 he wrote John Bayard, speaker of the Assembly, asking to be reappointed, and his request was granted. T h e

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duties of the office were his principal occupation until the next summer, when the subject of Pennsylvania's common boundary with Virginia was revived in the Assembly. As with most of the original grants, Virgina's territorial claims were sweeping. The new charter, granted in 1609, gave the province four hundred miles of Atlantic coast, half of it north of Old Point Comfort, half of it south. Its territory was to extend from "sea to sea, west and northwest." The hazy phrase "west and northwest" inescapably led Virginia into conflict with Pennsylvania's more clearly defined claims. Rittenhouse and Dr. Smith, as early as 1772, had suggested that they be permitted to establish the western boundary, and in 1774 John Penn wrote the Earl of Dunmore, Virginia's governor, that Rittenhouse, Dr. Smith, and the provincial surveyorgeneral had calculated the difference in longitude between the Delaware River and Pittsburgh, but since they agreed that Pittsburgh lay only six miles eastward of the boundary, it is unlikely that any one of the three made observations in the western part of the state. In any event, the matter was left unsettled, and for years remained a source of occasional dispute. In 1779, the sharpest clash of interests centered in what Virginia called the District of Augusta, and included the present Pennsylvania counties of Greene, Westmoreland, Fayette, Washington, as well as parts of Allegheny and Beaver. Settlers holding land warrants from Pennsylvania's provincial and state governments were considered interlopers by Virginians who migrated to the region, and physical clashes became common. Virginia was as eager as Pennsylvania to end the quarrel and had made a plea for settlement in December 1776, but the confusion then reigning as the result of the approach of the British and the military occupation of Philadelphia the next year confronted the Assembly with more urgent problems. The difficulties in 1779 were brought to a climax when Virginia settlers attacked Fort Burd and drove Pennsylvanians from land the latter had cleared and tilled. The scene lay considerably north of the latitude fixed by Mason and Dixon as Pennsylvania's

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boundary with Maryland, the extension of which was supposed by Pennsylvania to form its southern limits in the region claimed by Virginia, but the latter had never formally recognized the line. It became apparent that no attempt to settle the matter could succeed until the states had at least agreed upon a division of the territory, and in August both states appointed boundary commissioners. Pennsylvania named Rittenhouse, the Reverend John Ewing, now a doctor of divinity, and George Bryan, vicepresident of the Supreme Executive Council. Rittenhouse, carrying a letter of introduction to Charles Carroll of Carrollton, left for Baltimore late in August, and on the thirty-first the three Pennsylvanians met the Virginia commissioners, Dr. James Madison, president of William and Mary College, and the Reverend Robert Andrews, professor of mathematics in the same institution. They reached a quick agreement. T h e boundary, they decided, would continue westward from the end of the Mason and Dixon Line until it reached a point five degrees of longitude west of the Delaware River. Thence a meridian, to be drawn northward to the Ohio River, would delimit the western extent of Pennsylvania. Surveyors representing the two states were to mark the actual line. Satisfied that the meeting had produced an equitable arrangement that would lead to a speedy conclusion of the affair, the Pennsylvanians returned home, but their hopes were not immediately realized. Nothing was heard from Virginia for weeks, and in December President Reed, of the Supreme Executive Council, requested the Continental Congress to bring pressure to bear. The Congress responded with a recommendation urging early settlement of the dispute, but there the matter stood, except for abortive attempts to run a temporary line, until Rittenhouse helped to mark the boundary five years later. During this period Rittenhouse virtually abandoned astronomy, owing mostly to a lack of time, yet his interest in the science was not quite crushed under the weight of his official burdens.

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He noticed on October 31 the brilliant passage of a remarkably huge and bright fireball. It bore southwest from Philadelphia and, he calculated, fell 480 miles from the city and 365 miles from Williamsburg, Virginia, a point that would have been somewhere in eastern Kentucky. H e wrote about it in detail to John Page, observing: " T h e breadth of its luminous vapor was, I think, in some places, when I saw it, not less than a quarter of a degree; this at 480 miles distance must have been at least two miles." Although he confessed that his views on meteors in general were little more than opinions, he concluded that they did not originate within the solar system, as some supposed, but entered the earth's atmosphere from outer space. T h e y became luminous, he believed, because of their passage through the atmosphere but he was not quite sure of the reason, although he suggested that their luminosity might eventually be traced to electricity. T h e chance observation of the fireball seemed to be a portent. Within a f e w weeks, Rittenhouse was teaching astronomy.

XIII

FISCAL FIASCO THE College of Philadelphia, which had closed in June 1777, when it seemed probable that General Howe's forces would invade the city, was reopened in January 1779, but its affairs were not conducted in a way to please the Whigs. On November 27, the Assembly ousted the board of trustees and the old faculty. The Assembly attempted to justify its action by accusing the trustees of "narrowing the foundations" of the College, but the real reasons lay deeper. The very resolution of the trustees upon which the charges were based was one which had reaffirmed the trustees' intention of keeping the College free of sectarian influence. Dr. Smith, the provost, was a man of unusually tolerant religious views, but he was thoroughly disliked by the Whigs, not only because he had taken a conciliatory attitude before independence had been declared but also because he had been friendly with the former proprietors and had for years been at odds with Franklin. Not all the trustees or members of the faculty shared Dr. Smith's political views but some of them undoubtedly did, and the Assembly, unwilling to run the risk of overlooking a single individual who might harbor an anti-constitutional thought, removed them all. The same act appointed a new board of trustees and changed the name of the College to the University of the State of Pennsylvania. Every one of the new trustees was a man of unimpeachable Whig convictions. Rittenhouse was one of them. Meeting on December 1, in the hall of the University, the trustees took the oath of allegiance to the state constitution, and chose as their president Joseph Reed, Jr., who was also president of the Supreme Executive Council. T w o of the trustees present at this first meeting were men with whom Rittenhouse was to become closely associated. One was the gifted and versatile Francis Hopkinson, jurist, poet, painter, musician, and the Colonies' earliest composer of secular music. He had been a member of 103

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the first graduation class at the College and n o w was judge of the state Admiralty Court and an active member of the Philosophical Society. T h e other was Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant, the attorney-general w h o m Rittenhouse had met at Lancaster. W i t h Hopkinson, D r . E w i n g , and a Mr. Kunze, Rittenhouse was directed to obtain f r o m the former officers all the books, papers, and other property belonging to the University. O n December 16 the trustees met again, this time to elect a vice-provost and a professor of astronomy. D r . E w i n g , w h o had been vice-provost of the College and, unlike D r . Smith, was a Presbyterian, was the logical choice for the same office in the University, and was duly elected. A professorship of astronomy was an entirely new post, since in the College the subject had been covered in the general course in natural philosophy. D r . Smith was thoroughly capable, but he had been removed as provost and the trustees did not wish to risk w h a t they considered to be his unfortunate influence b y appointing him to the faculty. Dr. E w i n g also was well grounded in astronomy, but he had already been chosen vice-provost. T h u s Rittenhouse remained the most eligible candidate and, w h e n the choice was put to a ballot, the eighteen trustees present voted f o r him unanimously. T h e position paid £ 300 a year. Further advancement awaited him on February 8 of the foll o w i n g year w h e n D r . E w i n g was elected provost. T h e board of trustees b y "a great majority of ballots" named Rittenhouse to succeed him. T h e salary, over and above his stipend as astrono m y professor, was £100, plus £60 allowed him in lieu of a residence. A f t e r his acceptance of the position on February 26, 1780, Rittenhouse discovered that his appointment had raised several questions in D r . E w i n g ' s mind, chiefly with regard to a division of teaching responsibility. T h e trustees' minutes f o r March 1 note that "a letter f r o m Mr. E w i n g and Mr. Rittenhouse dated this day was read, wherein they say they have conferred together and find no difficulty to agree in the most harmonious manner upon different branches of Science w h i c h they must re-

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spectively teach in the University." T h e fact that the conference was important enough to have been noticed by the trustees suggests that, in the beginning at least, all was not harmony. T h e number of students interested in astronomy was limited, as indeed was the size of the undergraduate body. Instruction of such sparse classes in the movements of the planets and in the still meagerly known facts about comets, fixed stars, star clusters, and nebulae could not well have consumed a great deal of time, and Dr. Ewing apparently wished to utilize Rittenhouse's ability to the full but without encroaching upon his own special interests. The matter was settled a week later when Dr. Ewing and Rittenhouse submitted a considered plan. It is interesting not only for fine distinctions but also for the light it sheds upon the scope of Rittenhouse's knowledge: W h e n the Classes are Sufficiently prepared in the Latin & Greek Languages, in which the provost is at present employed, he proposes to instruct them in Logic, Metaphysics & Moral Philosophy, the V i c e Provost in Geography & Practical Astronomy. T h e Business of Geometry & Mathematics they propose to divide between them, each taking some of the branches. Natural & Experimental Philosophy they also propose to divide and not without hopes of Rendering their Lectures in this important Science by their joint endeavor and mutual assistance as compleat as Possible. Rittenhouse, in accepting the office of vice-provost, had done so "on certain conditions." While the stipulations are not to be found in the minutes, it is probable that he made some reservations as to the amount of attention he could give to the office. His life thus far had been one of almost uninterrupted toil, but his interests had never been so many as now or his responsibilities so heavy. Besides occupying a dual position at the University, he was still state treasurer, and since March 1779 he had been a vicepresident of the Philosophical Society. The war in 1779 was not progressing favorably for the Colonies, but the actual campaigning drew farther away from Philadelphia, and the intellectuals

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of the city became impatient to revive the meetings of the Society. A resumption of discussions was advertised f o r January 1780, but Rittenhouse and others asked that the meeting be postponed. W h e n it was held on March 19, Rittenhouse, together with Thomas Bond and Dr. William Shippen, was named a vice-president. A s Franklin was in France, actual guidance of the Society's affairs devolved upon the men who acted in his stead. Rittenhouse was busy within a f e w months, with Lukens and Biddle, repairing the observatory in State House yard, which had been damaged during the occupation. Then, on March 10, before he had fairly started on his teaching career at the University, the Assembly chose him as sole trustee of the Loan Office. T h e invasion of the state in 1777 had scattered the original trustees, and the business since then had been carried on b y a single trustee. T e n years before, when he had erected such towering hopes upon the expectation that he would be appointed to the provincial Loan Office, even the aid of powerful friends was not enough to win him preferment; now his selection came almost as a matter of course. Even though the fiscal affairs of the state had been loosely managed and were rapidly becoming chaotic, f e w men were more familiar with the workings of the Loan Office than Rittenhouse, sincc the major part of the funds he disbursed were derived from emission of bills of credit. While it is true that he had no voice in developing fiscal policy and was not responsible for the flood of printing-press money that threatened to drown the economy of both state and country, Rittenhouse cannot be absolved of all censure for failure to correct the situation. He had subscribed to the theory of papermoney financing and, although he soon learned its evils, he does not seem to have opposed it vigorously until it had almost run its ruinous course. Acting unofficially in his capacity as a citizen, he served on a committee with Thomas Paine, Owen Biddle, and other Whigs in 1779, to persuade the Continental Congress to revise its paper-money policy. Calling its proposal the "Citizen's Plan," the committee suggested to a mass meeting on September

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30 that the Congress be asked to halt the issue of paper currency. T h e committee would then undertake to make a house-to-house canvass and ask citizens to lend money f o r three years, the sums lent to be credited against future taxes. T h e mass meeting approved the plan, but the Continental currency stood too near the verge of collapse to be saved b y so easy an expedient. Since the first emission of bills of credit in 1775, the Congress up to 1780 had authorized thirty-seven issues with a face value of $241,500,000. T h e bills had depreciated as fast as the Congress could issue them, and in 1780 the tremendous quantity outstanding had a specie value of scarcely $5,000,000. T h e Congress had tried in various w a y s to check the decline. In 1778 it asked the states to cease emitting bills of their o w n and to make Continental bills legal tender. Pennsylvania agreed but the move was ineffectual; the Continental paper continued to fall. W h e n both the Congress and the states attempted to fix prices, the efforts w e r e generally ignored. Harassed creditors began to go into hiding so that debtors, waving handfuls of Continental bills, could not find them to discharge obligations in the virtually worthless paper. T h e unscrupulous and sharp-dealing, taking full advantage of the situation, reaped fortunes. Pennsylvania was one of the first states to succumb to the lure of paper money, its first emission as a state having closely followed similar action by the Continental Congress. It emitted a total of / 1 3 7 , 0 0 0 in 1775, and thousands more in the following years. W i t h the £ 200,000 issue of 1777 it ceased the practice temporarily, but irreparable damage had already been done the state's credit. Unlike the Congress, Pennsylvania had the power to l e v y taxes and, f o r this reason, should have had less difficulty in supporting its currency, but wastefulness in its o w n w a r expenditures, heavy contributions to the national effort, and the Assembly's insistence upon favoring friends and coercing foes in framing its tax laws led inevitably to depreciation. A fall of one-third was already recognized b y law at the time Rittenhouse took office as state treasurer in 1777. T h e collection of taxes was the indirect responsibility of Rit-

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tenhouse, but the fact that arrearages mounted steadily did not reflect on his capacity for the work, since there were many factors over which he had no control. One great difficulty was the Assembly's special consideration for those who were willing to take the test oath. Jurors, as these favored citizens were called, were permitted to pay half their taxes in paper money. Non-Associators, or those who held aloof from military service, were taxed at a higher rate than Associators, and at one period the tax paid by persons over fifty-three years of age was double that paid by their juniors. Discrimination of this sort, together with the public's awareness that opposition to taxation had been one of the causes of the conflict, created widespread indifference to the state levies. Then, as Rittenhouse explained to the Assembly in 1781, when reform could no longer be put off, few competent collectors could be employed at the rates offered, and when a capable man was hired he was often as quickly fired because his politics was not considered acceptable. Furthermore, prosecutions for nonpayment of taxes were seldom attempted. Rittenhouse himself did not favor legal action, holding that the threat, duly published, was more efficacious than actual suit. Recourse was had to the confiscation of T o r y estates in 1779, a step encouraged by the Congress, but popular sentiment was slow to approve this high-handed procedure, and the sale of such estates was not an important source of revenue before 1780. In the spring of 1780, the Congress capped the fiscal debacle with a virtual repudiation of the Continental currency, which was redeemed at one-fortieth of its face value. The new-tenor money then issued was to bear five per cent interest and be redeemable in specie in six years, but this, too, began immediately to depreciate. On February 1, 1781, Pennsylvania fixed the rate of exchange at $1 specie to $75 Continental currency and three months later at $1 to $175. Pennsylvania, despite the appalling and costly lesson afforded by the national currency, resorted once again to paper money coincidentally with the appointment of Rittenhouse as Loan

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Office trustee. T h e near collapse of currency in 1779 had brought on an economic depression, and with it a new demand f o r paper money. T h e Assembly authorized an emission of / 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 in March 1780, to be secured by state-owned lands, and nine months later, over the protests of conservatives, the bills were declared legal tender. Revenues were still unsatisfactory in the autumn of 1780, and Rittenhouse accompanied President Reed of the Supreme Executive Council and John Bayard, the speaker of the Assembly, on a tour of the state to investigate economic conditions and to learn, if possible, w h y taxes were not being paid. A t Tulpehocken, near Reading, they discovered a conspiracy to withhold tax payments and had two alleged conspirators jailed, but ordered them released next day, perhaps because evidence was wanting. A year later, the Assembly voted an additional emission of ,£500,000 in bills of credit. T h e value of the earlier issue was maintained b y selling land, including some that had belonged to the Penn family, but the 1781 issue fell steadily. Disaster was averted b y two occurrences of 1781. One was the ascendancy of Robert Morris in both state and national finance and the lifting of restrictions on exports. In June 1781, Morris persuaded the Assembly to deny legal-tender quality to all state paper. T h e relaxation of export restrictions obviated the necessity of such currency by bringing a welcome influx of both gold and silver into the state from West Indian purchasers of Pennsylvania flour. The state bills vanished from circulation. T h e resumption of specie payment did much to revive trade but the matter of tax collections in the state remained as vexing as ever. Rittenhouse's criticism of lax collection methods pointed the way to improvement but the Assembly took no action until 1782, when, with the conservatives gaining in power, it yielded further to Morris' suggestions and decreed that all taxes thenceforth be paid in specie, although back taxes might be paid in paper at a ratio of seventy-five to one. Further, the Assembly created the office of state comptroller-general and named John

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Nicholson to the position. A l t h o u g h Nicholson's task

was

greatly simplified b y the specie provision, the improvement in state finances during the next f e w years was not so heartening as had been hoped. Rittenhouse remained as state treasurer and his income showed some increase as the result of Nicholson's efforts. It has been said that Rittenhouse received so little compensation as treasurer that he could not afford to hire clerks and had n o assistant except Hannah. T h i s was true w h e n depreciation was at flood tide and tax collections poor, and Hannah continued to aid him as long as he held the office, y e t the records of his later years show that he had clerical help f r o m time to time. Signatures other than Hannah's in his receipt book indicate that he was not entirely dependent upon her help. T o g e t h e r w i t h the ^460 he received f r o m his positions at the University, and the / 5 0 0 w h i c h Hannah inherited f r o m her father in 1780, commissions f r o m the treasurer's office permitted Rittenhouse to live w i t h a fair degree of c o m f o r t even before the currency crisis, and to acquire a little property. For the y e a r 1780, he paid £ 164/10 in effective supply tax on an appraised estate of $47,000, in addition to £ 22 on a lot, valued at $8,000, in the western part of Mulberry ward, in w h i c h he leased his home. A l l prices as the result of currency depreciation w e r e extremely high during most of the Revolution, but the accumulation of property refutes any argument that Rittenhouse was living a n y w h e r e near the subsistence level. A f t e r N i c h o l s o n assumed office as comptroller-general, Rittenhouse's commissions as treasurer w e r e considerable. His income as treasurer in 1782, f o r example, amounted to / 5 3 0 / j / i o in specie, / 2 7 7/8/2 in Pennsylvania currency, and more than / 26,000 in Continental currency. In addition, he received £ 150 Pennsylvania as L o a n Office trustee. Compared with some of the amazing salaries paid other state officials in depreciated state money, this income is not imposing at first glance, but w h e n the proportion of specie represented is taken into account it was substantial, and certainly better than any remuneration he

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could expect from scientific pursuits. In the same year Sir William Herschel, the outstanding astronomer of the day, was retained by George III at ^250 a year. The commissions received by Rittenhouse, it is interesting to note, were not uniform. The usual rate was five shillings in the hundred pounds, or one-quarter of one per cent. Out of excise taxes he received five per cent, out of fines and forfeitures three and one-half per cent. His commission on the tonnage tax was one-half of one per cent. Though not princely, the income was sufficient to free him from constant concern with his personal finances and, despite the fact that he continued to work long, hard hours, lecturing and account keeping demanded less of his physical resources than had labor at a shop bench. As time passed, he found the strength and the opportunity to investigate many scientific puzzles, which were constantly coming to his notice, even in the midst of war.

XIV

OPTICS AND MAGNETISM D U R I N G the closing years of the Revolution, the warnings of Jefferson must have occurred to Rittenhouse. Government was threatening to acquire a complete monopoly on his time, leaving few if any opportunities for scientific study. So far as his neglect of astronomy was concerned, he could marshal valid excuses. The war still overshadowed all other interests, even among members of the Philosophical Society, and Rittenhouse had no convenient observatory except the one which had been erected as a temporary structure in the State House yard in 1769. Yet he never quite ceased to study and experiment, particularly in optics. One of his most interesting experiments in 1780, and one to which he devoted a good deal of time, was the solution of the optical puzzle known as the cameo-intaglio illusion. Reading in the papers of the Royal Society a description of experiments with the double microscope, he became interested immediately in the curious fact that the incised portions of any object seemed to stand out boldly in relief when viewed through such an instrument, and that elevated portions appeared in intaglio. N o explanation of the curiosity was offered, and offhand Rittenhouse could think of none, but he could not rest until he found one. He recalled that many persons, on first looking upon the moon through a telescope, saw only a patchwork of light and shade, the presence of lunar craters and mountain ranges wholly escaping them. Short, the British astronomer, had once noted that the mountains of the moon, when viewed through a Cassegrain refractor, appeared as valleys. Since the double microscope and the refracting telescope both presented an inverted image to the eye, Rittenhouse reasoned that the illusion must somehow be connected with the inversion, and his first hypothesis was that the cause lay in the reversal of shadows. 112

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T o check the theory, he placed t w o convex lenses in a tube, which he trained on the brick hearth of his parlor fireplace. T h e illusion was perfect; the mortar stood out in relief above the bricks. H e then turned the tube upon other familiar objects, such as wood carvings, a bar of chocolate, and a silver shoe buckle. In every case, the depressed portions appeared to be raised. Still believing that it was the reversal of shadows that created the illusion, he shut off all direct light, and set up a mirror so that it reflected light upon the hearth f r o m another angle. T h e n he looked at the bricks through the tube and found that the hearth seemed entirely normal. Persisting, he removed the lenses from the tube and viewed the hearth in direct light. T h e bricks and mortar appeared in their normal relation, but when he cast reflected light upon them their relative heights seemed to be the reverse of normal. It was clear, since the illusion could be created by reflected light as well as by the double lens, that the shadows alone were deceiving the eye. In the strange light, as well as in the inverted telescopic or microscopic image, they fell in a direction opposite to that in which the eye was accustomed to seeing them. T o make doubly sure that the shadows alone were responsible, Rittenhouse, while looking at the hearth through the double lens, touched the bricks with a finger. T h e illusion was instantly dispelled, since it was readily apparent that his finger, moving along the mortar, reached below the surface of the bricks. Rittenhouse's duties as state treasurer and Loan Office trustee, as well as those as professor and vice-provost of the University, were burdensome, yet they did not prevent his making two interesting studies of magnetism. Both were described by Rittenhouse in letters to John Page, of Virginia, early in 1781. T h e first was a method of magnetizing a steel rod. In conducting this experiment, Rittenhouse held a soft steel ramrod in the direction of a compass needle and struck it several times on one end. T h e n he balanced it on the crystal of a watch and saw it turn until it was parallel to the needle. T h e end which he held

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downward when striking the rod became the north pole, regardless of which end had been struck. When the "south" end was held downward and the rod tapped again, the magnetism was destroyed or, in some cases, the polarity was reversed. No such effects were observed if the rod was held perpendicular to the compass needle when struck. William Gilbert, who laid the foundations for magnetic inquiry during Queen Elizabeth's time, was familiar with the principle, but Rittenhouse apparently considered his experiment original. He had at least lifted a corner of the curtain that still hid the development of broad new magnetic concepts in the century that followed. Rittenhouse's other speculation was not an experiment but a hypothesis of far-reaching importance. It is known today as the molecular theory of magnetism. I suppose then [he wrote to Page] that magnetical particles of matter are a necessary constituent part of the metal which we call iron. These magnetical particles I suppose have each a north and south pole, and that they retain their polarity, however the metal may be fused or otherwise wrought. In a piece of iron which shows no signs of magnetism these magnetized particles lie irregularly, with their poles pointing in all possible directions, they therefore mutually destroy each other's effects. By giving magnetism to a piece of iron we do nothing more than arrange these particles. When the letter was published in the TYunsuctions of the Philosophical Society, it was illustrated with Rittenhouse's own diagram of his theory, showing how he supposed the "particles," or molecules, to change direction when magnetized. It could scarcely be distinguished from diagrams to be found in almost any elementary modern work on electricity or physics. Still, Rittenhouse during his lifetime was not to receive credit for the boldness and accuracy of his reasoning. Wilhelm Weber, the German physicist, who was not born until twenty-three years after Rittenhouse announced the theory, is regarded generally as the originator of the hypothesis. European scientists of

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the nineteenth century did not as a rule peruse the eighteenthcentury publications of American learned societies before announcing their discoveries. Rittenhouse, on March 24, 1781, sacrified more of the time he would have preferred to give to science by consenting to serve on a committee charged with developing a plan for making the Schuylkill River navigable, a project which had been laid aside eight years before. Little was done at the time, so acceptance of the new responsibility entailed no more work than attendance at meetings. This was fortunate, since an event which would soon make him impatient to return seriously to astronomy had occurred only a few days before in England. Sir William Herschel on March 13 chanced to observe a unique body beyond the orbit of Saturn. When he increased the magnification of his telescope, as he invariably did when viewing any celestial object that had previously escaped his notice, he discovered that the diameter of the new body appreciably increased. This, of course, ruled out the possibility that his find might be a star, since a star appears only as a point of light, and magnification is powerless to resolve it into a sensible disk or to increase its apparent diameter. The new body lacked a tail and other characteristics of a comet, and Herschel was led to suspect that he had come upon an unknown planet. Temerity was required to claim such a discovery, since it would be the first in recorded history. The known planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, had been familiar objects Ln the sky since remotest antiquity, and it had been more or less assumed that the planetary system was complete. When Herschel reported his observations to the Royal Society, he could not muster sufficient courage to call the new body a planet, and titled his paper An Account of a Comet. Lexell, at St. Petersburg, soon proved that the body actually was a planet, but Herschel hesitated, studying it with the highest magnification at his disposal and measuring it repeatedly with his laimp-micrometer, and it was not until November 7, 1782, that hie formally claimed discovery of a new planet. He named it

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Georgium Sidus, or George's star, in honor of his patron, George III. The name was soon discarded in favor of Uranus. Speculation about the planet became the most absorbing scientific topic of the day, although rumors concerning it were not always accurate. Ezra Stiles, at Yale, heard that planets had been discovered "revolving about fixed stars." He wrote Rittenhouse, requesting a copy of the announcement which the latter was supposed to have received from Europe. Dr. Benjamin Rush asserted in his eulogium on Rittenhouse that the latter observed the planet during 1781, but if he did, it was only a cursory view and Rittenhouse did not consider it important enough to report to the Philosophical Society. A fact that makes it improbable that he studied Uranus seriously in this year was the condition of the State House yard observatory, which the Philosophical Society proposed to sell as early as 1780. Another deterrent was the accelerated tempo of military events, which focused public attention upon the possibility of an early peace. Cornwallis was finally pinned down by Washington and the French at Yorktown peninsula in October 1781, and the military phase of the struggle for independence came to an end. Citizens everywhere turned after six years to the normal pursuits of peace. Rittenhouse, with his interest in astronomy already revived by the current speculation about the new planet, was further heartened by his election as Fellow on January 30, 1782, by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at Boston, which, though only recently organized, counted among its members most of the outstanding thinkers in the country. Aside from the master's degree conferred on him by the College of New Jersey, no recognition had ever before come to him from outside his native state. That spring, for the first time since he had plunged into state politics, Rittenhouse made a successful effort to free himself from some of the responsibilities that were gradually enslaving him. He submitted his resignation as vice-provost of the Univer-

