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Annals of Science Volume 50, 1993 - Issue 3
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Of ‘science and liberty’: The scientific instruments of king's college and eighteenth century columbia college in New York

Silvio A. Bedini National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, U.S.A.
Pages 201-227 | Received 30 Nov 1991, Published online: 23 Aug 2006

  • Johnson , Samuel . May 1754 . “ Advertisement ” . In The New-York Gazette May , 31 Milton Halsey Thomas, ‘The King's College Building With Some Notes on its Later Tenants', The New-York Historical Society Quarterly, 39 (1955), 23–29; Horace Coon, Columbia Colossus on the Hudson (New York, 1947), pp. 37–47; N. F. Moore, An Historical Sketch of Columbia College in the City of New-York (New York: for Columbia College, 1846), pp. 6–34; A History of Columbia University 1754–1904 Published in Commemoration of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of King's College [hereafter A History] (New York: Columbia University Press, 1904), pp. 1–13.
  • Snow , Louis Franklin . 1907 . The College Curriculum in the United States , 57 – 57 . Columbia University . (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, George H. Moore, Collegium Regale Novi Eboraci. The Origin and Early History of Columbia College (published by the author, New York, 1890), pp. 12–18; A History (footnote 1), pp. 31–40.
  • Hornberger , Theodore . 1945 . Scientific Thought in the American Colleges 1638–1800 30 – 32 . Austin, Texas 53–55, 71; James Grant Wilson, The Memorial History of the City of New-York From its First Settlement to the Year 1892 (New York: New-York History Company, 1893), IV, 414–22.
  • 1932 . Minutes of the Governors of the College of the Province of New-York in the City of New-York in America 1755–1770 and of the Corporation of King's College in the City of New-York 1768–1770 , New York Columbia University : Columbia University . unpaginated. Entry for 8 May 1759.
  • Cohen , I. Bernard . 1950 . Some Early Tools of American Science , 16 – 44 . Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press . David P. Wheatland, The Apparatus of Science at Harvard 1765–1800 (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University, 1968), pp. 3–9 and passim.
  • Yale University . College Records Rev. Samuel Miller, A Brief Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century (New York: T. and J. Smith, 1803), II, 494; Ebenezer Baldwin, Annals of Yale College From its Foundation to the Year 1831 (New Haven: H. & W. Noyes, 1838), pp. 260–2; L. W. McKeehan, Yale Science, the First Hundred Years, 1701–1801 (New York, 1947), passim; H. M. Fuller, ‘The Philosophical Apparatus of Yale College’, Papers in Honor of Andrew Keogh, Librarian of Yale University (privately printed, New Haven, 1938), pp. 163–80; A Catalogue of Surviving Early Scientific Instruments of Yale College. Exhibition Catalogue (New Haven, 1947), 10 pp. (unpaginated).
  • 1908 . Papers Belonging to the College . William and Mary Quarterly Historical Magazine , 16 : 162 – 173 . ‘Dr William Small's Accounts (1758–1767), Portion of Physical Apparatus Purchased by Dr William Small in 1767’, ‘Early Teaching of Science at the College of William and Mary’, Journal of Chemical Education, 15 (1938), 3–13, especially p. 5.
  • University of Pennsylvania Archives . Minutes of the Trustees, I, College and Academy of Philadelphia 1748–1768 , Brooke Hindle, The Pursuit of Science in Revolutionary America 1735–1789 (Chapel Hill, 1956), pp. 90–91, 268–69.
  • Princeton University Archives . 1769 . Trustees' Minutes , September 29 Howard C. Rice, Jr, The Rittenhouse Orrery. Princeton's Eighteenth-Century Planetarium, 1767–1954. A Commentary on an Exhibition Held in the Princeton University Library (Princeton: Princeton University Library, 1954), pp. 11–20.
  • Brown University, John Hay Library . Rhode Island College Miscellaneous Papers, 1763–1782 and 1783–1804 Benjamin West, An Account of the Observation of Venus upon the Sun. The Third Day of June 1769, at Providence, in New-England (Providence, 1769), p. 10, n.; Donald Fleming, Science and Technology in Providence 1760–1914. An Essay in the History of Brown University in the Metropolitan Community. Brown University Papers XXVI (Providence, R. I., 1952), pp. 20–2.
