Isaac Doolittle

Isaac Doolittle
Signature medallion from brass clock face of an Isaac Doolittle hall clock, c. 1770
Born(1721-08-03)August 3, 1721
Wallingford, Connecticut Colony, British America
DiedFebruary 13, 1800(1800-02-13) (aged 78)
New Haven, Connecticut, United States
OccupationEngineer
SpouseSarah Todd
Children9
Parent(s)Joseph and Sarah Doolittle

Isaac Doolittle (August 3, 1721 – February 13, 1800) was an early American clockmaker, inventor, engineer, manufacturer, militia officer, entrepreneur, printer, politician, and brass, iron, and silver artisan. Doolittle was a watchmaker and clockmaker, known for making and selling at his shop in New Haven, Connecticut, one of the first brass wheel hall clocks in America,[1] where he also crafted and sold scientific instruments, and is regarded as "the first native practitioner" of silversmithing in the Connecticut Colony.[2] He was also an engraver and printer of both legal forms and currency, and became the first American to design, manufacture, and sell a printing press in 1769.[3] Somewhat late in life, he became a successful self-educated bell-foundryman, learning the difficult craft of casting large metal bells.

Doolittle was an important figure in the religious life of Connecticut as an Episcopal Churchwarden and co-founder of Trinity Church on the Green in New Haven. Called a "good Whig" by Yale President Ezra Stiles,[4] he was an active Patriot during the American Revolution. Perhaps his most notable contribution is his having designed and crafted in 1775 the moving and brass parts for David Bushnell's submersible vessel Turtle, the first submarine used in combat. In making the watch work triggering mechanism for Bushnell's explosive underwater magazine, Doolittle created the first mechanical time bomb, while his two-blade propeller was the first practical and applied use of a propeller in watercraft.[5][6]

Doolittle was well known in his time as an "ingenious mechanic", or what would be called an engineer today.[7] His many pioneering innovations are associated with the popular notion of Yankee ingenuity, for which he has been called "The First Yankee".[8]

  1. ^ "American Clock Making", Scientific American, Munn & Company, 1896, Volume 74, p. 387
  2. ^ Bohen, Peter, and Hammerslough, Philip, and Eisenbarth, Erin, Early Connecticut Silver, 1700–1840, Wesleyan University Press, 2007, p. xvi
  3. ^ Steiner, Bruce, E., Connecticut Anglicans in the Revolutionary Era: A Study in Communal Tensions, Hartford: American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of Connecticut, 1978, p.23
  4. ^ Stiles, Ezra, The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, ed. Franklin Bowditch Dexter, 3 vols. (C. Scribner’s and Sons, 1901), 3:111.
  5. ^ Stein, Stephen K. The Sea in World History: Exploration, Travel, and Trade [2 volumes], Editor Stephen K. Stein, ABC-CLIO, 2017, Volume 1, p. 600
  6. ^ Manstan, Roy R.; Frese, Frederic J., Turtle: David Bushnell's Revolutionary Vessel, Yardley, Pa: Westholme Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59416-105-6. OCLC 369779489, 2010, pp. xiii, 52, 53
  7. ^ Morgan, William James, and Clark, William Bell, and Crawford, Michael J., Naval documents of the American Revolution, Volume 1, Naval History Division, Dept. of the Navy, 1964, Letter from Benjamin Gale of Yale from Killingsworth to Benjamin Franklin, August 7, 1775, p. 1089
  8. ^ Olsen, Neil C. “Isaac Doolittle: The First Yankee.” Connecticut History Review, vol. 59, no. 2, 2020, pp. 38–71. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/connhistrevi.59.2.0038. Accessed 19 Feb. 2021.