Legends and Lore for Eclipse 2024

_{Richwood Gazette [Richwood, OH], June 22, 1876, 1.}

We are one week away from the 2024 total solar eclipse. So, get out your smoked glass and let’s explore a few burning questions about this cosmic phenomenon!

What makes the eclipse on April 8, 2024, a “once-in-a-lifetime” event?

Every year, there are at least two solar eclipses and about every eighteen months, there is a total solar eclipse somewhere in the world. According to NASA, “it will take about a thousand years for every geographic location in the lower 48 states to be able to view a total solar eclipse” and scientists note these eclipses “recur only once every 360 to 410 years, on average, at any given place.”¹ Based on these estimates, the next solar eclipse to travel across the continental United States from coast to coast will be in 2045 and the next total solar eclipse with visibility in Ohio won’t happen until 2099. Of course, these are averages and estimates used to predict the future (and astronomers have gotten quite good at that!), but if we look to the past, we can see just how rare next week’s eclipse is for Mansfield and Ohio.

Tecumseh

Tenskwatawa

William Henry Harrison

The last time a total solar eclipse was visible in Ohio was on June 16, 1806. Mansfield, established as a city in 1808, didn’t exist yet and Ohio’s statehood was only three years old. Also known as “Tecumseh’s Eclipse, the 1806 event marked a significant moment in settler and Native American relations on the frontier.² The prevailing legend is that, with a fraught peace treaty governing the northwest corner of Ohio (the Greenville Treaty) and a group of Native Americans fighting that treaty agreement in the Indiana Territory, General William Henry Harrison took a direct challenge to Shawnee leaders Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa. Tecumseh and his brothers were very influential figures in this area. Tenskwatawa, a Shawnee prophet, had “hundreds of devotees who followed his every word.”³ Harrison, then governor of the Indiana Territory, challenged Tenskwatawa in a letter dated April 12, 1806, saying if Tenskwatawa could perform miracles, surely, he could “cause the sun to stand still, the moon to alter its course, the rivers to cease to flow or the dead to rise from the graves.”⁴ Harrison wanted to discredit the Shawnee leader but only embarrassed himself in the process. Several historical accounts assert that Tenskwatawa responded to Harrison’s challenge, proclaiming that “in exactly 50 days he would make the moon cover the sun and it would be dark as night.”⁵ We do not know exactly when Tenskwatawa delivered his response to Harrison or whether exactly fifty days had passed when the moon moved to block the sun just before noon on June 16, 1806 (Harrison’s letter was written sixty-five days before the eclipse). At this point, solar eclipses were nothing new to European and Asian scientists and observers, but there were almost thirty years between the first documented eclipse sighting in the United States and the 1806 event – the first eclipse observed in the infant country was on June 24, 1778, visible over modern-day Louisiana.⁶ Therefore, it is not a stretch to suggest that the 1806 eclipse was something settlers on the frontier had never seen before. Anyone, besides Harrison, who may have doubted Tenskwatawa’s prophetic authority were awestruck by the accuracy of his prediction. Those with connections outside the territory, however, may have been granted advance notice of the coming eclipse as announcements had been printed in newspapers in Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland, and elsewhere. In fact, author Paul Cozzens noted the coming of the eclipse was “common knowledge in Detroit where [Tecumseh’s] British allies camped.”⁷ Regardless how Tenskwatawa came to know about the eclipse (whether he used established scientific predictions to his advantage or not), Harrison, having failed in humiliating Tenskwatawa, only grew angrier and many believe the mutual animosity boiled over five years later in the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe that ushered in the War of 1812.⁸

_{A reproduction of the path of the solar eclipse that passed over the United States on June 24, 1778. See “Total Solar Eclipse of 6/24/1778,” Solar-Eclipse.Info, https://www.solar-eclipse.info/en/eclipse/detail/1778-06-24/.}

Another popular tale out of Medina County, Ohio, suggests it was a female member of the Wyandot tribe who predicted the 1806 eclipse. In May 1806, she told others in her tribe “that a great darkness would soon fall over the Earth.”⁹ Unlike the story of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa, it was not the settler population that did not trust the native woman, but, rather, her own tribe that turned against her. The tribe members considered her prediction to be “a dire threat” and they accused her of practicing witchcraft.¹⁰ According to historian Charles Neil, a council of tribe leaders decided she “should suffer death by strangulation by having invoked the powers of the evil one.”¹¹ Her fate was sealed a few weeks before the eclipse and some of the tribe members responsible for her death may have believed the eclipse was an act of dark revenge from the witch on the other side.¹² This nameless woman’s story is far less common in Ohio eclipse lore likely because the details are sparse and she went to the gallows unidentified, but she is representative of the prevailing wisdom of the time. In nearby Summit County, it is reported that citizens observing the eclipse were “greatly frightened, notwithstanding the event had been foretold by some of the squaws who apparently had gotten knowledge from more enlightened white people. The squaws were not believed and were put to death for witchcraft.”¹³

