John Flamsteed and Hawkins Family History

Astronomer John Flamsteed, Fellow of the Royal Society (1646-1719)

In a previous posting, I wrote about the Little Ice Age, and the harsh New England winters that the early Hawkins family endured. What follows here expands somewhat on that same thread, by highlighting a number of interesting chronological intersections between the early days of the Hawkins family in Derby, the life of British Astronomer John Flamsteed, and that period of extreme global cooling known as the Little Ice Age.

I've synthesized all the information below from the contents of two Wikipedia pages on the Maunder Mimimum, and John Flamsteed, respectively, and recorded Hawkins family history. Enjoy!

• The middle (and coldest) part of the Little Ice Age coincided with the Maunder Minimum, a period of observed minimal sunspot activity, that occurred from 1645 to 1715. Whether or not there is a scientific connection between these two events is currently being debated.


• The year 1670, the same year that the Hawkins homestead was established in Derby, Connecticut, was the lowest point in the Maunder Minimum. Astronomers recorded no sunspots at all that year.


• In 1674, while the first Hawkins house was probably under construction, astronomer John Flamsteed, of Derbyshire, England, spent two months at Cambridge and heard Isaac Newton deliver his Lucasian Lectures. Isaac Newton was born, by the way, in 1643, less than one year after the birth of Joseph Hawkins. Newton and Hawkins could be said to have lived fairly parallel lives, going through their most significant life phases roughly at the same time, until Hawkins' untimely death in 1682, at age forty. (Of course, it seems absolutely certain, that neither man had any knowledge of the other.)


• In March of 1675, two months prior to the founding of Derby, Connecticut, Flamsteed was appointed the first British Astronomer Royal. Derby, Connecticut was named after Derby, Derbyshire, England, by the way, and Flamsteed was a graduate of the Derby School in Derbyshire.


• In June of 1675, the month following the founding of Derby, Connecticut, the Royal Greenwich Observatory was established, with Flamsteed laying the foundation stone that August.


• Flamsteed's residence at the Observatory was from July of 1676 until 1684, more or less coinciding with the height of Hawkins family activity in Derby, Connecticut, until Joseph Hawkins' death in 1682.


• A modern analysis of Flamsteed's observations reveal that the sun's rotation may have actually slowed down during the lowest period of the Maunder Minimum (which, of course, hit its own local minima in 1670).


• Joseph and Abigail Hawkins, and their children, in addition to enduring some of the harshest New England winters in history, may have frequently observed auroras during their early years together in Derby. All this owing to the sun's activity during the Maunder Minimum.

So...is all of this historical concurrency merely coincidental? Or have I stumbled across a few, exposed portions of some profound cosmic thread slowly revealing itself over a very long period of time? I think I'll leave it up to the readers to decide for themselves....

"February," de Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, c. 1410

Timbering, Part II -- The Ultimate Cradle for Hewing a Log

Despite the wind and subfreezing temperatures, I continued working outside on my Roubo workbench project this past Saturday. Even though this maple section is large in diameter, I decided to raise it a bit higher to make the hewing process that less tiring. So I raised it and placed four additional 6x6x4 blocks under the existing ones, then tied the upper and lower blocks together with 10" lag screws:

Next, I cut four wedges from a 4x6 post, placed each of a pair of wedges on opposing sides of the upper-most blocks, and similarly fastened them down with lag screws. A bit hard to describe in words, but easy enough to glean from these photographs (the photo on the right, below, shows the opposing wedges; whack one of the support elements with a large sledgehammer in the direction of the log, and the log is then locked between the wedges):

What resulted from this relatively simple effort was a surprisingly stable and adjustable cradle for hewing (stable, that is, with the addition of a cross brace joining two of the pairs of blocks -- not shown in the above photos). A few solid taps from a sledge hammer on opposite ends of each pair of blocks either nudges the wedges up against the log, or away from the log to release it. And even though each pair of joined blocks is a bit heavy, the cradle as a whole should prove fairly easy to transport. So I've created the ultimate cradle for hewing logs! YEAH! (Well, at least for my purposes, anyway). Next step will be laying out scoring lines. Stay tuned, and I'll try to maintain my composure... :-)

Note: Since I initially began construction of this cradle back in the snowy winter, I've written a more comprehensive article describing the final cradle product and how it is used. You can find that article here.

Conjunction of the Moon and Venus

There was a spectacular conjunction of the crescent Moon and Venus this past Friday (January 30th) evening. The two hung together like a clock face and pendulum through out much of the early evening, steadily descending the western sky, until the Moon finally set around 9:40PM EST.



I took the above photo from my front porch, around 6PM. Not too bad, I suppose, for a relatively simple digital camera on a small tripod.

This conjunction will occur again on Friday, February 27th, 2009, with an even brighter, and somewhat crescented, Venus.

