Telescope (Spy-glass)

Description

This long, tapered 10-sided mahogany wood telescope case encloses a shiny brass draw tube spyglass once belonging to Captain John Paul Jones of the United States Navy. Its design is typical of the achromatic nautical telescopes produced by the English instrument makers whose family name "DOLLOND / LONDON" is engraved on the sliding cover of the lens cap at the wide end. Sometime during the nineteenth century two brass straps were carefully fitted to encircle the case and stabilize cracks in the mahogany, perhaps by 1851 when the telescope was presented as a gift to Samuel Francis du Pont (1803-1865). The dedication engraved at that time preserves its ownership history: "Spy Glass of the celebrated/ J. Paul Jones,/ who gave it to J. Ross,/ whose Son in law S. Breck, presents it to/ S.F. Du Pont,/ of U.S.N./, as a token of his high estimation of/ Capt. Du Pont's public services and/ private virtues./ Phila.\a March 1851."