This telescope was originally owned by Francis Asbury Bassett, an engineer who took part in the development of Route 50 through Ohio. It has an achromatic objective, a four-element erecting eye piece, and a three-draw brass body painted green and gold. George Bracher was an optician working in London between 1826 and 1840. Erasmus Kutz was an English immigrant to the U.S. who sold rules and other mathematical instruments.
Ref: Gloria Clifton, Directory of British Scientific Instrument Makers,
1550-1851 (London, 1995), p. 36.
Charles Smart, The Makers of Surveying Instruments in America Since 1700 (Troy, N.Y., 1962), pp. 99-100.