  • Chase , Frederick . 1891 . History of Dartmouth College 253 – 253 . Cambridge, Mass. 593, 587; F. B. Dexter, Extracts From the Itineraries and Other Miscellanies of Ezra Stiles, D.D., LL.D., 1755–1794 (New Haven. 1916), p. 396; Sanborn C. Brown and Leonard M. Rieser, Natural Philosophy at Dartmouth From Surveyor's Chains to the Pressure of Light (Hanover, N. H., 1974), pp. 12, 14, n. 5.
  • 1932 . Columbia University Early Minutes of the Trustees Vol. I , 1755 – 1770 . New York Minutes of the meeting of the Governors of the College in the Province of New-York, 24 August 1763; communications from Miss Alice H. Bonnell, Curator, Columbiana Room, Columbia University, 2 December 1968, 29 April, 8 May, 13 June and 7 July 1969.
  • June 1769 . Pennsylvania Chronicle, &c. June , 19 – 26 . Philadelphia 187
  • June 1769 . The New-York Gazette; and the Weekly Mercury, No. 920 June , 12 Hindle (footnote 8), 156.
  • June 1769 . The New-York Gazette; and the Weekly Mercury, No. 922 June , 26 communication from Dr. Ruth S. Freitag, The Library of Congress, 11 January 1990.
  • New York State Library, Manuscripts Division . Harpur Papers AS7040, AS13056; Julia C. Andrews, unpublished biography of Robert Harpur, typewritten MS, unpaginated; Dictionary of American Biography (New York, 1959), IV, 293–4; David C. Humphrey, From King's College to Columbia College, 1746–1800 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 200–2.
  • Columbia University Archives . Minutes of the Meeting of the Governors of King's College 71 – 71 . Book No. 1 Howard C. Rice, Jr, The Rittenhouse Orrery. Princeton's Eighteenth-Century Planetarium, 1767–1954 (Princeton: Princeton University Library, 1954), pp. 28–57; John R. Millburn, ‘Horology and the Adams Family’, Antiquarian Horology, 13 (1982), 368–76; communication from John R. Millburn, 12 February 1990.
  • March 1774 . Rivington's New-York Gazette March , 30 Clarence H. Vance, ‘Myles Cooper’, Columbia University Quarterly, 22 (1930), 261–8; Dictionary of American Biography (footnote 16), x, 25–7; communications from Professor Paul David Nelson, Berea College, 17 July 1991, and from Professor Emeritus William S. Powell, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 8 July 1991.
  • Thomas . May 1754 . “ Advertisement ” . In The New-York Gazette May , 23 – 60 . 31 esp. pp. 36–7; Dictionary of American Biography (footnote 16), II, 408–9; A History (footnote 1), 47–9.
  • 1842 . Journals of the Provincial Congress, Provincial Convention, Committee of Safety and Council of Safety of the State of New York 1775–1776–1777 Vol. I , 400 – 400 . Albany Thomas (footnote 1), 39.
  • Public Archives of Nova Scotia, Halifax . Inglis Memoirs (typewritten), item for 4 April 1776; Thomas (footnote 1), 40.
  • Inventory of the Contents of Mount Vernon, 1810 With a Prefatory Note by Worthington Chauncey Ford (N. P. 1909) [Facsimile edition], p. xvii; The Writings of George Washington From the Original Manuscript Sources 1745–1799, edited by John C. Fitzpatrick (Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1935), ii, 343.
  • Thane , Elswyth . 1968 . Mount Vernon Family 21 – 27 . New York Herbert B. Howe, ‘Colonel George Washington and King's College’, Columbia University Quarterly, 24 (1932), 137–57; A History (footnote 1), 43–5.
  • Force , Peter . 1848 . American Archives: Fifth Series, Containing A Documentary History of the United States of America, from the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, to the Definitive Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, September 3, 1783 , Washington : W. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force . Fifth Series, i, col. 1475.
  • Force , Peter . 1848 . American Archives: Fifth Series, Containing A Documentary History of the United States of America, from the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, to the Definitive Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, September 3, 1783 , Washington : M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force . Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army During the War of the Revolution April 1775, to December 1783 (Baltimore Genealogical Publishing Co., 1967), pp. 100–1; Dictionary of American Biography (footnote 16), i, 225. A native of Georgia, Berrien had been promoted to 2nd Lieutenant of the 1st Georgia Regiment early in January 1776 and rose to the rank of Brigade Major of the North Carolina Brigade in 1778. Serving as an aide-de-camp to General McIntosh from 1776 to 1778, he was promoted to Brevet Captain late in 1783.