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sity on April 18, and it was accepted the same day. T h e University, however, was reluctant to lose his services entirely and elected him to the board of trustees. T h e position required more than nominal duties, yet it was more moderate than the vice-provostship in its demands. T a k i n g advantage of the limited leisure afforded b y his partial retirement f r o m the University, Rittenhouse resumed his instrument making; not, as before, to provide an income, but simply to please his f a n c y . H e did, however, entertain some hopes f o r the ingenious y e t simple hygrometer he developed during the summer. It consisted of nothing more than t w o strips of w o o d , glued together. T h e grain in one ran at right angles to the grain in the other, with the result that, as the strip with the transverse grain absorbed moisture, it expanded in length and was bent into a curve b y the other strip. A pointer, affixed to the strips, indicated the degree of humidity on a graduated scale. Franklin, in Paris, wrote E d w a r d Nairn at London, on N o v e m b e r 13, 1780, suggesting a hygrometer be made of strips of close-grained mahogany, but there is no evidence that he made one. T h e value of wooden instruments was destroyed soon afterwards b y the invention of the hair hygrometer by Η . B. de Saussure. De Saussure's instrument employed the peculiar ability of the human hair to absorb moisture in proportion to the temperature and so indicate relative humidity with a fair degree of accuracy. Rittenhouse busied himself also with fashioning a reading glass and a pair of spectacles, which he presented to Washington in 1783 as a token of his regard. T h e spectacles w e r e quite satisfactory, said Washington in a note accepting the presents, and the reading glass, he had no doubt, would suit him as soon as he accustomed his eyes to focusing with it. While proof is wanting, it is probable that Rittenhouse began work in 1782 on several of the instruments, including an extremely accurate astronomical clock, with which to equip the observatory he was already planning to build. T h e clock was notable f o r its compensating pendulum, a refinement which

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DAVID RITTENHOUSE

offset the effect of temperature variation on the pendulum's period. T h e method selected by Rittenhouse is still employed in some astronomical clocks. T o the pendulum, just above the bob, he attached a glass tube thirty-six inches long and bent in the middle to form an elongated U. The tube, open at one end, he filled with alcohol and mercury. As the temperature of the circumambient air increased and expanded the metal of the pendulum, thus lowering the center of oscillation and tending to slow down the clock, the alcohol and mercury expanded in the tube, raising the center of oscillation and so compensating exactly, or nearly so, for the greater pendulum length. T o regulate the clock, Rittenhouse attached a collar to the pendulum rod, placing lead shot in it when he wished to accelerate the beat and removing shot when he wished to decelerate it. The clock was installed later in the new observatory and used by Rittenhouse throughout the remainder of his life. Attempts to determine the year in which the observatory was built usually have not gone beyond the fact that it was erected before 1786. The date is of considerable interest because the observatory was the first permanent structure of its kind in America and, as long as Rittenhouse lived, the only one. Records of its erection are not to be found, yet it certainly was built before the end of 1783. Rittenhouse was planning an observatory as early as 1781. On March 29 of that year, Timothy Matlack told the Assembly of the project and suggested that Rittenhouse be encouraged. A committee was named to wait on Rittenhouse to learn what assistance he needed. Quite naturally for a man in his circumstances at the time, he suggested financial aid, and the committee so reported. The report at first was tabled, but on April 9 it was taken up again and Rittenhouse was granted /250. The earliest reference to the actual structure is contained in the proceedings of the Philosophical Society for 1783. Rittenhouse had been placed on a committee of three which was empowered by the Society to sell the old State House yard observa-

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tory, and the sale was ordered in September. Then on December 5, 1783, Rittenhouse, as librarian of the Society, was directed to remove the instruments to his home. At the same time Francis Hopkinson offered to sell the Society a forty-foot lot in Arch Street, on which to erect a building of its own, and the lot was identified as being the one "near the observatory." Perhaps it was not yet completed, else Rittenhouse would have taken the Society's instruments there rather than to his home; but the fact that he began an extended series of observations of Uranus in January the next year strongly suggests that it was at least nearing completion as 1783 ended. A paper published in the Philosophical Society Transactions and dated 1785 leaves no doubt that the observatory had been in use for at least a year. The observatory, an octagonal structure of brick, stood well back from Arch Street on the northwest corner of Seventh, obliquely across from the house then occupied by Rittenhouse and his family. Rittenhouse leased the lot from Colonel John Bull until 1786, when he bought it. Here, in his own observatory, surrounded by instruments of his own manufacture, he seemed about to realize his hope of resuming serious study and observation, but he was fated to enjoy even less leisure than before. During 1783, as a trustee of the University, he helped, with a reluctance that can only be guessed, to audit the accounts of Dr. Smith. The latter was now at Chestertown, Maryland, industriously engaged in launching Washington College, but continuing nevertheless to press for payment of his salary, which had been in arrears when he was dismissed as provost of the College of Philadelphia, as well as of a sum he had spent for an addition to the house he had occupied while at the College. The trustees of the University had done nothing about the claims, but on April 19, 1783, Rittenhouse, together with Dr. William White and Francis Hopkinson, was appointed to a committee to examine the accounts. In June, Rittenhouse and Hopkinson journeyed to Norriton to report on the condition of the farm which Dr. Smith had purchased for the College some years before. The committee must have found everything in

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order, for the claims were paid with interest two years later. There was, perhaps, something indelicate in thus prying into the affairs of an old friend, but Rittenhouse seems to have possessed a special talent for retaining the friendship of men with whose aims and views his own duty sometimes conflicted. Dr. Smith remained a loyal friend and champion throughout his life. Rittenhouse's close association with Hopkinson also was remarkable in a way, since the latter, though he had taken the oath and sat on the state Admiralty bench, was a tireless opponent of the state constitution which Rittenhouse had helped to frame and continued to support. Yet he worked willingly with Rittenhouse, not only as a University trustee but also as treasurer of the Philosophical Society. His home was one of the few which Rittenhouse visited regularly. There Rittenhouse was stimulated by Hopkinson's wide range of knowledge and interests and was entertained by his skillful playing of the "forte piano." The rancor of Pennsylvania politics never disturbed the friendship. For a time during 1783 it seemed as if Rittenhouse's return to astronomy might be further delayed. Jefferson, moved by gratitude to France for the aid it had given the Colonies in the struggle which was now concluded except for the formal signing of a peace treaty, proposed to the Philosophical Society on January 13 that Rittenhouse make an orrery and present it in the name of the Society to His Most Christian Majesty. Rittenhouse agreed, but it was decided to ascertain whether Louis would accept it. T h e Chevalier de la Luzerne, the French minister, reported in September that the king would be pleased with the gift, but for some reason, perhaps the considerable cost, nothing came of it. Rittenhouse employed the time thus saved him to make a number of astronomical observations. On January 20, 1784, John Lukens chanced upon a new comet, and immediately told Rittenhouse of the discovery, but the latter had already been studying it since December 15, the date on which Franklin informed him that, during November, a new comet had swum into the ken of Nathaniel Pigott in Yorkshire. Rittenhouse observed it almost nightly for two

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months but, as he explained in the paper read to the Philosophical Society, his telescopes did not permit him to see it well enough to draw any conclusions. Meanwhile he began a systematic study of Uranus, viewing its meridian transit nightly from January 29 to February 12. Many facts remained to be revealed about this stripling member of the solar family and, although Rittenhouse was unable to announce any new data, his observations at least reminded his friends that his special province was astronomy. Led by Francis Hopkinson, they revived the attempt that had failed nine years before to make him state astronomer. Hurried as I am [ Hopkinson wrote to Jefferson on February 2 3 1 , 1 must tell you that I have framed a Petition to the House of Assembly—which has been signed by many respectable names—carried into the House . . . I drew the Bill on Saturday—it will be presented to Day—& from all appearance (almost to a Certainty) Mr. Rittenhouse will be turned out of all his offices, having been duly convicted of astronomical and Philosophical Abilities—against the Peace & Dignity of the said Commonwealth, &c&c be appointed Astronomer to the State of Pennsylvania with a salary of at least £600—probably £ 750 per an. The petition had been presented to the House some time earlier and a committee had already conferred with Rittenhouse. Three days before Hopkinson wrote to Jefferson, it had reported: That in a conference held, by order of the House, with David Rittenhouse, Esquire, they have received assurances from him, if appointed thereto, of his readiness to devote his time and studies to the service of the public in that station, and that he expects to become more useful therein than in any of his present offices, which he will cheerfully resign, if required by the House. That they perfectly concur with the petitioners in their ideas of the great beneficial effects and national reputation which may result from the institution of the office of State Astronomer and also in the person who is best calculated to fill that office.

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The committee brought in the bill on February 25, leaving the salary blank, but it was tabled. Eager though Rittenhouse was to obtain the office, it may be doubted that he was too sanguine, despite the generosity shown by the House in helping to defray the cost of his observatory. He knew that the state had twice before declined to underwrite the study of astronomy and might well do so a third time. Hopkinson was genuinely optimistic. He wrote Jefferson again on March 12: "Air. Rittenhouse's Pension goes on swimmingly—it is fixed at £500 per an 8c the Bill I believe will be passed before the House rises." But the House rose without again taking up the bill. Pennsylvania's lawmakers, however much they might respect Rittenhouse as treasurer and Loan Office trustee, were practical men. They could admire his learning and scientific attainments and, on occasion, toss him a gratuity for his orrery or observatory, but they could never be convinced that physical research was worth continued support. They found time to debate petitions for divorce paragraph by paragraph and to enact laws to regulate fishing in the streams of the state, but not to consider the opportunity to give Pennsylvania the inestimable benefit of the shrewdest scientific mind of the day, along with the prestige that would accrue from new scientific trails which Rittenhouse would have been encouraged to blaze. Rittenhouse himself was busy with other matters.

XV

WILDERNESS BREAKER were Rittenhouse's time and efforts occupied with such a variety of activity as during the spring and summer of 1784. An undertaking of lasting importance was his efforts to improve communications within the state.

SELDOM

He had been appointed in March 1781 to the commission which again took up the study of ways to make the Schuylkill River navigable, a project which he had laid aside in 1773. T w o years passed without any appreciable progress having been made and, on September 20, 1783, the Assembly, while not abandoning the idea of improving the Schuylkill and of connecting it by canal with the Susquehanna, undertook to provide a better highway between Lancaster and Philadelphia. With Captain Thomas Hutchins and Nathan Sellers, Rittenhouse was appointed to a committee which was to view the road and suggest ways of putting it into decent repair, to study ways of improving the Delaware, and at the same time to survey the east bank of the Susquehanna and select the most promising site f o r a town. T h e proposed town was to become the seat of newly erected Dauphin County. N o record survives of Rittenhouse's efforts in connection with the highway during 1783 and 1784, but he and Captain Hutchins made a careful study of the Susquehanna's banks within the limits of the new county, and on March 4, 1784, recommended a site for the town. T h e finest location they could find, they reported, was at Harris's Ferry, which seemed to thern to be high, aiiy, and healthful. Their recommendations were accompanied b y the proposal of John Harris, of Paxton, to lay out the town on his land along the river. T h e town was duly incorporated as Harrisburg and subsequently became Pennsylvania's capital. A further responsibility thrust upon Rittenhouse during early 1784 was the acquisition of a site for the projected Philosophical Society building. On February 6 the Society authorized the pur,2

3

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chase of the Arch Street lot as the site of a permanent home. The price paid to Hopkinson was £ 600, half in cash and half to be paid with interest in five years. It was decided to plant a botanical garden on two hundred feet of the lot, and Rittenhouse was one of a committee appointed to "look out for a gardener." Rittenhouse leased the remainder of the lot for a garden of his own. With Samuel Vaughan and Hopkinson, Rittenhouse also was given the task of finding ways and means of erecting the proposed building. The committee, instead of following instructions, conferred with the directors of the Library Company of Philadelphia and with them made a joint petition to the Assembly for two plots of ground in State House Square, one on the east, the other on the west. The Society was granted a lot on the east side, the location of its present building, early the following year. Funds for erecting the building were raised by subscription, to which Rittenhouse contributed £ 10. Of all his activities during the year, the one which gained him most note abroad was one in which he never engaged. In May it was reported that, six months before, he and Francis Hopkinson had conducted the first balloon ascension in America. According to the story, he and Hopkinson had inflated forty-seven small balloons with hydrogen and had sent them aloft with a cage containing a sheep, a cock, and a duck. When the balloons, which had been held captive with a rope, was brought down safely, James Wilcox, a local carpenter, was paid to enter the cage. Freed of the rope, the balloons were then allowed to ascend until Wilcox, becoming alarmed as he was borne toward the Schuylkill, began to puncture the balloons one by one to make a swift, dry-land descent. Thus was completed the first, though entirely mythical, balloon ascent on this side of the Atlantic. The hoax had its origin in an article published in the Journal de Paris for May 13, 1784. In this account, the names of the participants were translated into what the correspondent, believed to have been an American, considered their Gallic form. Rittenhouse became "Ritnose," Hopkinson appeared as "Op-

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quisne," and James Wilcox as "Gimes Ouilcoxe." The Schuylkill was translated as "Scoulkill River." A person more at home with French would almost certainly have avoided such curious orthography, a fact which suggests that the author was indeed American. Authorship of the Parisian article has been imputed to several persons, but all studies overlook the possibility that the perpetrator was Franklin, whose fondness for hoaxes was incurable. He was in France at the time, and his imagination had been stirred deeply by the balloon ascensions he had seen in France in 1783. He had written enthusiastic accounts of ballooning to friends in America and had prophesied the use of airships in warfare. Further, the Active account of the Philadelphia experiment so closely paralleled the actual ascent of animals and later of the French scientist de Rozier and the Marquis D'Arlandes at Paris on November 21, 1783, that the author may be suspected of drawing upon that event for his details. Franklin had watched the Paris ascent. Finally, it is at least odd that, of all the Americans who might have been credited with the experiment, the two named were officers of the Philosophical Society, of which Franklin was president. The story gained such wide currency in Europe that it was set forth as fact in the anonymous article on "Aeronautics" in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Nevertheless, corroborating accounts are not to be found in contemporary records. Hopkinson was deeply interested in ballooning, as shown by a letter to Jefferson on May 12, 1784, but the letter contains no hint that a man, or even animals, had been carried aloft. We have been amusing ourselves [he wrote Jefferson, who was then at Annapolis] with raising Air Balloons made of Paper. The first that mounted our atmosphere was made by Dr. Foulk & sent up from the Garden of the Minister of Holland the Day before yesterday. Yesterday, however, the same Balloon was raised from Mr. Morris's Garden, & last Evening another was exhibited at the Minister of France's—to the great amusement

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of the spectators. They rose twice or perhaps three times the Height of the Houses, & then gently descended without Damage. They were open at Bottom & of Course the Gas was soon wasted. I am contriving a better method of filling them. Although Rittenhouse was no doubt familiar with Hopkinson's experiments, there is no evidence to show that he was a party to them. At the time of the supposed ascension of the mancarrying balloon, he was engaged in correspondence with both Franklin and Jefferson on matters wholly unrelated to aeronautics. Franklin wrote him in June that he considered Newton's corpuscular theory of light to be in error, and that he was convinced that the propagation of light was due to the "elastic aether," though he failed to credit Huygens with the original conception. Jefferson wrote Rittenhouse a description of the recent experiments of the Abbe Rochon with Icelandic crystal and its puzzling double refraction. Jefferson supposed that lenses made of the crystal contained two substances, each of a different refracting power. Before any report of the Paris article could reach Philadelphia, Rittenhouse had left the city to begin the survey of the permanent Pennsylvania-Virginia line. When he and his colleagues agreed with the Virginia commissioners in 1779 on a boundary between Pennsylvania and Virginia, Rittenhouse had supposed that the matter was closed, but the critical turn subsequently taken by the war, together with further misunderstandings, delayed the actual survey and precipitated new disorders. When President Reed, of the Supreme Executive Council, notified Virginia that the Continental Congress had urged the two states to end the dispute, the Virginia surveyors replied that they took orders only from the governor of their state. The Virginia House of Delegates ratified the Baltimore agreement on June 23, 1780, but made the reservation that the occupants of any land ceded to Pennsylvania as the result of the survey should not be required to pay taxes before December 1 of that year. Colonel Daniel Brodhead wrote Reed on August 21

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f r o m F o n Pitt that Virginia's resolution had strengthened the settlers from that state in their determination to resist Pennsylvania authority and might "injure our Military affairs until the line is finally run." Pennsylvania ratified the Virginia plan in September, and on February 24, 1781, Reed notified Archibald M c C l e a n that he and John Lukens had been appointed commissioners to run the line, and suggested that M a y would be a g o o d time to begin. H e assured them that Colonel Marshall, lieutenant of Washington County, would furnish a guard of f o r t y men, properly officered. W h e n M a y came, Reed found the Assembly reluctant to authorize the survey immediately and asked Jefferson, then g o v e r nor of Virginia, for a year's postponement. Jefferson agreed, but the Pennsylvania Assembly again demurred and, on March 2, 1782, pleaded that the great cost of the undertaking made it ill advised at the time and recommended that only a temporary line be run. Benjamin Harrison, w h o had succeeded Jefferson, accepted the proposal, and in M a y Alexander McClean, w h o had succeeded his brother as surveyor, set out to mark the line. Starting f r o m the end of the Mason and Dixon Line, the party proceeded west until they reached the confluence of Dunkard Creek w i t h the Monongahela River in what is n o w G r e e n e C o u n t y . T h e r e they were stopped b y the leveled muskets of defiant Virginia settlers. McClean wrote William Moore, w h o had been elevated to the presidency of the Supreme E x e c u tive Council, that the survey would proceed at all hazards, b u t on second thought, and with another glance at the muzzles of the Virginia muskets, he decided that it would be better to await Moore's instructions. Moore immediately wrote G o v e r n o r Harrison, w h o replied that he had appointed Colonel Joseph Nevill as surveyor f o r Virginia and was sending him to meet McClean w i t h a hundred militiamen. T h e show of strength achieved its purpose, the temporary line was run without incident, and the result was accepted formally b y the t w o states early in 1783. T h e settlers,

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however, were less easily satisfied, and those from Virginia were soon complaining of harsh treatment at the hands of Pennsylvania officials under whose jurisdiction the temporary line had placed them. While denying the charges, a committee of the Pennsylvania Assembly on August 29, 1783, urged that a permanent line be marked as soon as possible. The Supreme Executive Council, anticipating the action of the Assembly committee by a day, had appointed Rittenhouse, Dr. Ewing, and Captain Hutchins as commissioners to run the permanent line. This information was communicated by John Dickinson, the third president of the Council within a year, to Governor Harrison, and the latter on November 10 notified Dickinson that Virginia had named as commissioners the Reverend Dr. Madison, the Reverend Robert Andrews, John Page, and Thomas Lewis. Before the survey was actually begun, John Lukens had been named a fourth Pennsylvania commissioner and Andrew Ellicott had taken the place of Lewis among the Virginians. Since the work represented a sacrifice of time and income, all four Pennsylvania commissioners, after their appointment, refused to serve until the state agreed to pay them $6 a day and provide them with food, transportation, and sleeping facilities. This amount, they asserted, was no more than the Virginia commissioners were to receive. Dr. Ewing and Captain Hutchins even asked £ 100 each as an advance on their fee. Rittenhouse, after asking and receiving permission from the Council, paid it. By late May 1784, all objections had been overcome and further preparations moved smoothly. Planning a surveying expedition was a task of considerable proportions, since no less than forty to fifty men were needed to break the wilderness, make the required astronomical observations, and mark the line. T o sustain such a party in the wilds for weeks, ample stores of food had to be carried, as well as tents, astronomical and surveying instruments, and other paraphernalia. The miscellany invariably included a little something to dispel the chill of damp forest nights. The wagons of the 1784

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party carried 120 gallons of spirits, forty of brandy, and eighty of Madeira. Because of the nature of the survey, it was found advisable to divide the party, one-half doing the preliminary work in the east, the other making its observations in the west. T h e line was to extend five degrees of longitude west from the Delaware River at the latitude previously marked by Mason and Dixon, so early in June the eastern party, consisting of Ritttenhouse and Lukens for Pennsylvania and Page and Andrews for Virginia, went to Wilmington to establish the longitude of the Delaware. A few days previously, Dr. Ewing and Captain Hutchins started west to meet Dr. Madison and Ellicott. T h e first move of Rittenhouse and the party at Wilmington was to construct an observatory on high ground and set a meridian mark. Here, following the principles laid down by Galileo for establishing longitude astronomically, they observed the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites both before and after the planet's apposition to the sun. Their observations continued for nearly two months. O n September 20, Rittenhouse and Andrews set out on the ride of four hundred miles to meet the western party, which had been making similar observations. T h e variation in the average mean time calculated by the two parties was found to be twenty minutes and a little more than one second. Five degrees of longitude called for an even twenty minutes. T h e variation, which was the equivalent of 1,317 feet, four inches, was soon reconciled, and the western extent of Pennsylvania was finally determined. W i t h fall well advanced, the work was abandoned for the year and, on February 8, 1785, the joint commission made its report: . . . T h e continuation [of the Mason and Dixon Line] w e have marked b y opening vistas over the most remarkable Heights which lie in its course, & by planting on many of these Heights in the Parallel of Latitude, the true Boundary Posts, marked with the Letters Ρ & V , each Letter facing the State

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of which it is the Initial. At the Extremity of this Line, which is the Southwest corner of the State of Pennsylvania, we have planted a squared unlettered white oak Post, around whose Base we have raised a pile of stones. The meridian line, from the southern boundary northward to the Ohio River, was still to be run, but that must wait until the next summer. Returning to Philadelphia, where the usual treasury business had piled up during his three-month absence, Rittenhouse was almost immediately summoned by the University to look after its property in Norriton township, a duty which fell to him because of his familiarity with the district. A flood had damaged the mill on the property during the spring, and Rittenhouse had it repaired. Then, on September 10, residents in the area succeeded in persuading the Assembly to erect the new county of Montgomery and asked the University to quote a price for twenty of its 572 acres, on which it was planned to rear a courthouse and other county buildings. Rittenhouse was one of three trustees appointed to arrange the sale. Although work on the Pennsylvania-Virginia line was not complete and wanted the spectacular appeal of the fictional balloon ascension, it brought Rittenhouse further recognition. An honorary master of arts degree was conferred on him by the College of William and Mary on December 30, 1784. Dr. Madison, in bestowing the honor, called him "chief of philosophers." Though Rittenhouse in his modest way undoubtedly would have disclaimed preeminence, the honor was more welcome to him than any notoriety arising from a hoax.

