Antique Clocks

Antique Clocks

According to Wikipedia today’s general usage of the term “clock” refers to “any device for measuring and displaying the time, which, unlike a watch, is not worn on the person”. However, for horologists and other specialists, a clock is a device that contains and employs a striking mechanism. That mechanism is used to announce the time intervals, e.g., hour, half-hour, or quarter-hour by ringing bells, gongs or chimes. If the time-keeping instrument lacks an acoustical means of announcing the time it is traditionally known as a timepiece rather than as a clock.

Measurement of time has been a great concern of human beings since the advent of recorded history. Our intent here is concern ourselves only with clocks; including timepieces, relating to the period of American history and to a certain extent the history immediately preceding and paralleling it. The clocks we enjoy today have their very distant roots in inventions that derived from China, India, the Muslim world and medieval Europe.

By the 18th and 19th centuries clock making, as a skilled trade, was well established in Europe and England. The trade was very carefully controlled by the guilds that operated in those regions. The only way to enter the clock making trade was through an apprenticeship to an established master clock maker who was also a guild member. Under this system, a very limited number of master clock makers could be producing clocks. Therefore, a very limited number of clocks could be produced and they were subsequently quite expensive and well beyond the means of the average person.

It was in America that this system changed. The apprentice system continued to exist because there was no formal means of training and evaluating prospective clock makers. However, the guild system and its control of the clock making trade was left where it belonged – on the other side of the Atlantic ocean. Freed of the constraints and anti-competitive nature of the guilds American clock makers soon began to devise ways of mass producing good quality clocks. Among the antique clock makers Eli Terry holds a special place of honor because he made mass production possible. His antique wood clocks kept remarkably good time and were inexpensive. Their astounding success made clocks available to the average citizen at very affordable prices.

Not only were good quality mass produced clocks, mainly of New England (New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut) origin, made available but very high quality long case clocks were also created. Principally in the Mid-Atlantic States of Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey, individually created long case clocks, sometimes known as grandmother and grandfather clocks, were manufactured by German and English immigrants. The very well crafted mechanisms were housed behind beautifully decorated painted or brass faces and in exceptionally elegant and well crafted cases. A particularly good and recommended book about precision pendulum clocks is Precision Pendulum Clocks: The Quest for Accurate Timekeeping (Schiffer Book for Collectors) (Volume 3)/p>

To view the video please click on the link below.

Antique Clocks in America

Background

Antique clocks in America owe their existence to centuries of development in Asia, the Middle East and Europe that terminated in the clock making regions of Germany and Great Britain. These, of course, are the geographical areas that provided the greatest numbers of early immigrants to America. Among them came skilled clockmakers. The British immigrants landed at ports that extended almost the entire length of America’s eastern seaboard – from Maine to Georgia. The British clockmakers primarily established themselves in Massachusetts and Connecticut and to a lesser degree New York State and other New England states.

The German immigrants landed primarily at Philadelphia because of the religious and economic freedom espoused by the Penns. From there they moved into Berks and Lancaster Counties and beyond to take advantage of the rich farmlands that were available to them as land grants. Some Germans also landed at New York, migrated up the Hudson River and then down the Susquehanna River into central Pennsylvania. From there subsequent migrations took them into the Shenandoah valley of Virginia where they also thrived.

Regionalization of clocks in America

In America, although apprenticeships were common and the expected way to learn a trade, the European style guilds no longer played a significant role in the clock making arena. Therefore, clockmakers, assisted by their apprentices and, eventually by relatively unskilled labor, were able to make substantial innovations in clock making unimpeded by the rules of the guilds. Small clocks, such as wall, mantel, carriage, kitchen and banjo clocks appear to have been produced primarily in New England with a focus upon Massachusetts and Connecticut. Tall case clocks were produced in New England and the Middle Atlantic states with their characteristics being primarily English or German depending upon the region in which they were manufactured.

It’s interesting to note that the German clock makers largely continued in the European skilled craft tradition making exquisitely crafted, precise, movements made primarily of brass and steel. The improvements made to these clock movements were generally incremental and occurred over a substantial period of time. The impetus for this, especially as contrasted to the New England clock makers, could have well been that the long established German craft tradition had not yet been affected by the Industrial Revolution that was taking place in Great Britain. Further affecting the pace of innovation was that the output of the German clockmakers was largely long case clocks that required cases made by equally skilled craftsmen. Only a very limited number of cases could be produced, and these clocks were expensive, obviating the need for an increased pace of production of clock works.

Innovations in America

The English immigrants, on the other hand, although they too produced fine clocks in various forms, saw that there was a market for clocks made for the ordinary citizen. What stood in the way was the cost of the clocks. Therefore, to an enterprising clock maker the key to successfully addressing this market was to find a way to reduce the manufacturing costs of producing a clock. Thus, the need to reduce costs was established. All it took was for someone to figure out how to make it happen. That someone, in the person of Eli Terry, Sr., did figure out how to significantly reduce the manufacturing costs associated with producing clocks to meet the needs of ordinary people. This was a highly significant accomplishment that directly provided impetus to the rise of American manufacturing.

Born in 1772, Eli Terry, Sr. apprenticed as a clock maker under master clock maker Daniel Burnap. He also apparently received training and knowledge from Timothy Cheney, a clock maker from East Hartford, CT who was accomplished in the manufacturing of clocks with wooden works. Wooden works were, at the time, unusual, but would play a very significant role in Terry’s clock making career. After his apprenticeship ended in 1792, Terry began making and repairing clocks and watches, working in brass and wood. In 1801 he received the first US patent for a clock mechanism and his production of clocks with wooden works grew quickly.

Over time, Eli Terry purchased a water powered mill to produce clock parts. The water drove a wheel that provided power through gearing and jackshafts to drive saws and lathes that were directed by jigs and fixtures. Using the jigs and fixtures, interchangeable parts were created to facilitate the production of clocks thus obviating the need for large numbers of skilled craftsmen who could only produce 6-10 clocks each year. Terry’s genius was in inventing machinery to mass produce clock components that would require only limited finishing by skilled craftsmen. Subsequent adjustment of the finished clock mechanism by skilled craftsmen would then suffice to provide a clock that kept reasonably accurate time. The major result of Terry’s skill and thinking was that the clocks which started leaving the factory in large numbers in 1816 were the world’s first mass produced machines that employed moving parts. And, it is especially significant that they were inexpensive enough to be affordable by common people. Now virtually every American family could afford to purchase a clock and this was encouraged through newly devised installment plan purchases. Frequent model changes also encouraged clock owners to upgrade their original purchases with newer models. Doesn’t that sound familiar?

The growth of clock manufacturing

All of this set the stage for substantial competition – competition that very frequently infringed Terry’s many clock patents. From this competition came clocks by Silas Hoadley, Chauncey Jerome, Seth Thomas and many others. Eli Terry’s sons were accomplished inventors and clock makers and produced their own consequential innovations. Their derivative companies persist to this day. Further, the ideas and concepts embodied in the invention and development of a method for the manufacture of mass produced machines (in this case clocks) encouraged other entrepreneurs to think and act upon methods to mass produce other goods. Thus, the absolutely incredible growth of manufacturing in and the associated export trade of New England began.

This also began the transplantation and implementation in America of the recently begun Industrial Revolution occurring in Great Britain. The availability of inexpensive, reasonably accurate, clocks made possible the social aspects that accompanied the Industrial Revolution. That is, the ability of labor to be paid by the hour, arrive at and leave the workplace at appointed times and observe work schedules while at the workplace. It also marked he beginning of the movement in America from an agrarian farm and sea-based economy to a city-based manufacturing economy. To facilitate the emerging manufacturing economy abundant labor was required. The need for labor caused an internal migration from farms to rapidly growing cities and was a powerful magnet for additional immigration.

American Clock Forms

American clocks occurred in many varied forms – many with strong regional emphasis. Smaller clocks seemed to predominate in New England and New York State. This is, of course, a natural outcome of the invention, development and mass production of those clocks in the region. The demand for inexpensive clocks that kept reasonably accurate time was so great that a myriad of manufacturers were established. Some manufacturers became very large and others remained small but together they produced huge numbers of clocks. Many regional manufacturers specialized in making clock parts that they then sold to other clock manufacturers. Some of the clock forms produced were:

• Shelf
• Pillar and scroll
• Banjo
• Girandole
• Lyre
• OG
• Bee Hive
• Calendar
• Lighthouse
• New Hampshire mirror
• Wagon spring
• Steeple
• Acorn
• Long Case

Future articles will describe these clock forms and their manufacturers in further detail.

Antique Clocks

Definition of a clock

In today’s general usage, a clock is a device for measuring, computing and displaying the accurate time. Unlike a watch, a clock is not intended to be worn on or about the person. For industry specialists and horologists, however, a clock is device that employs a striking mechanism that is contained within or on the physical body of the device. The striking mechanism provides an announcement of the time intervals such as the quarter hour, half hour or hour by providing an acoustical notice in the form of chimes, gongs, bells or other sounds. If the device lacks chimes, bells, gongs or other sound producing mechanisms, it is traditionally considered to be a timepiece, not a clock. In today’s world, however, most people consider any time keeping device, not intended to be worn on or about the person, to be a clock – without differentiation. Timepieces worn on or about the person are considered to be watches.

Time

The passage, recording and keeping of time has been a major concern of human beings since prehistory. Although the invention and use of clocks is a relatively recent phenomenon in recorded history, there are numerous examples of ancient people’s interest in and use of time to plan for religious ceremonies and the marking of the seasons of planting and harvest. All time measurement is based upon the occurrences of natural processes – usually the astronomical intervals between thee passage of the sun, the moon and certain identifiable stars, that is the year, the lunar month and the day. Today, the most accurate time-keeping systems continue to be based upon a natural phenomenon, the vibration of atoms – ergo, the atomic clock. The atomic clock is what makes the modern Global Positioning Satellite system possible and practical.

Sundials

Although saddled with several significant disadvantages; namely the inability to function at night and when no sun is present (such as on cloudy days) the sundial presented a reasonable approximation of the actual time. The sundial presented another substantial advantage in that it provided a basis against which to compare other means of measuring time. An example of this is the hourglass in which uniformly fine sand pours through a small hole between oppositely mounted glass chambers at a uniform rate, describing a previously specified period of time, for example, one hour.

Water Clocks

Another prime example of a time measuring device that was calibrated against the sundial is the water clock that is one of the oldest known forms of time measurement. It isn’t known, and perhaps cannot be known, just when and where the water clock originated. However, some individuals write about water clocks appearing in India and China as early as 4000 BC. The simplest form of a water clock is said to have been present in Babylon and Egypt as early as the 16th century BC.

As civilizations advanced, the design and complexity of the water clock also advanced. The Greeks and the Romans are credited with equipping water clocks with gears to improve their functionality by increasing their accuracy and making use of automata possible. Eventually, the knowledge of water clocks having passed through other civilizations, the technology made its way to Europe. During approximately the same time period, whether independently or through trade, water clocks were developed and improved in China from where the technology was transmitted to Japan and Korea.

For the most part, the use of very labor intensive water clocks was confined to the learned elite for astrological, astronomical and religious purposes. Until the advent of the Industrial Revolution there was simply no need for the Commoners to mark and keep track of time other than that which was kept for them. By that era, the water clock had been replaced by increasingly accurate and sophisticated pendulum clocks, starting in 17th century Europe. Even then, clocks were not common and found only in churches and among the learned elite. He who controlled time controlled the great unwashed masses.