_{According to the Butler County Press, the 1806 eclipse was truly a memorable one.}

The 1806 eclipse was regarded by astronomers for over half a century as the most memorable one because it was seen “over all parts of North America.”¹⁴ As The Butler County Press of Hamilton, Ohio, reported in 1917, “the day was a remarkably fine one, scarcely a cloud being visible in any part of the heavens.”¹⁵ An incredible sight, surely, for those educated in such astronomical phenomena. Michael E. Bakich notes that “before 1801, eclipse observations were largely descriptive in nature and primarily made to check to the mathematical calculations of astronomers.”¹⁶ By the middle of the nineteenth century, such observations relied less on written descriptions as they could now be visually represented in a more reliable way through photography. On July 28, 1851, Johan Julius Berkowski, a photographer at the Royal Observatory in Königsberg, Prussia, took the first successful photograph of an eclipse’s totality.¹⁷

In the 218 years since Ohio saw its last total solar eclipse, so much has changed! The brief moment of darkness that comes with the totality of the eclipse is now a marvel to behold instead of the harbinger of doom it was once thought to be.

_{One account of the 1806 solar eclipse: Darkness at Noon, or the Great Solar Eclipse of the 16th of June, 1806 by an Inhabitant of Boston.}

Why do we wear special glasses to watch the eclipse?

In anticipation of a solar eclipse in August 1869, the Delaware Gazette in Delaware, Ohio, advised its readers, “in order to observe the eclipse a common opera-glass or small telescope of any kind, provided with a shade-glass to screen the eye will prove efficient. If nothing can be obtained, a bit of plain glass, smoked over a candle or lamp, in some parts more deeply shaded than in others, in order to suit the varying intensity of the sun’s rays, will give a good view of most of the phenomena.”¹⁸ Six decades after the notable eclipse of 1806, Ohioans were less inclined to believe the Earth had plunged into the darkness of night and now viewed solar eclipses with a healthy curiosity.

_{An 1897 newspaper illustration of eclipse observers using their smoked glass for safety. Cincinnati Post, July 29, 1897, 1.}

_{Path of the 1869 eclipse as shown in Scientific American, August 21, 1869, 117.}

The negative effects of looking directly at the sun had long been recognized by scientists, philosophers, and the educated elite. According to Nick Thieme, Ibn al-Haytham, an Egyptian scientist in the tenth century, used the first pinhole camera to view an eclipse.¹⁹ This “camera” in its most basic form is a box with a small pinhole in one end and a translucent screen at the other. The light produced by the eclipse (or any other object) would go through the pinhole where it would be inverted and projected onto the translucent screen.²⁰ Instead of looking directly at the eclipse, you would essentially be observing the eclipse’s shadow; better for your eyes but maybe not the most satisfying for the curious astronomer. King Louis XIV of France is credited with first utilizing smoked glass to view a full solar eclipse around 1706 – the smoked glass covering the lens of his telescope worked to dilute the harmful ultraviolet light of the sun.²¹ A 1798 encyclopedia published in Philadelphia notes, “the sun, tho’ [sic] to human eyes so extremely bright and splendid, is yet frequently observed, even through a telescope of but very small powers, to have dark spots on his surface. These were entirely unknown before the invention of telescopes, though they are sometimes of sufficient magnitude to be discerned by the naked eye, only looking through a smoked glass to prevent the brightness of the luminary from destroying the sight.”²² Smoked glass, in this instance, not only protected the observer’s eyes, it allowed them to see new markings on the sun and this is noted as the moment of discovery of solar spots.²³ Throughout the nineteenth century, British and American newspapers understandably predicted high demand for smoked glass whenever an eclipse was on the horizon.

