Hardening involves planishing--giving the brass light blows with a hammer. Planishing could take days and then cracks could appear in the brass. Later clockmakers could buy the brass castings and blanks ready for filing, cutting, and finishing.
Gear cutting, a most exacting job, was simplified when Elisha Purington, a clockmaker from Kensington, NH devised a lathe-like machine for cutting teeth on the gear blanks.
American clockmakers made four main types of clocks: tower, tall, wall, and shelf clocks. Tower clocks were public, usually high up in a tower. These clocks were important, as a clock took many months to make and few people could afford one. Before 1850 most tower clocks were made on order. After that date they were produced in quantity until about 1925, when their popularity ceased.
Clockmaking halted when the American Revolution broke out. It's not very widely known that a French clockmaker played a crucial part in the Revolution. Pierre Caron de Beau- marchais was a clockmaker, inventor, politician, courtier, and librettist. He wrote "The Barber of Seville" and "The Marriage of Figaro."
He had great influence with King Louis XVI, managing against the advice of the King's ministers, to persuade the King to support the colonists in their war against the English. By his personal efforts and money, Beaumarchais raised a fleet of forty vessels to help the colonists. However, Arthur Lee, the American Commissioner in France, took the credit for himself. It was 50 years--and long after Beaumarchais' death--before Congress made some compensation to the family for the fortune their forebear had spent.
Originally, tall case clocks were little more than wall or hang-up clocks. The transition to a tall case clock occurred in England from 1670 to 1700. It is likely that a hood was added to keep dust and dirt from the movement; later a case was added to hide the pendulum and weights.
The craft of making tall case clocks in America began in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and later in Connecticut; Connecticut became the birthplace of mass-produced clocks about 1840. Except in rare instances, the clockmaker did not make the cases for his clocks. Cases were usually made by a cabinetmaker on order from the clockmaker or from the purchaser of the movements. Each area developed its own regional style; one can distinguish between clocks made in Philadelphia, New York, or Boston.
Generally speaking, case styles reflected the furniture styles of the period. Cases with flat tops, no feet, and square brass dials are of the William and Mary style. Between 1715 and 1725 arches appeared on the dial and hoods were arched to conform. The ogee foot appeared, and the style developed into that known as Queen Anne.
The Chippendale style developed around 1760, broken arches became popular on the hoods and some fretwork was used, brass or wood finials appeared, and ogee feet became standard. (OG -- ogee -- is a molding found in both architecture and furniture.) Around 1780, the Hepple- white style appeared. The cases of this period often feature inlay work.
Dials of tall case clocks are another way to date clocks. The earliest ones (1600 to about 1740) were about 10" square and made of brass with spandrels of pierced brass; usually a silvered chapter ring contained the numbers. With the advent of the arched dial, a moon phase often appeared in the lunette, which had carried the clockmaker's name. The painted dial appeared around 1780 along with Arabic numerals.
Movements of tall case clocks were most often made of brass and ran for eight days. Some brass movements were of the pull-up variety, however, and ran for 30 hours.
After the war, clockmakers returned to their craft, but shortages coupled with increasing demand, forced up the prices of tall clocks. Clockmakers looked to provide cheaper, smaller alternatives. The Willards of Grafton, MA, produced several types, the finest of which was probably the Banjo clock, a wall clock. The introduction of the Massachusetts shelf clock (about 1760-1770) was likely spurred by the expense of tall case clocks. Shelf clocks were small (average height is 24"-30"), so less brass was needed for the movements. Running time ranged from 30 hours to three or eight days.
Shelf clocks were very popular and were made up until 1830 by the Willards, Daniel Balch, Seril Dodge, David Wood, and Levi Hutchins, among others. Shelf clocks were one of the most important types of clocks manufactured. They were relatively inexpensive, which made them affordable.
Then Eli Terry appeared upon the American clockmaking scene. To him goes the credit for being the first to mass-produce low-priced clocks. Terry has been described as the last of the craftsmen and the first of the industrialists. In 1807 Terry accepted an order for about 4,000 wood movements; he completed the order about 1810.
To some extent he was helped by the Jefferson Embargo of 1807-9 and the War of 1812-14, both of which severely restricted the importation of material from England. In 1814 Terry produced a 20" shelf clock which he patented in 1816. The beautiful Pillar and Scroll clock followed. Seth Thomas purchased the right to make it. The lower part of Terry's clocks were fitted with a glass plate on which was painted a design, although enough of the glass was left clear for the swinging pendulum to be seen.
A boom in clockmaking in Connecticut occurred in the 1820s and clocks began to be sent all over the country. Then a bizarre situation arose:
Clocks were used for barter in place of money. This situation ended abruptly when the depression of 1837 brought the American clockmaking industry to a complete standstill. It also saw the end of the wooden clock movement.
Around 1840 the ogee case, with its S curves appeared and was made up until the early 1900s.
A very popular clock, it was made in different sizes. Wood and brass movements were used and ogee clocks ran for either 30 hours or eight days, with the 30-hour clock being the most popular. A million OGs a year were sold by Connecticut clockmakers. From 1837-1857, Connecticut clockmakers saw prosperity; factories and mass production became well established.
Another popular shelf clock was the steeple clock, invented by Elias Ingraham. Variations -- double steeple, beehive, and ripple front, among them -- were developed by Connecticut clockmakers.
From this time on, many varieties of shelf clocks were made, including calendar clocks. Adding a calendar to a clock mechanism was not an American development, since the calendar move-ment first appeared on English tall case clocks around 1660. What American clockmakers did was invent the many variations of the calendar clock begin-ning around 1860 -- dials and indicator hands that gave the month, date, day of the week, phases of the moon, the time of the rising and setting of the sun, signs of the zodiac, and the like. Some calendar clocks even accounted for leap year.
Clockmakers began using the coil spring for power, and fanciful shaped cases began to appear. From Connecticut appeared clocks that were controlled by a balance wheel. This development was important because the portability of clocks increased. The next big development occurred about 1875 with the introduction of the round, metal-case lever-escape alarm clock. This was the ancestor of modern alarm clocks.
Up until about 1845, American clocks were similar to English clocks in that they struck the hours only. Continental clocks struck the half hour as well. In the middle of the 19th century, American clockmakers began to make clocks that also struck the half hours.
References: Antique Clocks and Clock Collecting by Eric Bruton (Hamlyn, 1974); Clocks & Watches by Eric Bruton (Hamlyn, 1968); The History of Clocks and Watches by Kenneth F. Welch (Drake, 1972); The American Clock by William H. Distin & Robert Bishop (Bonanza, 1976). Another source of information is the American Watchmaker's-Clockmaker's Institute, 701 Enterprise Drive, Harri-son, OH 45030; Tel.: (513) 367-9800; web site: www.awi-net.org. The AWI publishes a monthly magazine, Horological Times.
The author, Mo Klein, owns Hearthside Antiques, a multi-dealer showroom shop on Rt. 10 in Winchester, NH. The shop is open 6 days a week from 10 am - 5 pm; closed Wednesdays. Mo's hobby is obvious... collecting clocks. He can be emailed at: hearthantiques@cheshire.net
©1997 Unravel the Gavel