Henry Rowlands, Importer of Diamonds

In 1869, future spoon-patenter Benjamin Marsh sold his store at 34 State Street, at the corner of Broadway, to Henry Rowlands. I don’t know anything about either of them, but I do know a little bit about the “observatory time” that Rowlands’s store received every hour. It was a vestige of an attempt to make Albany the nation’s standard timekeeper, with precise signals sent by telegraph from the Dudley Observatory. Much more about that here.