On November 22, 1788, the General Court of Massachusetts approved the Academy’s petition to hold a public lottery. Proceeds would go toward the purchase of a unique, grand model of the solar system for Harvard College. Boston clockmaker Joseph Pope, an Academy Member (1788), had worked for twelve years to construct the orrery, a large brass and mahogany working model of the solar system in which the planets and their satellites revolved beneath a glass dome of stars.
In April 1787, the orrery was nearly complete when a major fire tore through Boston and demolished Pope's house and most of his possessions. The orrery was saved, however, by the efforts of a few men who snatched it from the flames and transported it to the house of Governor James Bowdoin, who was also President of the Academy. Bowdoin asked a committee of Fellows to investigate the machine’s scientific merits. The report concluded, “While the ingenuity of the artist, displayed in the workmanship, pleases, the plan itself so perfectly executed, excites admiration.”
The Academy launched a campaign to persuade Harvard College to purchase the device for research use. However, Pope’s asking price of £450 was too high. Members of the Academy voted at its 39th Meeting of the Academy on May 26, 1789 to prepare a petition for the General Court of Massachusetts, for permission to hold a lottery to raise the necessary funds. So many tickets were sold that an extra £71 was collected beyond the required amount; these funds were donated toward additional scientific equipment for Harvard. Today the orrery is on display in Harvard University’s Science Center as part of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments and remains an important example of an early American astronomical apparatus.
Sources
Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2 (1804), pp. 43-45. Minutes of Stated Meeting 34, April 30, 1788. Volume 1, p. 112. Series VII-A: Minutes of Stated Meetings and Related Documents, 1780–1944. Archives, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Minutes of Stated Meeting 39, May 26, 1789. Volume 1, p. 124. ibid.