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Comparatively speaking, the greater proportion of the early American instrument makers were native born. Among these were to be found a substantial number of artisans trained as clockmakers who subsequently produced scientific instruments to meet the surveying and nautical needs of their communities. Together with the other craftsmen throughout the colonies who established and advertised themselves specifically as instrument makers, they produced a large number of the mathematical instruments used in the American Colonies in the 18th century. A careful study of their regional distribution reveals that most of them were concentrated in the major coastal cities of commerce.

Figure 15.—James Wilson, first American maker of globes. From a sketch by John Ross Dix in Ballou's Pictorial Drawing Room Companion (Boston, 1857), vol. 12, p. 156.