Boat compass in wooden Binnacle box

1000.166.1191

Boat compass in wooden Binnacle box

Object, Water Transporation, Ship's Compass

Used by Wilfred S. Trussell and Harvey Everett Bulger. Tool, boat compass in wooden binnacle box with window (brass, wood, paper, iron and glass). Compass card diameter 3.5", gimbal ring 5", interior box: 6.25" x 6.25"; exterior box: 7" x 11" x 8.5" H. North arrow has fleur d' lis motif. Compass was used by Wilfred S. Trussell (1869-1911) and/or Harvey (Harry) Everett Bulger (b.1883-d.<1911), who were husbands of Sadie Anna Harding (b.1879- d. after 1911) who once lived in the Cox now Dalton house (2016) on GCI. Sadie Harding married Trussell 1898 and Bulger 1919. No visible manufacturer or maker marks. Ralph Stanley examined this compass 2016 and believes it's a liquid (alcohol) compass after locating the corroded nut covering the fill-hole in the rim of the compass bowl. He also noted the quadrant markings on the sides of the compass. Per Stanley, Trussell had a sloop and this type of compass was used in boats of that size. It may indeed have been the compass that guided Trussell home during one particular storm (see Stanley's forthcoming book 2017). Stanley thinks it's a liquid compass about 100 years old and could have been purchased at any local marine goods store, but the box was specially made perhaps by Leslie Rice. Michael Macfarlan believes this could be a Ritchie compass and the hole in the wooden case with the shield above it would have been for a battery-powered light (not a candle). One or two large batteries would have been housed in the box's rear compartment. (Box hardware is too corroded to remove and investigate.) Stanley believes a wire to the light would have been wired to the engine. By email 2016, Ben Fuller at Penobscott Marine Museum suggests this compass would be suitable for small schooner or sloop large enough to be sailed at night, suggesting the Smithsonian's NMAH website: amhistory.si.edu/navigation/type.cfm?typeid=3 for further investigation. NMAH Website states: "Simple marine compasses have a magnetized needle attached to the bottom of a paper card, and are inherently unstable. Since the 1850s, scientists and instrument makers have struggled to solve this problem. One solution, pioneered by E. S. Ritchie in the United States, was to float the magnetic needle in a bowl of liquid...." (For genealogy see 2016.337.2103 Index p. 3 and p. 15, records p. 400 and 400A) (See also 2015.350.2115 for possible photo of Wilfred Trussel.)

Wood

Cranberry Isles