UNDAUNTED: David Rittenhouse (1732–1796)
Although today he is best known for the leafy Square that bears his name in Philadelphia, David Rittenhouse was the go-to guy for the finest surveying and astronomical instruments in Colonial America. Trained as a clockmaker, he specialized in making mathematical instruments including compasses, clocks, telescopes, thermometers, barometers, and orreries (an apparatus showing the positions and motions of the planets in the solar system).
Rittenhouse not only made equipment, he was known for his skill in surveying boundaries. In order to resolve the long simmering dispute between the Calverts of Maryland and Penn family of Pennsylvania, two English astronomers, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, were brought in, and Rittenhouse contributed some initial calculations to their survey.
His major contributions to science were astronomical. He participated in the American component of the first worldwide scientific event, the transit of Venus in 1769. He maintained an observatory at his home on Seventh and Arch streets, and when Benjamin Franklin died he was the obvious choice for second president of the American Philosophical Society.
Images: (above, left) Charles Willson Peale, David Rittenhouse, 1791. APS; (above, right) David Rittenhouse, Astronomical Clock, 1768-69. APS
