February 6, 2024 Marks 220 Years Since the Death of Joseph Priestley

We last visited the gravesite of Joseph Priestley in Northumberland, PA, on February 6, 2004, on the commemoration of the 200 years since his death.
If you're interested to see the post on the event click here.

The John Proctor Sundial of 1644

Photograph Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum In May 1907, the Essex Institute of Salem, Massachusetts reported that they had received a sundial as a gift from Abel Proctor, formerly belonging to one of his ancestors, John Proctor, the witchcraft victim (Salem Witchcraft Trials, 1692).   This is an example of one of the earliest known American sundials.

John Proctor lived with his wife Elizabeth in what is now Peabody,  Massachusetts. They were respected farmers and keepers of a  tavern. Mary Warren, one of the "afflicted girls" of Salem Village  was a servant in the Proctor household. Early in 1692, Proctor  had been an outspoken critic of the witchcraft proceedings and  of the antics of the Village girls. He and his wife were accused of  witchcraft and sent to prison. Both were convicted of witchcraft,  and John was hanged on August 19. Elizabeth, who was found to  be pregnant, was spared execution and outlived the 1692 hysteria.  The story of the Proctors was later made famous by Arthur Miller in  his play "The Crucible." The "Proctor" sundial is 12 inches to the side, and the gnomon  reaches 6 inches above the dial at its highest point.  It is inscribed  with the date "1644". In 1995 I decided to make a reproduction of this sundial with some  notable changes.  First, since I had every intention of using the  sundial and I wanted to use it in a vertical position, I reversed the  order of the numerals, with progressing time going from the right  side counterclockwise to the left.  Next, I decided to make a more  elaborate gnomon.  The final change that I made was I adjusted the  spacing of the hour marks for the latitude where it was intended to  be used.  I also did not puncture the surface for the mounting rivets.  The image below is the reproduction Proctor Sun Dial that I made.  It is in my garden.

Sahasra Purna Chandrodayam and Other Celebrations of the 80th Year

In Sandskrit sahasra means 1000, purna means full, and chandrodayam means dawn of moon.  Sahasra Purna Chandrodayam is a special occasion and celebration organized for an elderly member of the family who has witnessed 1000 full moon days during their lifetime. This is a Hindu custom in India. The 1000th full moon of a person's life occurs when they are approximately 80 years and 9 months old.  The celebration is meant to provide mental and physical strength to a person in their old age and to encourage them to pursue spiritual liberation from all problems in this life.

I hope to celebrate my Sahasra Purna Chandrodayam on December 21, 2024. This particular date also happens to be the date of the Winter Solstice.  The day when the sun rises the least in the sky during the year. I will be also, therefore, celebrating my 80th Winter Solstice.

In Japan, Sanju, a person's 80th birthday, is so called because the character “san” (傘) contains the characters for eight (八) and ten (十). Both sanju and beiju (88) are celebrated by wearing gold, giving thanks, and wishing for more happy years for the person. I have already celebrated Sanju.

HMS Rose

The Frigate HMS ROSE reproduction (courtesy of Fine Model Ships)

In 1969, shortly after our honeymoon in Mexico, my wife and I traveled with our 1967 Volvo from Central Illinois to Nova Scotia, Canada, on an extended vacation.  We had our 1949 Grumman aluminum canoe mounted on the car's roof rack and traveled the full extent of Nova Scotia from the Cape Bretton Highlands Provincial Park in the North, through most of the coastal ocean communities on the Southeastern side of the peninsula, through Halifax, where the Commonwealth Games were being celebrated, and then further Southeast through Lunenburg and out to Oak Island, and then over to the Port-Royal National Historic Site on the Bay of Fundy and many other places in between.

It was while we were in Lunenburg that we first encountered the construction of the reproduction of the Frigate HMS Rose at the Smith and Rhuland shipyard located there.  The original HMS Rose was a 20 gun frigate of the British Navy, built in Hull, England in 1757. She served in the Channel, the Caribbean, and in North America.  Her activities in suppressing smuggling in the colony of Rhode Island provoked the formation of what became the Continental Navy, the precursor of the modern United States Navy. She was based at the North American station in the West Indies and then used by the British in the American Revolutionary War. She was scuttled in the harbor of Savannah, Georgia in 1779.

The replica of the HMS Rose we saw under construction in 1969 was built based upon the original British Admiralty plans with some modifications to make her handle better, and she launched from Lunenberg in 1970. She was used for display and sail training until about 1984. Thereafter, she was sold and her homeport was moved to Captain's Cove in Bridgeport, CT, in anticipation of her use in the Operation Tall Ships as part of the 1976 United States Bicentennial Celebration, and displayed as a museum ship and used for sail training. I encountered her again at her Captain's Cove berth and toured her for the first time shortly after she arrived at Captain's Cove.  In 2001 she was purchased by 20th Century Fox Studios and sailed to San Diego, CA, where she was refitted as a reproduction of the HMS Surprise and was used to make two movies: “Master and Commander: Far Side of the World” starring Russell Crowe, and "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides"

In 2007, she was sold to the San Diego Maritime Museum and reconstructed and used for sailing.

