The Society for Useful Knowledge (34 page)

7
John Winthrop,
Relation of a Voyage from Boston to Newfoundland, for Observation of the Transit of Venus, June 6, 1761
(Boston: Edes and Gill, 1761), 23.

8
Ibid., 9–10.

9
Thomas Hornsby, “On the Transit of Venus in 1769,”
Philosophical Transactions
55: 265, quoted in Woolf, 161.

10
Woolf, 148–49.

11
American Philosophical Society,
An Historical Account of the Origin and Formation of the American Philosophical Society
[1841] (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Association, 1914), 88.

12
Hindle,
Pursuit of Science
, 121–24.

13
Ibid., 123–24. The history of the Young Junto and its ultimate transformation into the American Philosophical Society is a long and complex one, with a number of important points so far lost in obscurity. For the American Philosophical Society's official account, including a dissenting opinion on several important aspects, see American Philosophical Society,
An Historical Account of the Origin and Formation of the American Philosophical Society
[1841] (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Association, 1914).

14
Quoted in Whitfield J. Bell,
Patriot-Improvers: Biographical Sketches of Members of the American Philosophical Society
, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1997), 189.

15
Ibid.

16
Pennsylvania Chronicle
, March 7, 1768.

17
Hindle,
Pursuit of Science
, 127–32.

18
“Laws & Regulations,”
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia, for Promoting useful knowledge
1 (Old Series): v.

19
Thomas Bond to BF, June 7, 1769.

20
Hindle,
Pursuit of Science
, 133.

21
Cadwalader Evans to BF, June 11, 1769.

22
Quoted in
MDR
, 97.

23
MDR
, 95, n17.

24
MDR
, 453.

25
MDR
, 106–7.

26
MDR
, 122, 142.

27
Brooke Hindle,
David Rittenhouse
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964), 25, 84.

28
David Rittenhouse to Thomas Barton, January 28, 1767,
MDR
, 194.

29
“Description of a New Orrery,”
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
1: 1–3.

30
Hindle,
Rittenhouse
, 82.

31
Albert E. Lownes, “The 1769 Transit of Venus and Its Relation to Early American Astronomy,”
Sky and Telescope
2 (6): 4.

32
Ibid.

33
Benjamin West,
An Account of the Observation of Venus upon the Sun, the Third Day of June, 1769, at Providence, in New-England. With Some Account of the Use of those Observations
(Providence: J. Carter, 1769), 14–15.

34
Woolf, 174.

35
William Smith and others, “Account of the Transit of Venus Over the Sun's Disk, as Observed at Norriton; in the County of Philadelphia, and Province of Pennsylvania, June 3, 1769,”
Philosophical Transactions
(59): 293.

36
Benjamin Rush,
An Eulogium Intended to Perpetuate the Memory of David Rittenhouse, Late President of the American Philosophical Society
(Philadelphia: Ormond & Conrad, 1796), 12–13.

37
Nevil Maskelyne to Thomas Penn, August 2, 1769,
Early Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge
(Philadelphia: McCalla & Stavely, 1884), 46.

38
Charles Magnus Wrangel to William Smith, October 18, 1871,
MDR
, 182.

39
BF to Lord Howe, July 20, 1776.

40
Benjamin Rush to Ebenezer Hazard, November 5, 1765,
Letters of Benjamin Rush
, ed. Lyman H. Butterfield (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), 1: 18.

41
BF to Richard Jackson, January 16, 1764.

42
BF to unknown recipient, November 28, 1768.

43
Wood,
Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
, 138–39; Wright,
Franklin of Philadelphia
, 190.

44
BF,
Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, PBF
, 4: 225.

45
Bruce A. Ragsdale, “George Washington, the British Tobacco Trade, and Economic Opportunity in Prerevolutionary Virginia,”
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
97 (2): 136.

46
Invoice from Robert Cary & Co., April 13, 1763,
PGW
: 7: 191–98, cited in Ron Chernow,
George Washington: A Life
(New York: Penguin Press, 2010), 140.

