Christopher And The Clockmakers Part 29

"Thomas Harland made quite a few of these wags-on-the-wall as well as some fine long-case clocks with works of bra.s.s," added the old man.

"I suppose none of the makers could turn out very many clocks when every part of them had to be made by hand," was Christopher's thoughtful comment.

"No, they couldn't. Moreover the demand for clocks was not great.

Usually clockmakers either started only three or four or else began none until they received advance orders. If eight or ten good clocks that would sell for thirty-five or forty dollars apiece were turned out inside a year, the output was held to be a pretty fair one."

"n.o.body could get very rich on that income," came from the lad.

"Not if that rate of production had continued. But it didn't, you see.

After Eli Terry got to making clocks somewhere about 1795 he was clever enough to carry water from a near-by brook into his shop and supplement his tools and hand engine with water power. That was a stride ahead of the old way and opened before him all manner of undreamed-of possibilities, as a result of which he decided to make clocks on a tremendous scale. The type of thing he aimed to produce was a thirty-hour clock with wooden works and a pendulum vibrating seconds; and he figured that by purchasing more water power and larger buildings he would be able to make such clocks at the rate of a thousand or more a year and therefore turn them out for as little as four dollars apiece--a mad enterprise in that era of limited economic conditions."

"Did the scheme make good?"

"Not to the extent he had hoped," answered McPhearson. "He could, it is true, make clocks with wooden works much cheaper than with works of bra.s.s; but he did not feel satisfied with them and after the year was up he abandoned the venture. Hence this variety of clock of the elder Terry workmanship is rarely to be found. A somewhat crude timepiece it was, having no dial and only figures painted on the gla.s.s at the front of the case to indicate the hours. Peering through it one could see the works.

But although Eli Terry himself gave up making this style of clock, others who had caught his idea did not and consequently a good many of them came into the market. In fact most of Terry's inspirations were thanklessly s.n.a.t.c.hed up by his contemporaries, for in all his years of work he took out only one patent."

A protest escaped Christopher's lips.

"Patents were held in no very high esteem in those days," continued McPhearson. "People did not regard them in the light we do now. You remember how the old clockmakers of London blocked the path whenever a member of their craft attempted to secure one. They wished to share the benefits of everybody's ideas and therefore maintained that all inventions should be common property. As a rule those who clamored most loudly that this altruistic arrangement be promoted were those who never had any brilliant ideas of their own. As for the inventors themselves--they were as a rule too intent on the thing they were producing to pay any great heed to the money end of the project. Eli Terry was a man of this character. Therefore it came about that when others copied the circular saw he installed and made off with the other fruits of his brain he raised no protest."

"Did he never make any more clocks with wooden works?" inquired Christopher.

"Oh, yes, indeed! By 1814 he had worked out a fresh model of a wooden clock that he liked much better than his first. This one vibrated half-seconds and accordingly could be made with a pendulum short enough for the timepiece to be placed on a shelf as the former one had been. It was, however, of an entirely new design, having a dial in the upper half, painted gla.s.s in the door and an ornamental pillar at each side of the case. On top was a decorative scroll of wood and altogether it was a product so novel and well suited to the home that immediately the public greeted it with delight."

"And I suppose all the other clockmakers promptly began to copy it,"

interposed Christopher.

"Precisely!" smiled the Scotchman. "The old wag-on-the-wall, and in many instances even the grandfather clock was consigned to the ash heap, and the pillar clock became the only clock worth having. It was, fortunately, within range of the most modest purse, costing only fifteen dollars. Mr. Terry now had more business than he could handle and he took in his two sons, Henry and Eli, Junior, to learn the trade and help him. Of course this wonderful commodity could not be imported because if taken to sea the dampness would swell its wooden wheels and ruin it.

Nevertheless Terry did not care. He had all the trade he could manage right here at home. For twenty-five years his wooden clocks remained in vogue, a long period to hold the favor of the fickle public. Great credit is due Mr. Terry, too, for bringing such a clock into being, for a timepiece with wooden works meant the making of an entirely different set of tools, since it was impossible to use the same implements that were required in the making of clocks with works of bra.s.s."

"I suppose it was a change in fashion that finally caused the downfall of the wooden-wheeled clock," was Christopher's comment.

He ventured the remark with some pride.

"No, in this particular case it wasn't. Capricious as fashion is, people liked the shelf clock much better than they did a tall clock that stood on the floor, and they would no doubt have continued to buy these clocks with wooden works had not sheet metal began to be manufactured about the year 1840. Instantly clockmakers saw the advantage of having sheet bra.s.s to work with. It was far better than the cast bra.s.s formerly used. An improvement, too, were the wire pinions--accessories much cheaper and simpler to produce than were those of wood. Therefore just as wood forced the old cast bra.s.s out of favor, so sheet bra.s.s now took the place of wood. Fortunately for Eli Terry, the drastic changes he had inst.i.tuted in the fashioning of his clocks were equally possible of manufacture either from cast or sheet material."

"No doubt by that time the whole country had gobbled up his inventions,"

sniffed Christopher.