The 250th Anniversary of the discovery of Oxygen

 

Dr. Sliderule at Joseph Priestley's Laboratory at Bowood House,

the site of the isolation of the gas element Oxygen by Priestley

on August 1, 1774

On August 1, 2024, we will celebrate a momentous event in the history of science, the 250th Anniversary of the isolation of the element Oxygen.

Joseph Priestley was in the laboratory he had constructed at Bowood House in Wiltshire, England on August 1, 1774.  He was the librarian and tutor for the Earl of Shelburne. Priestley, a Unitarian Minister and polymath was already well known for his scientific and other scholarly work in many diverse disciplines.

 
However, Priestley’s most important and lasting contribution to science is based upon the discovery he made on this date at this location when he obtained a colorless gas by heating red mercuric oxide. He found that a candle would burn and that a mouse would thrive in this gas in a closed container.  He called it “dephlogisticated air,” based upon the belief that ordinary air became saturated with phlogiston once it could no longer support combustion and life.  The phlogiston theory was originally postulated by the German chemist, Georg Ernst Stahl (22 October 1659 – 24 May 1734), and has subsequently been discredited.

The following October, Priestley accompanied his patron, Lord Shelburne, on a tour through Belgium, Holland, Germany, and France, when in Paris Priestley informed the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier how he obtained the new “air.” This meeting between the two scientists was highly significant for the future of chemistry. Lavoisier immediately repeated Priestley’s experiments and, between 1775 and 1780, conducted intensive investigations from which he derived the elementary nature of oxygen, recognized it as the “active” principle in the atmosphere, interpreted its role in combustion and respiration, and gave it its name. Lavoisier’s pronouncements of the activity of oxygen revolutionized chemistry.

To see a video on this subject see this link.

Joseph Priestley Online

 I have to let everyone out there who is interested in scholarly research of Joseph Priestley know that I have discovered a website that has almost everything you might want to know about where to find out something about Joseph Priestley, whether it be a work written by Joseph Priestley or a work written about him.  And, wherever possible, a link to an online version of the reference is also given.  The site is named Joseph Priestley Online. and can be found at JosephPriestley.org.  The site has been organized by and is maintained by Andrew Burd-Harris.

This site is a work in progress. Obviously, as new works are written about Priestley, they will be added to the compilation, and for the occasional omission of a past work that is discovered, it will also be added.

Thank you for all your hard work, Andrew!

The House of Joseph Priestley

 The House of Joseph Priestley (reprinted from Science Magazine, November 27, 1919, p. 495)

The original house and laboratory of Dr. Joseph Priestley, the great chemist who discovered oxygen in 1774, and came twenty years later to America, which is located on the banks of the Susquehanna River, at Northumberland, Pa., was purchased recently by graduate students of the Pennsylvania State College, who plan to move it to the campus and make it a lasting memorial.

Upon learning that the Priestley homestead, which was built in 1794-1796, was to be put up at public auction, the Penn State chemists sent as their representative to the sale Dr. G. G. Pond, dean of the School of Natural Science at the college.  He was successful in making the purchase, and the historic mansion will be preserved.

Architects from the college will at once make the necessary surveys preparatory to the work of moving the Priestley house to the campus at State College. The house is of frame, and painting has kept the woodwork in a remarkable state of preservation, so that it may be possible to rebuild the greater part of the structure from the present lumber.  Immense pine timbers used in the framework are as good as new and the old-fashioned interior decorations -- arched doorways, fireplaces, and stairways -- are in such condition that they can be removed and replaced with comparative ease.

While the purchase of the house has been made by Dr. Pond for the Penn State chemistry alumni, who are scattered to all parts of the country, funds for its removal and erection on the college campus will be supplied by an as yet unnamed donor.  Actual work of removal will probably be started in the spring.  Northumberland is about sixty miles from State College, at the intersection of the north and west branches of the Susquehanna.

The reconstruction on the college campus will be along the old architectural lines, but modernized and adapted to some suitable use by the school of Natural Science, according to present plans.  The house is an old landmark in Northumberland county, and can be seen on the outskirts of the town from trains on the Pennsylvania Railroad passing Northumberland.  It is a two-story structure, with capacious attic space.  It is about 45 X  50 feet, with a projection at each end about 25 feet square.  One of those was the kitchen and the other the workshop, or laboratory, in which Priestley pursued his scientific study and experiments.

[Note:  The Priestley House was never moved from the original site in Northumberland county despite the best intentions of the alumni from Penn State.  However, the purchase did allow the Priestley House to be preserved-- Dr. Sliderule]