47
Ragsdale,
A Planters' Republic: The Search for Economic Independence in Revolutionary Virginia
(Madison: Madison House, 1996), 44, 68.

48
VG
(Purdie & Dixon), March 22, 1770. The
Virginia Gazette
, based in Williamsburg, enjoyed a colorful history in early America, complicated by political, economic, and family rivalries that saw three separate publications appear under the same name and, for a spell, at the same time. I have followed the traditional convention in the endnotes of identifying each edition in question by its respective publisher.

49
George Washington to Robert Cary & Co., September 20, 1765,
PGW
, 7: 401.

50
Hindle,
Pursuit of Science
, 197, 204.

51
George Washington to Robert Cary & Co., September 20, 1765,
PGW
, 7: 403.

52
Arthur Lee to Richard Henry Lee, January 13, 1765,
Lee Family Papers
, (UVA microfilm), quoted in Ragsdale,
Planters' Republic
, 56.

53
Atticus,
VG
(Purdie & Dixon), May 11, 1769.

54
Lee's letters, published between February and April of 1778 in the
Virginia Gazette
(Rind), constituted a local response to John Dickinson's popular “Letters from a Farmer,” which helped crystallize opposition to the new taxes and duties across the colonies. For a full text of both series, see John Dickinson,
The Farmer's and Monitor's Letters to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies
[1769] (Williamsburg, VA: Virginia Independence Bicentennial Commission, 1969). The quoted text can be found on pages 62–63.

55
Ragsdale,
Planters' Republic
, 78–80.

56
“Delegates to the Continental Congress elected by ballot, Committee to prepare a plan for the encouragement of Manufactures in the Colony, March 25, 1775,” in
American Archives
Series 4, 2: 170, available at
http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/cgi-bin/amarch/getdoc.pl?/var/lib/philologic/databases/amarch/.2183
.
Last accessed March 26, 2012.

57
Richard A. Overfield,
Science in the
Virginia Gazette,
1736–1780
(Emporia, KS: Kansas State Teachers College, 1968), 9.

58
VG
(Purdie & Dixon), May 13, 1773.

59
VG
(Purdie & Dixon), July 22, 1773.

60
A Friend in Virginia,
VG
(Rind), June 14, 1770.

61
Academicus,
VG
(Purdie & Dixon), August 5, 1773.

62
Ibid.

63
Overfield, 51; Hindle,
Pursuit of Science
, 214–15.

1
E. Morton Grosser, “David Rittenhouse and European Astronomy,”
Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
72: 382–83.

2
Rev. William Ludlam to the American Philosophical Society, January 25, 1772,
MDR
, 181, n7.

3
Delbourgo,
Amazing Scene
, 143–44.

4
Wright,
Franklin of Philadelphia
, 235.

5
Robert Middlekauff,
Benjamin Franklin and His Enemies
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 145–46; Wood,
Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
, 174–75.

6
John Adams to Benjamin Rush, April 4, 1790,
Old Family Letters
, ed. Andrew Biddle (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1892), 55.

7
BF to John Bartram, May 27, 1777.

8
BF, “To All Captains and Commanders of American Armed Ships,”
WBF
, 7: 449–50.

9
Hindle,
David Rittenhouse
, 100–01.

10
MDR
, 154. Hindle;
David Rittenhouse
, 33–35.

11
Hindle,
David Rittenhouse
, 123–24.

12
Staughton Lynd, “The Mechanics in New York Politics, 1774–1788,”
Labor History
5 (3): 244.

13
Bridenbaugh,
Colonial Craftsman
, 174–75.

14
Pennsylvania Evening Post
, March 14, 1776.

15
Lynd, 245; Lawrence A. Peskin,
Manufacturing Revolution: The Intellectual Origins of Early American Industry
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 30.

16
Hindle,
David Rittenhouse
, 125; Peskin, 41–45.

17
John Adams, Diary, September 28, 1775,
The Works of John Adams
, ed. Charles F. Adams (Boston: Little, Brown, 1865), 2: 429.

