USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 19
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 19
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 19
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There is plenty of opportunity for the man or woman who engages
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in agriculture in Plymouth County. There is a good market, generally speaking, close at hand, for whatever products may be grown. In these days of automobiles and roadside stands, with the ability of every farmer to own an automobile of some quality with which he can truck his products to market, it becomes merely a question of selection. Some farms will produce one thing much better than anything else, most of them respond best to some specialty, and others are better for poultry raising, possibly ducks.
There are many helps to agriculture, especially the county farm agent, with whom consultations may be had and whose advice is in- valuable. The extension service from the Massachusetts Agricultural College with its three-fold mission, under the county agent, home demonstration agent and county club agent, has raised the standard of living, added general prosperity, educated the children and given the county a new tone and more abundant living the past few years. With all due respect to the leaders in other counties in the State, the staff in charge of Plymouth County is unexcelled. This department deserves a chapter of its own, as does the help of agricultural fairs, granges and other organizations, and this chapter will appear in its proper sequence.
Secretary of Agriculture Jardine included, Plymouth County in his advice given July 30, 1926, when, in a speech at the Massachusetts Agricultural College he said: "You have the finest apples, the largest and best cranberry crops in the world, and you must stick to them. Investigate and find out your best product, and then organize and ad- vertise. You must capitalize your advantages, but first you must find out what your advantages are. The principles for your success are those of any business and you must bear in mind that after you have made your market you must be able to deliver the goods. Take ad- vantage of your wonderful market and don't bother about a foreign. market."
CHAPTER IX "MAYFLOWER" WAS NOT FILLED WITH CLOCKS.
Popularity of Clocks Due to London Fog-Pilgrims Presumably Pos- sessed Sun Dials-Early Old Colony Craftsmen Constructed Time- pieces Still Measuring Time for Their Descendants-Famous Willard Family Constructed Clocks Which Chimed Psalm Tunes On Sunday and Secular Airs Other Six Days in the Week-Yankees Took Their Inventions With Them When They Helped Tame the Wild West- Rev. Hugh Peters Invited His Congregation To "Stay and Have An- other Glass."
Presumably many thousands of people have at times been asked to look into the face of a clock, proudly exhibited by the owner, with the statement that it "came over in the 'Mayflower.'" In many cases the clock exhibited with that statement has been a tall timepiece called a hall clock or "grandfather's clock," a type which has for two centuries or more been familiar in the homes in New England, more particularly in Southeastern Massachusetts and Maine. It is very doubtful if there was such a clock on the "Mayflower" or if there was such a clock in existence when the "Mayflower" made its voyage to these shores. So many claims have been made for clocks which "came over in the 'May- flower" that whenever that boat of small dimensions has been men- tioned it has immediately associated itself, in the minds of many, with clocks and other furniture. What clocks, if any, there were with the passengers on the "Mayflower," are more likely to have been brass clocks of the "lantern" type, such as were popular in London, in those days. As a matter of fact clocks became very popular in London be- fore they were especially popular anywhere else, naturally enough. Their popularity was considerably due to "London fog." Lest one remain in the fog as to why this should be, it is well to explain it here.
For centuries men told time by the sun. The original crude sun dial was a stick stuck in the ground, as near perpendicular as the eye could judge. "Cleopatra's Needle" in Central Park, New York, is believed to have been a gigantic timepiece. How far back the sun stick goes as an aid to man to measure time no one knows but there is an historical reference to sun dials as early as 800 B. C., and they were probably hoary with age at that time. Berosus, the Chaldean historian and priest, invented a sun dial shaped like a bowl with a pointer in it. This was about 250 B. C. He argued that the sky itself was shaped like a bowl and so the shadow cast along the lines of the "Hemicycle of Berosus"
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to indicate the hours, gave correctness to the instrument. Relics of these sun dials of Berosus have been exhumed amid the ruins of Pompeii and it is related that Cicero was the proud possessor of one of these instruments, for centuries the best means of recording the hours.
