In 1835, the southern people were greatly opposed to the Yankee pedlars coming into their states, especially the clock pedlars, and the licences were raised so high by their Legislatures that it amounted to almost a prohibition. Their laws were that any goods made in their own States could be sold without licence. Therefore clocks to be profitable must be made in those states. Chauncey and Noble Jerome started a factory in Richmond Va., making the cases and parts at Bristol, Connecticut, and packing them with the dials, glass &c. We shipped them to Richmond and took along workmen to put them together. The people were highly pleased with the idea of having clocks all made in their State. The old planters would tell the pedlars they meant to go to Richmond and see the wonderful machinery there must be to produce such articles and would no doubt have thought the tools we had there were sufficient to make a clock. We carried on this kind of business for two or three years and did very well at it, though it was unpleasant. Every one knew it was all a humbug trying to stop the pedlars from coming to their State. We removed from Richmond to Hamburg, S.C., and manufactured in the same way. This was in 1835 and '36.

There was another company doing the same kind of business at Augusta, Geo., by the name Case, Dyer, Wadsworth & Co., and Seth Thomas was making the cases and movements for them. The hard times came down on us and we really thought that clocks would no longer be made. Our firm thought we could make them if any body could, but like the others felt discouraged and disgusted with the whole business as it was then. I am sure that I had lost, from 1821 to this time, more than one hundred thousand dollars, and felt very much discouraged in consequence. Our company had a good deal of unsettled business in Virginia and South Carolina, and I started in the fall of 1837 for those places. Arriving at Richmond, I had a strong notion of going into the marl business. I had been down into Kent county, the summer before, where I saw great mountains of this white marl composed of shells of clams and oysters white as chalk. I had sent one vessel load of this to New Haven the year before. At Richmond I was looking after our old accounts, settling up, collecting notes and picking up some scattered clocks.

One night I took one of these clocks into my room and placing it on the table, left a light burning near it and went to bed. While thinking over my business troubles and disappointments, I could not help feeling very much depressed. I said to myself I will not give up yet, I know more about the clock business than anything else. That minute I was looking at the wood clock on the table and it came into my mind instantly that there could be a cheap one day brass clock that would take the place of the wood clock. I at once began to figure on it; the case would cost no more, the dials, glass, and weights and other fixtures would be the same, and the size could be reduced. I lay awake nearly all night thinking this new thing over. I knew there was a fortune in it. Many a sensible man has since told me that if I could have secured the sole right for making them for ten years, I could easily have made a million of dollars. The more I looked at this new plan, the better it appeared. My business took me to South Carolina before I could return home. I had now enough to think of day and night; this one day brass clock was constantly on my mind; I was drawing plans and contriving how they could be made best. I traveled most of the way from Richmond by stage. Arriving at Augusta, Geo., I called on the Connecticut men who were finishing wood clocks for that market, and told Mr. Dyer the head man, that I had got up, or could get up something when I got home that would run out all the wood clocks in the country, Thomas's and all; he laughed at me quite heartily. I told him that was all right, and asked him to come to Bristol when he went home and I would show him something that would astonish him. He promised that he would, and during the next summer when he called at my place, I showed him a shelf full of them running, which he acknowledged to be the best he had ever seen.

I arrived home from the south the 28th of January, and told my brother who was a first-rate clock maker what I had been thinking about since I had been gone. He was much pleased with my plan, thought it a first rate idea, and said he would go right to work and get up the movement, which he perfected in a short time so that it was the best clock that had ever been made in this or any other country. There have been more of this same kind manufactured than of any other in the United States. What I originated that night on my bed in Richmond, has given work to thousands of men yearly for more than twenty years, built up the largest manufactories in New England, and put more than a million of dollars into the pockets of the brass makers,—"but there is not one of them that remembers Joseph."

CHAPTER V.

SUCCESS OF THE NEW INVENTION.—INTRODUCTION OF CLOCKS IN ENGLAND.—TERRY FAMILY, ETC.

We went on very prosperously making the new clock, and it was admired by every body. In the year 1839, some of my neighbors and a few of my leading workmen had a great desire to get into the same kind of business. We knew competition amongst Yankees was almost sure to kill business and proposed to have them come in with us and have a share of the profits. An arrangement to this effect was made and we went on in this way until the fall of 1840. I found they were much annoyance and bother to me, and so bought them all out, but had to give them one hundred per cent. for the use of their money. Some of them had not paid in anything, but I had to pay them the same profits I did the rest, to get rid of them. One man had put in three thousand dollars for which I paid him six thousand. I also bought out my brother Noble Jerome, who had been in company with me for a long time, and carried on the whole business alone, which seemed to be rapidly improving.

I made in 1841, thirty-five thousand dollars clear profits. Men would come and deposit money with me before their orders were finished. This successful state of things set all of the wood clock makers half crazy, and they went into it one after another as fast as they could, and of course run down the price very fast—"Yankee-like." I had been thinking for two or three years of introducing my clocks into England, and had availed myself of every opportunity to get posted on that subject; when I met Englishmen in New York and other places, I would try to find out by them what the prospects would be for selling Yankee clocks in their country. I ascertained that there were no cheap metal clocks used or known there, the only cheap timepiece they had was a Dutch hang-up wood clock.

In 1842, I determined to make the venture of sending a consignment of brass clocks to Old England. I made a bargain with Epaphroditus Peck, a very talented young man of Bristol, a son of Hon. Tracy Peck, to take them out, and sent my son—Chauncey Jerome, Jr. with him. All of the first cargo consisted of the O.G. one day brass clocks. As soon as it was known by the neighboring clock-makers, they laughed at me, and ridiculed the idea of sending clocks to England where labor was so cheap. They said that they never would interfere with Jerome in that visionary project, but no sooner had I got them well introduced, after spending thousands of dollars to effect it, than they had all forgotten what they said about my folly, and one after another sent over the same goods to compete with me and run down the price. As I have said before, wood clocks could never have been exported to Europe from this country, for many reasons. They would have been laughed at, and looked upon with suspicion as coming from the wooden nutmeg country, and classed as the same. They could not endure a long voyage across the water without swelling the parts and rendering them useless as time-keepers; experience had taught us this, as many wood clocks on a passage to the southern market, had been rendered unfit for use for this very reason. Metal clocks can be sent any where without injury. Millions have been sent to Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, Palestine, and in fact, to every part of the world; and millions of dollars brought into this country by this means, and I think it not unfair to claim the honor of inventing and introducing this low-price time-piece which has given employment to so many of our countrymen, and has also, been so useful to the world at large. No family is so poor but that they can have a time-piece which is both useful and ornamental. They can be found in every civilized portion of the globe. Meeting a sea captain one day, he told me that on landing at the lonely island of St. Helena, the first thing that he noticed on entering a house, was my name on the face of a brass clock. Many years ago a missionary (Mr. Ruggles,) at the Sandwich Islands, told me that he had one of my clocks in his house, the first one that had ever been on the islands. Travelers have mentioned seeing them in the city of Jerusalem, in many parts of Egypt, and in fact, every where, which accounts could not but be interesting and gratifying to me.

It was a long and tedious undertaking to introduce my first cargo in England. Mr. Peck and my son wrote me a great many times the first year, that they never could be sold there, the prejudice against American manufactures was so great that they would not buy them. Although very much discouraged, I kept writing them to 'stick to it.' They were once turned out of a store in London and threatened if they offered their "Yankee clocks" again to the English people "who made clocks for the world;" "they were good for nothing or they could not be offered so cheap." They were finally introduced in this way; the young men persuaded a merchant to take two into his store for sale. He reluctantly gave his consent, saying he did not believe they would run at all; they set the two running and left the price of them. On calling the next day to see how they were getting along, and what the London merchant thought of them, they were surprised to find them both gone. On asking what had become of them, they were told that two men came in and liked their looks and bought them. The merchant said he did not think any one would ever buy them, but told them they might bring in four more; "I will see" he says, "if I can sell any more of your Yankee clocks." They carried them in and calling the next day, found them all gone. The merchant then told them to bring in a dozen. These went off in a short time, and not long after, this same merchant bought two hundred at once, and other merchants began to think they could make some money on these Yankee clocks and the business began to improve very rapidly. There are always men enough who are ready to enter into a business after it is started and looks favorable. A pleasing incident occurred soon after we first started. The Revenue laws of England are (or were, at that time) that the owner of property passing through the Custom-house shall put such a price on his goods as he pleases, knowing that the government officers have a right to take the property by adding ten per cent. to the invoiced price.