Featured David Rittenhouse: Engraver, Scientist, Philosopher, Patriot, Surveyor, Astronomist, Clock Maker...

Discussion in 'Paper Money' started by USS656, Nov 29, 2009.

  1. USS656

    USS656 Here to Learn Supporter

    When this project started, I never realized just how educational and ironic this would become. I have chosen to write about David Rittenhouse for my Security Engravers Presentation. David Rittenhouse should not only be remembered for his contributions as an engraver, but more importantly his contributions as a Scientist, Philosopher, Patriot, Surveyor, Astronomist, Clock Maker, Mathematician, and successful Businessman. In 64 years of life his contributions to astrology exceeded all others living in this area of study. Rittenhouse later put aside his most accomplished scientific work to give his full support to the American Revolution.

    My introduction to David Rittenhouse started in the summer of 2009 while studying coins. The Rittenhouse name came up in passing as the first Director of the US Mint while looking for other information. It immediately caught my attention because I have a coworker whose last name is Rittenhouse. I did not read much at the time but did follow my curiosity by asking my coworker if there was a connection. Could it be, a connection to David Rittenhouse? Yes, her husband is a direct descendant. Later in the summer I had the pleasurable opportunity to meet my coworker’s husband and direct descendant of David Rittenhouse. Not researching David Rittenhouse’s history any further, I put the information aside as an interesting connection to a significant but small piece of American History.

    While doing research in early November on an unrelated engraver in Gene Hessler’s book “The Engravers Line” I again happened unexpectedly upon David Rittenhouse’s name. On page 251 – he was again staring me in the face. As I am just learning, the one paragraph in Hessler’s book ever so briefly summed up what was an incredible life of a man who faced and overcame many challenges.

    David Rittenhouse is a name that you would know if you have studied the American Revolution. He is also a name known to those that study the history of US coins as the First Director of the US Mint. Remember him for more than this briefest of accomplishments. This is a man that accomplished so much more in the name of science, and sacrificed as much in the pursuit of independence. Jefferson wrote Rittenhouse and begged that he return to his scientific studies and leave the business of politics to lesser men. In his Notes on the State of Virginia Jefferson wrote “We have supposed Mr. Rittenhouse second to no astronomer living: that in genius he must be the first, because he is self-taught. As an artist he has exhibited as great a proof of mechanical genius as the world has ever produced. He has not indeed made a world; but he has by imitation approached nearer its Maker than any man who has lived from the creation to this day."

    The significance of this man’s life can be demonstrated by how he has been remembered through time. Following his death, George Washington bought a print engraved by Edward Savage of an original picture painted by Charles Wilson Peale. It was placed in the small dining room in Mount Vernon. The print sits next to other notable American heroes of science and military valor, including Benjamin Franklin, Anthony Wayne and Nathaniel Greene.

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    An illustration of the original painting by C. W. Peale


    William Barton published a biography of Rittenhouse in 1817, eleven years following his death. Then President Thomas Jefferson ordered six copies directly from the author. This man was also included in Benjamin Franklin’s will, where he left him his telescope in return for the use of his observatory. These acts by the most notable of Americans should bare witness to the admiration Rittenhouse was given at the highest possible levels.

    Before I review his life, lets cover what must have been David Rittenhouse’s brief obligation as an engraver of paper currency. If you study his life (of which I have just begun) you quickly come to realize how many different obligations and charters that had Rittenhouse’s attention in 1776. You also come to realize that the transitioning governments of Pennsylvania and America, as well as his influential friends, were never shy about presenting new opportunities (needs really) at Mr. Rittenhouse’s doorstep. His life was as diverse as any life could be. During this period of his life, he was responsible for handling much of the money used to fund the revolution. While I have yet to uncover exactly when he performed this service as an engraver, in March of 1776 New Jersey issued a six pound note that David Rittenhouse is attributed as having created.