But sun dials were not satisfactory where there were frequent days without any sunshine, and this describes London. Necessity is the mother of invention, we are told, and London inventors were working on a good line when they attempted to construct something which would tell the time regardless of the sunshine. King Alfred, about 850 A. D., is said to have invented a water clock; also the plan of dividing his time into eight hour periods, eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep and eight hours for self improvement and charitable deeds. Alfred was apparently the first of the kings who gave sufficient heed to good use of his time to especially concern himself in dividing it or measuring it. Whether King Alfred invented a water clock or not, such a Volstead- approved timepiece, called a clepsydra, whereby water escaping through a hole told the hours, was in use many years. In the law courts of Rome these water clocks leaked while the orators spoke half a pint or a mouthful.
Probably there were hour glasses on the "Mayflower," as they were invented at Alexandria in 300 B. C. and as late as 1839 the hour glass was still used in the British Navy. It made its way generally into the churches in the sixteenth century as a timekeeper for the preacher during his sermon, and is still used to mark the time for boiling eggs and for telephonic conversations in the absence of wrist watches.
A few years ago the writer was looking through the Columbus Cath- edral in Havana, Cuba, and had his attention called to a very ornate clock which "was in Christopher Columbus' cabin in his flagship at the time he discovered America," but was glad to see it was not a "grandfather's clock."
Very likely when Massasoit had his official interview with the Pilgrim Fathers in March, 1621, at Plymouth, at the Common House, among the white men's wonders he gazed upon was a clock of the "lantern" variety, or one which hung upon the wall, with the bob pendulum swinging free, after the open plumbing style. It was 1680, some sixty years after the "Mayflower's" arrival, when the long pendulum came into use and about that time the clock case was constructed and this made a "grandfather's clock" of the whole assembly.
For many years in the Plymouth Colony, clocks were a luxury, as their cost prohibited them being owned by the average family. In olden times there were clocks operated by means of weights suspended by catgut and wound by pulling the string to raise the weight for another
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descent; and there were clocks operated by means of a spring. The latter were the smaller clocks, which were placed on the mantlepieces, cupboards, tables or on whatever might be used as a standard, re- placing the "Old Clock on the Stairs," or in the chimney corner. But the "grandfather's clock" did not
"Stop short, never to go again, when" ...
the smaller, spring controlled clocks came into use. Many of them were relegated to the attics and some of them remained there till the modern craze for antiques brought them forth to be dusted, have their faces and hands washed, to go to a new home, in exchange for many times the amount they were considered worth when new. There are many such tall clocks still in use in homes in Plymouth County, which have never been out of the family and never had a vacation, unless it was in earlier days between visits of the itinerant clock cleaners and repairers.
These itinerant clock men were once respected craftsmen in the Old Colony and throughout New England, at least, useful members of society, accustomed to putting their names and the dates of their ministrations to needy clocks in the inside of the clock-case. Some such signatures and notations are still to be read in the old clocks which stand on the floors or on the shelves.
To indicate the value of clocks when the Plymouth Colony was young, there is a record of the inventory of an estate, made in 1645, in which one of the items was "a clock" and the amount for which it was apprized one pound. The estate of John Cotton, inventoried in 1652 or 1653, included "1 clock and case in ye great parlour," the value of which was given as six pounds. From inventories of thirty-six estates, taken at random, in which clocks are mentioned, between 1645 and 1689, the average valuation was two pounds and twelve shillings.
Willards Made Famous Timepieces-Men of small means were first enabled to count clocks among their possessions by the genius of the famous Willard family, makers of clocks in this vicinity. The first was Benjamin Willard of Grafton, Lexington and Roxbury, who engaged in clockmaking about 1764. The first clocks had only the hour hand. The bob pendulum was invented about 1640. An early type of clock had four legs and, on this account, was called the "bedpost." The expression "between you and I and the bedpost" is said to have taken into consider- ation a clock rather than one of the "four-poster" variety of dream couches.
The Willard family was not only composed of good craftsmen but most of them were inventive and one or two were good business men. The latter distinction especially applied to Aaron Willard of Roxbury.