"Yes. The best of his ideas had been seized and generally put into practice not only on this side of the ocean but also on the other. Two of his ideas were everywhere popular--the placing of the dial works between plates; and the mounting of the verge on a small steel pin inserted in one end of the short arm. But in spite of all the improvements he had made, Mr. Terry did not sit down with folded hands and feel there was nothing further to be done. Constantly he was alert for practical suggestions that should better his handiwork. For example, he heard that some one was making machinery according to a definite scale so that parts of it could be exchanged from one article to another. Why, thought he, should not the parts of a clock be made so they would be interchangeable? The plan proved a most excellent one and eventually it was universally adopted by other clockmakers. So you see, in one way and another, old Eli Terry contributed very materially to up-building the American clockmaking industry."

"Did his sons go on making clocks?" was Christopher's inquiry.

"Yes," nodded McPhearson. "In fact, ever so many clockmaking Terrys came after old Eli, and each added his bit to his ancestor's trade. One branched out and made tempered steel clock springs to take the place of the expensive springs of bra.s.s which were too costly to put into the cheaper grade of American-made clocks. Oh, yes, the Terrys kept up the traditions of the family--never fear about that! All that group of early Connecticut manufacturers did great service to the country in founding an industry that has brought to the United States a goodly portion of its business prosperity. Seth Thomas, Silas Hoadley, Chauncey Jerome are names that will not soon be forgotten; Terryville and Thomaston, two clockmaking centers, testify to that. As for Jerome--it was he who experimented with the painting of decorative gla.s.s and evolved that variety having a bronzed effect."

"Oh, I know what you mean," interrupted Christopher with quick intelligence. "Our kitchen clock has gla.s.s like that in the door. And meantime, while Connecticut was doing so much, what were the other states up to?"

"Let me think a moment," replied the Scotchman, half closing his eyes.

"Well, Rhode Island never furnished much aid along the line of clockmaking; her talents seemed to lie in the direction of spinning yarn, making thread, and weaving textiles. What clocks she needed were imported or made by hand by local silversmiths. Pennsylvania, however, contributed her part. David Rittenhouse of Philadelphia was an exceedingly skillful clockmaker who not only had to his credit many fine timepieces but also some very complicated and remarkable ones.

Christopher Sower, too, was a Pennsylvania man not to be overlooked."

"Christopher, eh?" the boy repeated.

"Yes. There are some exceedingly distinguished Christophers in history, remember. You and Columbus are not the only ones," a.s.serted McPhearson, with dancing eyes. "This Christopher Sower, now, could turn not alone his hand but his well-trained brain in a variety of worthy directions.

To begin with, before he settled in Germantown he had taken a doctor's degree in an Old World medical university. Therefore after becoming established on his American farm he not only tilled the land but he doctored his neighbors. In addition he took up clockmaking, paper-making, and the printing of books. And as if these vocations, or avocations, did not keep him busy enough, he supplemented them by trying to improve the manufacture of cast-iron stoves. Even he himself, perhaps, felt it necessary to offer apology for dabbling in so many trades, for when he came to put his name on his clocks he spelled it _Souers_."

The lad smiled.

"Then there was also in Pennsylvania a friend of Benjamin Franklin's, Edward Duffield, who made good clocks. Meantime in New Hampshire both Timothy Chandler of Concord and Luther Smith of Keene were successfully plying the clockmaking trade and creating beautiful old clocks. But it was Ma.s.sachusetts that was Connecticut's strong second."

"And what was being done there?"

McPhearson put down his drill.

"Were I to begin that story," protested he, "I should have no lunch to-day and you would have none either. Maybe some other time--"

"To-morrow?" suggested Christopher, who had no intention of allowing this prince of story-tellers to escape.

"Why, yes--to-morrow--if you are still of the same mind, you shall hear the Ma.s.sachusetts story."

CHAPTER XVI

WHAT Ma.s.sACHUSETTS CONTRIBUTED

Mr. McPhearson had no chance to forget his promise even had he been so minded, for promptly the next morning, almost before his tools were laid out on his bench, Christopher presented himself, announcing with a mischievous smile:

"To-day, you know, you are going to tell me the clock history of Ma.s.sachusetts."

"Indeed I'm not," growled the Scotchman, who although flattered by the demand, was unwilling to admit it. "History of Ma.s.sachusetts! The very idea!"

"I said the clock history," corrected Christopher, not a whit abashed.

"Did you? Well, even that is bad enough. What do you think I'm here for?

To play school-master?"

"Oh, no, indeed. Merely to serve as my private tutor," was the teasing reply.

"That's your belief, is it! Egad, I begin to think it is," laughed the clockmaker, amused at the lad's audacity. "Certainly your demand would seem to bear out the theory."

"But you made the promise yourself--you can't have forgotten that."

"Forget it! Would I be likely to forget--would I so much as get the chance, with you pestering me almost before my hat is off? Well, if I was rash enough to make a promise like that, I see no way but to keep it; so the Ma.s.sachusetts clock story it shall be. It happens, too, that you have asked for it at just the right moment, for to-day I am going to work on as fine an old Willard clock as ever you saw. She is the real thing!"

"Was Willard the first of the Ma.s.sachusetts clockmakers?"