    The following attribution and photos are from the Notre Dame web site:

    £6 Serial Number: 1535 New Jersey March 25 1776

    Signers: Jonathan Johnston, Robert Smith, and John Smyth.

    Size: 60 x 109mm (front border design: 59 x 109mm; back border design: 51 x 95mm).

    Comments: Signed and numbered in black ink. Printed in red and blue ink on the front and black ink on the back. Engraver David Rittenhouse signed the left border (the letters "RYTTENHOUSE" are included in the rim of the center of the acanthus design and are oriented toward the center of the note). The British arms appear in red ink in the lower right of the front with the denomination of the note added above the motto. Images of two full suns (each of which represents £3) are found near the upper right corner of the arms. Just below the sun are four lions in blue ink with the words "Six Pounds."

    Nature print of a sage leaf on back with an ornamental border design, which includes a row of zodiac symbols with a shell with a floral design above. Paper contains mica flakes and is watermarked: "NEW JERSEY" oriented to be read from the front when the bill is turned upside down.

    Provenance: EANA mail bid auction 1/13/96 lot 403. Purchased through the Robert H. Gore, Jr. Numismatic Endowment.

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    The photos and information presented above are copywrited and reuse is prohibbited without consent.[1]

    [1] http://www.coins.nd.edu/ColCurrency/FAQ/copyright.html

    Rittenhouse started his life on a farm near Germantown Pennsylvania in 1732. His Grandfather, who started as a papermaking apprentice in Germany, later learned the Dutch ways of papermaking while living with his brother in Holland. He emigrated to the United States in 1688. Two years later he founded the first paper mill to be established in the United States. While this was not David Rittenhouse’s career path, the mill became the family business for the next century.

    Rittenhouse never went to elementary school and was completely self-educated from family books. David Rittenhouse’s Uncle was a carpenter who died at a young age and left young Rittenhouse a set of tools and instructional books. He used these tools to become a young inventor. At age eight Rittenhouse showed a high level of intelligence by creating a working scale model of his grandfather's paper mill. This paralleled Newton who is said to have created a windmill when still a boy. When Rittenhousee was thirteen years of age, he had mastered Isaac Newton's Laws of Motion and Gravity. David was also credited with building a wooden clock at sixteen and a brass clock shortly after. Also paralleling Newton who had built a water clock and sun dial at an early age.

    From approximately 1950 to the beginning of the Revolutionary War David was known as a clockmaker. His father, a small farmer encouraged his career path and even assisted it by purchasing the tools necessary and allowing him to build a workshop on the family farm near the road to town. There is no evidence from where he learned the trade or if he worked as an apprentice. There is evidence that he came in contact with the best clock making techniques of English and American clock making. While his designs were not unusual the craftsmanship and individuality was remarkable.

    He showed great ability in science and mathematics. At nineteen years old, he started a scientific instrument shop at his father's farm in West Norriton Township, Pennsylvania. With his love of tools and his amazing ability to create things he crafted two orreries for Rutgers University in New Jersey. In return for the gift, the college gave him a scholarship to attend the college enabling him to obtain a degree in philosophy. At the age of twenty-eight, he published his first mathematical paper, one of many papers published throughout his life.


    Below: Rittenhouse Clock and Orrery[1]

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    [1]http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/v46/n26/aprcal.html


    David Rittenhouse made many breakthroughs during his life, which were great contributions to the United States. During the first part of his career, he was a surveyor for Great Britain, but later served in the Pennsylvania government. His 1763-1764 survey of the Delaware-Pennsylvania border was a 12-mile circle about the Court House in New Castle, Delaware, to define the northern border of Delaware. Rittenhouse's work was so precise and well documented that it was incorporated without modification into Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon's survey of the Pennsylvania-Maryland border. Later Rittenhouse would help establish the boundaries of several other states and commonwealths both before and after Independence, including the boundaries between New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. In 1763, Mason and Dixon began a survey of the Pennsylvania-Maryland border, but this work was interrupted in 1767. In 1784 Rittenhouse and Andrew Ellicott completed this survey of the Mason-Dixon line to the southwest corner of Pennsylvania. When Rittenhouse's work as a surveyor ended, he resumed his scientific interests.