XVI

DR. FRANKLIN'S FRIENDS A s 1785 opened, Rittenhouse was drawn more and more toward astronomy. T h e new planet still interested him, and he observed it several times between January and late March. This year he not only noted its meridian transits but also made micrometric measures of its zenith distance. Its declination, he found, was constantly greater than δ Geminorum and less than μ Geminorum. Before the year was out, he was to make what were perhaps his most important contributions to astronomy, if not in actual discoveries or even in hypotheses, then at least in observational technique. But first the running of the PennsylvaniaVirginia line must be concluded. Dr. E w i n g resigned as a commissioner in March, and A n d r e w Porter, who had served as commissary on the previous year's expedition, was appointed in his stead. Andrew Ellicott and Colonel Nevill acted f o r Virginia. Rittenhouse and Porter started the long ride westward early in June, first picking up the five horses and two wagons which Porter had left at T e n Mile Creek in Washington County over the winter, then proceeding to the southwest corner of the state. As f a r as they knew at the time, the survey would last well into the winter since, just before they left Philadelphia, the Supreme Executive Council, anxious to learn whether any part of the Lake Erie shoreline fell within the state, had commissioned them to continue the meridian line northward from the Ohio River to the lake. Rittenhouse had persuaded President Dickinson to appoint Dr. E w i n g and Captain Hutchins to this additional task, but Dr. E w i n g declined to serve and Hutchins left the state. In what the Council considered an emergency, neither Rittenhouse nor Porter could refuse the appointment. Progress through the heavily wooded, mountainous country was exasperatingly slow for Rittenhouse. His absence from home the previous year had been comparatively brief and he had not »3'

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complained, but now the line to be run was longer and the country more difficult. Although the party consisted of thirty men, it had to fell trees almost every step of the way and did not advance much more than a mile a day. Rittenhouse soon found wilderness living a trial. In a letter to Hannah from Wheeling Creek, he complained of the hardships, yet curiously enough he was never in better health than when sleeping on a hard bed under canvas and eating the coarse fare of a surveying camp. It tired him to spend most of the day in the saddle, riding through blistering heat or occasional downpours, fording streams and urging his mount up steep heights. And he regretted the necessity of sacrificing sleep every few nights to make observations. Yet the toilsome weeks had their moments of relaxation. From time to time he collected botanical specimens for his garden or took a walk for the sheer pleasure of viewing the wild beauty of the country, which offered, he said in a later letter to Jefferson, "the most grand and beautiful vista in the world." Usually he went alone, but sometimes in company with Ellicott or another of the party. His description of one such walk, through a deep gorge, reveals a facet of his character that few persons, accustomed to his methodical efficiency as state treasurer or to his rather cold matterof-factness as a Philosophical Society member, would have suspected. As he and Ellicott and a companion identified only as Mr. A. made their way up the gorge, they saw there a tiny stream cascading musically from moss-grown rocks. He warned the others not to go any farther, he wrote Hannah, lest "we should in all probability find some of the water-goddesses, perhaps stark naked and fast asleep. Mr. A. went with us but neither the nymphs nor their bowers have any charm for him." Then, perhaps fearing that Hannah might wonder about his own reactions, he added: "Nothing but your company was wanting to me." Actually a good deal was wanting. He missed the comfortable routine of his own home, his books, his observatory, and his

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workshop. T h e others in the party were friendly enough but they drank too much, he said. There were times when their boisterousness kept him from sleep, and then he wished they might drink themselves into insensibility and be quiet. As the party traveled farther north into the country west of Fort Pitt, it encountered more settlers. Rittenhouse welcomed them at first but, as they began to visit the camp more frequently, he found that they interfered with his lonely walks and were usually on hand when he tried to steal a moment to read a passage of Milton. Still, he told Hannah, the trip had its compensations. T h e inability of the Assembly and the Supreme Executive Council to make demands on him for money was an undiluted pleasure, and the absence of political bickering gave him deep satisfaction. On August 23 the part)' reached the Ohio River, and the Pennsylvania-Virginia line was at last complete. Colonel Nevill left almost immediately for home, but Ellicott, since Virginia laid no claim to the land west of Pennsylvania north of the Ohio, joined the Pennsylvania party. Rittenhouse had obtained the appointment for him before leaving Philadelphia. T h e party had taken a little more than two months to run the line, a distance of slightly more than sixty miles. More than ninety miles lay between the Ohio and Lake Erie, a greater distance than seemed possible f o r the party to cover in the weeks remaining before winter increased the difficulties of travel. Rittenhouse, who had already been directed b y President Dickinson to open correspondence with Governor Clinton, of N e w Y o r k , looking toward a final settlement of the northern boundary, started back to Philadelphia in September. Dickinson had wished the line to be run as soon as possible, but Rittenhouse pleaded the lack of suitable instruments and suggested that the undertaking be put off until 1786. As soon as he reached home, in better health than he had known f o r some time, Rittenhouse attacked the accumulation of treasury business and began a search f o r the solution to a problem that had arisen during his absence. T h e result was the inven-

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tion of a collimator for his telescope, which enabled him to fix a meridian mark without the necessity of going comparatively great distances afield. He described the invention in a letter to Dr. Ewing in November: When my observatory was first erected, I placed a meridian mark to the northward at the distance of about 1,200 feet, my view to the south being too much confined by adjacent buildings and that to the north was not distance enough to have the mark free from a sensible parallax. But last summer a new brick house was built directly north of the observatory, and much too nigh for distant vision with the transit instrument. N o w though a fixed mark is not absolutely necessary where you have a good transit instrument, the position of which may be examined and accurately corrected, if necessary, every fair day, by the passage of the pole star above and below the pole, it is nevertheless very convenient, saves much trouble, and may sometimes prevent mistakes. T h e transit instrument at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, he recalled, had been accidentally thrown out of its true position, and the mishap was not discovered for some time because the meridian mark had been taken down during repairs to the building to which it was attached. T o surmount his own difficulty, Rittenhouse fixed the object glass of a thirty-six-foot telescope on the observatory wall, "as near as convenient" to the object glass of his transit. Then he built a brick pedestal in his garden at the focus of the glass he had fixed to the wall. On this, he placed a sheet of brass, fastened to a block of marble. He silvered the brass and marked it with several concentric black circles. When viewed through the transit instrument and, of course, the glass from the thirty-sixfoot telescope, the rings were brought to a focus at the point where the images of stars would be formed. The innermost circle was the meridian mark. T h e mark, he observed, was entirely free from parallax, an advantage possessed by no other unless placed at a far greater distance. Furthermore, the mark coujd easily be illuminated, so

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that it could be employed at night, the time w h e n the transit instrument was mostly used. T h e only disadvantage that he could foresee was the possible settling of the pillar w h i c h supported the mark, but it was one that does not seem to have troubled him. In the same letter to Dr. Ewing, he disclosed another improvement in his instruments which afterwards found general favor among makers of transit and surveying instruments. U p to that time, the usual practice was to use silk threads in the reticle of such instruments, but these, fine as they seemed to the naked eye, were often thick enough to hide a small star completely, a decided handicap in transit observations. "I have lately with no small difficulty," he wrote, "placed the thread of a spider in some of my instruments. It has a beautiful effect. It is not one tenth of the size of the thread of a silk w o r m , and evenly of a thickness." Considering the time he had spent on the western boundary this year, and the multiplication of his worries as state treasurer, it is not easy to understand how he found time f o r such experiments, yet he not only succeeded in this but also managed to observe Uranus twenty-one times f r o m January 25 to A p r i l 2 of the following year. T h e observations confirmed his previous determination of the planet's declination, but he does not seem to have attempted further calculation of its motions. T h e greater cares of both his state offices at this time w e r e the direct result of the economic depression w h i c h had been g r o w ing steadily more severe since 1781. Despite Rittenhouse's exertions, tax collections dropped alarmingly. T h e y had virtually ceased b y 1784, and Rittenhouse brought the gravity of the situation to the attention of the Supreme Executive Council. T h e present exhausted State of the T r e a s u r y [he w r o t e on April 27, 1784] & the pressing occasions f o r money make it necessary for me to represent to the H o n . Council in the most earnest manner, the expediency of calling on the several revenue officers & urging payment; particularly the late & present A u c -

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tioneers, the Naval Officer & the Collector of Imports, together with such other persons as the Council or the Comptroller General may think likely to afford a Supply. How little authority the Treasurer has in these matters is well known. . . . I have by advertisements in several Newspapers called on the purchasers of City Lots to make payment. I have not indeed published a List of names, as I was convinced the threat of doing so would have more effect than the thing itself when done. I have likewise called personally on many of them; & now beg leave to inform Council of the little success I have had. . . . What is further to be done in order to compel payment before the first of June (when all the holders of the Bills will expect to have them exchanged) I humbly submit to the wisdom of Council. Permit me, Sir, likewise to inform Council that there seems to be almost a total stop to the collecting of Taxes. As business stagnated, the paper-money enthusiasts, forgetting the costly experience of the Revolutionary years, once more demanded that the printing presses be started. President Dickinson, keeping his head in the crisis, warned the people and the Assembly against taking such a desperate step. Mass meetings, called by Philadelphia merchants, voted overwhelmingly against repeating the financial folly. Nevertheless the Assembly on March 16, 1785, authorized the emission of /150,000 in bills of credit, £ 50,000 of the sum to be lent at six per cent interest on real estate, the remaining £ 100,000 to be used to pay creditors of the state. The bills were to be receivable for all taxes and imposts due the state. This gave them a semblance of sound backing and for a time they passed at par with specie, but within a year they depreciated twelve per cent and a year later they had fallen so low that banks and merchants in Philadelphia refused to accept them. Another measure for which the advocates of cheap money agitated was enacted by the Assembly in 1786. This was the funding bill, which allowed citizens of the state to exchange Continental bills for new loan bills to be issued by the state. For thus assuming a share of the financial obligations of the Con-

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gress, the state w o u l d be permitted to cancel a part of its indebtedness to the Congress. T h e bills could be used to purchase state lands or, if desired, the holder could retain them and receive interest. Chief among the victims of the funding act were soldiers and others w h o were similarly required to accept Continental currency. Speculators, b y inducing needy soldiers to part w i t h the paper, exchanged it f o r state bills and bought land w o r t h many times as much as the Continental bills. T h e new issues piled new cares upon Rittenhouse, w h o had already g r o w n w e a r y with the ceaseless and fruitless task of trying to collect taxes. Arrearages were mounting at a discouraging rate. In the t w o years 1782-83, Pennsylvania levied taxes that ought to have realized the respectable sum of £645,000, but actual collections totaled only £ 202,367. Rittenhouse's commissions were increased somewhat in 1785, but the steady depreciation of currency quickly offset his temporary gain. Despite the onerous routine of his state offices, and the necessary preparations f o r running the P e n n s y l v a n i a - N e w

York

boundary in the spring and summer, Rittenhouse found the early months of 1786 much to his liking since they afforded him the opportunity to pursue several investigations and also to provide f o r Hannah and the t w o girls a home more befitting the family of a man whose reputation was n o w secure and whose financial circumstances were easier than w h e n he had leased a house in Philadelphia sixteen years before. Furthermore, the Philosophical Society meetings had assumed a more interesting character than at any time since the war, f o r Franklin had returned to the country the previous September and n o w regularly presided. Rittenhouse, elected a councilor of the Society at the meeting on January 5, 1786, was immediately accepted into the aging doctor's circle and, as Francis H o p k i n son wrote Jefferson, he and Rittenhouse spent " e v e r y W e d n e s day evening w i t h D r . Franklin in a little pleasing philosophical party." Sometimes the " p a r t y " took the f o r m of a dinner, w i t h D r . Rush and other local celebrities as guests.

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The interlude was so gratifying to Rittenhouse that he could look upon the approaching survey only as a regrettable interruption. He confessed this frankly in a letter to Jefferson, in which he apologized for his failure to send more details about his experiences on the western boundary in 1785. "I am at present engaged in preparing for a Tour to the Northern Boundary of the State," he wrote Jefferson at Paris on June 26, "which will require my attention for the remainder of this season. Indeed I have for some years past been such a slave to public Business that I have had very few leisure hours more than must necessarily be indulged to a crazy constitution, and on this principle I account for the little figure I make in the Transactions." He had barely hinted at the nature of his work on the line in an earlier letter to Jefferson. The latter had sent him copies of Connoissance des Temps, which Lalande was then editing, and a copy of his own Notes on Virginia, and Rittenhouse, in acknowledging receipt of them, questioned Jefferson's observation that stones sometimes imitated the shape of sea shells. The Notes on Virginia are an inestimable Treasure [he wrote]. . . . Nothing has occurred to me in it contrary to my own Philosophic notions, except that of Stones growing in imitation of shells without real animal Shells to give them that form. The Petrifications I have collected on the Allegany Mountains and beyond them seem to me sufficient to induce you to give up that opinion. But I may be mistaken. What has with me the greatest weight is that abundance of the Shells and Bones thus found lodged in Solid Stones are still real Shells and Bones, as not only their appearance but their taste and Smell when heated sufficiently evince. In his reply, Jefferson said: It will not be difficult for me to give up the theory of the growth of shells, without their being the nidus of animals. It is only an idea and not an opinion with me. The shells were not the only fossils found by Rittenhouse on the western boundary. In December 1786 he presented to the Philosophical Society "an extraordinary large tooth of some un-

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k n o w n species of animal (which appears to have been of the graminiverous k i n d ) . " H e found it at T i o g a on the banks of the Susquehanna. Before leaving to run the northern b o u n d a r y of Pennsylvania, Rittenhouse devoted m a n y hours to a question which had been posed for him b y Francis Hopkinson, w h o s e curiosity, seldom at rest, could turn u p a p r o f o u n d problem in a seeming triviality. H i s perplexity in this instance was aroused b y an idle amusement and led Rittenhouse to the discovery of an optical principle which later became well established. A s so often happened, the discovery passed unnoticed and later was credited to another. Hopkinson w r o t e Rittenhouse that, while lounging on the porch of his Sassafras Street home one evening during the previous summer, he had held a silk p o c k e t handkerchief taut between his hands and had looked through it at a street lamp about one hundred y a r d s a w a y . H e was amazed to see a double image of the lamp. Furthermore, the threads seemed to be magnified in some mysterious w a y and, what was more inexplicable, they did not seem to change position when he moved the handkerchief back and forth. H e thought it w o u l d be interesting if Rittenhouse could find a scientific explanation of the puzzle. T h e problem appealed instantly to Rittenhouse, and his early experiments confirmed Hopkinson's observations. T h e threads of the handkerchief did not seem to move. Since the r a n d o m position of the threads in the handkerchief was too inexact f o r his purpose, Rittenhouse constructed a m o r e scientific substitute. First he had a watchmaker cut an extremely fine thread on a piece of brass wire. T h e wire he fixed to the top and b o t t o m of a rectangular f r a m e one-half inch across. T h e n , using the thread as a guide to accurate spacing, he placed fifty-three hairs parallel in the rectangle. W h e n he looked at a light through the grille of hairs, he w a s surprised to see three parallel lines of light, each almost equally bright, and, on either side, several bright streaks which had a hint of color. F r o m this beginning, he concluded that the strange behavior of the threads in Hopkinson's handkerchief had been due

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to the fact that the threads deflected the rays from the street lamp, thus forming overlapping images in the eyes. But this was not proof, and he continued the experiments. H e placed thicker hairs in his frame and left less space between them. Looking at a light through the new grille, he found that the dispersion, of which he had seen a hint in the previous test, was now complete, as complete, in fact, as if he had used a prism. T o prove it, he measured the angles of the rays with a small prismatic telescope which Franklin had given him. T h e red rays, he found, were bent more, the blue rays less, thus conforming to Newton's laws. T h e time-consuming experiments did not conclusively answer the question put to him by Hopkinson, but in his second frame of hairs he had discovered the principle of the diffraction grating, a device of which Fraunhofer, not yet born when Rittenhouse's paper on the experiments was read before the American Philosophical Society, has long been accepted as the inventor. Rittenhouse predicted that new and interesting discoveries concerning light would result from further pursuit of the subject, but he laid no emphasis upon the power of dispersion which his crude grating possessed, and does not seem to have continued the experiments

XVII

DOCTRINE AND FAITH SEVERAL details of personal as well as state business remained to be completed before Rittenhouse was ready to start f o r the northern boundary in the spring of 1786. T h e amount of time he devoted to them raises the suspicion that he was reluctant to start the long, arduous journey. Surveying state lines was not ill-paying w o r k , since he had received / 3 1 9 f o r running the western boundary the year before, but the N e w Y o r k line, he knew, would keep him f r o m home all summer and perhaps would not be finished in one season. T h o u g h preparations f o r departure proceeded systematically, Rittenhouse did not let them interfere w i t h his other affairs. From a personal standpoint, his most important problem at the moment was the purchase of a lot f o r his n e w home. H e had leased the lot on the northwest corner of Seventh and A r c h streets f o r several years and had built his observatory on the site and cultivated a botanical garden on a portion of it. O n M a y 27, 1786, he bought the ground f r o m Colonel John Bull, an old neighbor at Norriton w h o had since moved to Virginia. Rittenhouse paid £ηο

Pennsylvania f o r the lot, subject to a

yearly rent of £ 24. It had a frontage of 49y 2 feet on A r c h Street and 112 feet on Seventh. Here he began the construction of the home that came to be k n o w n as the Rittenhouse Mansion and, during the climax of the Olmstead case, as Fort Rittenhouse. Compared w i t h the costly and more spacious homes of the city's wealthy merchants, money lenders, and land speculators, and the stately manor houses w h i c h many of them maintained on rolling land along the Schuylkill, the Rittenhouse home was far f r o m being a mansion, y e t it was imposing and altogether comfortable. Its walls of Flemish bond b r i c k w o r k rose three stories, and its roof, in contrast to the usual Philadelphia peaked roof, was flat. T h e exact number of rooms is uncertain, but it contained at least seven, a front parlor, a parlor, and kitchen on 141

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the ground floor, t w o bed chambers on the second floor, and t w o on the third. Somewhere in the house Rittenhouse made room for a workshop and laboratory, which he equipped w i t h a lathe and numerous tools, a microscope, and other apparatus. It is probable that the actual building did not start before he left for the northern boundary, but the house certainly was begun soon after his return in the fall, for he and his family occupied it the next year. Another matter that demanded attention before he left the city was the execution of bonds which had been given b y borrowers from the Loan Office. This task, always disagreeable to Rittenhouse, he placed in the hands of his nephew, William Barton. A l t h o u g h the notices which Rittenhouse inserted in the newspapers threatened that judgment would be entered on the bonds, he cautioned Barton not to cause needless hardship or embarrassment if the mortgages were not satisfied. T h e leniency was characteristic of Rittenhouse, but not always deserved, since economic conditions were improving and the defaulters of mortgages in many cases were the same persons w h o had become delinquent in tax payments simply because the state did not choose to resort to the courts. Rittenhouse took time, also, to help his brother Benjamin find a likely apprentice. A f t e r manufacturing guns during the Revolution, Benjamin resumed the trade of instrument making, which he had learned from David as a boy. N o w he not only enjoyed a high reputation in that field but also sat in the state Assembly. H e needed a boy to learn the trade and eventually to help him, and on M a y 20 inserted an advertisement in Dunlap's

Advertiser:

Wanted an ingenious lad not exceeding 14 years of age of a reputable family as an apprentice to learn the art & mistery of making clocks and surveying instruments. A n y lad inclined to go as an apprentice to the above trade, the terms on which he will be taken may be made known on inquiring of Mr. David Rittenhouse in Philadelphia or at the subscriber's in Worcester Township, Montgomery County.

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This done, David Rittenhouse was at last ready to start for the Susquehanna to begin the New York line. With Andrew Ellicott, who had been chosen by the Supreme Executive Council on Alarch 10 to assist him, he met with Simeon De Witt, one of the New York commissioners, at Philadelphia during May and laid plans for the survey. Little had been done with respect to the line since Rittenhouse marked the forty-second parallel on the Mohocks Branch of the Delaware in the fall of 1774. The Supreme Executive Council, late in 1783, appointed three commissioners to run a temporary boundary, and the next year John Lukens, the Pennsylvania surveyor-general, assigned George Palmer to the task of running the line as far west as the Susquehanna. Palmer, who had helped Rittenhouse to determine the latitude in 1774, had difficulty in locating the twelve-year-old marks, but finally found them and ran the line as far west as he was bidden. When new disputes arose over Pennsylvania's dealings with Indians in the region of the line, N e w York insisted that the boundary be marked permanently as soon as commissioners could be appointed. Pennsylvania wished Rittenhouse to represent it in the survey and, as he was engaged in determining the western boundary in 1785, New York was persuaded to let the survey wait until the next year. It was July 21 before Rittenhouse and Ellicott, together with Simeon De Witt and James Clinton, the N e w York commissioners, were able to make their first observations on the Susquehanna. Thereafter the survey proceeded swiftly, since the N e w Yorkers had come well prepared not only to hew a rapid path through the unbroken country but also to make the task as enjoyable as possible. Their party alone numbered more than twenty men, including the commissioners, two surveyors, a commissary, an interpreter to deal with the Onondagas, and sixteen laborers. For so large a party, the N e w Yorkers thought it necessary to take along five and a half barrels of rum, two of spirits, and a half-barrel of brandy. The bill presented by De

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Witt for N e w York's share of the summer's work, which took the party only ninety miles, was $4,750.27. Rittenhouse, although he had to wait until January 1789 for payment, received / 2 8 1 / 1 2 / 6 Pennsylvania for his work. The expedition was even more irksome for Rittenhouse than the previous summer's labors in western Pennsylvania. Roads, if they could be dignified with the term, were bad, and the flies, gnats, and mosquitoes were extremely troublesome. Food was not objectionable, since the commissary traded flour and salted provisions with the Onondagas for fish and venison. Rittenhouse found the other members of the party congenial enough, but, as he wrote Hannah soon after the survey got under way, it was "by no means desirable to be cooped up in a little tent for weeks on end with anyone." The tedium was relieved for a time by a group of Onondagas, both male and female, who attached themselves to the surveying party for several days. The "poor wretches," as Rittenhouse called them in his letter to Hannah, were grotesquely proud of their civilized attainments. Ellicott whiled away hours playing "draughts, or checkhards" with the sachem and his daughter Sally. A few of the Indians, Rittenhouse noted, were able to read and write, and, to his evident surprise, some of them possessed and read the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, which had been published in the Mohawk tongue as early as 1741. Some Philadelphias, who differed from Rittenhouse on politics and lost no opportunity to berate him, would have been surprised at his interest in the conversion of the Indians to Christianity. It was hardly a secret that he belonged to no church, that he was influenced more by reason than by religion, and that the philosophy he revered was the materialistic system of Newton. William Cobbett, whose intemperate pamphlets and newspaper articles under the pseudonym of "Peter Porcupine" goaded many blameless Philadelphias to anger and legal retaliation, openly called Rittenhouse an atheist. The charge was repeated privately by many who considered church membership indispensable to respectability.

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Despite the fact that he preferred rationalism to mysticism and sought truth in the logic of philosophers rather than in the emotionalism of religious teachers, few men of science have been more acutely aware of religion's vital role in the universe. I am satisfied [wrote Dr. Benjamin Rush] he was a sincere believer in the most spiritual doctrines of Christianity. T h e grounds upon which I found this information was derived not only from many incidental remarks that fell from him in our conversations upon other subjects, but from the testimony of persons upon whose word I placed the fullest reliance. Rittenhouse's writings do not quite support this view. His letters and papers reveal that he accepted G o d as the first cause and believed in immortality. T h e y contain the repeated assertion that the facts revealed in his time by astronomers' telescopes were mere details in the Divine plan, but nowhere do they admit his acceptance of Christianity. " T h e doctrine of the plurality of worlds is inseparable from the religion," he remarked in his oration before the Philosophical Society in 1775. Nothing can better demonstrate the immediate presence of the Deity in every part of space, whether vacant or occupied b y matter, than astronomy does. It was from an astronomer St. Paul quoted that exalted expression, so often since repeated, "In G o d wc live, and move, and have our being." In one letter to the Reverend Thomas Barton he said: Give me leave to mention two or three proofs of infinite G o o d ness in the works of creation. T h e first is, possessing goodness in ourselves. N o w it is inconsistent with all just reasoning to suppose that there is anything good, lovely, or praiseworthy in us which is not possessed in an infinitely higher degree b y that Being who first called us into existence. On another occasion he told Barton: I would sooner give up my interest in a future state than be divested of humanity; I mean that good-will I have to the species, although one half of them are said to be fools and the other half knaves. Indeed I am firmly persuaded that we are

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not at the disposal of a Being who has the least tincture of ill—or requires any in us. His attitude toward Christianity is another matter. While he sometimes attended services at the First Presbyterian Church with his family and conducted himself in private as well as in public with more charitableness and propriety than was shown by some professing Christians, he steadfastly refused to join any Christian congregation. This aloofness suggests that, like many Colonial thinkers, Rittenhouse accepted tacitly the tenets of Deism, a view strengthened by the fact that he found congenial the Unitarian views of Jefferson and Dr. Joseph Priestley. A want of Christian faith did not make him unique in his time and place. It was common to many of the wealthiest and most prominent men of Philadelphia, who either lacked the moral courage to reject Christianity openly or attended church as an example to the lower classes, which they imagined stood in need of religious discipline. Throughout his life, Rittenhouse clung to the belief that universal happiness was the Divine goal, though his convictions often must have been weakened by disappointment and frustration. His presence on the N e w York-Pennsylvania boundary, beset by heat and insects and the unwelcome intrusions of strangers, and denied the pleasures of his home and observatory, was far from being what he considered a happy state. In August the party was nearing the South Branch of the Tioga River, ninety miles from the point on the Susquehanna at which it started, and Rittenhouse, tired and homesick, felt justified in leaving the completion of the summer's work to Ellicott. "I dread the departure of my good friend Mr. Rittenhouse, whose ability and industry give me much leisure at present," Ellicott wrote his wife, "but as great as his abilities and industry may be, his other qualities still go beyond them." Rittenhouse did not return directly to Philadelphia but stopped to rest at the Norriton farm, now occupied by his widowed sister, Eleanor. While resting, he "swopt away the sorrel mare for a large Bay Horse, nearly if not quite as big as our big

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Horse; which I hope will answer the purpose as a match for him." Then he hurried down to Philadelphia, where Hannah was struggling with treasury business. He gave first attention to these details, then turned to the construction of the new house across the street. He could not give it his undivided attention, since other matters, which had a habit of turning up perversely whenever he attempted to steal a few moments for his private affairs, demanded a share of his time. First among these was one laid upon him by the Philosophical Society, the slightest desire of which he accepted as a command. O n November 7 Francis Hopkinson resigned as treasurer, but his resignation was laid on the table, and Rittenhouse and Dr. Robert Patterson were named a committee to audit his accounts. T h e task was not involved but tedious, for Hopkinson had held the office for several years. T h e second duty was self-imposed at first, but it concerned a mattter in which Rittenhouse, repeatedly appointed to commissions to study means of improving rivers and highways, was bound to exhibit at least a nominal interest. Highway communication between Philadelphia and the west and south was impeded by the Schuylkill at the western limits of the city. Years before the Revolution, three ferries, one below the city, one above, and the third at the end of Market Street, began more or less regular service. As population and travel increased, the townspeople began to chafe at the congestion and delay entailed by a crossing of the relatively narrow stream. A n attempt was made as early as 1751 to raise subscriptions for a bridge at Middle Ferry, but it failed, as did the next attempt in 1769. During the war a floating bridge was thrown across the river at Middle Ferry by the military and, though twice carried downstream by spring freshets, it was replaced and was still in use in 1786. Thomas Paine, who had begun life as a corsetmaker rather than as an engineer, designed a single-span iron bridge which he proposed to substitute for the floats. A model was exhibited for

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a time at Franklin's home, where it was viewed by Rittenhouse and excited much popular interest. When Paine built another model the next year, a stock company was formed and a charter obtained from the Assembly. The company, however, was not ready to accept so novel an answer to the problem as Paine's iron bridge, and Paine sailed with Iiis model to France. The company then invited other bridge builders to submit designs and asked Rittenhouse to serve on a committee of judges. Apparently none of the designs seemed adequate, for the floating bridge remained until 1789, when it was destroyed by flood. Even this mishap failed to stimulate interest in a permanent structure, and the matter was not revived during Rittenhouse's lifetime. At the annual meeting of the Philosophical Society on January 5, 1787, Rittenhouse was again elected one of the three vice-presidents, serving this time with Dr. Ewing and Dr. William White, the Protestant Episcopal bishop of Pennsylvania. He was present at the next meeting on February 16, when his paper on "Curious Observations on the Generation of Clouds" was read by Hopkinson. It would be interesting to know how far his reflections were based on observations made during his previous three summers in the open along Pennsylvania's borders, but the paper was not published. A letter to Franklin, apparently written at about this period, describes another investigation which he conducted, no doubt at Franklin's suggestion. Although the object is obscure, the experiment is interesting for its own sake: I broke a little bit off the colorless end of the glass tube, and placed it in the focus of the burning glass, leaving it there several minutes, but no change was produced in the colour. After examining it, I exposed it again to the collected rays of the sun without observing the least change in its colour, but touching it with the end of a small splinter of cedar wood, the wood took fire and the glass immediately became a fine red. As a member of the building committee of the Philosophical Society, Rittenhouse had many details to look after, since the new home in State House Square was now under construction.

