Camill Fauth (1847–1925) was born and raised in Karlsruhe, in southwest
Germany. William Würdemann encouraged him to move to Washington, D.C., in 1870, and to work in his shop. Fauth and his two brothers-in-law, George N. Saegmuller and Henry Lockwood, established their own instrument business on Capitol Hill in 1874, and began trading as Fauth & Co. They made surveying and geodetic instruments for federal agencies, colleges and universities, and state, local, and private surveys, as well as transit instruments and telescope mounts for astronomical observatories. Fauth & Co. won an award at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, and a gold medal at the Cincinnati Industrial Exposition of 1882. In 1887, when Fauth retired and returned to Germany, Saegmuller became manager and sole proprietor of the firm, and began putting serial numbers on Fauth instruments. Saegmuller began trading under his own name in 1892, but kept the Fauth name on the instruments until he moved to Rochester, N.Y., in 1905.