    Rittenhouse was one of the first to build a telescope used in the United States. His telescope utilized natural spider silk to form the reticle. In 1767 he was granted an honorary master's degree from the College of Philadelphia (later University of Pennsylvania.) In 1768, the same year that he became a member of the American Philosophical Society, Rittenhouse announced plans to observe a pending transit of Venus across the Sun from several locations. The American Philosophical Society persuaded the legislature to grant £100 towards the purchase of new telescopes, and members volunteered to man half of the twenty-two telescope stations when the event arrived.


    The transit of Venus occurred on 3 June 1769. Rittenhouse's great excitement at observing the infrequently occurring transit of Venus resulted in his fainting during the observation. In addition to the work involved in the preparations, he had also been ill the week before the transit. Lying on his back beneath the telescope, trained at the afternoon sun, he regained consciousness after a few minutes and continued his observations. His account of the transit, published in the American Philosophical Society's Transactions, does not mention his fainting, though it is otherwise meticulous in its record. Rittenhouse used the observations to calculate the distance from Earth to the Sun to be 93 million miles. (This is the approximate average distance between Earth and the Sun.) The published report of the transit was hailed by European scientists, and Rittenhouse would correspond with famous contemporary astronomers, such as Jérôme Lalande and Franz Xaver von Zach.

    In 1770, Rittenhouse completed an advanced orrery. In recognition of the achievement, the College of New Jersey granted Rittenhouse an honorary degree. The college then acquired ownership of the orrery, and Rittenhouse made a new, even more advanced model to remain in Philadelphia. The State of Pennsylvania paid Rittenhouse £300 as a tribute for his achievement.

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    [​IMG]

    Above: David Rittenhouse Orrery resides at University of Pennsylvania[1]
    Below: David Rittenhouse’s Orrery resides at Princeton University[2]

    [1]http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/pennhistory/orrery/orrery.html

    [2]http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/05/1205/2n.shtml



    [​IMG]



    Many colonial Americans and scientists, including Dr. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams, admired Rittenhouse. On February 24, 1775, Rittenhouse delivered a lecture on the history of astronomy to the American Philosophical Society, in which he linked the structure of nature to the rights of man, liberty, and self-government. Rittenhouse also used the occasion to decry slavery. So impressed were those in attendance that the American Philosophical Society commissioned the speech to be printed and distributed to delegates of the Second Continental Congress when they arrived in 1776.

    When the Revolutionary War began Rittenhouse committed himself entirely to the cause. While aboard the ship “The Bull Dog” John Adams wrote in his diary “Rittenhouse is a mechanic; mathematician, a philosopher, and an astronomer… [he] is a tall slender man, plain, soft, modest, no remarkable depth or thoughtfulness in his face, yet cool, attentive, and clear.” On October 27th 1775 the Committee of Safety appointed Rittenhouse to be it’s Engineer. Rittenhouse took on many responsibilities from fortification to heavy cannon casting including experiments in rifling a cannon barrel. He was then appointed supervisor of the Salt Peter works on Market Street. The goal was more effective measures to stimulate saltpeter production. Saltpeter or potassium nitrate was the most critical single ingredient in gunpowder. This proved even more difficult, however, than discovering satisfactory techniques for casting large cannons. Rittenhouse began with a limited knowledge of the manufacture of explosives, a defect he remedied through dedicated study. When Charles Wilson Peale and Dr. Thomas Young visited him three months after he began, Rittenhouse provided them with his own formula for gunpowder. In the end they could not produce enough saltpeter to keep up and had to depend on foreign sources after all.

