Signedunsigned
Historical AttributesThis microscope was owned and used by Dr. Edward Augustus Holyoke, a pioneer in the treatment of small pox, founding member and president of the Massachusetts Medical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and son of President Edward Holyoke.
Dr. Lewis speculated that this microscope may have been one previously owned by Major General Jean Paul Mascarene (1684-1760), the former governor of Nova Scotia, who spent his latter years in Boston. Mascarene's son married President Holyoke's daughter (the sister of Dr. Holyoke), and there was a social connection between the families as well as a shared enthusiasm for science. Mascarene's effects were auctioned off in Boston. The advertisement printed in the Boston Gazette of 9 June 1760 listed "a genteel-made new invented microscope with its proper apparatus." Perhaps the Holyoke family acquired the instrument by purchase or by inheritance at this time.
Provenanceperhaps Jean Paul Mascarene, pre-1760; Edward Augustus Holyoke, post 1760; ... ; Andrew Nichols (1890-circa 1944) of Danvers, Mass., a descendent of Holyoke; on permanent loan and later transfer from the estate of Andrew Nichols to the Ernst-Lewis Collection at Harvard Medical School, courtesy of Miss Mary E. Nichols, 1944.