Houghton Common Theodolite
name: label: maker
content: Houghton, Rowland
notes: label: Description
content: This instrument, with a "ROWLAND HOWLAND Fecit" inscription, is an example of the "new theodolate" for which Rowland Houghton (about 1678-1744), a Boston mechanic, received a patent from the General Court of the Colony of Massachusetts in 1735. This was the second patent for a mechanical invention issued in the British colonies of North America. The patent did not describe Houghton's instrument, but stated simply that it was designed "for surveying of lands, with suitable instruments, with greater ease and dispatch than any surveying instrument heretofore projected or made within this province." The only other contemporary reference to this instrument appears in Houghton's 1737 advertisement for aqueducts, which states that "Said Houghton has lately improv'd on his new Theodolate (sic), by which the art of Surveying is rendered more plain & easy than heretofore."
label: Description
content: The horizontal circle is graduated to degrees and numbered in quadrants. One side is also numbered from VI to XII to VI, as for a sundial. The sight vanes for the alidade are missing. The compass card—marked "J. R. LINCOLN, BOSTON”—is a 19th-century replacement.
label: Description
content: When the Smithsonian acquired this instrument, it was the only known surviving example. Another example has since come to light.
label: Description
content: Ref: Silvio Bedini, "Rowland Houghton's 'New Theodolate,'" <i>Rittenhouse</i> 1 (1987): 30-39.
label: Description
content: Raymond V. Giordano, "Some Notes on the Two Extant Rowland Houghton New Theodolates," <i>Rittenhouse</i> 15 (2001): 93-97.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Boston
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Surveying and Geodesy
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content: Measuring & Mapping
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Rittenhouse
label: Related Publication
content: Rittenhouse
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1985.0860.01
label: accession number
content: 1985.0860
label: catalog number
content: 1985.0860.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: theodolite (common)
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: alidade: 11 1/2 in; 29.21 cm
label: Measurements
content: needle: 5 1/8 in; 13.0175 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 2 5/8 in x 11 1/2 in x 6 5/8 in; 6.6675 cm x 29.21 cm x 16.8275 cm