18th century compass use references?

I have nothing about how they were used, and only a few references to their use.

In the fall of 1756 George Washington, then 21-years-old, as agent of Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, delivered to St. Pierre, commandant of the French forts, Le Boeuf (Waterford) and Venango (Franklin), the protest of Governor Dinwiddie against the encroachment of the French on territory claimed by the English. His guide to and back was Christopher Gist. On the return, Gist made this entry in his diary concerning an unfriendly Indian they had an encounter with: ""Well," said I, "do you go home; and as we are much tired, we will follow your track in the morning; and here is a cake of bread for you, and you must give us meat in the morning." He was glad to get away. I followed him, and listened until he was fairly out of the way, and then we set out about half a mile, when we made a fire, set our compass, and fixed our course, and travelled all night, and in the morning we were on the head of Piney creek."

Volume 1, page 34 of AN HISTORICAL JOURNAL OF THE CAMPAIGNS IN NORTH AMERICA, 1757-1760 by Captain John Knox. Edited by Arthur G. Doughty. 3 volumes. Books for Libraries Press, Freeport, NY, 1970:  Describing Rogers Rangers, Knox said: "...and a leathern, or seal's skin bag, buckled round their waist, which hangs down before, contains bullets, and a smaller shot of the size of full green peas: six or seven of which, with a ball they generally load; and their officers usually carry a small compass fixed in the bottoms of their powder horns, by which to direct them, when they happen to lose themselves in the woods."

Bryan, Wm. S., and Rose, Robert, A History of the Pioneer Families of Missouri, 1876 Vol. 4: "Major Jack A. S. Anderson moved to Kentucky in 1770, then to Missouri. His compass, a bottle of whiskey and his dogs were his inseparable and most beloved companions."  [That date is wrong, first settlement in Kentucky was 1775.]

Virginia Gazette
June 30, 1775 (Supplement) page 2 column 3:
"Run away....had on a home made flax linen shirt, a pair of tow linen trousers, and carried with him a blue home made cloth coat, and a red and yellow silk and cotton waistcoat, buckskin breeches, a racoon hat, a brass mounted long smooth-bore gun, marked on the side plate MM 1769, and on the barrel W. MORGAN, a shotbag and powder-horn, a cannister with 2 lbs. of powder, a falling axe, a pocket compass &c. &c." 

Estwick Evans, A Pedestrian Tour of Four Thousand Miles Through the Western States and Territories During the Winter and Spring of 1818, Early Western Travels, Vol. 8, series, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites: "Around the waist was a belt with a brace of pistols, a dirk, two side cases for pistol balls, and a case of moulds and screw. Also around the waist was buckled an Indian apron which fell behind; it was about eighteen inches square, covered with fine bear skin, trimmed with fur, and having over the lower part of it a net for game. This apron contained a pocket compass, maps, journal, shaving materials, a small hatchet, patent fire works, &c."

Spence

I think perhaps one reason you don't read much about period compass use - at least not in the sense of contemporary orienteering - is that there were few if any maps of the North American interior (coastal / nautical charts excepted) accurate enough to shoot a bearing from. So, if you know a route well enough to know the bearings between way points, then you probably don't need the compass in the first place.

Good point, Keith. I've read Gist's journal and recall that remark about it being dangerous to let yourself be seen with a compass, but hadn't considered that a surveyor's compass might have been used by Washington and Gist on their trip to the French.

Spence

I might recommend several of the period manuals for surveyors. The Practical Surveyor by Hammond or Lawrence's The Young Surveror's Guide. Most of the time a compass was used for surveying rather than navigation as an azimuth would be virtually useless when traveling a serpentine course though dynamic terrain. A simple pocket compass would be enough for keeping ones bearings while ranging. I have seen an original pocket compass with sights that can suffice as a surveying compass as I own an exact repro and have used it in the aforesaid combined with a plain table.

A surveying compass is a rather cumbersome affair requiring the use of a tripod. Most have around a 6 inch engraved silver face, nearly a foot long, sights, and brass body. There are more primitive wooden examples that were less expensive as metal counterparts were very precise hand made instruments. Other instruments that existed by mid 18th c includes theodolites, levels, inclinometers, circumferentors, and plane table. These all usually contained some sort of needle capable of shooting a bearing for cartographic purposes, but would have been overkill for simple navigational purposes.

No one to my knowledge produces a metal Rittenhouse style compass, but wooden versions can be had for the cost of a gun. Pocket compasses are around but I think most are pretty farby. You'd probably be better off to find an original. 18th c faces are subtended into 90° quadrants (ie. North and South are both 0°, East and West are both 90°). When you see Washington write something like N40W, we'd think of that today as a bearing of 320°, a bearing of 100° would have been written as S80E. It makes things super simple.

Land speculation was the period past time; from bounty land, land patents, treaties, and litigation thereof, virtually every land owner had familiarity with surveying. No child of the educated class of the time ever asked "When are we ever going to use this?" during their exposure to algebra, geometry or trig because they were actively learning it in context. Most gentlemen of the time carried an etui containing things like a sector scale, Gunter's scale, two sets of dividers, parallel rule, and possibly a protractor. Washington definately had a Rittenhouse or similar surveying compass on his first expedition towards the Ohio since that was one of the primary objectives.

Kinda late, but I just got through reading the journal of James Kenny in 1761 he said, "I took the courses of the river as we went, by a good pocket compass" thought of this post when I read it.

Nock,
www.jstor.org/stable/20085624?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents