James Wilson and Sons (1810-1862).
A New American Thirteen Inch Terrestrial Globe.
Diameter 13 inches (33 cm).; Overall height 19 inches (48 cm).
Albany N.Y., 1831, "S. Wood and Sons Agents N. York."

A terrestrial table globe, made up of 12 engraved gores, hand-colored in outline, the layout and form being a copy of the Newton or Cary style, with an analemma, title set in the Pacific with no cartouche surround. The western states of California and the Rockies are described as "Internal Provinces", the Missouri state extends westwards to the Seattle coast, and Arkansas is in its early form before it lost its western half to Indian Territory, later Oklahoma. Brass meridian circle, engraved graticule on one face, papered wooden horizon bar supported by a four-legged European style cherry wood stand, with cross stretchers.

A fine terrestrial table globe by the first American globe manufacturer. The story of James Wilson is a truly American story. In 1796, Wilson, a farmer from Vermont, goes down to Dartmouth College and sees three pairs of European globes decorating various rooms. At this point no American had decided to manufacture a globe. Wilson, who knew woodwork, decided he would build a globe and bought an Encyclopaedia Britannica, read up on the engraving, printing, geography and coloring. He visited the map engraver Amos Doolittle in New Haven, and the geographer Jedidiah Morse in Charlestown, Massachusetts. His first globe which he finished in 1810 had a solid plaster core, and his sons soon joined him as orders came in from around New England. In 1815 his two sons set up a globe factory in Albany and published 3 different sized globes (3-inch, 9-inch, and 13-inch diameter). The sons died in a pandemic in 1833, the father in 1855. Cyrus Lancaster joined the Albany factory in 1826 and married the widow of the son Samuel. Being in Albany, the capitol of New York State and having access to the New York marketplace brought Wilson enormous success completing the rise of a farmer to an entrepreneur.