Reaumur thermometer, after 1731, 28 cm high; base: 11 cm x 8 cm.
Brick Store Museum Collection, 756. Gift of John Collins Emmons, 1940.

This upright bronze stand is surmounted by a floral wreath and eagle rampart. The medallion portion has a hook from which to hang a pocket watch or barometer. The four feet winged lion heads. The stand contains a thermometer insert marked, “REAUMUR” with the scale ranging from -25 to 40.  The Reaumur temperature scale was devised by Frenchman Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur (1683-1757) in 1731, with 0 and 80 being the respective freezing and boiling points of water at normal atmospheric pressure. The Reaumur scale enjoyed widespread use in Europe for a time. In the 1790s, France chose to standardize to the Celsius scale over the Reaumur scale.

This combination thermometer and watch holder was said to have been presented by the Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) to Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) sometime between 1780 and 1800. After Alexander Hamilton's death, his widow Betty Schuyler Hamilton (1757-1854) purportedly gave the piece to Dr. Douglas of Bellevue Hospital in New York City. The piece was eventually given to John Collins Emmons who served as an editor of a summer publication in Kennebunk, Maine called, The Wave. Emmons donated the piece to the Brick Store Museum in 1940.

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