    Rittenhouse was now fully occupied with the problem related to military combat. Working with Peale, Rittenhouse worked on two rifle improvements related to a telescopic sight and building into a stock a box large enough to carry bullets and wipers. Rittenhouse became an authority on explosives and ballistics. He reported that the performance of rifles was diminished and could not shoot true when they used to heavy a charge of powder.

    In March 1776 he was handed his most challenging assignment when in a special election he was given Ben Franklins position on the Pennsylvania Assembly so that Franklin could focus solely on the Continental Congress. Many of the assembly functions brought him to problems that he had no experience or preparation. Some of the jobs were merely tedious as he was given a wide sampling of business before the house. On July 4th 1776 Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence. This brought to an end the political opposition to Independence that Rittenhouse faced within the Pennsylvania Assembly. On July 8th Rittenhouse was elected a member of the Convention called to give Pennsylvania a new constitution. Every other proprietary colony needed a more suitable constitution of a independent state. The problem in Pennsylvania was that the independence movement was a minority movement. Rittenhouse served many committees including one that determined the fate of those caught counterfeiting and the definition and penalty for treason. Once passed the Convention named the members of the Council of Safety, justices of the peace and gave them the impossible responsibility of enforcement.

    In 1779 as the war progressed Rittenhouse was elected to the position of Treasurer of Pennsylvania. This position also proved very challenging as money for the war was very hard to come by. Collecting taxes proved very difficult during this period and on numerous occasions he had to inform the Government that they were out of money to effectively operate. At one point Rittenhouse had to move all of the money to Lancaster PA to avoid the pending occupation of Philadelphia by British Troops. He held the position until 1787 four years beyond the end of the war.

    From 1779 to 1782 he also acted as a Professor of Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1791 following the death of his friend Ben Franklin, David Rittenhouse was elected as President of the American Philosophical Society of which he served until just before his death in 1796. While he had an active role in the institution he could not devote as much time as he might have wished due to poor heath and other obligations.

    In 1792 President George Washington appointed Rittenhouse as the first Director of the US Mint. The choice of Rittenhouse as director seemed peculiarly appropriate to men who differed on other subjects. Regarded in all quarters as the leading Newtonian in America, he was popularly honored as a practical scientist and mechanical scientist. What could be more fitting to his career or a more fortunate result for the nation than that Rittenhouse, like Newton, should become “Master of the Mint.” On April 2, 1792 the United States Mint opened its doors, but would not produce coins for almost four months. Rittenhouse believed that the design of the coin made the coin a piece of artwork. The first coins where made from flatware that was provided by Washington himself on the morning of July 30, 1792. The coins where hand-struck by Rittenhouse, to test the new equipment, and were given to Washington as a token of appreciation for his contributions to making the United States Mint a reality. Again, Rittenhouse faced many obstacles including a shortage of raw materials, a lack of funding, a lack of sufficient equipment needed to mass produce coins, and sometimes even the lack of cooperation by the city government. Despite the political changes, and the challenges of starting a new government institution, the mint achieved great milestones during Rittenhouse’s tenure. These achievements included coining over one million copper pieces in 1794, a total not substantially exceeded until 1800. Silver coinage began production including the half dime, half dollar and dollar. All were issued to a fineness that differed markedly from the specifications laid down by congress. Rittenhouse’s assays uncovered an error that he decided to correct by following the intent of the law instead of its letter. The challenges he faced were overcome even if at time that required him to use his own money to obtain equipment needed to keep the mint running. Henry William de Saussure unhappily held the position of Mint Director for four months following Rittenhouse and left office praising all of the works of the first Director.

    After he left office in 1775 Rittenhouse dedicated the rest of his life to his observatory, garden, and family. 1795 brought recognition from both Britain and France. His highest award came in June when he was elected on the Foreign list, to the Royal Society of London – long the premier scientific accolade in the English-speaking world. This is heightened by the coolness, which still marked the attitude of Britain towards America.