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Benjamin Willard advertised in the "Boston Gazette" February 22, 1773, "Musical clocks playing different tunes, a new tune every day in the week, and on Sunday a Psalm tune. These tunes perform every hour." The Willards also had clocks with barometers, those which told the months of the year, days of the week, moon's changes, and other facts convenient to have brought to one's attention when he looked at the clock.
Philander Willard, who made clocks in Ashburnham previous to 1825, "made a gravity clock, very curious, still in existence," according to a paragraph in "The Clock Book" by Rev. Wallace Nutting of Framing- ham, a former pastor of the Porter Congregational Church in Brockton, and a recognized authority on historic houses and antique furniture, as well as many other things.
Aaron Willard, Jr., a Boston clockmaker, originated the lyre clock.
The most famous member of the family was Simon Willard of Rox- bury, 1770-1839, who learned his trade from an English clockmaker named Morris. He it was who, in 1802, brought out the banjo clock. There has been no improvement since in its original design but banjo clocks are much sought after by those interested in Colonial furniture. Simon Willard presented two clocks to Harvard University, the large clock in the Capitol at Washington, which he made at the age of 82 years, and that on the Old State House in Boston, in front of which the Boston Massacre took place. He retired from business in 1839, the principal reason being that he was 86 years of age. Simon Willard, Jr., was a graduate from the West Point Military Academy, but the Willards never brought up their boys to be soldiers but clockmakers. Clockmaking was in the blood. Simon, Jr., resigned from the army in 1816, learned chronometer and watchmaking in New York, set up in business for himself at No. 9 Congress Street, Boston, where he remained true to the traditions of the Willard stock till 1870. He made the astronomical clock now in the observatory at Harvard University. His astronomical regulator was standard time for all the railroads in New England.
Simon Willard, Sr., was the Henry Ford of clock-making. He made it possible for the average man to have a clock as Ford made it possible for the man in the street to ride instead of walk. Thanks largely to Willard the town clock became as much a Plymouth Colony institution as the town pump or the town crier, and the town clock winder became a town official. Simon Willard supplied clocks for public buildings among the many kinds he manufactured. In the official records of Boston there is an entry under date of January 25, 1659, on which date the selectmen ordered that "Rich. Taylor is allowed thirty shillings for repairing the clock for his direction to ring by, and is to have five
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pounds per annum for the future, provided hee bee att charges to keepe a clock and to repayre itt." Ten years before, according to an entry dated June 4, 1649, in the second report of the Boston Record Com- missioners, this same Richard Taylor was "to ringe the bell at 9 of the cloke at night and half an houre after foure in the morning and is to have for his recompense 4,1 a yeare, begininge his year the 24: 4th mo. 1649."
July 28, 1684, the selectmen "agreed with Wm. Sumner blacksmith to pay him 4 lbs in mony to keepe the clocke at ye North end of the Towne for one yeare to begin the 1st of Augt next & to pay him for worke done about sd clocke the year past 14 s mony."
From these entries it is inferred that the clock kept in the house of Richard Taylor was a brass lantern clock, and that the town had later a large turret clock in the First and in the North meeting-houses, as there is a record, under date of February 28, 1708, that the selectmen "agreed with Isaac Webb that he alter the Town clock now standing being in the old Meeting-House, and make the same into an eight day clock, he to furnish all Materials for ye doing thereof, and cause the same to go well to the satisfaction of the selectmen for which he is to be paid the Sume of thirteen pounds. And after the same is So done he is duly to Attend, wind up and Keep clean the Same yearly," etc.
It is inferred that Isaac Webb was the first clock-maker in Boston, and that he was hired to care for the town clock in 1708 which had in previous years been cared for by William Sumner, blacksmith; and by others who were gunsmiths or mechanics in general.
Simon Willard advertised in the "Massachusetts Spy" or "Worcester Gazette," Thursday, March 11, 1784: "Roasting Jack in which is con- tained a complete apparatus of Kitchen dripping pan, spit, skewers and baster, &c, which is so constructed with tin plates as to reflect back upon the meat all the heat the tin receives, which occasions the saving of almost one half of that important article fire-wood. The above Jack may be had of Col. Paul Revere, directly opposite Liberty Pole, Boston."