_{Vintage 1932 Eclipse-O-Scope viewer. Image found on Brian DiMambro’s website: https://briandimambro.com/products/eclipse-o-scope-1932-novelty-promo-sunglasses-mailing-envelope-w-map?variant=48115941179671.}

_{Vintage 1932 Viz-Eclipse viewer. Image found on Vintage-Ephemera.com: https://vintage-ephemera.com/product-detail/389100157.}

By the turn of the twentieth century, smoked glass was becoming less popular and new forms of eclipse eyewear emerged alongside new trends like 3D glasses. Harvey and Lewis, a New England optical supply company, and other similar ventures began producing Eclipse-o-Scope viewers in the 1930s. These were cardboard “eyeglasses” with a small sheet of protective film covering the eyeholes. A 1932 pair marketed as “Viz-Eclipse,” includes a note saying, “this material developed by research expressly for visioning the sun over extended periods without injury to the eye. Approved by Eclipse committee of the American Astronomical Society.”²⁴ But, much like smoked glass and 3D glasses of the time, a user would have to the Eclipse-o-Scope or other viewer in front of their face and while eclipse totality is nowhere near as long as any popular 3D film, the protection offered by these early eclipse glasses was limited. In fact, by the end of World War II, at least one California physician determined smoked glass, photographic film, or even dark sunglasses are not enough protection from the sun.²⁵ Still, others working in the fields of astronomy and physics believed as recently as 1974 that solar eclipses could be “viewed safely through a photographic negative or smoked glass.”²⁶ Today, eclipse glasses are made from a resin containing carbon particles and are certified to meet standards approved by NASA. Contemporary eclipse glasses that you can get for free from the library before April 8, 2024, are made to “reduce the sun’s brightness by about 500,000 times;” regular sunglasses only reduce that brightness by a factor of five.²⁷ Only time will tell if the science and fashion of eclipse eyewear have been perfected but the current sleek design that sits comfortably on your face has been in style since the 1970s.²⁸ As long as the filters remain undamaged, eclipse glasses can be used indefinitely, but any small scratch or tear renders them unusable and it is suggested these glasses be discarded after three years.²⁹

_{“Eclipse-Gazers Warned,” Mansfield News-Journal, June 22, 1954, 4.}

Does the Sherman Room have any eclipse materials in their collections?

Yes! We have a few pieces, including a 2020-2021 yearbook from Clear Fork High School with an eclipse theme. In the opening spread of the book, the editors talk about the Covid-19 pandemic and the atypical year it created, concluding that, like a solar eclipse, “even in the darkest of times, light remains.”³⁰ Our collection also includes two pairs of eclipse glasses from the August 21, 2017, eclipse. Ohio was not in the path of totality for that eclipse, but these glasses commemorate what was dubbed “The Great American Solar Eclipse” since it was the first total solar eclipse visible from coast to coast in nearly a century. The News Journal also notes the 2017 eclipse was “the first total eclipse only visible in the United States since the nation’s founding.”³¹ Despite falling outside the path of totality in 2017, the Mansfield/Richland County Public Library still hosted programs to commemorate the event. Similarly, there has been an array of programs offered this year in anticipation of the April 8 eclipse. We have a copy of the March 2024 “At the Library” newsletter in our collection as well as three pairs of eclipse glasses marking both the April 8 total eclipse and an annular eclipse that took place on October 14, 2023.

_{A sampling of the Sherman Room’s very small collection of eclipse ephemera.}

Since the major history of eclipses in Ohio predates the library – and even Mansfield itself – there is an opportunity to begin preserving this history now. We encourage you to take photos (with all safety precautions in mind) or otherwise document your eclipse experience to share with your friends and family in the future. You are also welcome to donate your eclipse ephemera to the Sherman Room should you so desire, but please note that current collection policy guidelines still apply and we will not be accepting any more eclipse glasses. With seventy-five years until the next eclipse will be visible in Ohio and ninety-three until the next transit of Venus, this is our chance to document a once-in-a-lifetime event!

