EXCERPTS FROM VERMONT FIRSTS AND OTHER CLAIMS TO FAME
BY RICHARD B . SMITH
First Globe Factory
James Wilson was born in Londonderry , New Hampshire , on March 15 , 1763 . He became a farmer and blacksmith , and at age thirty-two , he moved to Vermont .
Sometime in the late 1790s , he had a life-changing experience when he visited Dartmouth College . Captivated by a pair of English-made terrestrial and celestial globes , he decided that he could make better ones in the United States . First , he would need to overcome a few major problems : he knew nothing about engraving , geography , or astronomy .
To learn geography and astronomy , he bought an Encyclopedia Britannica from a neighbor in Vermont . To learn the skill of engraving , he went on foot to see Amos Doolittle in Connecticut , who had engraved two maps in Jedediah Morse ’ s 1784 Geography Made Easy . Wilson learned from Doolittle the basics of engraving on copper and then walked back to Bradford .
He had learned the blacksmith trade ; therefore , he did nearly everything himself . He made his own tools , lathes , presses , ink , glue and varnish . He designed all of his own maps with some advice from Jedediah Morse , who was known as the “ father of American geography .”
He started to produce globes in his blacksmith shop , which became the first “ globe manufactory .” Luckily , three of his children — Samuel , John and David — were teenagers and anxious to help . James Wilson would , in his lifetime , have fourteen children . Apparently , his first globe sold was in 1810 . Records are scarce , but he may have sold a few globes prior to 1810 . One of his first models was solid wood . Shortly after that first globe sale , Wilson sold over twenty-five more . He produced the first “ perfected ” artificial globe in 1811 . Besides the globes , he also had other commercial engraving businesses . These businesses helped support him while his globe business grew .
Around 1815 , he expanded his globe business to Albany , New York . He opened an Albany “ manufactory ” at 110 Washington Street under the title James Wilson & Sons . The Albany manufactory was essentially run by his sons , but the main factory was kept in Bradford .
He would go on to develop and sell planetariums . James Wilson died at age ninety-two . Of his ninety-two years , he lived in Vermont for almost fifty-nine years and ran his business from his Bradford globe factory .
His home in Bradford is marked with a Vermont Division of Historic Preservation marker , and though there was a large handmade globe made in St . Albans in 1811 , the credit for the first perfected globe , and globe factory in the United States , goes to James Wilson .
30 VERMONT MAGAZINE