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His own home, too, was fast nearing completion, and he moved into it with his family just before he started north to run the N e w York-Massachusetts line. T h e quarrel between N e w York and Massachusetts was one of the oldest of boundary disputes, and at times one of the most acrimonious. A s in all original grants, faulty knowledge of the geography of the country had led to the use of vague language in the first Massachusetts charter, which could have been interpreted as setting no bounds to the colony's claims short of the Pacific. N e w York naturally contested such an interpretation, and in 1664 a royal commission settled the dispute after a fashion by declaring that the territory of Massachusetts extended westward only to a point twenty miles east of the Hudson River. Massachusetts attempted to adjust the matter in 1719 but N e w York put it off, and nothing more was done until 1754 when both states actually named commissioners to discuss the boundary. The commissioners met, talked a while, fell to quarreling, and went home without accomplishing anything. T h e failure was repeated in 1767, but in 1773 another set of commissioners met at Hartford and agreed to accept the finding of the royal commission. Surveyors began to run the line but had covered only a few miles when they, too, bickered and quit. T e n years later, commissioners were appointed for a fourth time, but they had learned as little as their predecessors about cooperation. A f t e r a few miles of line had been run, they fell to arguing and almost came to blows. W h e n they went home with the line still incomplete, the matter remained almost exactly where it had stood for 119 years. There were pressing reasons w h y the farcical business could not be permitted to continue. Landowners in the disputed areas could not be certain, until the boundary had been marked, which of the two states had a legal claim to the taxes they were expected to pay, nor could they count upon the validity of their claims to the land they held. In 1784 the Continental Congress intervened, ordering both states to appoint commissioners to arbitrate the dispute forthwith. T h e authority of the Congress was

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debatable, but both Massachusetts and N e w York were glad enough now to accept the order. In fact, they asked the Congress to name the commissioners. On December 5, 1785, it appointed Rittenhouse, Dr. Ewing, and Captain Hutchins. As Rittenhouse was to be engaged during 1786 in running the Pennsylvania-New York line, the new survey, by common consent, was put off until 1787. The party began its work in July at Connecticut Old Corner, where Connecticut and Massachusetts met on the New York line. Rittenhouse was called upon to do little more than make the necessary astronomical observations, since the surveying instruments were left to R . and Simeon De Witt, with Gerard Bancker making the linear measurements. The line took them through the Berkshire Hills, country which in Rittenhouse's words entailed "traversing mountains & stoney valleys, with many a weary jolt." But the line was only fifty miles in length and was quickly completed. The party did not attempt to sink heavy boundary stones, but set up stakes, embedded in piles of stones, on the summit of hills. Between, the line was run by compass and marked with stakes at one-mile intervals. Rittenhouse returned to Philadelphia before the line was completed, leaving Captain Hutchins to mark the last several miles. He was eager not only to enjoy the comparative spaciousness of the new home on the observatory lot but also to get on with treasury business. Hannah, as usual, had transacted as much of the routine affairs as she could during his absence, but they had increased tremendously and much hard work remained for Rittenhouse. The office by this time had become a burden. Earlier in the year, Rittenhouse had complained in a letter to Jefferson at Nice: "I have some hopes that the Society will publish a Small Volume next winter. I can't however pretend to contribute much toward it as the Business of my Office, continually increasing, not only occupies my time entirely at present, but is become almost insupportable." Besides the chores of office, there remained the further busi-

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15 I

ness of the western boundary, for which he was still responsible even though he could not be on the scene. When he had been chosen to make the New York-Massachusetts survey, completion of the Pennsylvania line northward from the Ohio River was entrusted to Andrew Ellicott and Colonel Porter. They wrote Rittenhouse after his return to Philadelphia that they had reached Lake Erie on October 8. Their account was brief, but it gave Rittenhouse cause to be thankful that duty had called him elsewhere. The party's horses had died on the way, and Ellicott and Porter had been compelled to complete the trip on foot or in canoes which they built in the woods. The Indians, while not actually hostile, had preferred not to understand readily the reasons for the party's intrusion, and precious time was lost in gaining their permission to proceed. Home had never seemed quite so good to Rittenhouse as it did this fall. Hannah, like himself, was growing older but she had never seemed so capable and understanding. The two girls, who were now of an age to consider themselves young ladies, seemed more beautiful than he could remember, and he took new pride in them. "With this business," he wrote with reference to the New York-Massachusetts line, "I have bid adieu, forever, to all running of lines."

XVIII

STEAM ON THE DELAWARE U N P R E C E D E N T E D events were engrossing Philadelphia, as well as the nation, when Rittenhouse returned from the survey early in September. Delegates from the thirteen states, meeting at the State House since May, had already drafted a federal constitution to supplant the Articles of Confederation. Rittenhouse, as one of the framers of the old state constitution, was interested in the proceedings. Like other supporters of the existing state government, he was well aware that adoption of the federal constitution might necessitate a drastic revision of the state's frame of government, if not a new one. But he was not in position to influence the trend toward conservatism. Perhaps equally as important to Rittenhouse as the constitution was the strange, smoke-belching contrivance which had been plying both the Delaware River and the Schuylkill during his absence. John Fitch, who had designed and built it, called it a steamboat. During the summer almost everyone in the city, including a twenty-one-year-old painter from Lancaster County, named Robert Fulton, had strolled down to the wharf to gape or jeer at it. Fitch had invited members of the constitutional convention to view his invention, and some of them had accepted the invitation and had gone aboard. Fitch, in his enthusiasm, had taken them down the Delaware, around League Island, and up the Schuylkill. On October 16 Fitch asked a party of local celebrities to make an even more venturesome journey, one that took the craft up the Delaware as far as Burlington and back, a trip of about forty miles. The party included Rittenhouse, Andrew Ellicott, Dr. Ewing, the provost of the University, and Dr. Patterson, the professor of mathematics, David Redick, vice-president of the Supreme Executive Council, Timothy Matlack, secretary of the Council, John Smoley, a member, and three others. The pres«5*

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ence of Rittenhouse on the trip was of particular significance to Fitch. Fitch's career, ever since he came d o w n f r o m Connecticut and tried to interest Philadelphians in his plans f o r a steampropelled boat, had been one of constant rebuff. H e succeeded in organizing a stock company in 1786 and applied to the Assembly f o r a patent. Unfortunately James Rumsey, of M a r y land, a friend of Washington's, soon afterward asked a patent on a boat of his o w n , and both applications were referred to a committee. Steam was not a new subject to Rittenhouse. A s long before as 1773 he had seen the working model of a steam pump which Christopher Colles, an ingenious local Irishman, had exhibited f o r the Philosophical Society. This was the N e w c o m e n type of atmospheric, single-acting engine, but it worked. T h e n in 1778, when Rittenhouse was living at the home of William H e n r y in Lancaster, the latter had described his plans f o r adapting steam to the propulsion of river craft. In 1786 Fitch, after being snubbed by Franklin, turned to the Assembly f o r financial assistance, and his plea was referred to the committee that was already considering his application f o r a patent. T h i s committee, of which Benjamin Rittenhouse was a member, was impressed with the .boat's economic possibilities, and recommended that Fitch be advanced £ 150. T h e Assembly refused. Whether or not the Assembly was influenced b y Franklin's attitude is questionable, but Franklin had his o w n reasons f o r favoring Rumsey's odd boat over Fitch's. Some time before, in a paper read to the Philosophical Society, Franklin had outlined plans f o r a kind of jet-propulsion craft, in which the w a t e r was taken in at the b o w and pumped out at the stern. R u m s e y had sagaciously included an adaptation of this curious device in the plans he submitted to Franklin, and the latter gave R u m s e y his blessing. W h e n Fitch tried to sell his model to the Philosophical Society, of which Franklin was still president, his o f f e r was declined. R u m s e y , with A r t h u r Donaldson of Philadelphia then formed the Rumseian Society, and Franklin joined, along with

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Samuel Magaw, secretary of the Philosophical Society, and other prominent Philadelphians. The Assembly, though refusing to grant Fitch funds, gave him a monopoly in 1786 to build and operate steamboats, but this was not enough for Fitch. He needed capital desperately, and the short-sighted stockholders of his company could not be induced to gamble any more than the pittance they had already advanced to promote an idea which seemed to them to have little more than Fitch's faith to recommend it. Fitch needed the support of more sympathetic men. He found them in Rittenhouse, Dr. Ewing, and some of the others whom he invited to make the trip to Burlington. Although the craft which the party boarded was an improvement over the skiff, with its chain-driven paddles, which Fitch had built in 1786, its appearance did not inspire confidence. It was larger than the skiff, but a square frame, which rose from the deck to support the twelve long propelling oars, made it look decidedly unstable. The firebox was located amidships, close to the horizontal steam cylinder, the condenser, and the air pump. In its use of the condenser and air pump, the engine did not differ from those already in use abroad. Steam in this type was admitted to the cylinder behind the piston. Then the steam in the condenser was cooled and, in condensing, drew the steam out of the cylinder, leaving a partial vacuum. The pressure of the atmosphere then forced the piston against the vacuum. In earlier types of such engines, the piston was returned to its original position by weights. Fitch was proud of the fact that his engine was doubleacting; that is, steam was admitted alternately to either side of the piston, which performed useful work on both its forward and backward strokes. Apparently he did not know that James Watt had patented a double-acting engine five years earlier. Fitch had abandoned the chain and paddles in the 1787 model of his boat. In their place he installed six long paddles on either side, three forward and three aft. With the after trio of paddles raised, the three forward blades were forced into the water

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and swept sternward. Then, as they completed their stroke, they were lifted, and the after paddles dipped into the water. Thus the four sets of paddles, alternately falling and rising, bore a rough resemblance to the walking gait of a horse. Despite its appearance, and the derision of the scoffers on shore, the Perseverance, on that October day in 1787, stood out from the wharf and made headway against the tide, with Fitch at the tiller. Henry Voight, the watchmaker who had once worked with Rittenhouse and had shared the toil and disappointments of Fitch for many bitter months, fired the boiler. The craft completed the upstream trip to Burlington at the rate of four miles an hour. This was only two-thirds as fast as it had traveled four days earlier, but it was a convincing performance. Rumsey issued a pamphlet to further his claim to priority in steamboat building, and Fitch, on May 10, 1788, replied with a pamphlet of his own. He had despaired of obtaining the help of Franklin, who stubbornly refused to go aboard the Perseverance, but if he could not interest the president of the Philosophical Society he could at least seek the aid of a vice-president. Rittenhouse, in a letter to Jefferson the previous spring, had called the steamboat "ridiculous enough," but the trip with Fitch changed his mind, and he wrote the following testimonial, which Fitch published in his pamphlet: These may certify that the subscriber has frequently seen Mr. Fitch's steamboat which with great labour and perseverance he has at length compleated and has likewise been on board when the boat was worked against both wind and tide, with a considerable degree of velocity, by the force of steam only. Mr. Fitch's merit in constructing a good steam engine and applying it to so useful a purpose will no doubt meet with the encouragement he so justly deserves from the generosity of his countrymen; especially those who wish to promote every improvement of the useful arts in America. Rittenhouse again demonstrated his confidence in Fitch's idea by making a trip to Burlington on a successor to the Perseverance in May 1790, yet he could never quite bring himself to

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encourage Fitch financially as he had recommended to others. Though Fitch received monopoly rights in several states, financial need dogged him relentlessly and he was destined never to build a commercially successful boat. That was a privilege reserved f o r Fulton, with the support of Nicholas Roosevelt, R o b ert Livingston, and other wealthy N e w Yorkers. Fitch sank deeper into poverty, and in 1792 he approached Rittenhouse directly f o r a loan of £ 50, offering to pledge his claim to land in Kentucky as security. Rittenhouse declined. T h e fall of 1787 was enlivened also b y an outbreak of bitterness between liberal and conservative elements in the Assembly over ratification of the federal constitution. B y absenting themselves from the sessions, opponents made it impossible to obtain a quorum and thus thwarted plans to refer the constitution to a state convention. Outraged citizens seized two of the absentees and took them forcibly to a meeting and, a quorum being obtained, the convention was duly called. On December 13 the federal constitution was ratified. Like others who still clung to hopes of maintaining the old state constitution, Rittenhouse saw that the guarantees of the federal instrument just ratified spelled defeat, yet he took no active part in the resolute fight made b y the Anti-Federalists to discredit the new constitution. T h e next year, when the AntiFederalists met at Harrisburg to select candidates f o r federal offices, he consented to serve as a presidential elector, but, at the general election, the "Lancaster" ticket of Federalists scored a decisive victory. Federalist candidates were successful also in the state elections, and the new Assembly chose t w o Federalists as United States Senators. T h e rise of the conservatives to power doomed not only the old state constitution but also the test oath. When a new frame of government f o r the state was adopted in 1790, the sixteen-year sway of the radically minded men who had guided Pennsylvania through the critical Revolutionary and post-war years came to an end. Rittenhouse meanwhile was finding the dual offices of treasurer and Loan Office commissioner increasingly burdensome.

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T r y as he might, he could not find time f o r astronomy o r the countless studies that always beckoned, and the y e a r 1788 was almost wholly barren of achievement. A t fifty-six he no longer found it possible to drive himself as he had during the early days of the Revolution, and his health was causing him some concern. Further, the marriage of his elder daughter, Elizabeth, left H a n nah with less time to give to office w o r k . Elizabeth was married in December 1788, at the First Presbyterian Church, to Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant, the f o r m e r state attorney-general, w h o m Rittenhouse had first met during the 1777-78 exile at Lancaster, and w h o f o r some years had been a widower. Elizabeth's departure f r o m the "mansion" left only Esther, then about eighteen, to assist Hannah with household duties and the accounts. Rittenhouse was compelled b y his e f forts to spur tax collections to travel frequently, and at such times, when much of the treasury detail was left to Hannah, he worried about her ability to c a r r y the burden. A t least once he called upon Elizabeth f o r aid, even though she had married and no longer lived at home. " Y o u r mammy will be wearied with the business of the office," he wrote f r o m Wilmington in J u l y , 1789. " D o everything y o u can to help her." When at home, Rittenhouse managed to keep abreast of the work as well as with the many obligations that arose in connection with his other associations. A s trustee of the University, he attended ceremonies at which degrees were conferred on medical doctors, and, as vice-president of the Philosophical Society, he assisted in the sale of the A r c h Street lot and completed the audit of Francis Hopkinson's accounts. He had served on the lot committee since 1787, but it was not until January 16, 1789, that buyers were found. T h e purchasers agreed to pay ^ 5 2 5 or do carpenter w o r k up to that amount on the Society's new building on State House Square. On the same day as the lot was sold, Rittenhouse reported the results of his audit. Hopkinson was indebted to the Society f o r only a trifling amount but w a s o w e d more than £ 3 0 0 which

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represented the unpaid note on the lot. He requested at least partial payment on May ι, but nothing was done about it. Some time during the year, Rittenhouse was able to complete a work on which he had been engaged for some time. This was an English translation of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's play Miss Sarah Sampson, or the Unhappy Heiress. The translation was published by Charles Cist as Miss Lucy Sampson, or the Unhappy Heiress, and was attributed simply to " A Citizen of Philadelphia." Knowing Rittenhouse only as the serious-minded, somewhat cold scientist, Philadelphians of the day would have been inclined to doubt his connection with the work. Indeed, it is so far removed from his customary pursuits that even now it seems odd to find him translating a play that is anything but cold in its implications. Evidence of his authorship rests upon a statement by William Barton, his nephew, and the assertion has never been questioned by authorities on early American drama. Rittenhouse was capable of executing the work. His command of German was adequate and his English, though seldom eloquent and sometimes a bit awkward, was equal to reproducing a style that now seems stilted and artificial. At least, the translation stands comparison with later versions. What inspired Rittenhouse to undertake the task must remain uncertain, although the preface contains a hint. Lessing's play, the first in German to deal with the tribulations of commoners, has for heroine the spotless daughter of an English baronet whose marriage is forestalled by the untimely appearance of her betrothed's mistress and child. Melodramatic rather than tragic, the play closes with the poisoning of the heroine by her jealous rival and the suicide of her betrayer. Reading the play in the original, Rittenhouse saw the opportunity to point a moral lesson for his daughters. Two other facts may have influenced him. Francis Hopkinson, probably his closest friend at the time, was a man of many talents who, in addition to composing music and verse, sometimes wrote dialogues for presentation at University commence-

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ments, a fact that could have awakened the interest of Rittenhouse in the stage. Furthermore, a vigorous battle was being waged at the time by more liberal-minded Philadelphians to restore the theatre. Quaker influence met its final defeat on March 2, 1789, when the Assembly passed an act to legalize plays within and near Philadelphia, and the Southwark Theatre was opened "by authority" a week later. If Rittenhouse hoped that Elizabeth and Esther would hear the moral lesson acted out behind the footlights, he was disappointed; his translation was never performed. Ironically, one of the plays produced at the Southwark that season, and again at a theatre in the Northern Liberties the next year, was George Lillo's Merchant of London, or the History of George Barnivell, the play which Lessing had rather freely adapted as Sarah Sampson. About the same time, Rittenhouse made a brief trial of rendering French verse into English. He chose the Idyllen of Solomon Gessner, the Swiss poet and painter, whose bucolics in German enjoyed wide popularity. The first volume of a French translation of the Idylleji was published at Paris in 1786, and it was from the French that Rittenhouse rendered into English nine stanzas of "The Zephyrs." While his literary tastes had become broader and more discriminating since the days when he read Bunyan at Norriton, and he had grown fond enough of Milton to carry a copy of his works on surveying trips, the translation of Gessner's verses was pedestrian and revealed no ear for poetic sound. During the summer Rittenhouse sweated over his accounts, getting them in order so that he might turn them over to his successor, for he had already decided to resign his position as state treasurer and, as he confided to friends, devote his remaining years exclusively to science. This was something more easily resolved than achieved, yet he did manage to begin several studies. One was destined to remain incomplete. This was the alteration of the orrery at the University. Herschel in 1789 discovered the sixth and seventh moons of Saturn, thus rendering obsolete

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Rittenhouse's representation of the planet with only five moons. Soon after the announcement of Herschel's finds, Rittenhouse removed both Jupiter and Saturn from the orrery with the intention of supplying the missing moons, but such a multiplicity of tasks demanded his attention in subsequent years that the work was never finished and the two planets were never replaced. Other studies made by Rittenhouse at this time concerned the effects of lightning. Philadelphia during the summer was visited by unusually severe electrical storms. One, which occurred on June 7, struck several houses on the south side of Drinker's Alley, and Rittenhouse, in company with Dr. John Jones, was asked to examine the houses. The lightning, they discovered, had wrought the greatest damage around the fireplaces, both downstairs and up, its path being clearly traced by charfed and splintered wood. In the paper he wrote for the Philosophical Society Transactions, Rittenhouse surmised that the flues had attracted the lightning. The reason, he concluded, was the rarefied condition of the heated air in the flues. Hence, in his opinion, a cold fireplace was far safer during an electrical storm than one that was in use. In August the home of Thomas Leiper, who operated mills on Crum Creek, near Chester, was struck, and again Rittenhouse was asked to examine the damage. He rode down to Leiper's with Francis Hopkinson a day or so after the storm. The house had been protected, they learned, not by a single lightning rod but by two. Although the injury to the house was slight, one of the rods had been partially melted. Rittenhouse and Hopkinson suggested that where two rods were employed it would be wise to connect them in some way, so that the charge could not overload one and thus cause damage. Rittenhouse had become interested in lightning rods through Franklin, who had not been long in discovering that the tips of the rods sometimes melted when struck by a heavy charge of lightning. He called the fact to the attention of Rittenhouse, but

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the latter had already noted the phenomenon, since it was his habit after a storm to turn a telescope upon the lightning rods of houses in the vicinity. In 1790 Dr. Patterson suggested that the melting of rod tips could be prevented by inserting a piece of black lead. Rittenhouse tested the theory and in 1791 read a paper before the Philosophical Society on "Experiments upon a Y r ery Small Piece of Black-lead Pencil, in the Focus of the Large Lens and Otherwise," but unfortunately the paper was not published and nothing is to be learned concerning his conclusions. During the fall of 1789, Rittenhouse had another short trip to make. It took him only as far as Princeton, N e w Jersey, but the reward was worth while. On September 30, the College of N e w Jersey conferred on him a doctorate of laws. He had been addressed informally as "Doctor" Rittenhouse ever since the College of Philadelphia honored him with a master's degree in 1767, but it was not until twenty-two years later that he became privileged to use the title. He was thrown somewhat more into contact with the eightythree-year-old Franklin at this time, since the Philosophical Society, out of consideration for its president, who could not move about without excruciating pain, was now meeting regularly at the Franklin home in Market Street. In November, its new quarters completed, the Society met for the first time in the building it still occupies on State House Square. On November 2 Rittenhouse observed the lunar eclipse. According to his custom, he reported few of the facts he noted, contenting himself with mentioning only that it began at 6:12 p. M. and ended at 8:20. Three days later Mercury crossed the disk of the sun, and Rittenhouse was up early, getting his instruments ready for the observation. The transit consumed nearly five hours, the first external contact occurring at 7 hours 51 minutes 50 seconds in the morning and the second at 45 minutes 4 seconds past noon. Rittenhouse sat patiently at his telescope the while, noting the times of the contacts, but the observation on the whole was a

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disappointment. He wished to make micrometer measurements of both the sun and the planet, but his plan was frustrated by undulation of the sun's limb. Within a few days Rittenhouse wrote out his resignation as treasurer, a step which he believed would gain him freedom not only for astronomical observation and reflection but also for investigations in natural history, which he had put aside for many years. He handed the resignation to the speaker of the Assembly on November 9. Nearly thirteen years had passed since he had sought the position. In 1777 the future of the state hung in the balance and the Constitutionalists, wielding absolute power, had welcomed him as one who shared their dreams of a leveling new social order and curiously undemocratic democracy. N o w Pennsylvania was no longer a sovereign state but a unit in an integrated federal system, and the Federalists who had succeeded to power looked coldly upon Radicals and Whigs in state offices. Pennsylvania had piled up a massive debt during Rittenhouse's tenure as treasurer. Exclusive of the Continental debt which the state had assumed, its obligations amounted in 1789 to an estimated $2,200,000. Rittenhouse was conscious of this burdensome debt and, in his letter of resignation, felt called upon to remind the Assembly that huge sums in taxes were still owing, and that the treasurer had never been clothed with sufficient authority to correct the condition. He took the opportunity also to impress upon the Assembly that his own remuneration had been small. His commissions on certain categories of collections had been increased in 1785, he admitted, but the gain had been illusory, since the subsequent depreciation of state currency had offset the increase. "Sensible of the integrity and assiduity which the late treasurer, David Rittenhouse, has fulfilled the duties" of the office, the Assembly accepted the resignation on November 10. It was, however, some months before Rittenhouse was finally relieved of concern with the treasurer's affairs. John Nicholson, the comptroller-general, took his time about making a final audit of

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the accounts, and Rittenhouse had to protest the delay. In time the accounts were found to be in order and Rittenhouse, so he believed, was quit of all distractions of public office, except that of Loan Office trustee.

XIX

MATHEMATICIAN TO JEFFERSON LIFE flowed more smoothly f o r Rittenhouse after his resignation as treasurer. H e still had his salary from the Loan Office and an income from investments in stocks and mortgages. His property was increased in a small degree b y the bequest of Barnabas Coulston, the father of his first wife. Although Eleanor had died nearly twenty years before, her father, on his death in 1789, bequeathed "to his son-in-law, David Rittenhouse, f o r love and affection, an undivided moiety of a messuage and f o r t y acres of land in Plymouth" township. Rittenhouse also was to receive a sixth share in the residue of Barnabas' estate after the death of Mrs. Coulston. T h e legacy was inconsiderable, yet it attested to the enduring quality of Rittenhouse's comparatively f e w friendships. Further evidence of this friendly side of his character was afforded by the warmth with which Rittenhouse welcomed Dr. Smith on the latter's return to the city and to active participation in the affairs of the Philosophical Society. In January 1790, both Rittenhouse and Dr. Smith, together with Dr. E w i n g , were elected vice-presidents of the Society, and thereafter until Rittenhouse's death they were closely associated, even if not so intimately as in the Norriton days. Although Dr. Smith, while at Chestertown, had founded an academy which soon became Washington College, his first and great love remained the College of Philadelphia, and he refused to drop his fight f o r the redress of what he considered a great wrong. T h e Assembly, on March 6, 1789, repealed the act which had amended the College's charter so effectively that Dr. Smith and his friends had been removed from control. Dr. Smith, with the College restored, moved back into the provost's house and took up his labors where he had laid them down ten years earlier. T h e Assembly had not troubled to repeal the act that had created the University of the State of Pennsylvania, and so there 164

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were, legally at least, both a college and a university operating simultaneously in the city. On April 1, 1790, Rittenhouse was removed abruptly f r o m his second state position. T h e Assembly abolished the Loan Office b y transferring its p o w e r and duties to the state treasurer. Rittenhouse was ordered to deliver up all books, records, deeds, and papers within thirty days. T h e r e is no reason to believe that he desired to step out as Loan Office trustee. While the responsibility was large and the duties many, the position did not require the labor and w o r r y which had plagued him during his years as treasurer, and the income, while small, was not to be despised. T h e cause of the Assembly's precipitate action was no failing of Rittenhouse but of John Nicholson, the comptroller-general. Forgetting that the snarl in state finances could be laid to its o w n favoritism, timidity, and unwillingness to delegate adequate authority to either Nicholson or Rittenhouse, the Assembly appointed a committee to learn w h y taxes were not being paid and w h y proper accounts had not been rendered. T h e committee reported on Aiarch 12 that Nicholson, although admittedly overburdened, had conducted the affairs of his office rather loosely, having, in fact, made no entries in his general books f o r f o u r years. T h e committee recommended certain remedies, including abolition of the L o a n Office as a separate agency. A bill incorporating the changes was brought in on the afternoon of April 1 and adopted at once. Rittenhouse found solace in the thought that n o w he was indeed free of all annoyances and interruptions of public business and could retire to his observatory, his laboratory, and his study. But immediate retirement was precluded b y the death of Franklin. Franklin's passing on April 17 shocked and saddened the country and, in particular, the city which his wit and energy had enlivened f o r so many years. T h e funeral on April 21, the most impressive in the history of Philadelphia, was marked b y more genuine sorrow than the city w o u l d see again in generations.