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1. “Eclipses: Frequently Asked Questions,” NASA, https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/faq/; Renee Stockdale-Homick, “Science Books and Films Presents a Read-Around-A-Theme on Solar Eclipses,” American Association for the Advancement of Science, https://www.aaas.org/resources/science-books-and-films-presents-read-around-theme-solar-eclipses. ↩︎
2. Pam Cottrel, “The Total Solar Eclipse of 1806: How a Prediction from ‘The Prophet’ Shaped U.S.-Native American Relations, Springfield News-Sun, March 20, 2024, https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/local/the-total-solar-eclipse-of-1806-how-a-prediction-from-the-prophet-shaped-us-native-american-relations/G2W236VTUFB2TA6AZXUPQQEK6Y/. ↩︎
3. Ibid. ↩︎
4. Seth Borenstein, “Eclipse Lore Full of Blood, Sex, Even Some Snacking,” The Lima News [Lima, OH], August 20, 2017, 3; Sheridan Hendrix, “Fear, Awe and Tecumseh: What Was Life Like in Ohio During the 1806 Total Solar Eclipse,” The Columbus Dispatch, April 4, 2024, https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/local/2024/04/04/how-tecumseh-used-the-1806-total-eclipse-in-ohio-to-his-advantage/72931327007/. ↩︎
5. Cottrel, “The Total Solar Eclipse of 1806.” ↩︎
6. Michael E. Bakich, “A History of Solar Eclipses,” Astronomy, April 5, 2023, https://www.astronomy.com/science/a-history-of-solar-eclipses/. ↩︎
7. Cottrel, “The Total Solar Eclipse of 1806.” ↩︎
8. Ibid. ↩︎
9. Mark J. Price, “Solar Eclipse Proved Deadly Prophesy for Indian Woman,” Akron Beacon Journal, June 6, 2016, B001 and B004. ↩︎
10. Ibid. ↩︎
11. Ibid. ↩︎
12. Ibid. ↩︎
13. Harry L. Hale, “True Tales about Ohio,” The Bluffton News [Bluffton, OH], November 20, 1958, 7. ↩︎
14. “A Memorable Eclipse,” The Butler County Press [Hamilton, OH], January 5, 1917, 1. ↩︎
15. Ibid. ↩︎
16. Bakich, “A History of Solar Eclipses.” ↩︎
17. Ibid. ↩︎
18. “The Eclipse,” Delaware Gazette [Delaware, OH], August 6, 1869, 3. ↩︎
19. Nick Thieme, “A Brief History of Eclipse Glasses and the People Who Forgot to Wear Them,” Slate, August 18, 2017, https://slate.com/technology/2017/08/a-history-of-eclipse-glasses-and-injuries.html. ↩︎
20. Keith Gibbs, “The Pinhole Camera,” SchoolPhysics, 2020, https://www.schoolphysics.co.uk/age11-14/Light/text/Pinhole_camera/index.html; “Pinhole Camera,” March 15, 2021, https://scalar.chapman.edu/scalar/ah-331-history-of-photography-spring-2021-compendium/trinity-hall-essay-1. ↩︎
21. Thieme, “A Brief History of Eclipse Glasses and the People Who Forgot to Wear Them.” ↩︎
22. Thomas Dobson, Colin Macfarquhar, and George Gleig, Encyclopedia: Or, A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature . . . and an Account of the Lives of the Most Eminent Persons in Every Nation, from the Earliest Ages Down to the Present Times (Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson at the Stone House, 1798): 433. ↩︎
23. Ibid. ↩︎
24. “1932 Eclipse-O-Scope – Harvey and Lewis Opticians,” Vintage-Ephemera.com, https://vintage-ephemera.com/product-detail/389100157. ↩︎
25. Thieme, “A Brief History of Eclipse Glasses and the People Who Forgot to Wear Them.” ↩︎
26. “Eclipse Can Be Seen,” The Akron Beacon Journal, December 10, 1974, 18. ↩︎
27. Thieme, “A Brief History of Eclipse Glasses and the People Who Forgot to Wear Them.” ↩︎
28. Roger Sarkis, “History of Eclipse Glasses,” Eclipse Glasses USA, August 10, 2023, https://eclipse23.com/blogs/eclipse-education/history-of-eclipse-glasses. ↩︎
29. Mindy Weisberger, “Will Your Eclipse Glasses Still Be Safe to Use in 2024,” LiveScience, August 25, 2017, https://www.livescience.com/60237-do-solar-eclipse-glasses-expire.html. ↩︎
30. Clear Fork High School, Eclipse (Bellville, OH: 2021), 3, Sherman Room.   ↩︎
31. Courtney McNaull, “How to Safely View the Solar Eclipse,” News Journal, August 16, 2017, A1. ↩︎

Tappan Into the Eclipse

One of the more prominent businesses to make its home in Mansfield was the Tappan Stove Company. But before the Tappan family found success under their own name, they were running the Eclipse Stove Company. This is not the story of that company, but, rather, the story that supposedly led to the inspired choice of Eclipse as the company’s name. Legend has it that after an 1889 fire destroyed their factory in Bellaire, Ohio, the decision was made to move the factory to Mansfield and rebrand with a nod to an astronomical phenomenon. In a 1966 News-Journal story, it is claimed that the Eclipse name was chosen to honor a late nineteenth century trip W.J. Tappan’s father, T.S., had taken to Siberia to photograph a solar eclipse.¹ T.S. did indeed travel to Siberia but it was to photograph an eclipse of a different kind – the transit of Venus.

_{The Eclipse Stove Company manufacturing complex in Mansfield. Photo featured in Scott Schaut, Historic Mansfield: A Bicentennial History (San Antonio, TX: Historical Publishing Network, 2010): 28.}

_{A group of Eclipse Stove Company factory workers posing outside one of the factory buildings. Photo featured in Scott Schaut, Historic Mansfield: A Bicentennial History (San Antonio, TX: Historical Publishing Network, 2010): 28.}

According to an 1869 piece in Scientific American Magazine, “a transit is nothing less than an eclipse of the sun by an inferior planet, the passage of either Venus or Mercury directly between the earth and the sun, so that their disks partially obscure its face, and appear as round, dark spots upon it. Conventional usage has limited the term eclipse of the sun to the obscuration of its disk by the moon, and transit to the same effect produced by the passage of Venus and Mercury between the earth and the sun, although there is no essential difference in the nature of the phenomena.”² In reporting on the anticipated eclipses of the twentieth century, The Mansfield News wrote in November 1899, “The total solar eclipses visible in the United States will occur in 1918, 1923, 1925, 1945, 1954, 1979, 1984, and 1994. There will be 12 transits of Mercury, the first in 1907; but the more important transit of Venus will not occur, its next date being June 8, 2004.”³ While there are at least two solar eclipses every year, the transit of Venus is a very rare event, occurring four times every 243 years in a predictable and easy to remember patter of 105.5 years, 8 years, 121.5 years, 8 years.⁴ That essentially means when Venus does show her lovely face to the Earth, she will do it twice in fairly close succession before disappearing again for a long stretch of time. When T.S. Tappan was sent to Siberia in 1874 (and to New Mexico in 1882) as part of a government expedition to study the transit of Venus, his photographs would be some of both the first and last physical photographs of the event. Prior observations of the transit of Venus predated the invention of photography and subsequent instances came after the shift to digital photography, or, as astronomer William Harkness put it in 1882, “When the last transit season occurred the intellectual world was awakening from the slumber of ages, and that wondrous scientific activity which has led to our present advanced knowledge was just beginning.”⁵ Venus made its most recent trips across the sun in 2004 and 2012, but, sadly, the next event of this kind is not predicted to occur until December 2117⁶ and, just as Harkness knew in 1882, “not even our children’s children will live to take part in the astronomy of that day”⁷ (for many of us, it’s not very likely will still be around in ninety-three years to see the next transit).

_{Many of the men involved in the 1874 transit expeditions met in Washington, D.C. in the Spring of 1874 for a practice session to familiarize themselves with the equipment they would be using. From the Asaph Hall papers at the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/93516258/.}

As the first nineteenth century transit of Venus approached, there was great excitement in the global scientific community. For centuries, since the first predicted transit in December 1631, one of the greatest unsolved problems in the history of astronomy had been “the accurate determination of the distance of the Sun from the Earth, and thus the scale of the solar system.”⁸ It was hoped that advancements in technology, particularly the addition of photography, would allow more accurate measurements to be collected and, thus, an answer to the great question of the universe – the scale of the solar system – could finally be determined. Russia, Great Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, and Holland all organized scientific expeditions to document and study the 1874 transit, with one nineteenth century scholar commenting, “Every country which had a reputation to keep or gain for scientific zeal was forward to co-operate in the great cosmopolitan enterprise of the transit.”⁹ Despite the Russian government investing in twenty-six expedition teams of their own, the United States still insisted on sending a team of researchers to Siberia. There may have been one shared mission at the heart of each country’s expedition plan, but this was by no means a cooperative endeavor amongst the seven countries preparing for the transit.

While the majority of the European countries with expedition teams devoted great attention to “securing the best photographs,” the American organizers sought to take measurements from the photographs themselves which would require a vastly different approach to setting up and working with the camera.¹⁰ Thus, the Americans set about equipping their teams with a fixed horizontal telescope with a 40-foot focal length that would direct sunlight to a heliostat (“a slowly turning mirror that kept the Sun’s image stationary with respect to the telescope”).¹¹ The lens and heliostat mirror would be mounted on a four-foot iron pier embedded in concrete (imagine traveling with that!). The lens would create an image that was four inched in diameter and projected onto a photographic plate placed 38.5 feet away on another concrete mount.¹² Compared to the solar eclipse coming up on April 8, 2024, which will last 2.5 hours with only four minutes and twenty-eight seconds of totality, the 1874 transit of Venus was anticipated to last close to four hours.¹³ Still, that is a small window of time for the work astronomers were hoping to complete.

_{The complexities of the specialized equipment made for the expeditions are shown here. “A weight driven heliostat directs the Sun’s rays through a lens, which focuses the image onto a photographic plate 38.5 feet away.” See Simon Newcomb, Popular Astronomy (New York: Haughton and Mifflin, 1878): 186.}

On March 3, 1871, Congress approved a $2,000 expenditure for “preparing instruments” for an expedition.¹⁴ Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory, Commodore B.F. Sands, petitioned Congress for an additional $150,000, stating that the transit of Venus was “one of the rarest and most interesting phenomena in astronomy” and an expedition for its observation “will afford our countrymen a peculiarly favorable opportunity to exercise their inventive ingenuity in the introduction of improved modes of observation.”¹⁵ In total, $177,000 was invested in the 1874 expedition, which included eight separate teams of astronomers and photographers.¹⁶ Not a single one of these groups was actually stationed on the continental United States – three teams were sent to Asia, four to Australia, and one to Antarctica. Otto Struve, an astronomer with the Russian Academy, wrote to Simon Newcomb in the United States in February 1873, recommending “the coast region [by] Wladivostok [sic] should be chosen as principal station on the part of the Americans.”¹⁷ Of the eight teams, there was no specified “principal expedition, but the Kansas City Weekly places the Valdivostock team including T.S. Tappan at the top of their list when reporting on the expeditions and the New York Daily Herald dedicated an entire page to this group and their work, giving special credence to the Siberian station.¹⁸ Headed by Professor Asaph Hall of the United States Navy, Tappan was appointed as the assistant photographer, bringing the desired skills of a “young gentleman of education . . . who had been practiced in chemical and photographic manipulation.”¹⁹ The group set sail for Vladivostock in July 1874, a journey that took a little over a month, to await the main event of December 9, 1874.²⁰ Unfortunately, poor weather on the day of the transit meant the group only secured thirteen photographs but those were good enough to be fully reproduced in the New York Daily Herald in February 1875.²¹ When Tappan was called upon to photograph the transit of Venus again in 1882, he and principal photographer of the New Mexico expedition, D.C. Chapman, produced the highest volume of usable photographs of any expedition group that year, with a total of 216.²²

_{Headline from the New York Daily Herald advertising the observations in Siberia and the photographs of Venus. New York Daily Herald, February 17, 1875.}

_{Thirteen segment photos from Tappan’s 1874 expedition team as reproduced in the New York Daily Herald, February 17, 1875.}

According to the Directory of Indiana Photographers, Thomas Shaw Tappan was born in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio on October 28, 1838, the youngest son of Benjamin Tappan and Elizabeth Shaw.²³ It is said that Tappan “developed a remarkable reputation as a photographer in Cincinnati, then Wheeling [West Virginia]” and the Directory of Indiana Photographers lists him as owning three studios in Noblesville, Hamilton County, Indiana between 1861 and 1866.²⁴ IRS tax assessments from 1863-1865 confirm Tappan was working as a photographer in Noblesville.²⁵ The spelling of Tappan’s surname is inconsistent in these tax assessments and his various photography studios and businesses were commonly listed under “Tappin,” which makes a thorough record of his work and whereabouts difficult to produce with absolute certainty of its accuracy. In the summer of 1863, twenty-four-year-old Tappan’s name appears in a draft record for the U.S. Civil War.²⁶ Family histories like Jay Tappan Gilbert’s 1969 book do not mention anything about Tappan serving in the war but Gilbert suggests that it was likely around this time that Tappan “became associated with Mr. Leon Van Loo,” a photographer and artist most famous for introducing the “ideal” style of photography in which images “were printed on zinc oxide and applied to blackened sheet-iron.”²⁷ What had prompted Tappan’s move to Noblesville is uncertain but by 1873, he was once again in Cincinnati, being found in the city’s directory listed as an artist.²⁸ Newspapers and other records of the time offer scant commentary on Tappan’s artistic credentials, but it would seem an association with the famous Van Loo could only have drawn interest to Tappan when the Venus expeditions were being planned. Tappan’s relationship with Van Loo was evidently so influential and important to him that he named his youngest son Leon Van Loo Tappan.²⁹

_{This portrait of Thomas Tappan and a feathered friend was taken at either his Bellaire or Wheeling studio. See Jay Tappan Gilbert, Tappan Family History, 26.}

