Rare Surveyor's Quadrant by John Kennard

Description:

Rare Surveyor's Quadrant by John Kennard, with 4 1/2-inch compass card with credit T S Bowles, Portsmouth, N.H. in ribband around central Tudor rose medallion, divided 0-90 in four quadrants, with thistle-form fleur-de-lis at North, American eagle with crest, arrows and laurel branch at East, cherrywood body with two blank bone plaques, brass scale divided 0-90 in both directions, moving alidade with vernier and double folding brass sights, radius 9 in. , in oak case, (case front split).

Note: A similar instrument was sold at Skinner in Science & Technology, 19 July 1997, lot 275, and another is illustrated in Silvio Bedini Early American Scientific Instruments and Their Makers, pp. 127-129. Both instruments have compass cards by T.S. Bowles, and are signed "John Kennard, Newmarket" and also "Invented by P. Merrill Esq.", whereas the instrument here is unmarked, although apparently identical in construction.

John Kennard was born in Kittery, Maine, in 1782 and learned his trade as a clock maker in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (where Bowles also worked). After periods living in Concord and Nashua, he moved to Newfields in 1812 and established an iron foundry in 1830. He died in 1861.
Estimate $3,000-4,000

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