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There was hardly a field of endeavor in which Franklin had not engaged at one time or another and each had outstanding figures in the tremendous funeral procession. He had earned distinction as a scientist, and science was represented by Rittenhouse. With Thomas Mifflin, president of the Supreme Executive Council, Thomas McKean, chief justice of the state, Thomas Willing, president of the Bank of North American, Samuel Powel, until just recently mayor of the city, and William Bingham, Rittenhouse bore the pall on the brief march from the State House to the Christ Church burial ground at Arch Street and Fifth. T w o days later the Philosophical Society, after the custom of the time, voted to have a eulogy read on Franklin, and Rittenhouse, with Dr. Smith, Dr. Benjamin Rush, Jonathan Williams, and Thomas Jefferson, now secretary of state, were chosen to draft the tribute. Delivered on March ι, 1791, by Dr. Smith before an audience that included President Washington and members of Congress, the eulogy consisted of three main parts, one given to Franklin's services to Pennsylvania, another to his labors on behalf of the country, and the third to his contributions to the world at large. The eulogy was actually written by Dr. Smith, but the facts dealing with Franklin's attainments in science were contributed by Rittenhouse. With Franklin's death, Rittenhouse stood alone in the forefront of the country's scientists. Dr. Smith was the first to emphasize what should have been an obvious fact. The occasion was a dinner a few days after Franklin's funeral, but his exact words are a matter of dispute. Rittenhouse, Thomas McKean, Henry Hill, Thomas Willing, and Dr. Smith were dining at Thomas Mifflin's house at the Falls of the Schuylkill, some miles above Philadelphia, when an electrical storm came up. As Dr. Rush remembered the incident, Dr. Smith arose and said, "This is a terrible gust. I believe the clouds know that Dr. Franklin is dead." When, in 1802, Dr. Rush asked Dr. Smith to confirm this impression, the latter replied that he did not remember his exact saying but that, if he said anything, it surely would have included a compliment to Rittenhouse:

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Cease, cease y e clouds your elemental strife. Oh! rage not thus as if to threaten life! Seek, seek no more to shake our souls with dread, W h a t busy mortal told you Franklin's dead? W h a t though he yields to Jove's imperious nodd? With Rittenhouse, he left his magic rod. Although Franklin had been abroad during the years when Rittenhouse was widening his reputation, and their contacts since his return had been limited to the meetings of the Philosophical Society and the Wednesday evening "philosophical parties," Franklin was well aware of Rittenhouse's ability and valued his friendship. He gave evidence of this in the famous codicil to his will, a paragraph of which said: M y reflecting telescope, made by Short, which was formerly Mr. Canton's, I g i v e to my friend, Mr. David Rittenhouse, f o r the use of his observatory. During the summer, the convention which had been called to draft a new state constitution met in the city and its labors were watched closely b y those who had struggled during the past fourteen years to revise the constitution of 1776. Rittenhouse this time had no share in the proceedings, and must have followed the convention's deliberations with a certain regret. A new frame of government would mark the end of the era in which his own political efforts had counted. Admittedly many of the policies of the Constitutionalists had been ill conceived and shortsighted, yet the radicals had ruled during the gravest period in the state's history, when the swift march of events had sometimes forced them into hasty action. N o w the AntiConstitutionalists had taken command and no one doubted that they would write a frame of government that conformed to their more moderate social and economic ideas. T h e odious test oath had been repealed in 1786, but victory in this skirmish had merely strengthened the determination of the Anti-Constitutionalists to make their triumph complete. This was accomplished on September 2, 1790, when the new constitution was adopted. It provided for a governor in place of the awkward

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Supreme Executive Council, substituted a bicameral legislature for the single-chamber Assembly, and corrected most of the real faults of the old constitution. Time has since demonstrated that the quality of statesmanship is not heightened necessarily by the number of houses in a legislature, and Philadelphia in modern times adopted a unicameral city council in the interests of efficiency, but the new state constitution was hailed as a beneficent reform, and few had sympathy to waste upon the vanquished radicals. Rittenhouse, now that the Loan Office had been abolished, was less moved by the course of politics than he would have been as an office holder. Still he could not remove himself entirely from public life. Jefferson, as secretary of state, was soon calling upon him for assistance, and he gave it willingly, although he was never to receive public acknowledgment of his efforts. A resolution adopted by the House of Representatives had instructed Jefferson to submit recommendations for establishing national standards of weights, measures, and coinage. Jefferson seized the opportunity to overhaul the traditional system, and spent the better part of four months in drawing up the suggested tables, reading widely on the subject and consulting authorities in both England and France. On June 12, 1790, he sent a draft of the proposed standards to Rittenhouse with the request that the latter check them and offer suggestions. Even today a good many of the recommendations seem novel. As a basic standard of length, Jefferson proposed a rod of iron that would vibrate in precisely one second at 45 degrees north latitude in a previously determined and constantly maintained temperature. Such a standard, he felt, would be immune to the variation common to matter. Following Newton's calculations, he estimated the length of the rod at 58.72368 inches. The new tables of weights and measures, as Jefferson submitted them, eliminated the distinction between dry and liquid measures and combined avoirdupois and T r o y weights. The vibrating rod of nearly 59 inches was to be divided into 587%

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equal parts, each full part to be known as a "line." T e n lines would equal one inch. T h u s the foot, yard, ell, perch, and mile would be just a trifle shorter than the prevailing English standards. A s an alternative, Jefferson proposed a decimal system based upon the vibrating rod. T o preserve the decimal character of the tables, Jefferson suggested radical changes. T h e foot would have only ten inches, and the next longer unit would not be a yard but a " d e c a d " composed of ten feet. A rood would have ten decads and a furlong, ten roods. T h e mile would contain ten furlongs, or 10,000 feet, making it three-fifths again as long as the English mile. A f t e r studying the proposals, Rittenhouse pointed out that variation in dimension, which Jefferson hoped to escape b y reliance upon the vibrating rod, was a characteristic of all matter, and that even the motion of the earth about the sun was not constant. Furthermore, he showed that the diameter of the rod must be specified, since this would affect its rate of oscillation. He liked the idea of determining the length of the rod according to the rate of oscillation at 45 degrees north, but expressed the fear that making experiments at that latitude, which is the northern boundary of N e w Y o r k and Vermont, would be difficult. Several exchanges of letters followed. Jefferson rewrote f o u r pages of the recommendations and submitted them to the judgment of Rittenhouse, who, at great length and with the help of geometric figures to prove his points, at last approved. On J u n e 26 Jefferson wrote: " I admit all y o u r corrections with great thankfulness." Jefferson submitted his report to the House on J u l y 13. N o action was taken on it until March 1, 1 7 9 1 , when a Senate committee, after being rebuffed b y both the National Assembly in France and the British Parliament in its attempt to achieve a uniform system in the three countries, recommended that no change be made in the American standards. T h e next year, h o w ever, the committee reversed itself and recommended the adoption of Jefferson's decimal system. F o u r years later a House committee concurred, but Congress then let the matter die.

XX

PHILOSOPHER SOON after finishing his criticism of the Jefferson report, Rittenhouse resolved once more to limit his efforts to science. On August 4, 1790, he handed his resignation to the trustees of the University, "requesting leave to resign his seat at this board, on account of his indisposition and making a present to the Institution of a very valuable Time-piece, which he had put up in the provost's Room." Although he had complained of illness in a letter to Jefferson in June, his indisposition did not seriously interfere with his normal routine, for he soon was to make several astronomical observations and to undertake more elaborate mathematical studies than he had for years. In any event, the trustees were not alarmed and, after thanking him for "his very valuable present," they tabled his resignation. On October 22, Rittenhouse observed an eclipse of the moon, but as usual his report on the occurrence was restricted to a mere statement of the time at which it began, the duration of totality, and the time it ended. He was a trifle more communicative about the solar eclipse which occurred on November 6. This began at two minutes 55 seconds past noon and lasted until one minute 54 seconds past two. These times, he remarked, were somewhat later than those shown by existing solar tables, but this fact, he thought, might be due to his own error rather than to inexactness in the tables, since he had found that an eclipse must make some progress before even the most attentive observer could note it. In October a change of importance had occurred in Rittenhouse's private life. His younger daughter, Esther, was married on the twenty-third to Nicholas Baker Waters, a young medical doctor, who was just setting up in practice. On Esther's departure from the "mansion," Rittenhouse and Hannah were alone for the first time since they had married. Neither daughter left 170

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the city, however, and Rittenhouse saw them frequently, and soon there were grandchildren to come visiting. Polite calling had never interested Rittenhouse, and his chronic ailment prevented his entertaining or being entertained at dinner, except on the rarest occasions, but after the national capital was removed f r o m N e w Y o r k to Philadelphia in the summer of 1790, Jefferson became a frequent guest at tea. Rittenhouse enj o y e d the calls to the full, f o r Jefferson, among friends, talked easily and entertainingly of national and w o r l d affairs, of science, of art, and the whole amazing variety of topics which he could discuss with certain knowledge. T h e liberality of his political and social views made his visits all the more congenial. F o r his part, Jefferson liked the unstudied informality of the Rittenhouse home. H e was especially taken with the deep understanding and attachment which existed between Rittenhouse and Hannah. " N o t h i n g could give me more pleasure than y o u r being with that w o r t h y f a m i l y , " he wrote his daughter Martha, when she stopped a time with the Rittenhouses, "wherein y o u will see the best examples of rational life, & learn to esteem & c o p y them." In 1795 he wrote Rittenhouse f r o m Monticello: "If I had but Fortunatus's wishing cap to seat myself by y o u r fireside . . .

I could be contented."

Rittenhouse's association with Jefferson was to become even closer during 1 7 9 1 . On January 7, the latter was elected a vicepresident of the Philosophical Society and Rittenhouse was elevated to the presidency, a position which only Franklin had occupied since the reorganized society had entered upon its career in 1769. Comparisons between Franklin and Rittenhouse are, perhaps, inevitable. Franklin, at the time of his death, was regarded generally as the country's foremost scientist, and even today his preeminence is seldom questioned except b y scholars. His scientific reputation, despite his virtually unlimited range of interests, is founded chiefly upon his invaluable w o r k in electricity, which included not only his bold and original experiments but also successful efforts to introduce order into electrical research and

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terminology. It was his electrical experiments that first brought him to the attention of British and Continental scholars. Franklin, of course, was not idle in the other branches of science. H e put forward many strikingly accurate theories in medicine, meteorology, and mechanics, but for the most part these were what Plato would have called right opinions, rather than the result of scientific investigations. Franklin's energy was so vast and his imagination so restless that he could initiate and carry through monumental undertakings in education, politics, and diplomacy. His opinion on any subject was accorded a respect that would have been denied the speculations of a less imposing figure. Moreover, Franklin possessed the gift of communicating his enthusiasms to others, who willingly nourished the seeds which he planted. T h e practicality of his inventions, too, caught the popular fancy. Rittenhouse, except in one or two instances, did not concern himself with the practical applications of the facts disclosed by his studies. Since pure science, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, has no popular appeal, his researches went unnoticed by all but a handful of men who were in love with learning. He developed no philosophical system of his own, but he adhered rigorously to Newton's and helped to establish it firmly in America. He engaged in no dramatic controversies, yet he often differed sharply with his contemporaries, and several of his theories, such as those respecting magnetism, have withstood every challenge of modern science. In astronomy, mathematics, optics, and physics, Rittenhouse's grasp of fundamentals was complete, something which Franklin could not and did not claim. T h e latter was acutely aware of his deficiency in mathematics and the limitations of his scientific knowledge. He could write to Cadwallader Colden, later lieutenant governor of New York, when the latter disputed his theory that ships must necessarily sail more slowly to westward than to eastward because of the rotation of the earth: " I ought to study the sciences I dabble in before I presume to set pen to paper."

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Franklin deferred to Rittenhouse's sounder knowledge in astronomy and mathematics. When, for example, he acquired a telescope equipped with a micrometer, he appealed to Rittenhouse for an explanation of the accessory. The two scales on the micrometer, Rittenhouse wrote him, enabled the observer to measure not only the angular diameter of an object but also, once its size was known, the distance of the object from the observer. T o men who valued astronomy and mathematical research, and recognized the indispensability of scientific method, Rittenhouse had no peer in America. In his Notes on Virginia, published in 1781, Jefferson had written: W e have supposed Mr. Rittenhouse second to no astronomer living; that in genius he must be the first, because he is selftaught. As an artist, he has exhibited as great a proof of mechanical genius as the world has ever produced. He has not, indeed, made a world, but he has by imitation approached nearer its Maker than any man from the Creation to this day. The eulogy was inspired by the Abbe de Raynal's sneer that America had not produced one able mathematician or man of genius in a single science, and it revealed, perhaps, as much pride in America as it did in Rittenhouse, yet Jefferson never saw reason to retract it. The pride of certain Philadelphians in Rittenhouse was unbounded. The Reverend Jacob Duche, the clergyman who had been indiscreet enough during the Revolution to suggest to Washington that he seek terms from the British, and was compelled in consequence to flee the country, wrote after his return to America that Rittenhouse might "justly be reckoned the first astronomer and mathematician in the world." These encomiums were, of course, too sweeping, since in 1791 England could boast of the elder Herschel and Maskelyne, France of Laplace, Messier, Delambre, and Lalande, Italy of Piazzi, Germany of Bode, and Russia of the German-born Lexell. But in America, Rittenhouse stood alone. Three universities had honored him with degrees for his scientific attainments,

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and now the foremost learned society in the country, which counted among its members some of the most brilliant scholars of Europe, acknowledged his preeminence by electing him president. Rittenhouse was nearing fifty-nine when he succeeded to the presidency of the American Philosophical Society. As he had put aside his wig some years earlier, it could be seen that his thinning hair had turned gray, but his face was almost unmarked by his advancing years. He still carried his slender body erect and there was firmness in his step. He was never able to overcome his natural shyness altogether, yet his outward manner had become more casual. In his letter to Dr. Patterson, one of the Philosophical Society secretaries, expressing his gratification with the honor paid him, Rittenhouse said: " M y ill state of health will frequently deny me the pleasure of attending the stated meetings." There was, however, nothing in his appearance as yet to suggest that his health was failing. He attended fewer meetings this year than usual, but this fact did not indicate growing infirmity so much as it did a preoccupation with new and, in some measure unwelcome, duties. The leisure he so much coveted was once more snatched from him. Aside from an observation of an annular eclipse of the sun, which is the least interesting of eclipses to astronomers, he was able to accomplish little in a scientific way. He observed the annular eclipse on April 13, rising before five o'clock in the morning to have everything in readiness, since the moon first touched the limb of the sun at 30 seconds after 5:45 A. M. In his published report he restricted himself to noting the precise time at which the eclipse began, the time at which the ring was formed and broken, and when the eclipse ended. He further remarked that, at the height of the eclipse, the ring was nearly twice as broad at the south as at the north. T h e published report omitted considerable data, however, including the results of micrometer measurements which he made of both the moon and the sun. Nearly four years later, Lalande wrote from France that Rittenhouse's calculations of the diam-

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eter of these bodies, based on the annular eclipse, were almost identical with Lalande's own, which he proposed to use in the third edition of his Astronomie. Rittenhouse's attention was diverted from science soon afterward by the death of Francis Hopkinson on May 9, 1791. It was the second death of a Philosophical Society figure in little more than a year, and the loss was felt more deeply by Rittenhouse than had been the death of Franklin. He had been associated with Hopkinson not only in the Philosophical Society but at the University and in his scientific investigations as well. The Hopkinson home on Sassafras Street was one of the few which Rittenhouse visited with any degree of regularity, and, with the exception of Jefferson in his later years, there had been no one who encouraged and stimulated him quite so much as Hopkinson. A few weeks after Hopkinson's death, Rittenhouse was one of the five commissioners appointed to receive subscriptions to the Bank of the United States. The commission was headed by Thomas Willing, president of the Bank of North America. The law establishing the bank had been signed by Washington on February 25, after bitter debate in the House of Representatives and a historic struggle between Hamilton and Jefferson. As Jefferson had opposed creation of the bank with great vigor, Rittenhouse in accepting the appointment as a subscription agent once more chose between conviction and friendship. After his experience as state treasurer, with currencies constantly depreciating and credit uncertain, the stabilizing influence which proponents claimed for a central bank could not have failed to appeal to him. The actual work of accepting subscriptions was brief. Books Avere opened the morning of J u l y 4 and before nightfall the public's four-fifths share of the $10,000,000 stock was oversubscribed. The financial stability which was to be encouraged by the bank was not immediately apparent inasmuch as the ease with which the public absorbed the stock touched off a speculative spree, and within four days the value of the bank stock had

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doubled. Willing, Rittenhouse, and Samuel Howell called a meeting of the stockholders for October 25, at which time Willing was elected president. Rittenhouse received ten shares of stock in the bank, probably as remuneration for his services. With the duties in connection with the bank concluded, Rittenhouse, at the behest of Governor Thomas Mifflin, plunged almost immediately into the task of developing ways and means of giving the state the improved rivers and highways which had been proposed before the Revolution and, since the war, had made slight progress.

XXI

MINT BUILDER ALTHOUGH the war and the uncertainties of peace had prevented serious consideration of the many schemes that had been laid to facilitate internal commerce, Pennsylvania's need of canals and improved rivers and highways was more urgent in 1791 than it had been in the 1770's. T h e westward march of settlers had been resumed after the war, and final settlement of the western and southern boundaries had encouraged migration to the farthermost reaches of the state. Whether the settlers farmed, trapped, distilled whiskey, or logged, they found the readiest market for their products not at Philadelphia, the state metropolis, but at Baltimore. This situation was imposed by geography. Except for the watershed of the Delaware and the region beyond the mountains, whose streams ultimately reach the Ohio and the Mississippi, the state is drained by the Susquehanna and its tributaries. T h e Susquehanna empties into Chesapeake Bay which flows close to Baltimore. T h e western settlers, with the Mississippi closed to them by the treaty with Spain, could reach the Susquehanna more easily and cheaply than they could the Delaware. It cost as much to transport a bushel of wheat from the region of Pittsburgh to Philadelphia as the wheat would bring on the market. B y 1791 it became evident that the state could not finance the construction of canals and roads on the grand scale recommended b y the several official and unofficial bodies then studying the problem. A legislative committee in February recommended that the Delaware be made navigable, so that, with "short portages," river traffic could be carried on between Philadelphia and Lake Ontario. A t the same time, the Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation, in a memorial signed by Robert Morris, urged a series of river improvements and canals which, with a portage of only >77

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eighteen miles, would permit the passage of barges between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. In April the legislative committee urged that other rivers be made navigable and asked that a hard-surface highway be built to connect Philadelphia and Lancaster. On April 13, Governor Mifflin signed into law a bill providing for "the opening and improving sundry navigable Waters and Roads within this Commonwealth." T h e act provided that "agents of information" be named to make recommendations, and in May the Governor appointed Rittenhouse, together with his old friend Dr. Smith and William Findley, to gather the necessary information. It is uncertain how much time Rittenhouse gave to the task and how great a bearing his recommendations had on subsequent developments, but the period marked the beginning of the tremendous canal and road building boom which carried over well into the next century, and engaged the attention of Rittenhouse to some extent the rest of his life. Those who saw clearly the economic benefits to be derived from low-cost inland transportation were not deterred by the reluctance of the state to lay out public funds on the schemes. T h e people were not only willing but eager to risk their savings on the projects. When, in May, books opened for stock subscriptions to the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Company, the six hundred shares were oversubscribed nearly three times. T h e company, later headed by William Bingham, one of Philadelphia's wealthiest citizens, could not in the face of this enthusiasm bring itself to reject all the subscriptions. Finally, the number of shares was reduced by lot to one thousand giving the company $30,000, with which to begin operations. T h e first thing to be done, as soon as officers and managers had been elected, was to decide upon a route. Rittenhouse was chosen, at a meeting held at Downingtown on July 24, one of the twelve managers, and on October 10 he was selected to serve with Dr. Ewing and John Nancarrow as a surveyor. T h e surveying party struck westward from the Middle Ferry at the Schuylkill, touched at Downingtown on the Brandywine, thence

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progressed westward to the east end of K i n g Street in L a n caster, a distance of about sixty-nine miles. W h e n the " G r e a t Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike R o a d " was opened to traffic in 1794, with a twenty-four-foot-wide surface of pounded stone, it was the longest and finest all-weather highway in America. Although Rittenhouse was a member of the board of managers, he was not among the original subscribers. It is possible that he was remunerated in stock f o r his part in the survey, but if he owned any shares he soon disposed of them, since the inventory of his estate disclosed no such property. W h e t h e r or not he was a stockholder, the investment was no E l Dorado. U p to 1803, the earnings of the turnpike amounted to a scant t w o per cent. E v e n so, the investment might have been wiser than t w o others made b y Rittenhouse during this period. One was the purchase of stock in the Conewago Canal Company. W i t h Robert .Morris, Dr. Smith, Alexander J . Dallas, William Bingham, and others, Rittenhouse signed a contract with the state on J u l y 3, 1792, to improve the navigation of the Susquehanna f r o m W r i g h t ' s F e r r y , at what is now Columbia, to the mouth of Swatara Creek. T h e group was incorporated on A p r i l 10, 1793, and on the same day incorporation papers w e r e granted a second company to dig a two-mile canal between the Schuylkill and Delaware at the northern limits of Philadelphia. Rittenhouse was put on a committee to take stock subscriptions. A canal was later built along the Susquehanna, but construction of the w h o l l y unnecessary canal at Philadelphia dragged on f o r years and was finally abandoned. Rittenhouse's lone share of stock in the latter corporation was listed in the inventory of his estate as having no value. N o v e m b e r 1791 brought Rittenhouse an unpleasant duty in connection with the University. Since early 1789, both the C o l lege of Philadelphia and the University of the State of Pennsylvania had been operating concurrently, and the burden was more than a city of f e w e r than thirty thousand population could support. On September 30, 1 7 9 1 , the legislature voted to unite

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the two institutions under the name of the University of Pennsylvania. Trustees of the new university, twelve from each of the boards of the former schools, met with the governor at the State House on November 8. Rittenhouse, whose resignation from the University of the State of Pennsylvania was still lying on the table, was among them. He continued as a trustee throughout his remaining years. Not long after the schools were merged, Rittenhouse had to sit by while his old friend, Dr. Smith, was humiliated by being passed over when the new faculty was chosen. He was still on the friendliest terms with Dr. Smith and was associated with him in several canal ventures, but he was only one trustee in twenty-four and quite unable to overcome the opposition of Dr. Ewing, who became provost of the new University. A few days later Rittenhouse gave proof, if any was needed, of his affection for another friend, Francis Hopkinson, who had been dead two years. At the same time, Rittenhouse relieved the Philosophical Society of an embarrassing debt. When the Society bought the Arch Street lot from Hopkinson in 1784, intending to erect a permanent home on the site, it had paid only half the purchase price in cash, giving Hopkinson its bond for £300. The debt was to have been discharged at the end of five years. The Society paid the interest on the bond but, when Hopkinson died, the principal was still unpaid. Hopkinson had never pressed for payment, and apparently his heirs were equally patient, yet to Rittenhouse, as president, failure to pay the debt reflected on the Society's good faith. On November 15, he wrote the Society that he had paid the heirs the sum of £308, which included interest, and had taken up the bond and mortgage. The payment amounted only to about $834 at the current rate of exchange, yet it was considerable for a man in Rittenhouse's financial circumstances. While he had acquired some land and had a fair sum at interest, he no longer had a regular income. The Society took fitting recognition of his generösity.