Fundamental Laws of Thermodynamics

A true engineer not only understands the thermal properties of snow, but also knows how to exploit them to accomplish useful work...



Have a great weekend, everybody!

Little Book Case

This afternoon, I dropped in at Books by the Falls, on Route 34, in Derby, and picked up this very small book case. Books by the Falls, by the way, is something of a local landmark, a seller of old and rare books, and antique furniture, located in a former nineteenth century factory building. Interestingly enough, the owner was telling me that he sells book cases more than just about anything else. He certainly has a great many of them in his shop. Definitely consider heading down there if you're looking for one!



This book case was just right -- it filled up an empty space along a wall that was just crying out for a small accent piece. The chamfers along the edges of the shelves are very intriguing. Anyone care to guess why they're there? My guess is that this book case was made from wood that previously served some other purpose. I've always been fascinated by the re-purposing of architectural wood, and there certainly is no shortage of examples here at the Hawkins House!

Timbering!

For me, this really is what it's all about (or at least, should be). Whenever I find myself pontificating too much on window treatments, or gardening, or celestial events, it's usually because I've momentarily drifted too far away from the mechanical arts. And now, a postponed workbench project seems to be calling me back again!


Above left: The maple section for the bench top. I am not particularly worried about the crotch -- let it contribute to the irregular, roughly-hewn outline of the bench top. And I am not too concerned about checks in the wood, either. Above right: Cutting a kerf around one of the posts.

Back in the fall, I removed an old silver maple that was in danger of falling, and saved the largest, clearest sections of the trunk for a future project: A hand-hewn workbench, modeled generally on the Roubo bench, which is an eighteenth century French design. The Roubo is a minimalistic joyner's bench and features a very heavy slab for a top. (An example can be seen here).

So, where on earth does one find, say, a 5" thick hardwood slab, of just about the right width and length? Well, I just happen to have one! Only I need to liberate it from one of the larger maple sections. Although I had started this project back in the fall, more pressing things crept into my schedule, making it necessary for me to put this project off for a while. However, the recent clear winter days have motivated me (despite the severe cold snap) to go back outside and re-start this effort.

Above left: My antique cross-cut saw. Above right: Using it to complete the cut in the post.

Today, I set out to get the maple section properly cradled in preparation for hewing. I cut two 6x6x8 posts of pressure treated pine in half to use as the basis for a good, stable cradle. Having two 6x6x4 "blocks" at each end means that one of them can serve as a stable lifting surface (i.e., using a log jack) while working-in large wedges between the log and top of the neighboring block. My 7-1/4" circular saw wasn't quite big enough, of course, to completely cut the post, so I just cut a kerf around the center of each post, and used a hand saw to finish the cut.

Then, I moved the maple section on top of the blocks using a peavy, and placed a few temporary wedges underneath it. My next step will be to more precisely angle the log, and then completely stabilize it, prior to marking the cutting lines. But this was just the right amount of effort to make for a nice break on a sunny, winter afternoon, and accomplish something both useful and fun.

Above left: The maple section cradled, sans some final angling and additional wedges/shims prior to laying-out the scoring lines. Above right: My Iltis single-bit felling axe is really sweet -- who cares if it's not exactly a traditional pattern? I'll be using it to score the log.

Wintertime Window Treatments

The emerging, de facto standard at the Hawkins House for winter curtains (yes, winter curtains) is the use of heavy linen drawback festoons. Modeled after early (eighteenth century) colonial window coverings that were once made from a variety of materials, including tobacco cloth, these modern day equivalents have a traditional look, while featuring a nicely hidden drawstring on the back of the curtain that allows you to gather the material up on either the left or right side.


Drawback festoon in a linen and black checked pattern

But one of the nicest benefits of these curtains is their draft-blocking ability. Although not insulated, they are very heavy, and they seem to do a pretty good job keeping my drafty old windows from becoming a real nuisance. Even when I eventually get the windows sealed better, they will still offer a big advantage, serving as heavy barriers between the relatively cold panels of glass, and the relatively warmer air circulating through the room.

These early style festoons are made in a very old, family-run, textile mill in South Carolina. But you can buy them through a number of sources, including The Primitive Cellar, Farmhouse Primitives (both of whom also carry tobacco cloth and tea-dyed drawback curtains of several different styles), and Piper Classics.


Linen-on-linen festoons in the hall chamber; when I want to maximize light flow through a southerly facing window, so as to warm a room up, I fold the drawback curtain up over the rod like this (all the more reason for hanging them from rods, although purists might insist on suspending them from thin lines)

When spring returns, these guys will be taken down and put away, to be replaced with a variety of light-weight swags, or in some rooms, traditional fishtail swags. I also need to install some roller shades in the front windows, because the summer time UV assault through these windows in the late afternoon is unforgiving, and is really starting to do a number on some articles in these rooms.