Isaiah Lukens

Isaiah Quinby Lukens (24 August 1779 – 12 November 1846) was an American clockmaker, gunsmith, machinist, and inventor from southeastern Pennsylvania.[1] He was a founding member and first vice president of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.[2] He was elected to membership in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in June 1812,[3] where he served as curator for multiple decades beginning in 1813.[4] In 1820, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.[5]

Isaiah Quinby Lukens
Daguerreotype of Lukens by Robert Cornelius, 1841
Born(1779-08-24)August 24, 1779
Horsham, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedNovember 12, 1846(1846-11-12) (aged 67)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
CitizenshipUnited States
Occupation(s)Clockmaker, inventor

Lukens was blinded in one eye by "a chip of steel when dressing a grindstone" (c.1816), after which he took Joseph Saxton as his assistant. According to George Escol Sellers, whose father was close friends with Lukens, "he called [Saxton] his pupil, and he did honor to his preceptor".[6]

Early life and family

Lukens was the son of Seneca Lukens and Sarah (Quinby) Lukens, who were married on June 10, 1777.[7] The family was descended from Jan Lucken, who immigrated to the Pennsylvania colony in October 1683, with Daniel Pastorius, and was one of the original settlers of Germantown.[8][2][9] Lukens grew up on his family's farm in Horsham, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and learned from his father to construct clocks and watches.[2] He moved to Philadelphia around 1811.[2]

Personality

George Escol Sellers wrote that he was "naturally of a social disposition, although an impediment in his speech made him appear shy and diffident in ladies' society. He called his shop his wife, and he really loved it."[6]

Scientific activities

Lukens used a telescope with a plössl (symmetrical) eyepiece to observe the solar eclipse on September 18, 1838. His data were compiled with the independent observations of 14 other scientists from Philadelphia, and published in The American Journal of Science and Arts in 1840.[10]

Notable clocks
Lukens clock from Philadelphia, it was still running as of 1925.

Inventions, etc.
  • Lukens Hydrostatic Balance[13]
  • Lukens Odometer[2]
  • De Luc's "electric columns", as modified by Zamboni[14]
  • Surgical instrument for "destroying the stone in the bladder"[15]
  • "Big Medicine", an air gun used by Lewis and Clark during the Corps of Discovery expedition[16]
  • J. D. Graham, surveyor for the U.S. Corps of Topographical Engineers, used a chronometer made by Lukens: "A mean solar chronometer (No. 141), by Isaiah Lukens, of Philadelphia; beats half-seconds. This chronometer runs eight days without winding.g. It was made by Mr. Lukens about the year 1830 or 1831, while on a visit to London. It is one of the earliest chronometers, I know of, made by an American. It is now an excellent time-keeper."[17]
  • Two models of Charles Redheffer's "perpetual motion" machine, the first being deposited in the collection of the Franklin Institute, and the other in the Philadelphia (Peale) Museum[18]
  • Charles Willson Peale's pump at Belfield Farms, described in a letter (November 14, 1814) from Peale to Thomas Jefferson: "some time past I had a well dug in a situation to give Water to my Cattle &c The Ingenious Isaih [sic] Lukens made me a small brass cylender and Boxes to form a pump and also frixion [sic] wheels &c to turn sails to the wind, my wind-mill pumped the Water up in a satisfactory manner, but it was blown down several times, and I make some improvements that prevented the like accidents..."[19]

Contributions to zoology

References
  1. Fox, Elizabeth (2018). Like Clockwork: The Mechanical Ingenuity and Craftsmanship of Isaiah Lukens (1779-1846). District of Columbia, USA: George Washington University. ISBN 978-0-438-30516-8.
  2. Towne, H. R., and Coleman Sellers Jr. (1921). "The Lukens Odometer". Journal of the Franklin Institute. 192 (2): 239–244. doi:10.1016/S0016-0032(21)90927-X.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. Philadelphia, Academy of Natural Sciences of (1877). Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
  4. The United States Medical and Surgical Journal: A Quarterly Magazine of the Homœopathic Practice of Medicine and Medical Science in General. ... . Volume I-IX, 1865-74. 1835.
  5. "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved April 5, 2021.
  6. Sellers, George Escol (August 9, 1884). "Early engineering reminisces". American Machinist. 7 (32): 6.
  7. Anonymous. (1924). "Lukens, Quaker Clock-makers". The Journal of the Friends' Historical Society. 22: 77.
  8. Krefeld Immigrants and Their Descendants. Links Genealogy Publications. 1996.
  9. Hurd, Jill Jean (1989). The Ancestors and Descendants of Jan Lucken. Gateway Press.
  10. "Report of the committee on the solar eclipse". The American Journal of Science and Arts. 38: 158. 1840.
  11. NAWCC Bulletin. National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Incorporated. 2000.
  12. "AP.38.01 Clock, Tall Case". www.philaathenaeum.org. Archived from the original on June 24, 2016. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
  13. Maclure, William; Patterson, R. M.; Lea, I. (1818). "Report of a committee on a new hydrostatic balance, invented by Isaiah Lukens, and submitted to the Academy". Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 1: 260–261.
  14. Hare, Robert (1833). "On the construction of De Luc's Columns as modified by Zamboni: and on the modification of the single leaf Electrometer contrived by the author, by which the possible efficiency of a large electric series, may be ascertained, by testing a small portion of the members of which it is to be constituted. Also on the employment of the same instrument, as an Electrical Discriminator". The American Journal of Science and Arts. 25: 136–139.
  15. English Patents of Inventions, Specifications: 1870, 294 - 351. H.M. Stationery Office. 1857.
  16. Augherton, Tom. "The Mystery of the Great Medicine Gun". True West Magazine. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
  17. Graham, J. D. (1858). "Contributions to Geography, No. 2. On the Latitude and Longitude of Four Additional Positions on Lake Michigan, and of Madison, the Capital of the State of Wisconsin". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 6 (60): 352–388. ISSN 0003-049X. JSTOR 981999.
  18. Cassier's Magazine: An Engineering Monthly. 1895.
  19. Jefferson, Thomas (January 29, 2012). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 8: 1 October 1814 to 31 August 1815 (in Italian). Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-4004-5.
  20. Say, Thomas (1828). "Descriptions of new North American hemipterous insects, belonging to the first family of the section Homoptera of Latreille". Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 6: 239.
  21. Halley, Matthew R. (2018). "Lost tales of American ornithology: Reuben Haines and the Canada Geese of Wyck (1818–1828)" (PDF). Cassinia. 76: 52–63.


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