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On December 16, with Rittenhouse in the chair, the members acknowledged receipt of his letter and adopted a resolution: This renewed instance of your Liberality, joined to the consideration of the illustrious part which you have taken in their labors for many years past, hath made such an impression on them, that they are at a loss in what manner they can best express their Gratitude, or their Respect & Veneration for your name. It was ordered that Rittenhouse's letter and the Society's resolution be published in the newspapers. In due course, they appeared in the Freedom's Journal. Further, the Society requested Rittenhouse to sit for a portrait by Charles Willson Peale. Rittenhouse agreed, telling the Society that he had been happy to pav the debt and that his "satisfaction was increased by their very polite approbation." Although he spent some time on the affairs of the Lancaster turnpike and of the several projected canals, Rittenhouse carried out his resolve this winter to devote himself to purely scientific study. Some of the problems occurred to him as he conducted experiments, others were submitted to him by friends, whose interest often was strictly utilitarian. Typical of the latter was his investigation of the behavior of steel springs after being heated. On March 6, 1796, he read a paper on the result of his experiments and, although he did not attempt to explain the structural changes that took place in the metal when heat was applied, he did conclude that steel under such conditions invariably loses its elasticity. Rittenhouse had long since ceased to build clocks for sale, but the law of the pendulum held a peculiar fascination for him. His interest had been quickened by his work with Jefferson on a standard unit of measure, and during the early months of 1792 he spent a good deal of his otherwise unoccupied time in a study of the subject. While so engaged, he chanced upon a mathematical problem that permitted him no rest until he had solved it. The theorem which he applied to the solution was his own. He

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explained it to Dr. Patterson, professor of mathematics at the University, and asked the latter's help in checking his accuracy. I have iiiscovered a very elegant theorem for determining the times of vibration of a pendulum in given arches of a circle [he wrote] but it included a problem the solution of which I do not remember to have met with, though I cannot suppose it to have escaped the notice of mathematicians. It is, to find the sums of the several powers of the sines, either to a radius of unity or any other. I was induced to attempt the means of doing this solely by its usefulness, but in prosecuting the inquiry I found much of that pleasing regularity, the discovery of which the geometrician often thinks a sufficient reward for his labours. He had already demonstrated his theorem in the case of the first powers and their squares, he told Dr. Patterson, and had proved others by infinite series and the law of continuation, but did not have the time to demonstrate the latter. Whether Dr. Patterson had the time and skill necessary to demonstrate the theorem is a question, but he made no reply. The soundness of Rittenhouse's theorem was proved seven years after his death when Nathaniel Bowditch, the Boston navigator and mathematician, demonstrated it before the American Philosophical Society. Before his letter had been read to the Philosophical Society, Rittenhouse had let himself be flattered into assuming one of the most responsible and arduous tasks of his career. While it did not actually put an end to his scientific studies and investigations, it so weighed him down with laborious detail that he had little time for anything else. Washington, on April 2, 1792, had signed into law the act of Congress providing for the establishment of a mint, and twelve days later he appointed Rittenhouse as director. Probably foreseeing the obstacles and pitfalls of such an enterprise, Rittenhouse pleaded that his health would not permit him to serve, but Jefferson waved away his objections. The mint now seems a natural function of the Treasury Department, but in 1792 the re-

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sponsibilities of the various federal departments were not clearly defined and, because Jefferson had long interested himself in the problem of coinage, he, rather than Hamilton, undertook to establish the mint. Rittenhouse, J e f f e r s o n said, was the logical choice f o r the position of director and Washington concurred in this opinion. Rittenhouse, now sixty and in poor health, let Jefferson persuade him, not perhaps without the realization that his career once more was drawing parallel to that of N e w t o n , w h o in the closing years of his life had been master of the mint at London. T h e r e were, however, t w o important differences between the position of Rittenhouse and that once held b y N e w t o n . T h e latter, as virtually an independent contractor, was able to amass considerable wealth; Rittenhouse was to receive a mere $2,000 a year, out of which he was to pay $200 to the secretary of the mint treasurer. N e w t o n took over a well-organized institution; Rittenhouse had to create the United States mint out of nothing. T h e c r o w n had always been jealous of its rights with respect to coinage and, except f o r Massachusetts, none of the American colonies had ventured to produce its o w n coins. Massachusetts established a mint at Boston as early as 1652 and struck off the famous pine-tree and oak-tree shillings, as well as silver sixpenny, three-penny, and two-penny pieces. T h e colony petitioned William and M a r y in 1688 f o r permission to continue the minting of its own coins, but it was refused and the mint was closed. Subsequently the Colonies had to depend upon various Spanish and French coins received in the course of trade with the W e s t Indies, upon coins minted to order in England, or to a f a r less extent, upon coins produced privately in the Colonies on speculation. Robert Morris, on January 15, 1782, or less than a year after the Articles of Confederation became operative, proposed to the Continental Congress that it authorize a national mint, and Francis Hopkinson in 1784 sought Jefferson's aid in obtaining appointment as director. T h e Congress gave its assent on O c -

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tober 16, 1786, but aside from letting a private contract to mint the fugio, or Franklin, cent in 1787, no further action was taken before the adoption of the federal constitution. Meanwhile the demand of the states for hard money grew more insistent. Connecticut and New Jersey let contracts to individuals for copper coins, and in 1787 Massachusetts authorized its second mint. Soon after his appointment, Rittenhouse was asked by Jefferson to look about for a suitable site at Philadelphia. Rittenhouse wrote him on June 16, 1792: I have bargained with the owner for the House and Lot on Seventh Street, between Arch & Market Streets, of which you saw the Draught, for the use of the Mint. The Price £ 1600 in Cash, Pennsylvania Currency, subject to a ground rent of 21 dollars, payable to the Friends Aims-House. If his Excellency, the President, approves this purchase, the Conveyance shall be made in such manner as he shall direct. The property selected by Rittenhouse was an unused still house on the east side of Seventh Street, above Sugar Alley, now known as Filbert Street. It is probable that Washington himself viewed the property, since he took a personal interest in the mint from the beginning, and visited it almost daily when it began operation. In any event, he wrote Rittenhouse on July 9 that he approved the purchase of the site. When the house and lot passed into the possession of the United States, they became the first real property owned by the federal government. The building, with some repairs, could be converted to the use of the mint, but it soon became evident that others would have to be erected on the rear of the lot. Rittenhouse in this work had the assistance of Henry Voight, the watchmaker who had been employed on the orreries and later had both helped and hindered John Fitch in building the latter's steamboats. He had contended successfully against Fitch for the position as acting chief coiner of the mint. Voight superintended the alterations to the existing building, which were completed within a few weeks. Excavation for the new building had advanced sufficiently by July 31 for the

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foundations to be started. The occasion lent itself to ceremony and a lavish display of the national colors. At 10 o'clock in the morning, before a throng that included federal officials, Rittenhouse laid the foundation stone. Then, as a fitting climax, punch was served. This was supplied by Rittenhouse out of the seven shillings and sixpence which had been realized from the sale of materials from the old building. The new structure was completed swiftly and was ready for occupancy by September 7. Construction and installation of the necessary machinery and equipment proceeded more slowly. Skilled and ingenious though Rittenhouse had always been in providing tools and apparatus for his own experiments, he had no experience whatever with the type demanded for the coinage of money. This phase of the work apparently was left almost entirely to Voight. It is uncertain how much of the machinery was in place at the time the mint began operation. Certainly not much could have been completed, since the tools for constructing it had to be made, but the list of apparatus installed during Rittenhouse's tenure as director was imposing. There were several furnaces, some for melting the bullion, others for refining the metals, and still others for assaying and annealing. For rolling the ingots after they had been cast, there were two rolling mills, one for cold metal and one for hot. The strips, or fillets, that came from the rolling mills were not of uniform thickness, and a drawing machine was necessary to equalize them. The planchets were cut on three machines, while another milled the edges of silver coins. Three presses were used to stamp the planchets and so produce the finished coins. In addition, vaults were built for the bullion, and Voight provided two lathes, a boring mill, and other tools for making and maintaining the machinery and for cutting dies. At least one of the presses was in operation by October 1792, for in that month the first coins were struck off. They were silver five-cent pieces, or "half dismes" as Washington called them. Dies for the first coins were cut by Voight. When Jefferson

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failed to persuade a Swiss named Drotz to accept the position of chief coiner, Voight was given the post and also the responsibility of cutting dies until an engraver was named the next year. The task of making assays, in the months before Albion Cox was brought over from England in 1793, fell to Rittenhouse, who made his first report on assays of foreign coins on January 7, 1793. Under his direction, David Ott tested gold and silver coins of France, England, Spain, and Portugal, and to Ott's data Rittenhouse "added the specific gravity of each piece of gold coin." Because it had been possible to strike off the first half dimes within a scant six months after Congress authorized the mint, many persons assumed that the badly needed coins would thenceforth flow from the presses in a mounting flood. A few one-cent pieces with silver centers, a coin designed by Voight, were produced in December 1792, but further progress was slow, and a disappointed public, including some persons who favored private minting, soon became critical. When it was discovered that the cost of coinage exceeded the value of the coins produced, criticism became sharper. One of the drawbacks was the crudity of the machines. Voight, who had designed and built them, fancied himself as an inventor and, as Fitch had found, was given to sulking when he could not have his way. Having lost faith in steam while working with Fitch, he turned his talents to devising methods of employing animals to operate machines and in 1791 patented a boat in which the power was to be supplied by cattle. The rolling mill and the machine that milled the edges of coins, which Voight designed for the mint, relied upon horses for power. Rittenhouse, as director, should have realized the shortcomings of Voight's plans but, even if he had, other obstacles to successful operation would have remained. Under the law, the mint was required to melt down any metal brought in by an individual, who was to be given the equivalent in coin, less a seignorage of only one-half of one per cent. Since no appropriation had been made for the purchase of precious metal, the mint was dependent entirely upon such metal as in-

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dividuals wished to deposit, and this consisted not only of f o r eign coins, but also of medals, chain, gold dust, clippings, and even snuff boxes. M u c h of it was more or less base, and, although the depositor received credit only f o r the fine metal it contained, the cost of refining had to be borne b y the mint. T h e supply of bullion under such circumstances was uneven, and operations often had to be suspended f o r lack of metal. A further obstacle was the legal requirement that the chief coiner, before he could handle the precious metals, be bonded f o r $10,000. V o i g h t , w h o had been appointed to the post, was unable to furnish the bond. A f t e r a year, Jefferson asked Congress to reduce the amount so that the minting of silver could proceed. Despite the many difficulties, the output of the mint was not inconsiderable. U p to September 30, 1794, it had struck off 908,012 cents and 116,934 half-cents. Silver coins in quantity were not produced until Octobcr 15, 1794, but within a year a total of 204,791 dollars, 3 : 3 , 1 4 4 half-dollars, and 52,516 halfdimes were struck off. N o gold was minted while Rittenhouse was director. Rittenhouse kept doggedly at w o r k , but it was not the kind from which he could derive satisfaction. T h e criticism galled him, because most of it was unfnir. T h e limitless load of detail wearied and discouraged him. But he refused to quit under fire.

XXII

DEMOCRATS AND WHISKEY for his customary reading and work on an equatorial instrument for Jefferson, Rittenhouse gave almost all his time to the mint during the latter half of 1792. Only a start had been made toward supplying much-needed coins by the year's end, yet Rittenhouse did manage to steal a few hours to spend at his telescopes. One result of his efforts was the discovery of a comet on January 1 1 , 1793, the only actual astronomical discovery for which he ever claimed credit. He first saw the comet in Cepheus, when it was brighter than a second-magnitude star. Observing it nightly, he saw it start to grow fainter on January 13 and then move swiftly south through Cassiopeia, Andromeda, the Triangle, and Aries. On January 31, it was near the star in Cetus designated by Flamsteed as Number 84, and on February 8 Rittenhouse saw it for the last time. In a letter to Dr. Patterson at the University a week after the discovery of the comet, Rittenhouse indicated that he intended to compute the elements of its orbit. His published report makes no mention of such calculations. It is probable that he found no time to give the matter, for 1793, though not his most productive year, was to be one of his busiest. A detail that required a disproportionate share of effort was the Philosophical Society's interest in Andre Michaux, the French botanist who had come to America to gather data and specimens for his authoritative volumes on North American flora. Proposing an expedition to the western territories, he applied to the Society for financial aid, and the Society responded on April 19 by appointing a committee, consisting of Rittenhouse, Jefferson, and two others, to raise by subscription the $300 or $400 which Michaux needed. Eleven days later Rittenhouse was directed to pay Michaux any sum up to $400. It is doubtful that the Frenchman received much money, since

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his plan was later abandoned. Rittenhouse, for an unexplained reason, failed to return the money that had been placed in his hands, apparently not more than $128.25. After his death, the Society named a committee to collect it from his heirs. At the time, Rittenhouse was at work once again on the several canal projects in which he was interested, financially or otherwise, and with the Lancaster Turnpike, but the events that were to affect him most during the dark year of 1793 lay in another direction. The first was the arrival at Philadelphia on May 16 of Citizen Genet, the representative of revolutionary France. Even before Genet arrived, the city had shown itself to be in hearty accord with the extremist French government. When VAmbuscade, which had borne Genet to Charleston, South Carolina, reached Philadelphia on May 2, with seven prizes in tow, she was greeted with a salute from two field pieces. Genet himself was met on his arrival at Gray's Ferry on the lower Schuylkill by a throng of almost hysterical admirers. It is doubtful that Rittenhouse was in the cheering crowd at Gray's Ferry, but he was present at a meeting of citizens at the State House later in the day when a committee was appointed to draw up a suitable address of welcome. Rittenhouse was put on the committee and the next day he was in the chair when the address was approved. A committee went almost immediately to the City Tavern, where Genet was stopping, and formally welcomed him to Philadelphia. For weeks to come, Genet was cheered every time he showed himself in public. The more emotional among the citizenry went about with liberty caps on their heads or wearing tricolor cockades, and with the passing days sympathy gave way to demands for active assistance to the revolutionists in their war against England. Mobs swirled and eddied about the Presidential mansion, shouting demands that Washington revoke his proclamation of neutrality. The French Revolution, in the popular mind, was somehow likened to the struggle so lately won by the United States. The

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man in the street could not distinguish between an uprising that had sought to throw off allegiance to a king, without permitting any radical change in the social or economic order, and an upheaval that had taken the life of a king and was bent upon uprooting all authority and privilege. Opponents of the Federalists were quick to detect in the popular espousal of the French cause a weapon with which they might combat what they believed was an unwarranted assumption of power by the federal government and a tendency toward monarchical forms. The obvious course to follow, if capital was to be made of the people's enthusiasm, was to organize the sentiment. This was done before May 30 with the formation of the Democratic Society. Rittenhouse, whose liberal views were well known and who had identified himself with Genet by serving on the welcoming committee, was induced, perhaps by his son-in-law, Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant, to accept the presidency. William Coates and Charles Biddle were chosen vice-presidents, Israel Israel, treasurer, and J. Porter and Peter S. Duponceau, secretaries. However, the driving force behind the movement was not to be found among the officers so much as it was in the committee of correspondence, which undertook to propagate the idea by sponsoring the formation of societies in other sections of the country. This committee consisted of Sergeant, Dr. James Hutchinson, Michael Lieb, and Alexander J . Dallas, secretary of the commonwealth. With enthusiasm at white heat, the society celebrated its organization with a talkative dinner at Lesher's Tavern, where members ceremoniously saluted each other as "Gtizen." Thereafter, the society met at frequent intervals. The minutes for the early months of the society's existence are fragmentary, making it impossible to judge the extent of Rittenhouse's participation in the deliberations, yet it seems improbable that he avoided the meetings altogether; it was not his habit to give his support to any movement without engaging in its work. In any event, he could not escape the calumnies that soon descended upon the Democrats, collectively and severally.

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T h e Federalists and their supporters soon took alarm at the growth of the societies. Charges that the Federalists were trying to distort the national government into the equivalent of a monarchy and were trying to curry favor with Great Britain were not without a dash of truth, and so the Democrats soon found themselves raked with bitter Federalist invectives, their motives impugned, and their characters assailed. William Cobbett, whose venomous shafts were always poised for such an affray, was quick to compare the society to the violent French Jacobins. It was curious, he wrote, that an astronomer and a secretary of state headed the clubs in both countries. In France, it had been Bailly and Dumouriez; in America, Rittenhouse and Dallas. Several local societies were organized in inland towns and settlements during the summer and, even after Genet's arrogance had begun to lose him much of his earlier popularity, the formation of new groups was promoted assiduously. Whether or not the Philadelphia society could have influenced the fall elections cannot be known with certainty. Before election day, the city w as swept by an epidemic of yellow fever, which sent hundreds of the more fortunate citizens fleeing for their lives to the surrounding countryside and took an appalling toll of those that remained. The city was slow to recognize its peril. Little attention was paid to the first death, which occurred at Kensington, a few miles up the Delaware, but others soon followed in the city, and presently the victims numbered scores, then hundreds. Physicians quarreled among themselves as to the cause of the disease and the method of treatment. Some blamed the influx of refugees from the slave rebellion in Santo Domingo; others rotting coffee on the Delaware wharves. Some physicians bled their patients; others physicked them. All of them ignored the uncommonly hot and humid weather and the unprecedented swarms of mosquitoes, and patients continued to die. Owning a farm, Rittenhouse could easily have gone with Hannah to a place of comparative safety, yet both, despite earlier plans to vacation at Norriton, stayed on in the plague-ridden

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city. Rittenhouse had several reasons. Work at the mint continued without interruption and he felt it his duty to keep in close touch with it. Then his sons-in-law and many of his intimate friends were unable to leave. Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant, Elizabeth's husband, was a member of the board of health and shared the responsibility of enforcing sanitary regulations and of providing at least a semblance of hospitalization for fever victims. Dr. Waters, Esther's husband, gave no thought to escape but labored tirelessly throughout the critical weeks. The fury of the plague rose in a deadly crescendo. Scores of federal and state officials retreated to the country or near-by towns. In the city, merchants shuttered their shops and newspapers suspended publication. Streets by day were untraveled except for physicians on their ceaseless and unavailing rounds and by night they were silent except for the sound of carts and wagons, groaning under the weight of coffins. Rittenhouse, moved by the suffering around him, begged his nephew, Dr. Barton, to treat victims in the neighborhood and to send the bill to him. After a few weeks the tragedy of the epidemic was brought close to Rittenhouse. Sergeant, contracting the fever, died on October 8. Elizabeth soon afterward returned to the Rittenhouse home with her two small daughters and son. At about this time, Rittenhouse left the city for the Norriton farm, where apparently he remained until the danger was well past. W h y he should have weakened in his original resolution to remain in the city is a question that cannot easily be answered. Sergeant's death, coupled with an awareness that his own powers of resistance were not high, may have made him more sensible of his peril. And it is possible that business in connection with the new Schuylkill canal between Norristown and Philadelphia, which was then under construction, required him to leave the city. In any event, he went to Norriton, and the fact that he found it necessary to write letters to Philadelphia while there suggests that his stay was not brief. While at Norriton he spent hours rambling about the familiar

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scenes of his youth. He went over to Norristown, he wrote Hannah, to see the new canal, "where Col. Porter has 350 stout fellows working away as if nothing was amiss." He asked Hannah to comfort Betsey in her bereavement. The letter was written on October 22. Six days later there was a flurry of snow, the next dav the temperature dropped to twenty-nine, and the mark of doom was lifted from Philadelphia. The epidemic had killed 4,044 persons, a full tenth of the city's normal population, and the home was rare that did not have a mourner. Though Elizabeth was still dazed by the loss of her husband, the Rittenhouse home, for the sake of the three grandchildren, Esther, Frances, and David, was not permitted to become depressed. By November 6, Rittenhouse was back at the mint, deeply immersed in the problems of obtaining bullion and of completing the machinery. On that day Jefferson, who had taken his two daughters with him to Germantown to escape the fever, wrote that a sizable shipment of copper had reached the city: You will receive herein inclosed the bill of lading & invoice for between 9 & 10 tons of copper, shipped by Mr. Pinckney on board the Pigon for the use of the mint, for the reception and charge of which you will be pleased to give proper orders. It has been understood that Mr. Wright, our engraver, is dead. If this be the fact, will you be so good as to recommend for the office such person as you think best qualified to execute it? The copper sent from England by the American minister was the first substantial quantity the mint had been able to obtain, even though Rittenhouse had inserted advertisements in Philadelphia papers and had even tried to use copper which already had been fashioned into nails. With an adequate supply of metal, the minting of cents proceeded at a more satisfactory rate. Robert Scot was appointed engraver to succeed Wright on November 23, but whether this was done on Rittenhouse's recommendation is not clear. The increased productiveness of the mint did not silence the

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critics and, as if that were not enough, early in January 1794 Rittenhouse found himself the target of renewed attacks because of his association with the Democratic Society. On January 9, the society adopted a series of resolutions, reaffirming its friendship for France, "our only true and natural ally," savagely attacking England f o r her failure to fulfill treaty obligations to the United States, and demanding that foreign agents, patently English, stop "traducing" the duly appointed representative of a friendly power, which representative, of course, was Genet. While Rittenhouse, having no reason to love England, sympathized with the French, he saw that the cleavage which the society was attempting to create among the people might lead to fateful consequences. The next day he wrote to Benjamin Franklin Bache, one of the organizers of the society and a member of its committee of correspondence: The Resolutions of the Democratic Society of the 9th inst. have my most cordial approbation. But I think I cannot with propriety affix my name to them as President, because I was not present when they were agreed on. T h e signature of the chairman for the time, or the secretary, if attending, will I conceive be most proper. I am fully sensible of the disadvantages arising from non-attendance or the President, and therefore thanking the Society with great sincerity for the honor they have done me and wishing to promote its very laudable views I must request them to accept my resignation and to chuse another in my stead. The resignation as president was accepted without comment and George Logan was elected to succeed him, but Rittenhouse did not cease to be a member of the society. He belonged to the organization, his enemies remembered, while the society was tacitly, if not actively, encouraging the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania. The western portion of the state had been bubbling with resentment against the tax on spirits ever since Congress first levied it on March 3, 1791. The tax amounted to only fourpence a gallon, but farmers in the western counties contended that it placed

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an unfair burden upon them since whiskey was their leading product, and that the tax was discriminatory because no other section of the country distilled whiskey on such a large scale. T h e section's importance as a distilling center was, perhaps, a natural development, since whiskey, unlike grain or flour, could be marketed at a price high enough to leave a good profit after payment of freight. E v e r y fifth or sixth farmer, it was estimated, operated a still. Pennsylvania unwisely repealed the state tax on spirits, an action which was interpreted by the farmers as sanctioning their opposition to the federal tax. B y September 1791, disguised mobs in Washington and Allegheny counties were abducting collectors, whom thev branded, tarred and feathered, and then left to find their w a y home, if they could. Congress lowered the tax in M a y 1792, and permitted it to be paid in monthly installments, but the farmers were not to be so easily appeased. The next year the larger distillers submitted, but the temper of the small farmers grew shorter. Formation of Democratic societies in such an atmosphere of disaffection could have only one result. T h e disorders, which previously had been more or less spontaneous, assumed a more calculated aspect. T o nervous citizens and to the Federalists especially, " T o m the Tinker," as the otherwise unidentified leader of the rioters was known, became a menace of frightening proportions. Hamilton chose to regard the warnings and threats as a challenge to the constitution, as he regarded almost everything that questioned federal authority. He was so determined to centralize power, in fact, that he was accused of having crammed the excise levy through Congress so that he might have a pretext to demonstrate the right of the federal government to regulate affairs which until a f e w years before had been exclusively the business of the states. T h e disturbances in the western counties was embarrassing to the Democratic Society at Philadelphia. Soon after Rittenhouse's withdrawal as president, it became evident that the federal government, goaded b y Hamilton, was determined to treat

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the riots as a full-fledged rebellion. Though unalterably opposed to excise taxes of any description, the Democratic Society was compelled to disavow the actions of its counterpart in the Washington District, but its disapproval was expressed in phrases that left many persons wondering whether it did really disapprove. After declaring, on July 31, 1794, that ". . . we conceive Excise Systems to be oppressive, hostile to the liberties of this country, and a nurse of vice and sycophancy," it deplored "every opposition to them, not warranted by that form of Government, which has received the sanction of the People of the United States." On August 7, Governor Mifflin ordered up 12,950 militia, but neither this action by the state nor the subsequent agreement reached between federal and state commissioners on the one hand and the rebels on the other satisfied Hamilton, who persuaded Washington to call out federal troops. Governor Henry Lee, of Virginia, was put in command, but he was accompanied on the westward march by both Washington and Hamilton. When the troops reached Uniontown, Lee was informed that all resistance had ceased, and a test at arms was averted. The seed of the outbreaks had been sown before the Democratic Society came into existence, yet the group was blamed by Federalists for the whole affair. William Cobbett wrote that the Democrats had actually planned to "seize the reins of government" and had schemed to prevent Governor Mifflin from calling out the militia. T o him, the society's actions were an example of sans culottism. Washington, in his message to Congress in December, excoriated the society for its part in the disorders. Since he had remained as a member even when the rioting was at its height, Rittenhouse could not escape personal vilification, but if it perturbed him, his subsequent actions did not reveal any discomfiture. Even after Genet's prestige had begun to wane, Rittenhouse accepted from him a description of the newly adopted French revolutionary calendar. And Joseph Priestley, the English scientist and dissenting divine, was welcomed to the Rittenhouse home, although it was well known that he had

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spoken favorably of the French. On January 7, 1796, only six months before his death, Rittenhouse was again elected president of the Democratic Society. These facts w e r e not soon forgotten b y Federalists, w h o distrusted Rittenhouse's liberal political and social views. A s long afterward as 1 8 1 4 , J o h n Adams, on receiving a c o p y of William Barton's biography of Rittenhouse, refused to read it. T h e n , in a letter to Jefferson, he belittled Rittenhouse's scientific achievements, and added: " I n politics, Rittenhouse was a good, simple, ignorant, well-meaning, Franklinian democrat, totally ignorant of the world as an anchorite, an honest dupe of the French R e v o lution, a mere instrument of Jonathan Sargeant, D r . Hutchison, G e n e t & Mifflin." A t seventy-eight, Adams was embittered; his o w n revolutionary ardor had cooled since 1776.

XXIII

RETURN TO SCIENCE P R I E S T L E Y , who enjoyed an international reputation for his work in the chemistry of gases and especially for his discovery of oxygen, arrived at N e w York on June 4, 1794, and went to Philadelphia where his first contact inevitably was with Rittenhouse. He had been elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1785, and, almost as soon as the news of his arrival at N e w York reached Philadelphia, the Society appointed a committee to congratulate him. In signing the welcome, Rittenhouse was doing more than paying formal homage to a fellow scientist; he was honoring a man who, like himself, had incurred the wrath of conservatives by the liberality of his political views.

