Consultive Mechanician

[stormdog]

The person I'm researching, J. Marcus Boorman of New York, New York, had a singular occupation. He was a lawyer and a "consultive mechanician" according to a mention of him in a mathematical magazine in 1883. (I say singular partly because googling the phrase turns up nothing that is not a reference to the said Mr. Boorman.) This makes me think of some kind of mathematical Sherlock Holmes, except that another writer in a mathematical journal in the 1950s notes that he has "acquired the impression that Boorman seldom if ever produced a reliable result in his calculations."

Any guesses? What do you think a consultive mechanician did in 1883? What would one do now?