Adopt an Artifact: Loyalist's Compass

Wooden surveyor's compass made by William Hart (ca. 1734-1812), an instrument maker of Portsmouth. The compasses listed in Hart's account books (New Hampshire Historical Society) are all for maritime use, but he also made surveyor's compasses. In the late 1770s, he was imprisoned briefly and exiled to Exeter, N.H., for his Loyalist sympathies.