Although Priestley had not been active in politics, he had openly expressed sympathy for the French revolutionists, and had given at least tacit support to a dinner held at Birmingham in 1791 to celebrate the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. A mob expressed its disapproval by setting fire to his chapel and his home, destroying his papers and virtually all his personal possessions. Priestley took refuge in London, but his associates in the Royal Society avoided him, and he went to Hackney where he preached for a time. Criticism at last becoming unendurable, he sailed for America, where his three sons were planning to establish a settlement on the upper Susquehanna. Priestley and Rittenhouse had specialized in different fields of science, but both had the open, curious mind that marks the true scientist, and their meetings were mutually enjoyable. Finding Philadelphia "excessively expensive," Priestley with his wife soon left the city for the site of the proposed settlement, and when plans for the new community failed to materialize, he took up his residence permanently in near-by Northumberland. He returned frequently to Philadelphia, however, to propagate the principles of Unitarianism in a series of sermons. Perhaps through 198

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the offices of Rittenhouse, w h o still served as a trustee o f the University, he w a s offered the chair of chemistry but declined. O n at least some of his visits t o the c i t y , he w a s entertained at dinner b y Rittenhouse and Hannah, one of the v e r y f e w persons outside the family to w h o m Rittenhouse ever extended similar hospitality. D u r i n g the summer of 1794, Rittenhouse struggled w i t h the ever-deepening perplexities of the mint. Repeated disappointments discouraged him, and the necessity of d e f e n d i n g the increasing cost of the institution w e a r i e d him. H e managed, despite the v e x i n g detail, to resume his experiments on the p e n d u l u m and to make the readjustments necessitated b y the death of his second son-in-law. D r . W a t e r s , to w h o m Esther w a s married in 1790, had labored as valiantly as any other Philadelphia physician against the y e l l o w f e v e r epidemic but, more fortunate than some, he did n o t fall victim to the disease. T h e several w e e k s of visiting the sick, h o w e v e r , w i t h o u t adequate rest o r sleep, undermined his p o w e r s of resistance and tuberculosis soon developed. H e g r e w rapidly worse, and on A u g u s t 20 Rittenhouse made a simple notation in his meteorological record: " D r . W . died near n o o n . " Esther and her three-year-old son m o v e d to her parents' home, w h e r e Elizabeth and her three children w e r e already living. T h e "mansion," built originally f o r a f a m i l y of f o u r , n o w g a v e shelter t o eight. B e f o r e the summer was out, Rittenhouse developed a pendulum w h i c h , in his opinion, w o u l d improve greatly the a c c u r a c y of clocks. H e described it in a paper read b e f o r e the Philosophical S o c i e t y on N o v e m b e r 4. T h e pendulum was supported not at the upper end but at the middle. A heavy b o b was attached to the l o w e r end in the usual manner, while the upper end carried a b o b that was similar in size but h o l l o w . T h e atmosphere, Rittenhouse explained, w o u l d retard s o m e w h a t the descent of the h e a v y b o b but at the same time w o u l d cause the h o l l o w b o b at the other end of the r o d t o rise more rapidly. In this w a y , the e f f e c t o f a n y variation in the

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density of the air on the heavy bob would be canceled out, permitting the pendulum to oscillate in equal times regardless of barometric pressure. T o test his theory, Rittenhouse submerged the odd pendulum in water and made the interesting discovery that its rate of oscillation was higher than it had been in air. While he was engaged in these experiments the city was again afflicted with yellow fever, and Hannah and her step-daughters, with their children, went to Norriton. Elizabeth urged her father to quit the city, and on September 28 he wrote to thank her for her solicitude. He added, however, "I shall once more depend upon the protection of Providence 8c endeavor to be resigned to its decision." Providence, as before, was kind to him, but he had his own plague in the critics of the mint, and they were far from kind. When their clamor grew so loud that Congress could no longer ignore it, the House appointed Elias Boudinot, of N e w Jersey, to head an investigating committee. Aside from the mint's inability to produce coins in desired quantities, the critics professed to be scandalized by the sums of money that were being spent. When Washington asked Rittenhouse in 1792 to estimate the expense of establishing the mint, the latter had placed the cost at $5,000, in addition to $ 10,000 for an initial supply of copper. Actually, the expenses during the first two and one-half years of operation amounted to $58,394.61, of which more than $22,000 had gone to erecting the machinery and more than $15,000 to officers' salaries. Rittenhouse explained the situation on November 24, 1794, in a letter to Edmund Randolph, who had succeeded Jefferson as secretary of state: T h e expenses of the mint have hitherto been chiefly applied only preparatory towards carrying on the business of the establishment; in erecting the necessary buildings, furnaces for melting, refining, and assaying, &c (for which purpose it has been found necessary to purchase an additional lot of ground) and the very extensive machinery used in the different operations of coining; nearly one million cents have, however, been coined, and paid into the treasury of the United States, and a beginning

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has been made in coining the precious metals. N e a r l y 120,000 ounces of bullion have already been deposited in the mint f o r coinage, a considerable part of which, being too base f o r the standard of the United States, has, in part, been successfully refined b y the assayer . . . a large parcel of blank dollars is ready f o r coining, waiting f o r a more p o w e r f u l press to be finished. N i n e months earlier, Rittenhouse had shown in a lengthy report to Senator G e o r g e Cabot that the method of operation left the mint little possibility of making a profit. Minting 700 pounds of cents, he wrote, required 1,000 pounds of copper, eighteen man-days of manual labor, and the w o r k of f o u r horses f o r t w o days. T h e gross profit to the mint was only $18.50. T h e facts, as Rittenhouse presented them, failed to satisfy persons in and out of the government w h o failed to understand the complexities of the undertaking, and the House investigation w ent on. Boudinot brought in his report on February 9, 1795. It contained much the same data as Rittenhouse had given to individual senators and congressmen. T h e delay at which the country chafed were those experienced in initiating any enterprise of like magnitude, the report said. Although it recommended that the horses be replaced as motive p o w e r b y water or steam, it absolved the mint officials of any blame f o r conditions then existing. T h u s exculpated, Rittenhouse resigned the directorship, effective J u n e 30. H e n r y William de Saussure, of South Carolina, was appointed director on J u l y 8, but after only four months he resigned in disgust. As much had been done with the mint, he declared in his letter of resignation, as could reasonably be expected. A n y improvement would require amendments to the law under which the mint had been established. O n laying d o w n his responsibilities at the mint, Rittenhouse could at last call his time his own. H e did delay his retirement long enough to serve as a commissioner to inspect Pennsylvania's stock of g u n p o w d e r and to set standards f o r the explosive, but the task did not long occupy him. Aside f r o m his private studies

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and observations, he was a man without employment, and the city directory for the first time listed him as "D. Rittenhouse, gentleman." The supreme irony of his career was the fact that, when the leisure he had so long sought after had been made possible, health to improve it should be lacking. Though he had probably exaggerated his indisposition when Jefferson urged the mint directorship upon him three years before, his health had grown steadily worse. His old complaint recurred more frequently now, and the almost constant pain was beginning to etch its record on his thin face. This is strikingly revealed in the marble bust which the Philosophical Society placed in its meeting rooms on February 6, 1795. The bust was executed by Giuseppi Ceracchi, an Italian sculptor who arrived at Philadelphia in 1793 with his German wife, hoping to obtain commissions from the leading figures of the day. Commissions were not forthcoming and Ceracchi found himself virtually penniless. Rittenhouse entertained him and, perhaps, aided him financially. In any event, Ceracchi did the bust sometime during 1794, as an expression of gratitude, and presented it to the Philosophical Society. Charles Willson Peale, who painted a Rittenhouse portrait in 1791, saw a man whose brow was unlined and whose gaze, while mild, was interested and alert. Ceracchi saw a somewhat stronger face but one that was deeply lined. The deep-set eyes were those of a man who suffered. Nevertheless Rittenhouse, now that he was no longer "a slave to public office," accomplished more in a scientific way during the remaining months of 1795 than he had in any similar period for years. The honor that came to him on June 16 cannot be said to have inspired him, yet it must have encouraged him. On that day Phineas Bond, His Majesty's Consul at Philadelphia, notified him that, on the sixteenth of the preceding April, he had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He was not the first American so to be honored, since Franklin, John Bartram, and Dr. Samuel Johnson, of King's College, had been made

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fellows before the Revolution, and, only five years after the w a r ended, James Bowdoin, president of the American A c a d emy of Arts and Sciences at Boston, was elected. Still the longdelaved and well-deserved honor was gratifying. Later in June, Rittenhouse's elaborate paper, describing a w a y " T o Determine the T r u e Place of a Planet in an Elliptical Orbit, Directly f r o m the Mean Anomaly b y Converging Series," was read at a meeting of the American Philosophical Society. T h e calculation was suited to Rittenhouse's purposes, but it attracted little attention and has remained probably the least k n o w n of his mathematical studies. Within a f e w years Gauss devised a method of computing orbits which, with that developed b y Laplace, is used generally today. . In August, Rittenhouse left the city f o r his usual rest at the Norriton farm. Rain had made the roads nearly impassable, and his safe arrival, he said in a letter to Elizabeth, " w a s almost b y miracle." H o w long he remained at the f a r m is not known, but it may be doubted that he relaxed completely. N o matter h o w many problems he investigated or how many questions he answered, new riddles were constantly arising to lure him along new intellectual paths. One that engaged his attention this summer was the apparent success which some clockmakers w e r e having with wooden pendulums. H e took up the study as soon as he returned to Philadelphia. While Rittenhouse nearly always used metal pendulums in his o w n clocks, others believed that w o o d did not contract or expand under the influence of heat and was therefore to be preferred. Rittenhouse refused to believe that wood, alone of all substances, could remain unaffected b y temperature changes, and set out to prove his point. F o r his experiments, which he reported in a Philosophical Society paper, he used a piece of green " h i c c o r y , " thirty-nine inches long and three-eighths of an inch square. Placing it in a receptacle containing a pyrometer, he filled the space around it with sand, and kept the wood under tension b y means of a cord, pulley, and weight. W h e n he heated the sand to 250 degrees

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Fahrenheit, the wood, under the first application of heat, expanded as he foresaw, but then, to his amazement, it contracted rapidly. This puzzled him for a time, but then he reasoned that the contraction had been caused by no peculiarity of wood as such but by the fact that the hickory was green and had simply been robbed of its moisture. He repeated the experiment and was gratified to find that wood expanded and contracted in the same way as metal, although to a lesser degree. His liberty to pursue this and similar experiments had been so hard won that Rittenhouse now was reluctant to yield a particle of it. When, in late 1795, the College of N e w Jersey urged him to visit Princeton, he declined. The college had asked a grant from the state legislature to rehabilitate its buildings and philosophical apparatus, which had been damaged by British and Continental troops during the Revolution, and to replenish its library. The legislature appropriated less than the sum requested, but Dr. S. S. Smith, who had succeeded Dr. Witherspoon as president, raised additional funds by personal solicitation of the alumni. Since probably the most prized piece of philosophical equipment was the orrery built by Rittenhouse, the trustees on September 30, 1795, took the first step toward restoring it to its original condition, Dr. Green being "requested to wait upon Dr. Rittenhouse & request him to repair and complete as soon as possible the orrery belonging to the College." Dr. Green reported on January 13 next that he had not been able to persuade Rittenhouse to make the trip. The trustees directed him to make another effort, but he had no better success than before, except that Rittenhouse referred him to Henry Voight, who was still engraver at the mint. Voight, as soon as his work at Philadelphia permitted, went to Princeton and made the repairs. Rittenhouse remained at home, walking in his garden, studying the stars from his observatory, and reading by his fireside.

XXIV

CALM the first f e w months of 1796, Rittenhouse lived almost exactly the sort of life he preferred. He might have asked better health, but then he had never been robust, and complete freedom from pain was something he could scarcely remember. His illness, even now, did not prevent him from getting about to some extent or from pursuing the studies that appealed to him. On N e w Year's D a y , as now happened regularly, he was reelected president of the Philosophical Society. His nomination and election had become almost a matter of routine, since there was no longer any question as to his position among American scientists, and his recent election to the R o y a l Society had added luster to his reputation. Visits to the Philosophical Society were almost the only ones Rittenhouse made during cold weather this year. As a stockholder in the Bank of the United States he had always attended meetings, but on January 4, 1796, he gave his proxy to John Vaughan, who was then treasurer of the Philosophical Society. Materially, he had not achieved wealth, yet his land, his stock shares, and the several thousand dollars which he had at interest provided an income that was at least adequate to the needs of himself and his now considerable family. H e was no longer compelled, as in early life, to seek employment, or even to accept it when offered, simply as a means of subsistence. A t sixty-four, he was at last privileged to choose his occupations. He chosc astronomy, meteorology, and natural history. Socially, he had changed little over the years, going out only on the rarest occasions, and almost never entertaining. Sometimes he regretted vaguely the want of really close friends, but consoled himself with the thought that completely satisfying friendships were f e w . In January 1793, when Jefferson made one of his several attempts to resign as secretary of state, he gave loj DURING

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Rittenhouse a bust of himself, done by Houdon at Paris, and Rittenhouse in acknowledging the gift wrote: I suppose I am to understand that you are going to take your flight to the summit of the Southern Mountain. On this occasion, I feel most sensibly the misfortune of contracting so very few friendships in youth, which is certainly the proper season for providing whatever will be necessary to us in old age. However, on reflection, I do not find cause to reproach myself much on this account. When I have voluntarily forborne to take advantages of opportunities that offered of cultivating intimate friendships it has been for reasons that will appear sufficiently weighty, such as too great a dissimilarity of views & pursuits, perhaps of vices. I am indeed in a fair way of doing what many a selfish old fellow has done, to give up all expectations of social happiness out of the limits of my own family. Occasionally, Rittenhouse made exceptions to the rule, such as the small dinner which he gave for Priestley on March 18, 1796, when the latter visited Philadelphia to deliver another sermon. The fact that he entertained Priestley sheds interesting light upon his scale of values. Despite the years he had spent in politics, he seldom opened his home to politicians and called upon them only when duty dictated. A short while after the mint appointment, Washington, whom he had admired as a soldier, invited him to dinner at the executive mansion, but he declined, saying in a postscript to a letter to Jefferson: " M y engagements for this day are such as will make it inconvenient for me to dine with the President. You will please make my apology to his Excellency." James Madison, then congressman for Virginia, might drop in to inquire about the merits of the newly invented kitchen stove, but Madison was a friend of Jefferson's and welcome on that account, if for no other. Jefferson, of course, had often been a guest at the "mansion," but he was received rather as a philosopher than as a politician. For a natural philosopher, such as Priestley, there could be no rule. T h e dinner for Priestley was hardly gay. Rittenhouse was

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intensely interested in the Englishman's scientific researches, as well as in his liberal social views and unorthodox religious convictions, but of late he had come to feel that his own work was done. V e r y little time, he told Priestley, remained to him. Nevertheless he continued to go about his affairs with a certain cheerfulness. On April 5, with the winter beginning to moderate, he attended a meeting of the trustees at the University. Then on April 20 he served as a manager of the lottery which was held to raise capital for the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Navigation Company. As the season advanced, he spent a part of every day in the observatory and the garden. The garden was bursting into all its springtime loveliness now. It had been Rittenhouse's habit for years to jot down, beside his meteorological data, a record of the dates on which the dogwood flowered, or when the peach, apricot, and almond trees bloomed. Frequently he noted the arrival of migratory birds, as when, on May 9, 1796, he recorded that "a flamingo bird appeared" at Philadelphia, far north of its customary range. These jottings were not the result of idle curiosity. Rittenhouse frequently exchanged with Jefferson and other friends in Virginia notes on the budding of trees and the arrival of birds in the spring, and so compiled an interesting record of the differences between Virginia and Pennsylvania climate. He kept his meteorological record with almost religious regularity, making observations twice a day, the first at seven o'clock in the morning, the second at two or three o'clock in the afternoon. Invariably he noted the barometric pressure, the temperature, the wind direction, the degree of cloudiness, and the extent of precipitation, if any occurred. At weekly intervals, or sometimes more frequently, he checked his clock with the sun or with the transit of a star. Perhaps at no period in his life had he done so much reading as he did this spring. His thoughts had always been occupied with natural philosophy, and only now did he turn to moral philosophy, reading Pascal's Thoughts. His interest in growing

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things, long exhibited in his collection of specimens and in the care he bestowed upon his garden, led him to peruse a German translation of a volume of Rousseau's letters on botany. The leisure now at his disposal tempted him to take up again the study of a subject which he had mused upon for years. The opossum, as the continent's only marsupial, had long excited the curiosity of naturalists. They had studied its curious physiology and its habits, yet in Rittenhouse's day mystery still surrounded its generation and gestation. Rittenhouse had discussed the opossum with Jefferson and others several years before. What puzzled him at that time was the manner in which the young found their way to the mother's pouch, and the apparent closing of the pouch after the young left it, questions which, among others concerning the opossum, are imperfectly understood by many experienced hunters and woodsmen even today. Since no answer had been found to the puzzles, Rittenhouse suggested to his nephew, Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton, professor of materia medica at the University, that they conduct a joint investigation. Dr. Barton, already interested in the animal, readily consented, and Rittenhouse in the middle of June called on him to discuss some observations he had made. Rittenhouse was full of the subject, yet Dr. Barton noted a certain lack of enthusiasm in his manner. His career, he told Dr. Barton, was at an end. On Wednesday, June 22, he sent for Dr. Barton, but on a far graver matter. Rittenhouse, the message said, was in great pain. He had been in his usual health two days before, and had made a record of his meteorological observations in the diary, but the next day he was seized with severe pain in the abdomen. Though it was distressing, Rittenhouse considered it no more serious than some of the attacks which had troubled him off and on for almost half a century. For the first time in many years, he made no observations on June 21 and noted nothing in his diary. When Dr. Barton arrived at the "mansion" on Wednesday, he found Rittenhouse in the garden, although by now the pain had become almost unbearable. Dr. Barton immediately ordered

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him to bed, for the physician diagnosed the disorder not as the chronic ailment Rittenhouse supposed it to be, but as cholera. Though Rittenhouse's temperature was dangerously high, Dr. Barton made an optimistic prognosis. T h e following day he was forced to take a more serious view, since Rittenhouse had not responded to treatment. H e called in Dr. Adam Kuhn, of the University medical faculty, for consultation, and decided that the high fever could be checked only b y bleeding. Rittenhouse had often expressed doubt as to the efficacy of the treatment but, in his pain, he raised no objection and a pint of blood was drawn from his weakened body. Instead of rallying, he grew weaker and, though the others professed to feel no alarm, Rittenhouse realized that the end was near and asked that his lawyer, Peter Thompson, be summoned. W h e n Thompson arrived, Rittenhouse told him that he wished to dictate his will, and the lawyer arranged his writing materials. Rittenhouse's voice, never strong, was hardly audible now, but his mind, despite the fever, was quite clear, and he recognized the delicacy of his problems. He wished to be absolutely fair in his bequests, but this goal was not so easy to achieve as it would have been if Elizabeth and Esther, both widows, had been Hannah's daughters as well as his own. W h i l e neither daughter would be entirely dependent upon any bequest of his, their stepmother would. Rittenhouse asked Thompson's advice, but the lawyer demurred, and Rittenhouse slowly outlined the chief provisions of the will. Presently his voice failed him, and Thompson left. Thompson drew the will next morning but, when he called at the "mansion," Rittenhouse was still under the influence of the sedative which Dr. Barton had administered the night before. Saturday morning, Thompson returned and completed the will. T h e lot at Seventh and Arch streets, with the house, the observatory, and the treasured garden, Rittenhouse left to Hannah. H e bequeathed her also his ten shares in the Bank of the United States, but he was still undecided about the five shares of Bank of North America stock. Feeling that the stock should go t o Han-

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nah but fearful that such a bequest might displease his daughters, he asked that Hannah be called. Hannah tried to conceal her grief as she entered the room, but it was soon apparent that she was distraught. Without waiting for Rittenhouse to ask her about the bank stock, she reminded him that he had intended to set aside a portion of the garden as the family burial ground. Quick to realize the implications of her remark, Rittenhouse shuddered. That was a matter, he told her, which the family could arrange. A few moments later, Hannah withdrew. After her departure, Rittenhouse told Thompson to leave the bank stock to her. T h e remainder of his personal property, consisting of stocks and bonds, he divided equally between Elizabeth and Esther, except for a £ 500 bond which he left to Elizabeth to offset a similar gift which he had already made to Esther. The farm at Norriton he bequeathed to his widowed sister, Eleanor Evans, who had occupied the homestead since 1770. News of Rittenhouse's illness spread quickly in the city, and many friends and acquaintances called to offer him encouragement, among them President Washington and Robert Morris. Perhaps no two of the callers felt precisely the same sense of impending loss. T o the ordinary citizen, Rittenhouse was a man who had once made clocks of excellent workmanship and unrivaled accuracy, and in later years had settled boundary quarrels and laid out the routes of canals and turnpike roads. Older men, especially those who had been active in public affairs, recalled that Rittenhouse had served the cause of freedom energetically and loyally during the Revolution and had held the strings of Pennsylvania's slender purse through the long postwar period of financial instability. The learned regarded him with a respect that sometimes amounted to affection. T o them he was the nearly ideal man of science who, after teaching himself the fundamentals of astronomy, optics, electricity, mechanics, and natural history, had sought further knowledge for its own sake, and had materially extended man's understanding of the world about him.

CALM

2II

iMen blessed with wide vision could only regret that fortune had not been kinder to him. If the state had possessed similar vision, he might have been spared the drudgery of years in public office to devote himself exclusively to the study and research for which he was so superbly equipped, both intellectually and temperamentally. On Saturday, as on Friday, Rittenhouse asked Hannah to read to him from a sermon "On the Goodness of God," and, though the duty was hard, Hannah did as he wished. Sometime during the day, as the conviction grew upon him that death was near, he asked that his tomb be made under the octagonal building in the garden, whence he had so often looked upon the heavens. Saturday night the pain became excruciating, and Dr. Barton applied a poultice of meal and laudanum. About eight o'clock, the doctor asked whether the poultice had eased the distress. Rittenhouse answered: "You have made the way to God easier." Soon afterward he passed into a mild delirium, and Hannah, unable to contain her grief, went from the room, leaving only Dr. Barton and Esther by the bedside. The clocks ticked slowly past midnight and, in the stillness of the early Sabbath, theirs was the only sound to be heard in the house. At ten minutes to two, Rittenhouse died. M. Adet, the French minister, wrote his condolences a few days later to William Barton, Rittenhouse's nephew. "How did he bear the approaches of death?" he asked. "Did he die like a philosopher?"

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS SINCE f e w books of history ever have been written without the assistance, conscious or unconscious, of countless persons, the author freely confesses his debt to the many who have made the present work possible. It would be impossible to name them all, but the aid of a f e w has been so nearly indispensable that special mention can be no more than token repayment. Laura P. Ford contributed many days to the more tedious aspects of the necessary research and must receive credit for bringing to light many hitherto unpublished facts about David Rittenhouse. Dr. T h o m a s D . Cope, who has evinced an encouraging interest in the work, made possible the inclusion of considerable scientific background b y suggesting valuable sources. Dr. Charles P. Olivier cleared up several astronomical questions and interpreted obsolete terms in the Rittenhouse papers. Dr. Perry A. Caris did as much on several of Rittenhouse's mathematical studies. Dr. Warren B. Mulhollan contributed medical facts of importance. William F. Diller gave unstintingly of his knowledge of T h o m a s Barton's career and of St. James' Church, Lancaster, Pa. T h e staffs of the several libraries named in the bibliographical notes were patient and helpful, particularly those of the Public Documents R o o m of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Montgomery County (Pa.) Historical Society, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. G e o r g e H . Fairchild, of the latter society, supplied many clues to extremely helpful material. T h e Reverend G e o r g e W . Lamb, of the Church Historical Society, furnished much material relating to T h o m a s Barton. It goes without saying, perhaps, that any inaccuracies that may have found their w a y into the work are in no w a y the fault of those who so willingly helped in its preparation. F o r them, the author alone must accept responsibility. SOURCES Although the source material on David Rittenhouse falls into three chief categories, namely, his scientific interests, his public service, and his personal life, no single rich repository exists. T h e facts must be collected one b y one f r o m numerous manu"3

2 14

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

script collections, official documents, minutes, published papers, contemporary newspaper accounts, and the letters of his associates and friends. Rittenhouse's scientific ideas, as well as descriptions of his experiments, are found mainly in his own papers, published in the first four volumes of American Philosophical Society Transactions, although fragments occur in his correspondence with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Page, William Henry, the Reverend Thomas Barton, and others. A few of Rittenhouse's letters to Franklin are owned by the American Philosophical Society, while others appear in Albeit Henry Smyth's The Writings of Benjamin Franklin. T h e Jefferson correspondence, of course, is to be found at the Library of Congress, while the Henry Page and numerous other items are included in the Henry, Etting, Gratz, American Manuscript, and miscellaneous collections at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. T h e experiments with Gymnotus electricus are described in the Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal for 1805. Rittenhouse's meteorological journal is in possession of the American Philosophical Society. Several letters relating to the orreries are contained in the Richard Peters letters at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and in the Dr. William Smith letters at the University of Pennsylvania library. Contemporary appraisals, though brief, were made of Rittenhouse's scientific abilities by the Reverend Jacob Duche, whose letters are owned by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, by Dr. Benjamin Rush, many of whose manuscripts and letters are to be found at the Ridgway Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, and by Thomas Jefferson in his Notes on Virginia. Modern and weightier views are expressed by Maurice J. Babb in various articles in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, and by Dr. Thomas D. Cope in the Journal of the Franklin Institute. T h e titles of several unpublished Rittenhouse papers, as well as references to his activities on behalf of the American Philosophical Society, appear in the Society's Early Proceedings. His work as teacher, vice-provost, and trustee of the College of Philadelphia and its successors is outlined in the early trustees' minutes, in the custody of the Secretary of the University of Pennsylvania. Since the public offices held b y Rittenhouse were of several kinds, facts relating to this phase of his career appear in nu-

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL

NOTE

215

merous public documents. Most of them are to be found in the Pennsylvania Archives and Colonial Records, which include letters, minutes, reports, and proclamations of the Colonial Assembly, the Council of Safety, the Supreme Executive Council, the Board of War, the Constitutional Convention of 1776, and various papers dealing with the boundary surveys of Pennsylvania, as well as reports and documents of the Loan Office and the state treasurer's office. Details of Rittenhouse's state offices are contained, also, in the Journal of the Assembly and Minutes of the General Assembly. Laws affecting the offices are listed in Martin's Bench and Bar of Philadelphia by John Hill Martin, and in the Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by Alexander J. Dallas. T h e American Philosophical Society has a receipt book used by Rittenhouse as state treasurer, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania has many individual receipts in its Gratz and other collections. T h e latter's Pemberton papers contain T o r y verses addressed to Rittenhouse. T h e boundary surveys, which were among the most interesting and valuable of Rittenhouse's public duties, are described in several reports and documents. T h e Pennsylvania Archives and Colonial Records contain much material relating to the surveys of the state's boundaries, including a journal kept by Dr. John Ewing on the running of the western boundary. A d ditional facts are found in the Penn-Physick correspondence and the Richard Peters letters at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the Shippen papers at the American Philosophical Society. Other surveys are detailed in the New Jersey Colonial Records, the Report of Commissioners on the Boundary Line, New York-New Jersey (1884), the Reports of the Regents Boundary Commission (Albany, 1886), and the Report of Topographical Survey Commissioners of the MassachusettsNew York Boundary. T h e association of Rittenhouse with the Democratic Society is sketched in the minutes of the society, owned b y the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and in contemporary newspaper accounts. T h e writings of William Cobbett make many caustic references to both Rittenhouse and the society. A n authoritative account of his connection with the Olmstead prize-money dispute is given in The Olmstead Case by Richard Peters, Jr. T h e founding of the United States Mint and its early trials are described in official reports in the American State Papers,

2 16

DAVID R1TTENHOUSE

while details may be filled in from the Jefferson papers, the American Archives, The Writings of George Washington edited by John C. Fitzpatrick, the several sketches written by later directors, and the painstaking History of the United States Mint by F. N. Stewart. Facts bearing on Rittenhouse's private life, which are regrettably few, are confined largely to his meager personal correspondence with Jefferson and others, to the Friends' Records compiled by the Department of Records, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Arch Street Friends, and to previously published material. The most important of the published material is The Rittenhonse Family by Daniel K. Cassel, and Memoirs of David Rittenhouse by William Barton. The Barton work is the only previously attempted full-length portrait of Rittenhouse. Despite the overabundance and frequent irrelevance of its background material, the volume omits many enlightening incidents, especially any fact that does not flatter Rittenhouse. Still it is accurate as to dates and invaluable as a source of letters which no longer survive in any other form. Much of the material is drawn from the correspondence of Rittenhouse with Thomas Barton, Dr. William Smith, the Reverend Richard Peters, and other men with whom Rittenhouse associated during his early years in Philadelphia, though some was supplied by Benjamin Rittenhouse, who was still alive when the book was written. Much of the valuable data brought to light by George H. Eckhardt and Caroline Wood Stretch concerning Rittenhouse's productions as a clock- and instrument-maker has been published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Many instruments made by Rittenhouse still survive. The orrery built for the College of Philadelphia stands in the University of Pennsylvania library. Clocks are owned by the University, the Franklin Institute, the American Philosophical Society, the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and Drexel Institute. The Philosophical Society has a telescope built by Rittenhouse for the 1769 transit of Venus, while the Germantown (Pa.) Historical Society possesses a surveyor's compass and other instruments. Numerous works were consulted for background material and contemporary historical data. Among the most helpful may be mentioned Benjamin Franklin by Carl Van Dören, William Henry by Francis Jordan, The American States by

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ΝΌΤΕ

2I7

Allan Nevins, History of Proprietary Government in Pennsylvania by William Robert Shepherd, A History of the University of Pennsylvania by Edward Potts Cheyney, William S?nith by Albert Frank Gegenheimer, Monetary History of the United States by Charles J. Bullock, a history of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts entitled 200 Years of the S.P.G., the History of the College of New Jersey by John Maclean, The Life of ]ohn Fitch, the Inventor of the Steamboat by Thompson Westcott, and, of course, Scharf and Westcott's History of Philadelphia.

