Once Upon a Time in America

Chapter 3 Once upon a Time in America We have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. John A. Brashear In comparison to Great Britain and Germany, progress in telescope making in the New World was painfully slow. Indeed, as we have seen, the largest refractor in the United States before 1830 was a 5-in. Dollond achromat. The paucity of public observatories across the nation in the early nineteenth century is evidence enough that the country had not yet fully exploited her penchant for astronomical adven- ture. America needed a great lens maker, and it found its answer in a Massachusetts portrait painter named Alvan Clark. Like John Dollond and Thomas Cooke, Alvan Clark also came from humble origins. Born in 1804 in Ash fi eld, Massachusetts, he was the fi fth of ten children of Abram, himself a descendant of whalers from Cape Cod, and Mary Basset Clark. After receiving his formal education at a small grammar school located on the family farm, he was set to work with his older brother making wagons. Shortly after- wards, he discovered his latent talent for art. Indeed, by the last year of his teens, Alvan had grown pro fi cient at engraving and drawing. By 1824, he had produced an impressive portfolio of work that he carried with him to Boston, where he eked out a meager living, traveling through the picturesque Connecticut Valley, creating portraits in ink and water color. It was in these formative days of youth that Clark became exposed to the occupa- tion that would secure his immortality as one of the fi nest telescope makers the world has ever bore witness to. He made the acquaintance of a one Edward Hitchcock, an evangelical pastor who was also rather evangelical about his unworldly passion; amateur astronomy. By the age of 21, Alvan realized he needed a steadier income and signed up as a professional engraver with Mason & Baldwin of Boston, subcontractors to the Merrimac Manufacturing Company. In his spare N. English, Classic Telescopes: A Guide to Collecting, Restoring, and Using 45 Telescopes of Yesteryear, Patrick Moore’s Practical Astronomy Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-4424-4_3, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 46 3 Once upon a Time in America time, he continued to paint portraits but also took to studying astronomy and attended lectures presented by Warren Colburn, a superintendent of the Merrimac Company. It was here also that he met the love of his life, Maria Pease, whom he married in March 1826. They enjoyed over 60 long years of life together. And she bore him four children – two daughters, Maria Louisa and Caroline Amelia, and two sons, George Bassett and Alvan Graham. Clark continued in his engraving job until 1836, when he decided the time was right to return to portraiture. Accordingly, he moved his family to Cambridgeport, a district of Boston, and opened up a small studio from which he quickly established himself as a fi rst rate artist, receiving commissions from high pro fi le academ- ics and politicians. He even painted a portrait from a daguerreotype of a one W. R. Dawes – a man who would elevate him to worldwide fame. We do not know the precise circumstances under which Clark took to the task of telescope making. His fi rst projects apparently involved re fl ectors with apertures up to 8 in. in aperture. Indeed, during the winter of 1847–1848, Clark decided to test the optical quality of a freshly polished 7.5-in. speculum by making detailed drawings of the Orion Nebula (M42) while refraining from consulting any previous drawings. His sketches came to the attention of William Cranch Bond, director of Harvard College Observatory, who not only lauded their quality but also noticed that Clark had in fact plotted stars that were previously unknown and, indeed, had even escaped the attention of the darling of visual astronomy, Sir William Herschel, who carried out similar surveys using his 20-ft telescope. However, Clark soon lost interest in constructing Newtonians on account of the poor re fl ectivity of the speculum metal used at the time, and in 1847, he began to fi gure his fi rst lenses from discarded objectives prized from old or abandoned telescopes. As anyone who has performed such a task knows, it’s a very time consum- ing activity. But his patience paid off. Unlike Cooke and Fraunhofer, Clark’s approach to practical optics was more intuitive than theoretical. That much became clear when he was fi rst granted an opportunity to look through the great 15-in. Harvard refractor in 1848. It was a moment that was to change the course of his life. In his memoirs, Clark wrote: I was far enough advanced in the knowledge of the matter [optics] to perceive and locate the errors of fi gure in their 15-inch glass at fi rst sight. Yet, these errors were very small, just enough to leave me in full possession of all the hope and courage needed to give me a start, especially when informed that this object glass alone cost $12,000. And start he did, closing his art studio to master the art of fi guring old lenses. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, as he discovered to his dismay, when he sent some of his early works in glass to the Bonds at Harvard College. One 4-in. instrument of Clark’s design apparently yielded comatic images that greatly sullied his early reputation as an optical craftsman and hence his relationship with Bostonian academi- cians for several years to come. Nor did Clark’s disposition endear him easily to others. He was neither academically distinguished nor endowed with great business acumen. Indeed one source claimed that “Mr. Clark’s lack of mathematical learning, 3 Once upon a Time in America 47 or learning of any kind, kept him out of the con fi dence of the scholarly persons around Boston.” Contrast that to his contemporary and fellow telescope maker, Henry Fitz, who had established a thriving business supplying achromatic objectives for newly established observatories that were springing up and down the country. Born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1808, when Henry was 11 years old, his family moved to Albany, New York, and later to New York City. Henry’s father was in the printing business, and accordingly, the young man dutifully served his apprenticeship in the family workshops. Fitz had a penchant for practical mechan- ics and enjoyed tinkering with the machinery in the shop. When he was 19, he decided to leave the family business and take up a new line of work as a locksmith. Fitz was a keen amateur astronomer and read widely in the fi eld. In his spare time he began to make and build mirrors and lenses to house in his homemade tubes, and in his early thirties, Fitz transformed his hobby into a thriving business, specializing in the manufacture of small refracting telescopes. As his reputation grew, Fitz began to receive commissions to build larger, more ambitious telescopes for both well to do private individuals as well as leading American universities and institutions. Indeed, between 1840 and 1855, it has been estimated that Fitz made about 40% of all telescopes sold in the United States! Among his larger telescopes were two 13-in. instruments, one commissioned by Allegheny Observatory in 1861, which is still in use today and the other for the Dudley Observatory in Albany, New York. The latter instrument apparently went into private hands around the turn of the century but fell into obscurity thereafter. Fitz also apprenticed a number of future, independent telescope makers like John Byrne, who fl ourished in New York during the late 1800s, furnishing a number of small equatorial refractors for the discerning American amateur. One of Byrne’s instruments, a fi ne 5-in. f/15 glass, was acquired in 1877 by the prodigious young Edward Emerson Barnard. Though he bought it at the heavily discounted price of $330, it still represented a sum of money equivalent to two thirds of his annual salary at the time. But with his ‘pet,’ as he so affectionately referred to it, Barnard discovered his fi rst comet in 1881 (one of many it transpired) and embarked a lifelong study of the planets. Henry Fitz was a socialite of the fi rst order. Clark, on the other hand, apparently suffered from an inferiority complex. Indeed, one gets the distinct impression that he sometimes doubted his own optical abilities. Why else would a man not know how to correctly price his instruments or not advance his own cause by showing off his wares at the various international exhibitions? Alvan Clark’s fi rst ‘serious’ instrument had a 5.25-in. aperture, followed by an 8-in., both of which were as good as any of European origin. Naturally, being an unknown, he at fi rst found it hard to sell his instruments. What he needed was someone with great astronomical gravitas to champion his cause. If the astronomers didn’t come to his telescopes then he’d have to bring his telescopes to the astronomers! (Fig . 3.1 ) In 1851, Clark wrote to the prominent English amateur astronomer, the Reverend William Rutter Dawes (1799–1868), describing to him the close double stars, most 48 3 Once upon a Time in America Fig. 3.1 Alvan Clark, Sr. (1804–87) notable of which was 95 Ceti, which he had observed with his 7.5-in.

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