Connecticut Clockmaking

Jeff Sexton on

Another associate of Eli Terry was Seth Thomas, born in 1785, died in 1859 - after whom the town of Thomaston was named. Tho mas served an apprenticeship to the trade of carpenter and joiner, and spent some time on the construction of Long Wharf in New Haven. On his majority he left his apprenticeship and as a very young man (the age of the common and ordinary variety of college graduate) he joined into partnership with Eli Terry and Silas Hoadley, who was six months younger than Tho mas. Terry was very much the Senior partner in this enterprise, as he was then 35 years of age. (As Terry, Thomas & Hoadley they made clocks about 1809). In 1810 Terry sold his interests to these two callow youths, who carried on the business until 1814, when Thomas sold to Hoadley, moved and set up to manufacture wood clocks in Plymouth Hollow-now Thomaston. Seth Thomas had then reached the advanced age of 29, was a full fledged clockmaker on his own account, an economic royalist, and a genuine 24 karat rugged individualist. Jerome says of him, "Seth Thomas was in many respects a first rate man. He never mad e any improvements in manufacturing; his great success was in money making. He always minded his own business, was very industrious, persevering, honest, his word was as good as his note, and he always determined to make a good article and please his customers. He had several sons who are said to be smart business men." Why has his name endured? You have just heard what his competitor Jerome, who took no fancy to him, has to say of him. Doesn't that description tell us some reasons why he succeeded and his name survived? He made a lot of money and the "smart sons" carried on for three generations when the stockholders sold the business to the General Time Instruments Corp. which also operate the Westclox Company, but apparently one policy was never lost track of: "he always determined to make a good article."

Will you forgive me for bringing my own family into this discussion? The picture is hardly complete without mentioning Elias Ingraham. Born in Marlboro in 1805, he learned his trade as a cabinet maker. Evidently learning that the going was good in the little town of Bristol which then had some 1700 inhabitants, he must have put his joiners tools and spare c lot h i n g on his back, and in 1828 walked from Hartford to Bristol to get a job. In 1831 he bought a shop and paid taxes from then on as a mechanic. The panic of 1837 about floored him as he became heavily involved in debt, from which he was released just a century ago, when his brother Andrew came to his rescue. His early work was confined to cabinet making-furniture, chairs, mirrors, and clock cases, but when Jerome's brass movement became popular, he joined hands with a man named Ray and s tar t e d making clocks in his own name in 1841. Successive partnerships prevailed un t i 1 his plant was destroyed by fire in 1855. With characteristic Yankee perseverance he stuck to his guns until the last, which was in 1885. Elias Ingraham's flair for design, and his everlasting perseverance for m his claims to fame. The design for which he is best k now n is the so-called Sharp Gothic clock, which had four pillars, two rising from either side of a gable roofed case, all four crowned with nicely turned finials. The story is told that he carved the model for this clock while returning from a trip to Caracas, Venezuela. The object of this trip is unknown, but I believe he took it because he wanted to find out more about mahogany, with which he worked as a cabinet maker. Tradition says that he took "French leave" from his wife as she had ash a r p tongue, but as he came back again and lived with her happily ever after, this tale may not be true. Of Elias Ingraham, Edward S t eve n s, then Vice President of the New H a v en Clock Co. said at a clock manufacturers meeting in New York in 1879 "that it was conceded by everyone competent to express an opinion, that Elias Ingraham h e a d e d the list of American clock manufacturers in the matter of designs." In 1907 one of Bristol's early historians, Milo Leon Norton, wrote that "George Mitchell who seems to have been the leading entrepreneur of his day, wanted to produce a clock case superior to Chauncey Jerome's bronze pillar clock, and hired Elias to do that job." Elias may have had designing talent -he also had persistence and progeny. The latter, thanks to the former attribute, have passed the business down even into the fourth and fifth generations, while the sixth is rearing its head, from the pillow.

Two other men of the early period we will mention briefly for from their beginnings have grown two modern clock factories.

J. C. Brown was born in Coventry (Burnap's home), in 1805 and came to Bristol about 1833 when he bought an interest in one of the early clock factories. He may have learned clock making from Burnap. Until he failed in 1855 he was a leading figure in many Bristol firms. The picture of his residence, which is still standing, appears in the lower glass of many an antique clock. After his failure, his interests were bought by Elisha N. Welch - a great figure in his day. Within a few years of Welch's death (he died in the little village of Forestville, leaving an est ate of over three million dollars) his business was in bankruptcy, to be succeeded by the present Sessions Clock Co. of Forestville.

Riley Whiting of Winsted started making clocks there is 1807 in partnership wit h his brothers-in-law Samuel and Luther Hoadley. When these men retired, he continued in the business, making both Grandfather and shelf clocks, including the handsome pillar and scroll clocks, until his death in 1835, after which his business was taken over by William L. Gilbert.