Later, there appeared an advertisement of this same invention in an announcement by Benjamin Willard, who included the announcement that "country produce will be taken in payments for his work. Said Willard also makes all kinds of Tin ware which he sells wholesale and retail." Emphasized by an index hand pointing to the remainder of the advertisement appears: "Wanted by said Willard two or three active, sprightly boys, about fourteen years of age, as apprentices."
It would seem from the records and the advertisements of the Wil- lards with their many kinds of clocks, some of which played a different tune every day, once every hour, and Psalm tunes on Sunday ; their
1
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roasting jack and tin ware ; their readiness to take pay in country produce and take apprentice; that they did their share along their own lines, and have left clocks which continue to tell time now as faithfully as in the days of the said Willards. The name of Willard seldom ap- peared on the works of clocks which they manufactured or upon the dials of their banjo clocks. Occasionally the name of Willard is found upon such a clock today but there are many fraudulent "Willard clocks" as there are fraudulent Stradivarius violins.
When clock-making first began in New England we do not know. In the administration accounts of the estate of Peter Noyes of Sudbury, Massachusetts, there is an item of seven shillings "Pd Mr. Smith ye clockmaker," dated May 16, 1694, for care of Town clock. It has al- ready been mentioned in this chapter that Isaac Webb entered into an agreement with the selectmen of Boston for similar work in 1708. There were no clocks made in the Plymouth Colony, so far as the writer knows, previous to the Revolutionary War, but clockmaking became an established industry in several of the towns in this vicinity during the reconstruction period, following the ringing of the Liberty bell. Three brothers, John, Calvin and Lebbeus Bayley (or Bailey) of Hanover, were clockmakers. John (1770-1815) is said to have been "one of the most skillful mechanics of his time." Some of his clocks are still keeping time in Hanover and neighboring towns. There were of the second generation of clockmakers in the Bayley or Bailey family who manufactured in Hingham, John, Jr., from 1815 to 1820; and Joseph who made clocks about 1808. Lebbeus, already referred to, moved to Maine about 1800, when that State was separated from Mas- sachusetts, and introduced clockmaking in Northern New England. Other clockmakers in Hingham the last few years of the eighteenth century were Caleb Gill and Leavitt Gill; also Captain Joseph Lovis, and Samuel Norton, industrious early residents of that town. About the same time a man named Hiffords, living in North Middleborough, or Titicut, was famous for his clocks of superior quality, which he invented and manufactured.
Dr. Josiah Leavitt of Hingham made a clock which was fitted into a dormer window of the attic of the old Meeting-House in such a way that the dial was plainly seen from the street. It answered the pur- pose of a Town clock, as indeed it was. This was in 1772 or 1773. He later moved to Boston and became an organ builder. Contemporary clockmakers in this vicinity were Ezra Whitman and Jonah Edson of Bridgewater, Philip Holway of Falmouth, Allen Kelley of Sandwich, Samuel Rogers, Reuben Tower and Caleb Leach of Plymouth; Isaac Rogers of Marshfield, John Monroe of Barnstable, and Benjamin Torrey of Hanover.
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Nathaniel Mulliken of Lexington was a clockmaker at the time of the Battle of Lexington and presumably took part in that surprise party given to the British on their way to Concord to arrest John Hancock and other patriots. Mulliken's shop was burned by the British.
David Studley learned clockmaking of John Bayley in Hanover and remained with him several years. He then moved to North Bridge- water, now Brockton, in 1834, and made watches and jewelry and repaired clocks. Eventually he sold out to his brother, Luther Studley, who continued in the business in North Bridgewater. Before him, in that town, the business was carried on by Ezekiel Reed. Shortly afterward Rodney Brace came from Torrington, Connecticut, and began the manufacture of small wooden clocks in North Bridgewater, now Brockton, associated with Isaac Packard as a partner. They were among the first to introduce small clocks and had to travel far to sell them, packing a clock in each saddle bag and riding the rounds like a circuit preacher. Their clocks were built upon honor and eventually were much in demand. Many North Bridgewater clocks were ex- changed for country produce.
