  William Cranch Bond, director of the Harvard College Observatory in mid-19th
century, carried out detailed sunspot observations during the period 1847-1849.
We highlight Bond was the observer with the highest daily number of sunspot
groups observed in Solar Cycle 9 recording 18 groups on 26 December 1848
according to the current sunspot group database. However, we have detected
significant mistakes in these counts due to the use of sunspot position tables
instead of solar drawings. Therefore, we have revisited the sunspot
observations made by Bond, establishing a new group counting. Our new counts of
the sunspot groups from Bond's drawings indicate that solar activity was
previously overestimated. Moreover, after this new counting, Bond would not be
the astronomer who recorded the highest daily group number for Solar Cycle 9
but Schmidt with 16 groups on 14 February 1849. We have also indicated the new
highest annual group numbers recorded by any observer for the period 1847-1849
in order to correct those values applied in the "brightest star" method, which
is used as a rough indicator of the solar activity level. Furthermore, a
comparison between Bond's sunspot records and the sunspot observations made by
Schwabe and Wolf is shown. We conclude that the statistics of Wolf and Bond are
similar regarding to the group count. Additionally, Schwabe was able to observe
smaller groups than Bond.
