The Daniel S. Schanck Observatory is an historical

astronomical observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysics, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. Th ...

on the Queens Campus of

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

New Brunswick, New Jersey New Brunswick is a city (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Kirkpatrick Chapel The Sophia Astley Kirkpatrick Memorial Chapel, known as Kirkpatrick Chapel, is the chapel to Rutgers University, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey and located on the university's main campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey in the United ...

, and to the northeast of

Old Queens Old Queens is the oldest extant building at Rutgers University and is the symbolic heart of the university's campus in New Brunswick in Middlesex County, New Jersey in the United States. Rutgers, the eighth-oldest college in the United States, w ...

and Geology Hall. The two-story observatory was designed by architect Willard Smith in the Roman Revival style and modeled after the

Tower of the Winds The Tower of the Winds, known as the in Greek, and by #Names, other names, is an octagonal Pentelic marble tower in the Roman Agora in Athens, named after the eight large reliefs of wind gods around its top. Its date is uncertain, but was compl ...

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, which dates from 50 BC. The cornerstone of the Observatory was placed in 1865 and construction was completed in 1866, making it tied for the seventh oldest observatory in the U.S. (alongside the

Vassar College Observatory The Vassar College Observatory is an astronomical observatory of the private Vassar College, located near the eastern edge of the Poughkeepsie (town), New York, Poughkeepsie, New York (state), New York college's campus. Finished in 1865, it was ...

). It was named after New York City businessman Daniel S. Schanck, who donated a large portion of the funds to construct and equip the observatory. Outfitted with

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption, or Reflection (physics), reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally, it was an optical instrument using len ...

clock A clock or chronometer is a device that measures and displays time. The clock is one of the oldest Invention, human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month, a ...

s, and other scientific equipment donated to Rutgers, the Schanck Observatory served as the university's first building of science and was used to provide instruction to its students from the mid-nineteenth through the late-twentieth centuries. As part of the Queens Campus, the Schanck Observatory was included on the

New Jersey Register of Historic Places The New Jersey Register of Historic Places is the official list of historic resources of local, state, and national interest in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The program is administered by the New Jersey's state historic preservation office wit ...

and the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1973. It was last used by the faculty to teach astronomy in 1979. The building was renovated in 2016 through a joint project of The Cap & Skull Society, an honors and service organization at Rutgers, and the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, and is jointly managed by them. The scientific centerpiece of the observatory, a 150-mm (6-inch) equatorial refractor telescope manufactured by Georges Prin of Paris and donated to Rutgers College by John Wyckoff Mettler in 1929, was restored to operation during 2016-2018 through the efforts of Rutgers alumni, friends of the university, and Rutgers' Department of Physics and Astronomy. Since the completion of the renovation of the building, alumni and volunteers have hosted daytime guided tours of the historic observatory and vintage telescope on special occasions, such as Rutgers Day.

History, architecture, and use

In 1864, Rutgers College was named New Jersey's sole

land grant college A land-grant university (also called land-grant college or land-grant institution) is an institution of higher education in the United States designated by a state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890, or a beneficiary ...

which provided federal funding under the

Morrill Act of 1862 The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges in U.S. states using the proceeds from sales of federally owned land, often obtained from Native American tribes through treaty, cession ...

for the development of engineering, scientific, agricultural, and military education.McCormick, Richard P. ''Rutgers: A Bicentennial History''. (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1966). Previously, the college's curriculum focused on the classics and liberal arts. David Murray (1830–1905), professor of mathematics, natural philosophy and astronomy, proposed building the school's first

to the college's president, William Henry Campbell (1808–1890), and its

board of trustees A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

.Robbins, Allen B.
History of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1771–2000
'. (Baltimore: Gateway Press, 2001). Retrieved December 16, 2013. It would be the college's fourth building and the first building dedicated solely to science at Rutgers. The cost of construction and equipment amounted to US$6,166 (2013: US$86,845.07), of which US$2,400 (2013: US$33,802.82) was donated by Daniel S. Schanck (1812–1872).David Murray (compiler).
A Memorial of Rev. William Henry Campbell, D.D., LL.D. Late President of Rutgers College
'. (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Trustees of Rutgers College, 1894), 45–47. Retrieved December 16, 2013. Schanck, a New York City businessman with roots in

Monmouth County, New Jersey Monmouth County () is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is bordered to its west by Mercer and Middlesex Counties, to its south by Ocean County, to its east by the Atlantic Ocean, and to its north ...

, was not an alumnus of the college, but was convinced to donate after being approached by friends of the college. Several years later, his son, Daniel S. Schanck (1853–1901), would enroll in the college's scientific course, and earn a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

(Sc.B) in 1875. In 1865, the trustees hired architect Willard Smith who provided a plan for a small two-story octagonal Roman Revival building designed after the

, a first-century BC structure located in the

agora The agora (; , romanized: ', meaning "market" in Modern Greek) was a central public space in ancient Ancient Greece, Greek polis, city-states. The literal meaning of the word "agora" is "gathering place" or "assembly". The agora was the center ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

that housed an ancient

water clock A water clock, or clepsydra (; ; ), is a timepiece by which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into (inflow type) or out from (outflow type) a vessel, and where the amount of liquid can then be measured. Water clocks are some of ...

and

sundial A sundial is a horology, horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the position of the Sun, apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the ...