INDEX Biddle, Clement, 37 Biddle, Owen, 37, 44, 71, 74, 77, 93, 106 Billingsport, N.J., 73 ff. Bills of Credit (Pennsylvania), 4J, 46, 77, 78, 96, io6ff., 136 Bingham, William, 166, 178, 179 Board of Navy, 84 Board of Trade (London), 45, 46 Board of War, 84 ff. Bode, Johann Ebert, 173 Boethius, 29 Bogardus, Everardus, 14 Bond, Phineas, 202 Bond, Thomas, 106 Boston, 65 Boudinot, Elias, 200, 201 Bowditch, Nathaniel, 182 Bowdoin, James, 203 Braddock, Gen. Edward, 18 Bradford, William, 2 ff. Bradford, William, Jr., 5 Brandywine, battle of, 87 Brodhead, Col. Daniel, 126, 127 Bryan, George, 84, 90, 101 Bull, Col. John, 119, 141

Academy and Charitable School, 16, 18 Active, 97, 98 Adams, John, 197 Adet, M., 211 Allegheny mountains, 60, 138 Ambuscade, L', 189 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 116 America's Messenger, 2 American Philosophical Society, 35, 37> 38* 5° 67 ff-i 88, 119, 123, 124, 137, 147, 148, ι J 3 , 161, 166, 171, 180, 188, 198 American Weekly Mercury, 6 Andrews, Rev. Robert, 101, 128, 129 Anti-Constitutionalists, 80, 84, 167 Anti-Federalists, 156 Archimedes, 28, 29 Arlandes, Marquis d', 125 Articles of Confederation, 152 Associators, 71, 77, 108 Astronomy, 70 Atlee, Col. Samuel J., 77 Bagnall, Benjamin, 14 Bailey, Francis, 64 Bailly, Jean Silvain, 191 Balloon ascension, France, 125 Balloon hoax, 124 ff. Baltimore, Lord, ( V ) , 22; (VI), 22 Bancker, Gerard, 150 Bangor Church, Churchtown, Pa., 20 Bank of the United States, 91, 175 Barton, Dr. Benjamin Smith, 92, 192, 208, 211 Barton, Esther Rittenhouse, 10, 16, 17, 46, j6, 89 Barton, Rev. Thomas, i j f f . , 25, 29, 32, 40, 46, j r , 53, 56, 57, 89ff. Barton, Mrs. Thomas, 91 Barton, William, 11, 22, 32, 91, 142, 158 Bartram, John, 202 Bayard, John, 99, 109 Biddle, Charles, 190

Cabot, Senator George, 201 Cameo-intaglio illusion, 112, 113 Canals, 61, 123, 177 ff., 192, 193 Cape Henlopen, Del., 22, 23 Carlisle, Pa., 18 Carnavon, Pa., 20, 91 Carpenter, Samuel, 2 Carroll of Carrollton, Charles, 101 Carrothers, John, 90 Cavendish, Henry, 54 Ceracchi, Giuseppi, 202 Chester Springs, Pa., 17 Cbeveaux de frise, 73 Chew, Benjamin, 85 Chiliasts, 4 Church of England, 90 Cist, Charles, 158 Citizen's Plan, 106 Claggett, William, 14 Clap, Thomas, 13 2

Z20

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

Clifford, Thomas, 49 Clinton, Gov. George, 133 Clinton, Sir Henry, 9} Clinton, James, 143 Clocks, iz, 14 ff-, 19, 21, 38, 62, 117, 118 Coates, William, 190 Cobbett, William, 144, 191, 196 Coinage (Colonial), 183, 184 Colden, Cadwallader, 172 College and Academy of Philadelphia, 24 College of New Jersey, 31, 33, $7, 204 College of Philadelphia, 26, 28, 31 ff., jo, J J , 103, 104, 164, 179 Colles, Christopher, 153 Collimator, 134 ff. Comets (1770), 47; (1784), 120,121; (1793), 188 Committee of Safety, 71 ff. Constitution (Pennsylvania), 76, 78, 79, 82, 83, 156; (United States), IJ2,

156

Constitutionalists, 80, 162, 167 Continental Army, 71, 75, 87 Continental Congress (First), 6j; (Second), 71, 77, 81, 82, 84, 86, 87, 96, 101, 107, 108, 149, 150 Continental currency, 77, 96, 106 ff., 136 Convention, 97 Copson, John, 5 Cornwallis, Gen. Charles, 87, 116 Coulston, Barnabas, 24, 26, 164 Council of Censors, 78 Council of Safety, 76 ff., 80, 84, 88, 89. 97 Cox, Albion, 186 Crabtree, William, 36

Descartes, Rene, 13, 75 De Witt, R., ι jo De Witt, Simeon, 143, 144, 150 Dickinson, John, 128, 131 Diffraction grating, 139, 140 Dixon, Jeremiah, 23, 37, 129 Dock, Christopher, 8 Donaldson, Arthur, 153 Drinker's Alley, 160 Duche, Rev. Jacob, 173 Duffield, Edward, 14, 65, 72 Dumouriez, Charles Francois, 191 Dunlap, John, 64 Dunmore, Earl of, 100 Duponceau, Peter S., 190 Dupuy, Odran, 14 Eclipse (lunar), 161, 170; (solar), 82, 93, 170, 174, 175 Egg Harbor, N.J., 97 Ellicott, Andrew, 128, 129, 131, 133, 143, 144, 146, i j i , 152 Evans, Eleanor Rittenhouse, 146, 210 Ewing, Dr. John, 35, 37, 52,101,104, ioj, 128, 129, 131, 148, ijo, 152, ij4, 164, 178, 180

Father Abraham's Almanack, 64 Federalists, 156, 162, 190, 191,195 Findley, William, 178 Fireball (1779), 102 Fitch, John, 87, 152 ff., 184 Fluxions, method of, 11 Folwell, John, Jr., 34 Forbes, Brig. Gen. John, 20 Fort Burd, 100 Fort Duquesne, 18, 20 Fort Island, 74, 7 j Fort Pitt, 127 "Fort Rittenhouse," 99, 114 Dallas, Alexander J., 99, 179, 190, Fort Washington, 80 191 Fortifications, 73 Dalton, Tristram, 39 Foulk, Dr., 125 Davis, William B., 14 Franklin, Benjamin, 45, 51, 71, 73, Declaration of Independence, 76 76, 79, 103, 117, 120, 125, 137, 153, Delambre, Jean Baptiste Joseph, 173 155, 161, 165 ff., 171 ff., 202 Delaware River, 66, 67, 71, 73, 75, Franklin cent, 184 Fraunhofer, Joseph von, 140 123. «77 Frederick of Prussia, 68 Delawares, 18 Democratic Society, 190, 191, 194 ff. French Revolution, 189, 191

INDEX Friends, 6, 25, 26, 50, j8, 59, 71, 80, 83. «59 Fulton, Robert, 152, 156 Funding Act, 136, 137 Gage, Gen. Thomas, 65 GaÜoway, Joseph, 46 Gantz Verbesserte Nord-Americanische, 64 Gauss, Karl Friedrich, 20} Genet, "Citizen," 189 fr., 194, 196, 197 George I, 32 Gerard, 97 Germantown, Pa., 2, 3, 7 Gessner, Solomon, 159 Gibbs, Parnell, 34 Gilbert, William, 114 Graham, George, 29 Gravitation, laws of, 11, 13 Gwynedd Meeting, 25, 71 Gymnotus electricus, 54, j j Halley, Edmund, 36 Hamilton, Alexander, 175, 183, 195, 196 Hamilton, Andrew, 35 Hardwicke, Lord Chancellor, 22 Harris, John, 123 Harrison, Benjamin, 127 Hart, John, 87 Harvard College, 39 Hayes, Richard, Jr., j8 Henry, John Joseph, 88 Henry, William, 87 ff., 153 Herbert, Stewart, Jr., 64 Herschel, Sir William, 68, 111, i i j , >59. 173 Hessians, 81, 87 Hill, Henry, 166 Hillegas, Michael, 82 Holland, Capt. Samuel, 66 Hopkinson, Francis, 103, 104, 119 fr., 124 fr., 137, 139, 147, 148, 1J7, 158, 160, 175, 180, 183 Horrocks, Jeremiah, 36 Houston, Capt., 97 Howe, Gen. William, 77, 80, 81, 85 ff., 93, 94 Howell, Samuel, 176 Humphreys, James, Jr., 63, 64

221

Hutchins, Capt. Thomas, 123, 128, 129, 131, i j o Hutchinson, Dr. James, 190, 197 Huygens, Christian, 126 Hygrometer, 117 Iapetus, 68 Icelandic crystal, 126 Israel, Israel, 190 Jacobs, Benjamin, 71 Jacobs, Israel, 57, 58, 74 Jacobs, John, 58, 74 Jefferson, Martha, 171 Jefferson, Thomas, 76, 91, 94, 120, 126, 127, 138, 166, 168 ff., 170, 171, '73· '75. l 8 2 · 183, I8J, 187, 188, 193, 205, 206 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 202 Jones, Dr. John, 160 Jones, Richard, 6 Jones, Robert S., 52 Josiah, Capt., 97 Journal de Paris, 124 Junto, 13 Jupiter, 115; satellites of, 68 Jurors, 108 Keith, George, 4 Kepler's laws, 30 King's College, 55 Kinnersley, Dr. Ebenezer, 26, 35, $4 Kuhn, Dr. Adam, 209 Lake Erie, 131, 151 Lalande, J. J. L. de, 173 ff. Lancaster, Pa., 20, 87, 90 Lancaster Almanack (Improved), 64 Laplace, Pierre Simon, 173, 203 Laurens, Henry, 91 Lee, Henry, 196 Lehigh River, 61 Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 12 Leiper, Thomas, 160 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 158, 159 Lewis, Thomas, 128 Lexell, Anders Johann, 115, 173 Library Company of Philadelphia, 124 Lieb, Michael, 190

222

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

Light, corpuscular theory of, 126 Lightfoot, Benjamin, 54 LiUo, George, i$9 Livingston, Robert, 156 Loan Office, 4J ff-, 96, 106, 141, 165 Logan, George, 194 Logan, James, 13 Louis XVI, 120 Lukens, John, 37, 39,40,93, 106, 120, 127 fr., 143 Luzerne, Chevalier de, 120 Madison, Dr. James, 101, 128 ff. Madison, James, 206 Magaw, Samuel, 154 Magnetism, 113, 114 Mars, 115 Maryland-Pennsylvania boundary, 22 ff. Maskelyne, Nevil, 3j, 36, 41, 48, 173 Mason and Dixon Line, 101, 127 Mason, Charles, 23, 37, 129 Matlack, Timothy, 77, 96, 118, 152 McClean, Alexander, 127 McClean, Archibald, 127 McKean, Thomas, 166 Menan, Patrick, 9 Mennonites, 1, 2, 4 ff., 71 Mercury, 115, 161; transits of, 44, 161, 162 Messier, Charles, 47, 173 Meteorological record, 52, 53 Meteors, 72,102 Michaux, Andre, 188 Mifflin, Thomas, 80,98,166, 176,178, 196, 197 Mint (Mass.), 183, 184; (U.S.), 182 ff., 193, 200, 201 Missionaries, 90 Monoshone Creek, 3, 4 Moon, 68 Moore, William, 127 Morris, Robert, 109, 177, 179, 183, 210 Morris, Robert Hunter, 18 Nancarrow, John, 178 Nassau Hall, 94 Nevill, Col. Joseph, 127, 131, 133 New Castle, Del., 23 Newcomen engine, 153

Newton, Sir Isaac, 9, 11 ff., 75, 183 New York-New Jersey boundary, 41.43 New York-Massachusetts boundary, 149 fr. Nicholson, John, 109, 110, 162, 165 Non-Associators, 77, 108 Non-Importation agreement, jo Norris, Isaac, 7 Norriton farm, 24, 87, 192, 210 Norriton Township, 7 Notes on Virginia, 138, 173 Observatory (Arch Street), 117ff.; (Cape Henlopen, Del.), 37; (Norriton), 3 7 f f , 63; (State House), 37, 38, 106, 116, 118 Odell, Rev. Jonathan, 95 Old Christ Church, Philadelphia, 34 Olmstead Case, 97 ff. Olmstead, Gideon, 97, 98 Onondagas, 143, 144 Optics, Newton's, 18 Orrery, see Planetaria Orrery, Earl of, 29 Ott, David, 186 Page, John, 128, 129 Paine, Thomas, 7J, 83, 87, 91, 106, 147, 148 Palmer, George, 143 Paper mill, 1 ff. Parmele, Ebenezer, 14 Pastorius, Francis Daniel, 2, 4, 6 Patterson, Dr. Robert, 147, 152, 161, 182 Peale, Charles Willson, 57, 83, 181, 202 Pendulum, compensating, 117, 118; double-bob, 199, 200; wooden, 203; theorem for determining period of, 182 Penn, John, 37, 46, 66, 8y, 100 Penn, Thomas, 23, 35, 38, 47, 6j, 66 Penn, William, 4, 7 Penn, William, Jr., 7 Pennsylvania Admiralty Court, 97 Pennsylvania Constitution (old), 76, 78, 79, 82, 83; (new), 156 Pennsylvania Evening Post, 95 Pennsylvania Gazette, 28, 8j

INDEX Pennsylvania Journal, 31 Pennsylvania legislature, 99, 1 6 8 Pennsylvania Magazine, 7 5 Pennsylvania militia, 8 1 , 85 Pennsylvania-New York boundary, 65 ff., 1 3 3 , 1 3 7 ff., 1 4 1 , 1 4 3 , 144, 1 4 6 Pennsylvania Packet, 64 Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, 3 5 , 46, 4 7 , 7 1 , 7 3 , 78 f r . Pennsylvania State Assembly, 82, 8 3 , 88, 9 3 , 96 ff., 1 0 3 , 1 0 7 fr., 1 2 2 , 1 2 3 , 136, 153, 154, 1 J 9 , 165 Pennsylvania-Virginia boundary, 100, 1 0 1 , 1 2 6 ff., 1 3 1 , 1 3 2 Pennsylvania western boundary, 151 Perkins, Jacob, 2 7 Perseverance, 1 5 5 "Peter Porcupine" see Cobbett, William Peters, Rev. Richard, 2 2 ff., 3 3 , 3 5 , 55. 57

Philadelphia, 5 , 49, 50, 6 3 , 6 5 , 70, 7 1 , 76, 8 1 , 8 2 , 8 7 , 9 3 , 147 Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike, 1 7 8 , 1 7 9 Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, 5 8 Piazzi, Giuseppi, 1 7 3 Pietists, 4 Pigott, Nathaniel, 1 2 0 Pinckney, Thomas, 1 9 3 Planetaria, 2 7 ff., 44, 5 1 , 94, 1 5 9 , 160, 204 Planets, computation of orbits of, 203 Plymouth Meeting, 25 Polly, 6 3 Porter, Col. Andrew, 9, 1 3 1 , 1 5 1 , 1 9 3 Porter, J., 1 9 0 Potts, Joseph, 6 2 Powel, Samuel, 166 Presbyterian Church, Norriton, Pa., 9 Priestley, Dr. Joseph, 146, 196, 1 9 8 , 1 9 9 , 206, 207 Principia, Newton's, 11 ff. Prior, Thomas, 6 2 , 6 5 Quakers, see Friends Randolph, Edmund, 2 0 0 Raynal, Abbe de, 1 7 3

223

Reading, Pa., 8, 31 Redick, David, 1 5 2 Reed, Joseph, Jr., 1 0 1 , 1 0 3 , 1 0 9 , 1 2 6 , I2

7

Revere, Paul, 6 5 Rhoads, Samuel, 6 1 Rittenhouse, Anne, 22 Rittenhouse, Benjamin, 1 0 , 1 4 2 , 1 5 3 Rittenhouse botanical garden, 1 4 1 Rittenhouse, David, birth, 1; education, 8,9, 21; influence of Newton on, 11 ff.; builds clocks, 1 2 , 14, 1 9 , 38, 6 2 , 1 1 7 , 1 1 8 ; influence of Thomas Barton on, 1 6 ; first illness, 1 7 ; builds telescopes, 1 8 , 1 9 , 3 8 ; works on Maryland-Pennsylvania boundary, 2 2 ff.; marries Eleanor Coulston, 2 5 ; studies compressibility of water, 26; makes metallic thermometer, 2 7 ; gets A.M., College of Philadelphia, 2 8 ; builds planetaria, 2 7 , 2 9 ff.; observes transit of Venus, 3 4 ff.; elected to Am. Phil. Soc., 3 5 ; calculates solar parallax, 4 1 ; evolves method of deducing true time, 4 2 ; works on New York-New Jersey boundary, 4 2 , 4 3 ; observes transit of Mercury, 4 4 , 1 6 1 , 1 6 2 ; proposed as Loan Office trustee, 4 5 ff.; observes comets, 4 7 , 1 2 0 , 121; proposes method of computing solar parallax, 4 8 ; moves to Philadelphia, 4 9 ; elected secretary Am. Phil. Soc., 5 2 ; starts meteorological record, 5 2 , 5 3 ; experiments with Gymnotus electricus, 54, 5 5 ; instructor. College of Philadelphia, 5 5 ; curator, Am. Phil. Soc., 5 6 ; gets A.M., College of New Jersey, 5 7 ; marries Hannah Jacobs, 5 8 ; on highway and canal commissions, 6 1 , 1 2 3 , 2 0 7 ; makes astronomical calculations for almanacs, 6 3 , 6 4 ; city surveyor, 6 4 ; surveys Pennsylvania-New York boundary, 6 5 ff., 1 3 3 , 1 4 3 , 1 4 4 , 1 4 6 ; on Mechanics Committee, 6 5 ; delivers oration, Am. Phil. Soc., 6 7 , 6 8 ; librarian, Am. Phil. Soc., 6 7 ; proposed as provincial astrono-

224

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

Rittenhouse, David (Continued) mer, 68 ff.; observes meteor, 72; engineer, Committee of Safety, 72 if.; elected to Assembly, 73; defends Newtonian philosophy, 7j, 76; vice-president, Council of Safety, 76; helps draft and defend Pennsylvania constitution, 76, 78, 79, 80, 83, 84; advocates paper money, 77, 78; state treasurer, 82 passim; observes solar eclipse, 82, 93, 170, 174, 17j; on Board of War, 84; alienated from Tory friends, 8j, 86; flees to Lancaster, 87; on new Council of Safety, 89; receives Olmstead prize money, 97; surveys Penna.-Va. boundary, 100, 101, 126 if., 131 if.; speculates on origin of meteors, 102; trustee, University State of Penna., 103; professor and vice-provost, Univ. State of Penna., 104; vice-president Am. Phil. Soc., 104; sole trustee of Loan Office, 106; tax commissions, 110, h i ; studies cameo-intaglio illusion, 112, 113; experiments with magnetism, 113, 114; fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 116; trustee, Univ. State of Penna., 117; builds Arch Street observatory, 117 fT.; develops hygrometer, 117; observes Uranus, 121, 131, 135; proposed as state astronomer, 121; plants botanical garden, 124; victim of balloon hoax, 124 ff.; A.M. from William and Mary, 130; invents collimator, 134, 135; uses spider thread in telescopes, 135; councilor Am. Phil. Soc., 137; discovers principle of diffraction grating, 139, 140; religion of, 144 ff.; surveys New York-Mass, boundary, 149 ff.; champions Fitch's steamboat, 152 ff.; translates Lessing play, 158; translates Gessner verse, IJ9; studies effects of lightning, 160; observes lunar eclipse, 161, 170; LL.D., College of New Jersey, 161; computes new standards of weights and

measures, 168,169; president, Am. Phil. Soc., 171; manages, surveys Phila. and Lancaster turnpike, 178, 179; pays Am. Phil. Soc. debt to Francis Hopkinson, 180; trustee, Univ. of Penna., 180; sits for portrait by Peale, 181; investigates behavior of heated steel springs, 181; discovers theorem for determining period of pendulum, 181, 182; director U.S. mint, 182 ff.; discovers comet, 188; president Democratic Society, 190; flees yellow fever, 192; entertains Joseph Priestley, 198, 199; develops double-bob pendulum, 199, 200; investigated by Congress, 200; sits for bust, 202; fellow, Royal Society, 202; devises method of determining planets' place in orbit, 203; studies wooden pendulum, 203, 204; studies habits of opossum, 208; last illness, 209; death, 211 Rittenhouse, Eleanor Coulston, 24, 49ι Ϊ3 Rittenhouse, Elizabeth, 2, 4 Rittenhouse, Elizabeth Williams, 6, 7

Rittenhouse, Gerhardt, 2, 5, 6 Rittenhouse, Hannah Jacobs, 57 ff., 87, 98, no, 147, 150, i j i , 157 170, 171, 200, 209 ff. Rittenhouse, Henry, 6, 7, 8 Rittenhouse, Klaus, 2,4, y, 7, 8 Rittenhouse, Margaret, 10 Rittenhouse "mansion," 141, 142 Rittenhouse, Matthias, 5 ff., 24 Rittenhouse, William (Wilhelm), iff. Rittenhouse, William, 6 ff. Rittenhouse, Willemijntie De Wees, J Robie, Thomas, 13 Rochon, Abbe, 126 Roosevelt, Nicholas, 156 Ross, Judge George, 97, 98 Royal Gazette, 95 Royal Observatory, 134 Royal Society, 198, 202 Rozier, Jean Francois Pilatre de, 12J

INDEX Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 1 iö, 137. 166 Rumsey, James, 153, 155 Rumseian Society, 153 St. James' Church, Lancaster, Pa., 20, 89

St. John's Church, Pequea, Pa., 20 Salem, Mass., 67 Sargeant, David, 193 Sargeant, Elizabeth Rittenhouse, 25, 57. 9 8 . 99. '57. '9*. '93. '99. 2«». 209,

210

Sargeant, Esther, 193 Sargeant, Frances, 193 Sargeant, Jonathan Dickinson, 89, 104, 190, 192,

197

Saturn, 68, 115 Saussure, Η. Β. de, 117 Saussure, Henry William de, 201 Schuylkill River, 60, 61, IIJ, 123, 147 Scot, Robert, 193 Seilers, John, 37, 44 Seilers, Nathan, 123 Senate, 169 Shawnees, 18 Shippen, Dr. William, 106 Short, James, 112, 167 Smith, John, 99 Smith, Dr. S. S., 204 Smith, Dr. William, 18, 24, 27 ff., 31, 33, 35, 37 ff., 44 ff., JI, 52, 5J, 56, 82, 85, 86, 93, 94, 100, 103, 120, 164, 166, 178 fr.

104,

119,

Smoley, John, 152 Snyder, Gov. Simon, 99 Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation, 177 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 90 Solar parallax, 34 ff., 41, 42, 48 Southwark Theatre, 159 Sowers, Christopher, 14 Specie, 109 Stamp Act, 50 Stars, fixed, 68 Steam engine, 87 Stiegel, "Baron" William Henry, 54 Stiles, Ezra, 35, 116 Sulphur Springs, see York Springs

225

Supreme Court, United States, 98, 99 Supreme Executive Council, 78, 82, 84 ff_, 91, 93, 96, 128, 131, 143, 168 Susquehanna River, 61, 123, 179 Tea tax, jo, 60, 63 Telescopes, 37 ff. Test Act, 83, 108, 167 Thermometer, "Metaline," 27 Thompson, Peter, 209, 210 Time true, method of deducing, 42 "Tom the Tinker," 195 Tories, 79, 88, 9$, 96 Tory estates, 108 Townshend Acts, jo Treasury Notes, 46 Treasury Orders, 46 Trenton, N.J., 81, 82 Tresse, Thomas, 3 Turner, Robert, 3 Unitarianism, 198 Universal Almanack, The, 63 University of Pennsylvania, 34, 62, 92,

180

University of the State of Pennsylvania, 34, 103 ff, 117, 119, 164, 179, 180

Updegraft, Mary, 25 Uranus (Georgium Sidus), 115, 116, 121, 131,

135

Valley Forge, 93 Van Beber, Jacob Isaac, 4 Vaughan, John, 20J Vaughan, Samuel, 124 Venus, IIJ; atmosphere of, 41; transits of, 34 ff. Voight, Henry, 51, IJJ, 184 ff., 204 Washington, George, 71, 77, 81, 82, 86, 87, 91, 93, 116, 117, 153, 173, 175, 182 ff., 189, 196, 200, 210

166, 206,

Washington College, 119, 164 Water, compressibility of, 26, 27 Waters, Esther Rittenhouse, 49, $7, 98, 157, 170, 199, 209,

210

Waters, Dr. Nicholas Baker, 170, 192,

199

226

DAVID RITTENHOUSE

Watt, James, 154 Weber, Wilhelm, 114 Weights and measures, standards of, 168, 169 West, Benjamin, 39 Wharton, Thomas Jr., 76, 84 Whigs, 67, 68, 72, 74, 83, 86, 88, 103, 106, 162 Whiskey Rebellion, 194 ff. White, Dr. William, 119, 148 William, Earl of Sterling, 39 William and Mary College, 130 Williams, David, 6, 10, 11 Williams, Evan, 6 Williams, Jonathan, 166

Williams, Rev. Samuel, 39 Williamson, Dr. Hugh, 37 Williamstadt, 7 Willing, Thomas, 91, 166, 175, 176 Wilmington, Del., 129 Winthrop, John, 13, 35, 39, 47 Wissahickon Creek, 3, 7 Witherspoon, Dr. John, 31, 32, 204 Yellow fever, 191 ff., 200 Yellow Springs, Pa., see Chester Springs York Springs, Pa., 18, 19 Zach, Baron von, 42