18
Journals of Continental Congress
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906), 4: 224.

19
Hindle,
David Rittenhouse
, 126.

20
Elizabeth S. Kite,
Brigadier-General Louis Lebègue Duportail: Commandant of Engineers in the Continental Army
, 1777–1783 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1933), 2.

21
Kite, 257.

22
Orlando W. Stephenson, “The Supply of Gunpowder in 1776,”
American Historical Review
30 (2): 271–73.

23
George Washington to Joseph Reed, December 25, 1775,
PGW
, Revolutionary War Series, ed. Philander D. Chase (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1985): 2: 607.

24
Stephenson, 274–79; Hindle,
David Rittenhouse
, 125–26.

25
MDR
, 274.

26
Thomas Jefferson to David Rittenhouse, July 19, 1778,
PTJ
, 2: 203.

27
Francis Hopkinson, “An Address to the American Philosophical Society,”
The Miscellaneous Essays and Occasional Writings of Francis Hopkinson
(Philadelphia: T. Dobson, 1792), 1: 361–62.

28
Ibid., 364.

29
Peskin, 101–102.

30
Ibid., 98, n28.

31
Jennifer Ann Moon, “The Best Poor Man's Industry: Politics and the Political Economy of Poor Relief in Revolutionary Philadelphia,” Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1995, 153–58.

32
Joseph S. Davis,
Essays in the Earlier History of American Corporations
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1917), 1: 258.

33
Charles S. Olton,
Artisans for Independence: Philadelphia Mechanics and the American Revolution
(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1975), 27–32.

34
Peskin, 87.

35
Ibid., 88.

36
Quoted in Francis Hopkinson,
Account of the Grand Federal Procession, Philadelphia, July 4, 1788: To Which Is Added a Letter on the Same Subject
(Philadelphia: M. Carey, 1788), 16.

37
Hindle,
David Rittenhouse
, 271–75.

38
David Rittenhouse to Thomas Jefferson, April 4, 1787,
PTJ
, 11: 293.

39
“Minutes of the Society for Political Inquiries,” in
Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania
, ed. Samuel Hazard (Philadelphia: W. F. Geddes, 1832), 8: 125.

40
BF to Alexander Small, February 17, 1789.

41
Rules and Regulations of the Society for Political Enquiries: Established at Philadelphia, 9th February, 1787
(Philadelphia: Robert Aitken, 1787), 1.

42
Alan Houston,
Benjamin Franklin and the Politics of Improvement
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 217–18.

43
BF to Jonathan Shipley, February 24, 1786,
WBF
, 10: 250.

44
Jacob E. Cooke,
Tench Coxe and the Early Republic
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978), 110–11, xi.

45
Tench Coxe to John Coxe, June 10, 1778, quoted in Cooke,
Tench Coxe
, 44.

46
Cooke,
Tench Coxe
, 11–12, 93; John Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott,
History of Philadelphia, 1609–1884
(Philadelphia: L. H. Everts, 1884), 1: 445.

47
Cooke,
Tench Coxe
, xii; L. Marx,
Machine in the Garden
, 151.

48
Cooke,
Tench Coxe
, x.

49
Hazard's Register
, 8: 126.

50
Michael Vinson, “The Society for Political Inquiries: The Limits of Republican Discourse in Philadelphia on the Eve of the Constitutional Convention,”
PMHB
113 (2): 203.

51
Cooke,
Tench Coxe
, 102. In addition to Coxe, members in both groups included Rush, Rittenhouse, Thomas Mifflin, and George Fox. Vinson, 203.

52
Tench Coxe,
An Address to an Assembly of the Friends of American Manufactures
(Philadelphia: R. Aitken, 1787), 8.

53
William Barton, “Essay on the Promotion of American Manufactures,”
American Museum
2: 258–59, cited in Drew R. McCoy,
The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 115.