Henry’s Attic: Some Fascinating Gifts to Henry Ford and His Museum

11 Clocks and Watches

CHAPTER 11 Clocks and Watches l Y THE TIME Europeans began settling in America in the 1600s, the art of making clocks and watches was well advanced. Sundials and waterclocks, also called clepsydras (age-old devices that measured time by the constant speed of water flowing through a small aperture), had given way during the Middle Ages to mechanical weight-driven clocks. Large and bulky, these weight-driven clocks were suitable for use only on public buildings. They were in turn supplemented by portable clocks with mainsprings and pendulums that could be used in homes; the first of these is said to have been introduced in Florence in 1410 by Filippo Brunelleschi, a noted architect. The mainspring used in portable clocks also led to the development of watches. The first watches evidently appeared around 1500, but late in the 1500s, they were still regarded more as luxurious ornaments than as functional timepieces. People wore them chiefly for display; for telling time, they continued to rely on pocket sundials. The first thorough investigation of the pendulum was the work of Christian Huygens, the great Dutch physicist and astronomer. In 1657 Huygens gave drawings and instructions for constructing a clock based on his pendulum studies to a clockmaker in The Hague. The result was a timepiece with greatly improved accuracy . In 1675 Huygens made a similarly valuable contribution to watchmaking by creating the balance wheel and spiral spring oscillator. The spiral shape of Huygens' oscillator is still used in watch design today. Immigrant clockmakers and watchmakers brought their skills with them to the New World and by the early 1700s were practicing their craft in almost every settled corner of the land. Most of these artisans concentrated on creating timepieces with high-quality brass movements, handsome dials, and elegant cases. The work was time-consuming, and the products were expensive. Only the wealthiest colonists could afford them. The rest either relied on the clocks installed on churches and civic buildings or bought clocks with wooden movements. Introduced by American clockmakers sometime before 1750, wooden-movement clocks were cheap imitations of the costly brass timepieces. In the 1790s, as the economy of the new republic boomed, American clockmakers started casting about for new ways of manufacturing their products. One notable clockmaker of this period was Simon Willard of Massachusetts. In 1801 Willard invented a timepiece popularly known as a "banjo" clock. Designed to be hung on a wall, it was smaller and easier to set up and handle than the traditional "grandfather" clock, which was well over five feet tall. Willard's clock was not unique in this feature, for other "hang-up" clocks were also then available . Willard's clock was, however, not only relatively inexpensive; it was also simply but beautifully constructed , had a brass movement, and was an excellent timekeeper. Another notable clockmaker of the Federal period was Eli Terry of Connecticut. Terry is credited with bringing about the mass production of clocks in America. As early as 1801, his water-powered factory on a Connecticut river was turning out 500 grandfather clocks a year. It was a remarkable figure at the time, but just a few years later, using machine tools and interchangeable parts, Terry stunned the clockmaking industry by producing 3,000 wooden-movement clocks in a single year. In 1816, when Terry patented a small wooden-movement clock that could sit on a shelf, mantel, or table, he was able to sell it for just fifteen dollars, a sizable sum of money in that era but at least five times less than any other clock then on the market. In addition to its low price, the "shelf clock was far easier to move about the house than the wall clocks and grandfather clocks that preceded it, and its small size was also better-suited to small homes. Terry and a whole slew of new manufacturers , many of them in Connecticut, were soon producing inexpensive shelf clocks that found a ready 301 market all over America. Itinerant peddlers had great success with them in the backwoods, where isolated housewives were much taken by the comforting sound of their ticking. In 1837 Chauncy Jerome, who had learned clockmaking from Eli Terry, devised a method of making clock parts from thin rolled brass. Jerome's rolled brass was so much less expensive than the thicker cast brass traditionally used in high-quality clocks that it soon put the makers of wooden-movement clocks out of business; clocks could now be...