Washington Hood, USMA 1827, 1808-1840
Title: Drawings, 1829-1839.
The Winterthur Library. The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera.
Born Feburary 2, 1808 in Philadelphia, oldest of 12 children of John McClelland Hood, a wholesale grocer, and Eliza Forebaugh. Graduated USMA 1827. Topographical engineer 1831-1836. Served in Cuba for a year. In 1835 with Robert E. Lee he determined the boundary between Ohio and the Michigan Territory. Did mapping in Oregon Territory. Contracted a fatal disease in Arkansas/Missouri. Died July 1840. Listed DAB and Who Was Who.
The finding aid for this collection is 14 pages in length. Divided into 4 series. Series I may have been study pieces and sketches. Greek style. Series II sketches for civil engineering projects, bridges, roads, canals, forts, and larger public buildings. Plan for National Theater in DC. Series III is landscapes, people, copies of other works. Series IV is personal papers, manuscript newspaper, miscellaneous addresses and notes.
Topics:
United States Military Academy -- Alumni and alumnae [sic]
Architectural Drawings
Military architecture -- Drawings
Civil Engineering -- United States
Railroads, Military engineering, fortifications etc.
Series I. Items 1-47.
Several plates by Nicholas Xavier Willemin.
35. Profiles of different centers for large and small arcs [title in French]. For bridges. Spheres on back.
Series II. Items 48-113.
56-60 deal with the Hall of Justice, aka The Tombs, in NYC. These are printed sketches and not in Hood's hand.
62-67. Plans for the Potomac Aqueduct. 66 is of a jackscrew, used by masons for turning of large stones.
89-81. National theater, Wash DC.
86. Erie canal bridge.
Series III. Items 114-127.
127. Sketch book marked Edw. Grubb. Various objects, including pyramid, sphere, cylinder.
Series IV. Items 128-135.
134. Manuscript headed "Discussion des courbes qui resultent de la Section d'un Cylindre droit \`a Base Circulaire, par un plan . . . " A mathematical exercise regarding a cylinder involving calculus.
This item is accession number 80x103.134, i.e., item 134 in accession 103 in 1980. Here the slip in the folder says "Mathematical Equations & Notations in French (calculations of cylinder), n.d.". I made a note in the finding aid that these calculations did not involve calculus, but analytic geometry. Two sheets, 2 + 4 pages. In very legible French. Shows, e.g., that intersection of a cylinder and a plane is an ellipse. Useful for getting an ellipse. Have photocopy.
These were in the first box that I looked at. At first I thought they were series I, but I eventually concluded that they were not (see 134 above).
Lovely sketch of an iron bridge design 1832. Just details of gears. He was an excellent draftsman!
Quarry Crane, truck wagon and break. Sketch of the whole apparatus with detail of brake and gearing.
Ground plans for walls of 11 foot lift (=lock), n.d. But this is evidence that West Pointers were involved with canals.
Plan for "mitre and paddle gate" for a canal.
Erie canal bridge with "Bill of Timber" indicating sizes and amounts of lumber needed. Side, top, and cross sectional views drawn one above another. No trace of descriptive geometry here.
No label, but could be a sundial design because of roman numerals (XII and smaller).
30 Dec 1839. Check for $5 to Moses Thomas for books.
The remainder are in a still larger box.
There are some side views of entire buildings. n.d.
This was an interesting collection to look at but it contained only one item of real mathematical interest. Many of the engravings were printed and by various persons.