History of the Somerlite Lantern

Benjamin Bussey, the wealthy Roxbury merchant and philanthropist whose 1835 bequest led to the Bussey Institute at Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum, was remembered for carrying an unusual all-brass shepherd’s lantern on his Dedham estate. Instead of a simple pierced design, the front plate was carefully cut with a diffusion–reaction pattern—a branching, maze-like motif selected to mimic the natural veining seen in leaves and minerals. Bussey, with his fondness for both botany and metallurgy, chose the design believing it harmonized art and science while producing a distinctive light. When lit at dusk, the lamp, which he called the Somerlite Lantern, projected shifting streaks and veins of light across the pasture.

Farmhands recalled that Bussey believed the lantern’s peculiar glow calmed his flock. There may be some plausibility here: sheep, like many ungulates, have horizontally elongated pupils that heighten their sensitivity to patterns of lines and motion in low light. The wandering, maze-like projections from the brass plate might have appeared to the flock as moving bars on the horizon, momentarily entrancing them and making night drives easier. Bussey himself supposedly joked that his favorite ewe, Borb, “never strayed once the lantern was lit.”

The lantern that survives today is a partial reconstruction. Curators assembled it from fragments of the original brass casing alongside recreated sections informed by period drawings, written descriptions, and recollections of Bussey’s workers. Though not entirely authentic, the display preserves both the unusual etched pattern and some of the original elements from Bussey's model, keeping alive a small but vivid piece of early New England agricultural history. 

It is also said that the lantern once bore small copper flowers fixed around its crown, crafted in Bussey’s own shop. In 1778, he opened a gold and silversmith business in Dedham, producing spurs, spoons, and other metal objects. The floral accents on the lantern may have been a personal flourish from those early years, linking his skill as a craftsman to the agricultural life he later embraced.