    There is much more to this story, which can be found in the book “David Rittenhouse” by Brook Hindle, 1980 Reprint addition by Arno Press. I took much of the story from this one source and is a book I have added to my small library (all be it unfortunately it has not yet arrived.) I look forward to receiving it and reading the rest of the story about David Rittenhouse. I also look forward to viewing the illustrations absent the online version. As with the connection at work, my brother-in-law's last name is Newton and is a descendant of that great scientist Sir Isaac Newton. The degrees of separation seem to defy normal boundaries. I hope you have enjoyed this trip through American History with a man that can be considered nothing less than a genius and great American Patriot.



     
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  3. urbanchemist

    urbanchemist US/WORLD CURRENCY JUNKIE

    wow great presentation with a wealth of knowledge. :bow::bow: these posts the last few months have all been really amazing.:thumb:
     
  4. USS656

    USS656 Here to Learn Supporter

    Thanks Urban, :) I know it's quite long. I hope others do not mind the length. I was only able to work on this the last four days, and I know I would have done a better job if I had a little longer to proof and reedit. I have to give my wife credit for staying up with me until after 1 am last night reworking some of it to make it flow better and contain much better grammar. Next time around I will pick a subject much earlier in the process. This was more a work of excitement and enthusiasm as I learned more about his life and the connections (all be it minor) to my life. I will truly enjoy reading more about this mans life both in the book I have mentioned and in some of my wife's books written by Jeff Shaara. My wife had a great analogy: Remembering Rittenhouse for his contributions to the Mint is like remembering Franklin for his experiment with the kite and key. Both are great men with depth beyond what most could even begin to comprehend.

    I am glad you enjoyed it!
     
  5. connor1

    connor1 Collector

    Fantastic presentation, I found it very informative and not to long at all.
    Prior to this presentation I knew a little bit about Rittenhouse and the revolution but never knew of him as a security engraver or his other contributions to our nation in so many ways.
    Very enjoyable & informative read !
    Congrats...on a great presentation.
     
  6. north49guy

    north49guy Show me the Money

    Great presentation! Tons of great information and its great to see how well rounded this individual was. Thanks!
     
  7. RickieB

    RickieB Expert Plunger Sniper

    Darryl...

    Looks like the guys before me nailed it pretty good! Excellent job with some great info. I enjoyed the read vey much.
    Thanks for your contribution to the group.

    Regards,

    RickieB
     
  8. USS656

    USS656 Here to Learn Supporter

    Thanks guys :) I am glad everyone enjoyed the presentation.

    Best Regards ~ Darryl
     
  9. LSM

    LSM Collector

    I enjoyed your presentation very much and it didn't seem long at all. Mr Rittenhouse was such incredible gentleman. Thank you for the history lesson Darryl. I learned something new today. :smile

    Lou
     
  10. USS656

    USS656 Here to Learn Supporter

    :D - Thank You!
     
  11. Art

    Art Numismatist?

    Incredible is a good word for Mr. Rittenhouse. Great presentation. Very easy to read even though it's packed with facts.
     
  12. mpcusa

    mpcusa "Official C.T. TROLL SWEEPER"

    Thanks for a super nice presentation! Very Informative!! :)
     
  13. Daggarjon

    Daggarjon Supporter**

    long is an understatment when you look at it lol but when you read it, it reads very well, and doesnt seem long at al!

    nicely done USS656!!
     
  14. RickieB

    RickieB Expert Plunger Sniper

    And another one..the Award Winner from 2009... just simply wonderful information!!

    Come on folks..there is more to Numismatics than just WOW, what a nice note or coin! Join in..

    RickieB
     
  15. jello

    jello Not Expert★NormL®

    A very interesting write up.
    :)
     
    USS656 likes this.
  16. USS656

    USS656 Here to Learn Supporter

    Thank you :)
     
    jello likes this.
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