.Works Progress Administration, Federal Writer's Project. ''New Jersey, a Guide to Its Present and Past'' (Trenton, New Jersey: Stratford Press, 1939), 306.Widrig, Walter M. "Schanck Observatory" in Lukac, George J. (editor) ''Aloud to Alma Mater''. (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1966), 62–64. The observatory was constructed from "painted brick, with wood

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

s and entrance porch,

brownstone Brownstone is a brown Triassic–Jurassic sandstone that was historically a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States and Canada to refer to a townhouse clad in this or any other aesthetically similar material. Ty ...

floor and steps" and featured a "small gable roofed Corinthian entrance porch with columns at the front corners, flat

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s against the wall,

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

, and

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

."McCormick, Richard P., and Howell, George Brokaw
"Daniel S. Schanck Observatory, HABS No. NJ-723"
prepared for the Library of Congress's Historic American Buildings Survey. (1960). Retrieved October 4, 2013. Rutgers equipped the observatory with "a 6.5-inch equatorial

refracting telescope A refracting telescope (also called a refractor) is a type of optical telescope that uses a lens (optics), lens as its objective (optics), objective to form an image (also referred to a dioptrics, dioptric telescope). The refracting telescope d ...

, a

meridian circle The meridian circle is an instrument for timing of the passage of stars across the local meridian, an event known as a culmination, while at the same time measuring their angular distance from the nadir. These are special purpose telescopes moun ...

with four-inch object glass for transit observations, a sidereal clock, a mean solar clock...

chronograph A chronograph is a specific type of watch that is used as a stopwatch combined with a display watch. A basic chronograph has hour and minute hands on the main dial to tell the time, a small seconds hand to tell that the watch is running, and ...

repeating circle The repeating circle is an instrument for geodetic surveying, developed from the Reflecting instrument#reflecting circle, reflecting circle by Étienne Lenoir (instrument maker), Étienne Lenoir in 1784. He invented it while an assistant of Jean ...

, and other instruments."Murray, David. ''Hand-Book of the Grounds and Buildings and the Memorials, Portraits and Busts of Rutgers College''. Rutgers College Publication No. 11. (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers College, 1904), 9–10. Some of the equipment was donated by private individuals and by the college's two literary societies, the Peithessophian and Philoclean Societies. Daniel S Schanck Observatory Rutgers Univ New Brunswick NJ c 1901

Daniel S Schanck Observatory Rutgers Univ New Brunswick NJ c 1901

The Schanck Observatory was dedicated on June 18, 1866, with an address given by

Joseph P. Bradley Joseph Philo Bradley (March 14, 1813 – January 22, 1892) was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1870 to 1892. He ...

(1813–1892), a Rutgers College alumnus (AB 1836) and prominent attorney who four years later was installed as an

Associate Justice An associate justice or associate judge (or simply associate) is a judicial panel member who is not the chief justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the Supreme Court of the United States and some ...

on the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...

. The observatory has experienced several periods of use and neglect during the twentieth century. Physics and Astronomy professor Paul L. Leath indicated that the observatory very accurately measured time through precise measurements of the transit of the sun.Leath, Paul L. Oral History Interview, April 28, 2011, by Sandra Stewart Holyoak and Paul Clemens
Rutgers Oral History Archives. Retrieved December 16, 2013. The observatory fell out of use before 1960, but was revived by Prof. Maurice Bazin of the Physics Department and used by student members of the Rutgers Astronomical Society between 1968 and 1976. It was last used for the instruction of students by Prof. Terry Matilsky during 1976–1979. The university's astronomy department operates a modern observatory—the Robert A. Schommer Astronomical Observatory—that is located on the roof of the Serin Physics Laboratory (built 1963) on the Busch Campus. The Schommer Observatory houses a 0.5 meter telescope that was installed in 1996. As one of the six extant buildings on the university's Queens Campus, the oldest buildings at Rutgers, the Schanck Observatory was included on the

and the

in 1973.Barr, Michael C. and Wilkens, Edward. (1973). Retrieved September 5, 2013. The building fell into disrepair, and its equipment was damaged after several acts of

vandalism Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner. The t ...

in which unknown persons illegally entered the building and stole key components of the telescope. A restoration of the observatory building by Wu & Associates of

Cherry Hill, New Jersey Cherry Hill is a Township (New Jersey), township within Camden County, New Jersey, Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As a suburb of Philadelphia, the township is part of the South Jersey and Delaware Valley regions. Cherry Hill ...

, was completed in 2012.Wu & Associates, Inc
Projects: Schanck Observatory
Retrieved October 4, 2013.

References

Notes

Citations

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Schanck Observatory, Daniel S. Astronomical observatories in New Jersey Buildings and structures in New Brunswick, New Jersey Defunct astronomical observatories Greek Revival architecture in New Jersey Queens Campus, Rutgers University Historic American Buildings Survey in New Jersey Rutgers University buildings School buildings completed in 1865 1865 establishments in New Jersey University and college astronomical observatories

History, architecture, and use

See also

References

Notes

Citations

External links