Tappan wrote many letters during his time away from home in 1874 and the Sherman Room has a small collection of those letters in our collection. He appears to have developed a particular fascination with Japan where his group had briefly stayed before making the final leg of their journey to Vladivostock. According to The Cincinnati Daily Star, Tappan “found in Japan a Cincinnatian, who has established himself very successfully at Sepparo, Island of Yesso, in the manufacture of flour.”³⁰ Even a decade later, and after observing another transit of Venus, Japan was still on Tappan’s mind when he was invited to give a lecture to the Columbia Club in Wheeling, West Virginia. He told those in attendance about “the country, its people, their manners and customs, their religion, etc.”³¹ He concluded his talk with a display of Japanese fireworks he had acquired on the trip (one can only hope the presentation was outdoors).³²

By the time Tappan was called upon again to capture the transit of Venus in 1882, he and his family had relocated to Wheeling, West Virginia. The family is shown in Bellaire, Ohio in an 1880 census, but by the next year, The Dail Register of Wheeling was proudly proclaiming Tappan “our photographer.”³³ With only five miles between the two cities, Tappan may have maintained businesses in both cities, and he gave each city a boost of notoriety when he left for New Mexico in 1882. He first traveled to Washington, D.C. to join the rest of the expedition but he showed particular excitement for what he might find out West. The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer reports he took a rifle with him should he encounter and prime buffalo, deer, or other such game.³⁴ For his efforts and photographic expertise in New Mexico, Tappan would be paid “three dollars a day and five dollars for subsistence and all other personal expenses.”³⁵ He was once again an assistant photographer on the expedition but the Las Cruces Sun-News in New Mexico notes he had the foresight to document to occasion for posterity, writing, “the assistant Photographer, Mr. T.S. Tappan, of Bellaire [?], arranged the whole party in a group with the queer-looking buildings and the whole country for a background, and there photographed us. It was a noble group (our majestic figure in near the centre [sic]) and represented Science supported by Literature, and protected by Military Force.”³⁶ Though Tappan promised to furnish the paper with a print of the photo, no extant copy has been located to prove he kept his word.

_{A portrait of Mary Elizabeth Stuart Tappan ostensibly taken by her husband, Thomas Shaw Tappan. Jay Tappan Gilbert, Tappan Family History, 26.}

Tappan married Mary Elizabeth Steward [Stuart] on December 7, 1858.³⁷ Together, they had four children: William Jared (1860-1936), Thomas S. (1865-1945), Katie Lavonda (1872-1902), and Leon Van Loo (1879-1939).³⁸ In 1881, William Jared, along with J.M. Maring and W.A. Gorby, purchased the Ohio Valley Foundry Company in Bellaire, Ohio. This company, specializing in the manufacture of cast iron stoves, was the earliest precursor to the Tappan Stove Company.³⁹ After a devastating fire in 1889, the company relocated to Mansfield and The Evening News in Mansfield announced the company had” been granted a new charter under the new name of Eclipse Stove Company by which it will hereafter be known.”⁴⁰ Eclipse Stove Company was incorporated in 1918 but William Jared and his business partners soon discovered there was another Eclipse Stove Company operating out of Illinois. In a mutual decision, both companies decided to change their names and in 1921, William Jared’s company was rebranded one final time as the Tappan Stove Company.⁴¹ Thomas Shaw Tappan had little, if any, direct involvement with his son’s stove company, but when he passed away in October 1906, the shops of the Eclipse Stove Company were closed for his funeral.⁴² Whether inspiring the branding of kitchenware or the work of astronomers of the twenty-first century and beyond, Thomas Shaw Tappan’s eclipse legacy is one that won’t soon be forgotten.

