Henry Fitz Jr.
Fitz, circa 1840-42 daguerreotype
Born	(1808-12-31)31 December 1808 Newburyport, Massachusetts, USA
Died	7 November 1863(1863-11-07) (aged 54)
Resting place	New York City, USA
Occupation	businessman
Known for	manufacturer of telescopes, early photography
Spouse	Julia Ann Wells ​ (m. 1844)​

Henry Fitz Jr. (December 31, 1808 - November 7, 1863) was an American engineer, scientist, locksmith, optician, inventor and a pioneer of photography in the United States.

Personal life

Fitz was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts on December 31, 1808.^[1] He married Julia Ann Wells of Southold, Long Island in June 1844.^[2]

Maria Mitchell in Vassar College Observatory June 1878 using a telescope made by Fitz^[3]

Henry Fitz 1850 shop advertisement

Henry Fitz's workshop reconstructed at Smithsonian Institution at their Museum of American History

Career and death

After returning from a trip in Europe in December 1839, he entered partnership with Alexander Wolcott and John Johnson to solve the problem of making daguerreotype portraits. Johnson fell ill, however, and work only resumed in January 1840. These experiments led Wolcott to patent a special mirror camera.

Wolcott and Johnson opened the first photo studio in the world in March 1840. Fitz opened his own daguerreotype studio in Baltimore in June 1840. A group of daguerreotypes, from the early experimentation with Wolcott and Johnson as well as later studio portraits, were discovered and sold at auction in 2021.^[4]

Fitz’s telescope business was highly profitable, so in 1863, he started construction of a new house. However, he died suddenly on November 7, 1863.^[5] Obituaries report that his demise was from tuberculosis.^[6] Before his final illness, he was about to sail for Europe to select a glass for a 24-inch (610 mm) telescope and to procure patents for a camera involving a new form of lens.^[7]

References

• Peter Abrahams (1994). "Henry Fitz, 19th Century American Telescope Maker". Journal of the Antique Telescope Society. 6: 6. Fitz was the first important American telescope maker because his pioneering techniques of local correction of poor-quality glass allowed him to construct the largest American made refractor on five different occasions.
• "Museum gets tools of telescope maker". Chattanooga Daily Times. Chattanooga, Tennessee. October 16, 1959. p. 31. Archived from the original on July 17, 2021. Retrieved April 12, 2021 – via Newspapers.com .
• "American Telescopes". The Observer. 11 (142): 395. 1888. Henry Fitz, of New York, is credited with being the first American who obtained special distinction for the manufacture of refractors; he constructed 30 with object-glasses varying from 6 to 16 inches (410 mm) in diameter.
• "Astronomical Instruments in the United States". The Griffith Observer. 50: 9. 1986. attributes the initial rise of the American observatory - building movement to the American telescope - maker Henry Fitz ( 1808-1863 ) and he seems to be right. Fitz made big telescopes, setting the record five times for constructing the largest refractor ever made in the U.S
• "Where Timeis Made". Pittsburgh Dispatch. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. April 21, 1889. p. 17. Archived from the original on July 17, 2021. Retrieved April 13, 2021 – via Newspapers.com .
• "Erskine to present historic 1849 Henry Fitz Telescope to the S.C. State Museum". The Index-Journal. Greenwood, South Carolina. September 18, 1985. p. 9. Archived from the original on July 17, 2021. Retrieved April 11, 2021 – via Newspapers.com .
• "Stargazer restores Erskine's classic telescope". The Greenville News. Greenwood, South Carolina. October 9, 1983. p. 25. Archived from the original on July 17, 2021. Retrieved April 12, 2021 – via Newspapers.com .
• "Historic telescope". The Index-Journal. Greenwood, South Carolina. May 13, 1984. p. 5. Archived from the original on July 17, 2021. Retrieved April 13, 2021 – via Newspapers.com .
• "Alfred students 'See Stars'". Democrat and Chronicle. Rochester, New York. December 25, 1966. p. 20. Archived from the original on July 17, 2021. Retrieved April 13, 2021 – via Newspapers.com .
• "Study of the stars at Alfred University a thing of the past, is now Resurrected". Wellsville Daily Reporter. Wellsville, New York. December 24, 1966. p. 3. Archived from the original on July 17, 2021. Retrieved April 13, 2021 – via Newspapers.com .
• Fried, Bart (2009). "The History of Erard Matthiessen's 8" Henry Giles Fitz Refractor". Telescopes & Reflectors. Poloris Interactive. Archived from the original on April 11, 2021. Retrieved April 11, 2021.
• "Early Telescope Maker Honored". The Baltimore Sun. Baltimore, Maryland. January 24, 1960. p. 48. Archived from the original on July 17, 2021. Retrieved April 11, 2021 – via Newspapers.com .

Sources

• English, Neil (2013). Classic telescopes : a guide to collecting, restoring, and using telescopes of yesteryear. New York, NY: Springer. ISBN 978-1-4614-4424-4. OCLC 809794115.
• Lankford, John (1997). History of astronomy : an encyclopedia. New York: Garland Pub. ISBN 0-8153-0322-X. OCLC 35042300.
• Smithsonian Institution (1877). Bulletin. United States Printing Office. OCLC 761267914.
• Smithsonian Institution (2019). Smithsonian American women : remarkable objects and stories of strength, ingenuity, and vision from the National Collection. Jill Lepore, Michelle Anne Delaney, Victoria Pope, Christine Schrum, Nancy Bercaw, Lisa Kathleen Graddy. Washington, DC: United States Printing Office. ISBN 978-1-58834-665-0. OCLC 1084632898.
• United States National Museum (1962). Development of the Electrical Technology in Nineteenth Century. Smithsonian Institution. OCLC 988840144.