March 2008

While living in Pittsburgh, Pa., Lori bought an 1830’s wooden works shelf clock as a gift for my birthday (I think she also saw this as a perfect decoration for the mantel of our sparsely furnished first house). The rest, as they say, is history. That first clock now sits on our present mantel.

Our whole family spent many a weekend combing the countryside looking for attractive but inexpensive furniture and decorative items. We visited shops and shows, meeting wonderful dealers who helped broaden our focus and our knowledge. It was one of those dealers who sponsored my membership into the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors (NAWCC), a wonderful organization for anyone remotely interested in clocks. For modest annual dues, they offer valuable research material, educational opportunities, conferences and seminars. NAWCC also maintains a fine museum of exceptional American clocks, in Columbia, Pa.

Clocks have been called by some the greatest single masterpiece of ingenuity and coordinated thought in the history of invention. Whether you agree with the claim or not, you might recognize that the making of a clock involves a marvelous collaboration of talents and skills not found in most other objects.

How many components go into the manufacture of a clock? There are five basic ones:

• The dial of painted metal, wood, paper, brass or silver.

• The mirror or painted or etched glass tablet.

• The hands, pendulum bob and weights.

• The cabinetry of solid wood, veneer, papier mache,
  cast metal or porcelain.

Each component represents a separate and distinct skill brought together to create a functional. work of art. Examine an early clock and you will see the elements of folk art, cabinetry and mechanics rolled into one. These elements mimicked many of the forms and designs of the furniture and decorations of the times, because they were made by the same craftsmen. So it made sense in the late 18th and 19th centuries, that the requisite trades clustered in major population centers in support of one another.

From the earliest settlements until about 1700, it is doubtful that there was much clock making in the Colonies. Those clocks that may have existed were most probably brought by wealthy settlers. Since the wealthy primarily gravitated to urban centers, tradesmen from abroad settled there also. It should be noted that many so called “clockmakers” practiced other trades. They made their living as blacksmiths, silversmiths, instrument makers or machinists, since the demand for clocks was small.

Until the 1840’s, when factory production revolutionized clock manufacture, clocks were “made to order” using patterns and a “cut and try” method. Each movement and case was unique and the practice was costly. Accordingly, clocks were not produced in great numbers.

Early domestic clocks were almost exclusively tall clocks, referred to today as “Grandfather” clocks because the movements at that time needed high cases to house the weights and pendulum necessary to drive the mechanism. Due to the scarcity of machinery and materials it can be said that clock making during the 18th and early 19th centuries consisted of craftsmen assembling clockwork parts from abroad, mostly England, while making the cases here.