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1. Paul L. White, “This is the Mansfield That Was,” News Journal, May 15, 1966, 5. ↩︎
2. “The Transits of Venus in 1874 and 1882,” Scientific American Magazine 20, No. 18(May 1869), 281. ↩︎
3. The Mansfield News, November 19, 1899, 9. Emphasis added. ↩︎
4. Michael E. Bakich, “What are Solar Eclipses and How Often Do They Occur,” Astronomy, March 20, 2024, https://www.astronomy.com/observing/how-often-do-solar-eclipses-occur/; Steven J. Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined: The U.S. Naval Observatory, 1830-2000 (Cambridge, U.K. and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003): 241. ↩︎
5. William Harkness, “Address by William Harkness,” Proceedings of the AAAS 31^st Meeting . . . August 1882 (Salem, 1883), 77 as quoted in Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, 238. ↩︎
6. “Transit of Venus,” Wikipedia, March 14, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Venus. ↩︎
7. Harkness, “Address by William Harkness.” ↩︎
8. Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, 238. ↩︎
9. Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, 243. ↩︎
10. Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, 245. ↩︎
11. Ibid. ↩︎
12. Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, 245-246. ↩︎
13. NBC Chicago Staff, “How Long Will April’s Solar Eclipse Last? It Depends on Where You’re Located,” 5 Chicago, March 24, 2024, https://www.nbcchicago.com/solar-eclipse-illinois-2024/how-long-will-aprils-solar-eclipse-last-it-depends-on-where-youre-located/3391935/; “1874 Transit of Venus,” Wikipedia, February 7, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1874_transit_of_Venus#cite_note-2. ↩︎
14. Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, 244. ↩︎
15. Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, 247. ↩︎
16. According to data from Steven J. Dick, a minimum of $34,000 was spent to supply all 8 teams with the same specialized equipment. See Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, 248. ↩︎
17. Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, 253, n.19. ↩︎
18. “Venus,” Kansas City Journal, December 6, 1882, 5; “Transit of Venus,” New York Daily Herald, February 17, 1875, 3. ↩︎
19. Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, 253. ↩︎
20. According to a letter dated September 14, 1874, the total journey from Ohio to Vladivostok took 56 days. See Jay Tappan Gilbert, Tappan Family History (Mansfield, OH, 1969): 27. ↩︎
21. Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, 259; “Transit of Venus,” New York Daily Herald, February 17, 1875. As of 2003, it is reported that none of the photographs from the 1874 transit expeditions survived. See Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, 261. ↩︎
22. Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, 267. ↩︎
23. “Tappin, Thomas Shaw, Sr.,” in Joan E. Hostetler, Directory of Indiana Photographers (Indianapolis, IN: The Indiana Album, Inc., 2021),np, https://indianaalbum.com/photographers/data/PersonData1-CATNUM-322.html; Jay Tappan Gilbert, Tappan Family History (Mansfield, OH, 1969): 10. ↩︎
24. Hostetler, Directory of Indiana Photographers. ↩︎
25. “U.S., IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1962-1918 for Thomas S Tappan,” Indiana – District 11; Annual Lists; 1863. Available through Ancestry.com; “U.S., IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1962-1918 for Thos S Tappin,” Indiana – District 11; Monthly Lists; Jan-July 1864. Available through Ancestry.com; “U.S., IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862-1918 for Thos S Tappen,” Indiana – District 11; Annual Lists; 1865. Available through Ancestry.com. ↩︎
26. “U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865 for Thomas S Tappin,” Indiana – 11th – Class 1, T-Z, Volume 3 of 6. Available through Ancestry.com. ↩︎
27. Gilbert, Tappan Family History, 25; Alexandra Daniels, “Leon Van Loo: A Man of Many Talents,” Special Collections and University Archives, NKU, December 5, 2013, https://nkuarchives.wordpress.com/2013/12/05/leon-van-loo-a-man-of-many-talents/. ↩︎
28. Williams’ Cincinnati Directory for 1872-73, 817. Available on Ancestry.com. ↩︎
29. See Gilbert, Tappan Family History, 10; “U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 for Leon Vanloo Tappan,” Ohio – Richland County – All – Draft Card T. Available on Ancestry.com. ↩︎
30. The Cincinnati Daily Star, March 5, 1875, 4. ↩︎
31. “An Interesting Lecture,” Wheeling Sunday Register, November 29, 1885, 3. ↩︎
32. Ibid. ↩︎
33. “1880 United States Federal Census for Thomas Tappan,” Ohio – Belmont – Bellaire – 026. Available on Ancestry.com; The Daily Register [Wheeling, W.V.], April 8, 1881, 4. ↩︎
34. The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, November 4, 1882, 4. ↩︎
35. Gilbert, Tappan Family History, 27. ↩︎
36. “Transit of Venus,” Las Cruces Sun-News [Las Cruces, NM], December 9, 1992, 3. ↩︎
37. “Ohio, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1774-1993 for Thomas S. Tappin,” Hamilton – 1858-1860. Available on Ancestry.com. ↩︎
38. Gilbert, Tappan Family History, 10. ↩︎
39. Richard D. Witchey Jr. interview with P. R. Tappan, retired Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Tappan Company, May 22, 1964. See Richard D. Witchey Jr., “Industrial Growth of An Enterprise: A Study of the Tappan Company,” Master’s Thesis (Kent State University, 1966), 5. ↩︎
40. “The City in Brief,” The Evening News [Mansfield, OH], January 20, 1891, 4. ↩︎
41. Witchey Jr., “Industrial Growth of an Enterprise,”20. ↩︎
42. “Closed for Funeral,” The Mansfield News, October 29, 1902, 6. ↩︎