Figure 6.—Drawing from U. S. Patent 179019 showing Hopkins’ device to prevent the tripping of a chronometer escapement.
These two patents, which actually started out as one, appear to represent the watch as it was when Hopkins went to Waterbury, Connecticut, where he again met Edward A. Locke. They submitted this improved watch model to the Benedict and Burnham Manufacturing Co., which advised not manufacturing it until it was further developed. Hopkins went with his watch from there to Boston, where he conferred with George Merritt who, like Locke, was interested 55 in getting into the manufacture of a low-priced watch. Merritt may have been the senior member of the Locke-Merritt team or may simply have had more faith than his associates in Hopkins and his watch. At any rate, he advanced expense money while further efforts at improvement were made.[12] Hopkins’ absence from the Washington city directory of 1877 is perhaps explained by this work he was doing on his patent. While this was completed to Hopkins’ satisfaction, it still fell short of Merritt’s idea of practicality, and the latter abandoned the idea of manufacturing the watch;[13] what had started out as a very simple watch of few parts grew, with every effort to make it workable, more and more complicated by involved and expensive detail. It appears that Hopkins did not possess the rare gift of improvement by simplification. This is a rare gift, and one seldom possessed by an individual very closely and intensely involved in the minute details of a given problem.
Figure 7.—Part of the Drawings from U. S. Patent 186838, showing the winding and setting mechanism very nearly as it was applied in the Auburndale rotary.
How long this period of development and experimentation required is unreported. It could hardly have started before early June of 1875, when application was made for the patent (165830) to prevent overbanking. The cash book of William B. Fowle of Auburndale, Massachusetts,[14] tells us that he bought half of William D. Colt’s half-interest in the Hopkins rotary in March 1876, partly for cash but including a royalty on each watch made. Half this royalty was to go to Hopkins, a quarter to William D. Colt, and a quarter to William B. Fowle. Does patent 179019, issued June 20, 1876, to Hopkins, who assigned it on June 10, 1876, to Fowle,[15] represent the last improvement offered to Merritt? It covers a device actuated by a spur on a balance staff to lock the detent against tripping when in one position and to permit normal operation of the chronometer escapement when in the other position (see fig. [6]). Another patent applied 56 for on January 12, 1876, was in prospect and finally issued as no. 186838 on January 30, 1877, assigned to William B. Fowle on November 21, 1876.[16] This is much the most practical and useful patent in the series. A comparison of these (see figs. [7] and [8]) with the Auburndale rotary watch (see fig. [9]) shows a remarkable similarity between the inventor’s conception and the product eventually manufactured. A practical center arbor to support and guide the entire rotating mechanism is here combined with a stem-winding and lever-setting mechanism and dial gearing in a well thought out arrangement.