  • Force . 1848 . American Archives: Fifth Series, Containing A Documentary History of the United States of America, from the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, to the Definitive Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, September 3, 1783 , Washington : M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force . col. 1478.
  • Force . 1848 . American Archives: Fifth Series, Containing A Documentary History of the United States of America, from the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, to the Definitive Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, September 3, 1783 , Washington : M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force . col. 1480.
  • Force . 1848 . American Archives: Fifth Series, Containing A Documentary History of the United States of America, from the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, to the Definitive Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, September 3, 1783 , Washington : M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force . col. 1485, 1478, 824, 853, 1488, 1490; Fitzpatrick (footnote 22), v, 389–90.
  • Force . 1848 . American Archives: Fifth Series, Containing A Documentary History of the United States of America, from the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, to the Definitive Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, September 3, 1783 , Washington : M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force . col. 1488; Douglas S, Freeman, George Washington: A Biography (New York, 1951), iv, 152–75.
  • 1794 . Present State of Learning in Columbia College. Prepared by President Wm. Samuel Johnson, Mr. Brockhurst Livingston, and Rev. Dr. John Livingston , 6 – 6 . New York : T. & J. Swords . Humphrey, From King's College (footnote 16), pp. 276–94; Dictionary of American Biography (footnote 16), v, 319–20.
  • 1794 . Present State of Learning in Columbia College. Prepared by President Wm. Samuel Johnson, Mr. Brockhurst Livingston, and Rev. Dr. John Livingston , Vol. IV , 15 – 16 . New York : T. & J. Swords .
  • Cutler , William Parker and Cutler , Julia Perkins . 1888 . Life, Journal and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler , Vol. I , 239 – 240 . Cincinnati, Ohio : Robert Clarke & Co. . part 1 journal entry of 10 July 1787; Thomas (footnote 1), 47–8; Early Minutes of the Trustees of Columbia College, 1755–1770, 14 August 1767, unpaginated. Hindle (footnote 8), 117–18. The professorship in midwifery was based on the curricula of the Universities of Edinburgh and Leiden.
  • Turner , Gerard L'E. 1979 . The Number Code on Reflecting Telescopes by Nairne & Blunt . Journal of the History of Astronomy , 10 : 177 – 184 . reprinted in G. L'E. Turner, Scientific Instruments and Experimental Philosophy 1550–1850 (Aldershot, 1990), Chapter 8. Communications from Dr Gerard L'E. Turner, 21 April 1978, 18 August and 31 December 1991.
  • August 1788 . The Daily Advertiser August , New York 2 The New-York Packet, 5 August 1788; Humphrey (footnote 16), pp. 296–304; I. N. Phelps Stokes, New York Past and Present, Its History and Landmarks 1524–1939 (New York, New York World's Fair, 1939), p. 74; Wilson (footnote 3), III, 40–3; Carl Van Doren, The Great Rehearsal (New York, 1948, 240–2.
  • Columbia University Archives, Minutes of the Trustees of Columbia College, 4 May 1784 to 22 February 1809 Vol. II , 187 – 187 . part 1 re: chemical apparatus; ibid., meeting probably of April 1825, invoice from John Miller, 1824.
  • Columbia University Archives, Minutes of the Trustees of Columbia College, 4 May 1784 to 22 February 1809 Vol. II , 187 – 187 . part 1 meeting of 6 July 1825; invoice of John Miller in account with the Trustees of Columbia College, 1824–25; invoice of James Renwick, 30 June 1825.
  • Hornberger . 1945 . Scientific Thought in the American Colleges 1638–1800 34 – 34 . Austin, Texas Dictionary of American Biography (footnote 16), V, 319–20; David Hosack, Memoir of DeWitt Clinton, With an Appendix, Containing Numerous Documents Illustrative of the Principle Events of His Life (New York: J. Seymour, 1829), pp. 23–38, 94–123; William W. Campbell, The Life and Writings of DeWitt Clinton (New York: Baker & Scribner, 1849), pp. 87–9.
  • August 1991 . Columbia University Record August , 4 – 4 . 30 Columbia University, Office of Public Information, Press releases, 8 July 1991; Silvio A. Bedini, ‘The Governor's Theodolite’, The Professional Surveyor, 12 (1992), 45–6.

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