Transition Period

The transition from water clocks to those with pendulums and escapements took place over a period of several centuries. It is apparent that, in reference to European church and horology records, from approximately 1280-1320 AD a new clock mechanism had been invented. Although still driven by waterpower, an oscillating escapement mechanism had been developed and applied to clocks. Subsequently, the water-powered mechanism was supplanted by power from falling weights. Thus marks the beginning of the era of the true mechanical clock in Europe.

Outside of Europe, specifically in medieval China, during the period of 1020-1101AD Su Song, an engineer and master horologist, developed an escapement mechanism. This mechanism was incorporated into a water driven astronomical clock tower with a rotating armillary sphere. A mechanical clock was first described in an Islamic work in approximately 1565AD. It was a weight-driven device that incorporated a striking train of gears, a mechanical escapement, a moon phase representation and an alarm.

In Europe, spring-driven clocks first appeared in the 1400s. The earliest spring-driven clock extant is the chamber clock given to the Duke of Burgundy, Peter the Good, around 1430 and now resident in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. New mechanisms were required to compensate for the changes in available power as the spring wound down. This resulted in the invention and development of many improvements over the years.

European clock making flourished in Germany and France in the 15th and 16th centuries. Although crude by modern standards, the availability of reasonably accurate clocks had profound social implications. As the skill level of the clock makers improved, clocks with astronomical features and musical movements became more available to those who could appreciate and afford them. Improved production methods and mechanisms also pointed the way to the day when clocks would become available to and affordable by classes other than royalty and the educated elite.

Major Improvements

A major improvement in the accuracy of clocks occurred after the mid 1650s. Early in the 17th century Galileo, the great Italian inventor, came up with the idea of of using a swing pendulum bob to regulate the motion of a time keeping device. However, it fell to Christiaan Huygens to actually develop the mathematical formula that related time to pendulum length and therefore made the pendulum clock practical. The pendulum length appropriate for a one second first pendulum driven clock, complete with a crown escapement, made. Subsequent to the manufacture of the Huygens clock, in 1670 William Clement, an English clockmaker, invented the anchor escapement, a significant improvement, which led to the implementation of minute and second hands. Clement also is credited with developing the long case clock form that we now refer to as a grandfather clock. The long case form was ideally suited to housing the clock works and its associated pendulum. This occurred sometime in the period 1670-1671. The faces of these clocks were initially crafted of wood but quickly morphed into forms that used metals such as brass, enamels and hand painted porcelain.

The importance of accuracy

About this time, that is, the late 17th century, national, commercial and social interests merged to add great impetus to the development of increasingly accurate clocks. The European nations of Great Britain, France, Spain, Holland and Portugal were competing in exploration and trade involving transoceanic routes. Accordingly, each nation established, supported and nurtured their merchant fleets and the navies that protected them. The merchant trade routes extended worldwide and were traversed by sail powered ships that were subject to substantial adverse conditions. Therefore, the ability to accurately navigate the oceans and precisely determine the position of the ships upon them became of paramount importance. The major key to accomplishing this was, and is today, the ability to very accurately determine the time. The initial goal was to create a clock that would neither gain nor lose in excess of 10 seconds per day. Given the conditions under which such a clock had to operate; a rocking ship, extremes of temperature, salt air, moisture, rough seas, etc, this was a very difficult assignment.

However, the value of such a clock design was virtually incalculable to the nation or merchant house possessing it. The governments to anyone who could accomplish this highly daunting task. The British Crown offered 20,000 pounds sterling that, today, according to our calculations, would be worth approximately $36,000,000 as a reward. John Harrison, an Englishman, claimed the prize in 1761. He then devoted his life to improving the accuracy of the clocks he produced. Losing less than 5 seconds over 10 days, Harrison’s H5 model clock was the pinnacle of his very successful efforts.

Even so, the purchase of clocks was largely limited to the province of churches, royalty and the moneyed elite. In subsequent articles we will discuss the individual, societal and liberating aspects of the development and manufacture of clocks in America. These additions will focus upon the important individuals that made this possible and the companies that sprang from their work.