There was a clockmaker in Hingham about 1790 named Joshua Wilder who made what became known as a "grandmother" clock. It was smaller than a "grandfather" clock, but otherwise much the same. One of these "grandmother" clocks, made by Wilder, still tells the time of day in the home of C. Prescott Knight at Providence, Rhode Island. It is in its original case, tells the time, has an alarm attach- ment. There is at least one other "grandmother" clock made by Wilder which is still keeping up its good work, but they are very rare.
The late Governor Elisha Dyer of Rhode Island owned a Colonial chime clock which was made for Peregrine White about 1774. Needless to say he was not the first white child born in the colony but a de- scendant, as the clock was made, if 1774 is the right date, 153 years after the birth of the first Peregrine. This clock chimes every three hours, at 12, 3, 6 and 9, a different tune each day and a Psalm tune on Sunday.
Eli Terry, a Connecticut Yankee, has been given the credit for found- ing the clock industry in New England but there were many before him. He, however, employed as a joiner Seth Thomas of Plymouth Hollow, now Thomaston, Connecticut, in 1809, and took him into partnership, also Silas Hoadley. They made tall clocks. Thomas, in 1812, sold out to Hoadley and made clocks on his own account. In 1853 he incorporated the Seth Thomas Clock Company which still continues to make clocks. Thomas died in 1859 and the town was named Thomaston in his honor.
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Regardless of how many clocks may have entered Plymouth County from the "Mayflower,", there were many which went out of it on the prairie schooners or covered wagons when "Westward Ho" was the cry after the Revolutionary War. Yankee inventions as well as Yankees went into the great West. It became a Western habit as well as a New England custom to hide money in the clock; a custom almost as universal as putting it in a stocking.
Many are the romances which have been lived as well as written about a New England Old Colonial clock. The Town clock was the authority on time and within sight of it was the social centre, when early residents came within its vision for a common purpose of regu- lating their own timepieces. This was before the time of telephones, over which clocks were set until the telephone company discontinued that service, somewhat in advance of the radio which now gives the information several times a day without being asked. So far there has been no Yankee invention to satisfy the different convictions regarding daylight saving time. That institution, however, dates back to the old Colonial days, as Benjamin Franklin, Boston born and bred, was its first advocate.
Some of the old time clocks carried a message, pasted inside the case, the manufacturers seeming to catch a vision of the long time after their own day that the clocks would be preserved in action. One such message, still decipherable in the few remaining clocks of that make still extant, reads :
Lo! here I stand by Thee To give Thee warning, day and night; For every tick that I do give Cuts short the time Thou has to live. Therefore, a warning take by me, To serve Thy God as I serve Thee. Each day and night be on Thy guard, And Thou shalt have a just reward.
The following clocks which had been received from England were offered for sale in Boston by Joseph Essex and Thomas Badley, in 1712: Thirty-hour, week, month, spring table, chime, quarter, quarter-chime, church, and turret ; also pocket and repeating watches. Clocks which ran a week and repeated the hour when a string was pulled, were ad- vertised in 1716. Some clocks in black walnut cases, precious memen- toes of honored relatives who lived more than a hundred and fifty years ago, still remain and perform their service as faithfully as ever. Others adorn the lodge rooms or club houses in many towns of Plymouth County, bequeathed to the organization of which the master of the clock was a member, by those who have had it handed down to them
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and wish to make further provision for its being regularly oiled and wound and looked upon with admiration.
There are several estates in the county which are among the show places occasionally opened to the public, in which some precious sun dials are carefully placed in the gardens, some of them having come down from before the days when clocks and watches were used to mark the passing hours. One such timepiece, made of brass, once owned by Governor Endicott, is still preserved in the Salem Museum. Sun dials are referred to in the Bible, in which it is recorded, in Kings, "Isaiah, the prophet, cried unto the Lord, and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz."
No story of timepieces and the part they played in the history of the Plymouth Colony and other colonies in the federation would be well told without further reference to the hour-glass. This was one of the things brought from the old country and was the method of measuring time in the church, both for the preacher and the congrega- tion. A candle was placed behind the hour glass in the dimly lighted churches, to enable members of the congregation to see readily how the sands were running, without too much craning of necks.
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