Early North Coast Scientific Instruments

c. 1850 – c. 1950

Richard Paselk, Curator

Shipping Products to Markets

North coast commerce has always had a strong interdependence with the merchant marine to move products and people to and from coastal ports. A variety of scientific instruments are critical to maritime navigation, including the marine compass, lead and line, etc. Displayed is one of the most important and iconic of navigational instruments of the18^th–early 20^th centuries, the vernier sextant. The Sextant was invented in the eighteenth century as an essential tool for solving the longitude problem—finding one’s location at sea.With a sextant and a proper set of tables and charts a trained navigator can determine his/her position at sea anywhere on Earth. Because of the skills required to use the sextant and to mathematically reduce the observations made to give a location, it became the quintessential emblem of the trained navigator and of maritime navigation itself.

The instrument on display was owned by the Captain of a West Coast lumber schooner, The Edward R. West. His last, fatal, voyage began in Eureka, California. In these pages we look at the instrument and some of the story of its owner, Captain Thomas W. Stream.

The Vernier Sextant on display and described below, was owned by Captain Thomas W. Stream (1882–1914), Master of the lumber schooner Edward R. West. This magnificent four masted, 835 ton schooner built in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1902 can be seen loading lumber in the photo on display. Within weeks of receiving the displayed Master's License (Front and Reverse), Captain Stream was lost at sea off Point Arena while taking a cargo of railroad ties from Eureka to Peniente, Peru, as described in the news clipping from the Eureka reporter for the Timberman. Ironically, Stream, along with his new bride and his mother, survived the sinking of the passenger steamship Walla Walla at the same location 12 years earlier.

The sextant is used for the precise determination of latitude and longitude by taking the angle between the sun or star and the horizon or the angular distance between celestial objects such as the moon and a star. The instrument comprises a graduated arc of approximately 1/6th of a circle, which is used to measure angles via a mirror of up to 1/3 of a circle. The sextant was developed to find the longitude at sea via the “lunar distance method” about 1770. It is essentially of the same design as an octant (invented by John Hadley in 1731), but the sextant is more precise (and was thus more expensive) and covers a greater angle (1/3 as opposed to 1/4 of a circle). An image of the sextant with the various components labeled is below.

Description

Brass construction with black oxidized frame, index arm, mirror and filter mountings (all now with a light green patina), bright lacquered telescopes and fittings (the lacquer finish is pitted to varying degrees, except in the case of the long telescope in which the finish is entirely missing), and a polished rosewood handle. The hand engraved, 7 3/8” radius, inlet silver scale is graduated from -5°—145° by 10’ of arc (see image below, figures engraved at 10° graduations and diamonds at 5°). The extended scale on the sextant, rather than just from 0°-120°, is needed to accommodate the vernier. The scale may be read to 10 arc seconds with the vernier scale (see image below), clamp & screw fine movement, and swing out magnifier. The instrument has three horizon glasses (filters) and four index mirror filters built onto the frame. The long telescope (7 1/4” closed) and short wide field telescopes have complete optics. There is also a short telescope barrel (no optics), a shade tube (eyecup missing?), brass ball tipped adjusting pin, and a folding hand magnifier in a tortoise shell (?) case (lens badly chipped). There is an empty place for a telescope eyeshade. The instrument is engraved "english" at the far left of the scale arc, and G.E. Butler, San Francisco. (a nautical instrument dealer still in business in San Francisco, California in the1980's) near the center of the arc (see image below). The accessories etc. can be seen in the photo of the sextant in its case.

Case

The original mahogany case, 10 3/4 x 9 7/8 x 5” is in good condition, with splits at screws/nails at three corners each of the top and bottom panels. The case itself is of hand dovetailed frame construction, with the top held on with brass wood screws and the bottom held on with steel nails.

There is a brass name plate, engraved Stream with many flourishes, set into the top of the lid. The hook catches for the lid are chemically darkened brass, while the handle is age polished. The key is a replacement. Inside the green felt lining is water damaged, the hinge has a red oxide patina, and the lid has been owner modified (gouged out) to allow the wide field telescope to remain in place on the sextant during storage. There are two trade stickers in the lid of the case, one over the other: max kuner co. / nautical instruments / {k-2786|4031}/ chronometer & watchmakers /804 first avenue / Seattle*, and, on top, Northwest / Instrument Co. /Nautical & Surveying instrument makers / 63 Madison St. { N-9588} Seattle, Wash.

† The sextant was purchased, along with his Master's license, from Thomas W. Stream's descendants in 1984 in the San Francisco Bay area. Captain Thomas Stream (1882–1914), "a well known Grays Harbor shipmaster", had a number of close calls in his short career before being lost at sea in January 1914. In January 1902, while in business with his father at the Tacoma Ship Building Company, returning from his wedding in San Francisco, he survived, with his new bride (ne Leonore Kelly of San Francisco) and his mother, Mrs. A.T. Stream, the sinking of the steamer Walla Walla off Point Arena, California. Later he transferred his wife off the the lumber schooner Emma Claudina before the schooner broke up in the surf off Grays Harbor in 1906. In October 1911 Stream and his crew were saved when the 667 ton four masted schooner Oliver J. Olsen was dismasted and blown ashore at Cape Falso, Mexico while bound from Grays Harbor to Guaymas. From the Alien Crew List of this vessel it is apparent that Captain Stream had his wife and young son, Albert on board as well. (from the H.W. McCurdy marine history of the Pacific Northwest [1977] p 248 and documents downloaded from the internet November 2012)

* Max Kuner was located at 804 first avenue (found on advertizements and other documents available on the web, November 2012) from 1917–1930, indicating the sextant was in use after Thomas Stream's loss at sea.

** A Northwest sticker on a 1920 sextant case (on ebay) with a later number (N-9813) was partially under a dated 1942 sticker, the sextant was thus last serviced between 1920 and 1942.

© R. Paselk 2013, Last modified 29 December 2020