Note 141 — MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF DAVID RITTENHOUSE; ANTERIOR TO HIS SETTLEMENT IN PHILADELPHIA.

One of these valuable clocks, which is of a large size, with an accurate little planetarium attached to its face and placed above the dial-plate,[141a] was made for the late Mr. Joseph Potts, of Philadelphia county, who paid for it, as the writer is informed, six hundred and forty dollars. In the spring of the year 1774, it was purchased by the late Mr. Thomas Prior, of Philadelphia; to whom, it is said, general Sir William Howe made an offer of one hundred and twenty guineas for it, shortly before the evacuation of that city, in 1778. It is also said, that Don Joseph de Jaudenes, late minister of Spain to the United States, offered Mr. Prior eight hundred dollars for this clock, with a view of presenting it to his sovereign. Mr. Prior, however, retained it until his death, in the spring of the year 1801: after which, it passed through two other hands, successively, into the possession of Professor Barton, of Philadelphia, whose property it now is.