Benjamin Rittenhouse
Surveyor's Plain Compass

CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Surveyor's Plain Compass
Datec. 1775
Made inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
MediumBrass, steel, silvering, wax composition, and glass
Dimensions11 1/4 × 14 × 6 1/2 in. (28.6 × 35.6 × 16.5 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, museum purchase funded by Susan Neptune
Object numberB.2017.7
Current Location
Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
Federal Parlor
Exposé

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Department
Bayou Bend
DescriptionAfter North America was explored, conquered, and colonized, its land quickly made the transition from wilderness to property that was claimed, traded, bought, and sold. It was the surveyor’s work to measure and delineate tracts of land to help make these transactions possible, and one of the surveyor’s most important tools was the compass. This example, by the Pennsylvania instrument maker Benjamin Rittenhouse, is called a “plain compass,” meaning that it cannot compensate for the difference between true north and magnetic north. East and west are reversed on the compass dial to make it easier to read bearings in the field.

ProvenanceBy inheritance from his father to Richard White, Seeley Lake, Montana; [Jeffrey D. Lock, Colonial Instruments, Tallmadge, Ohio]; purchased by MFAH, 2017.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Engraved on lower arm below the dials South compass point: BENJ,ᴺ RITTENHOUSE

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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