Figure 10.—William B. Fowle, sponsor of the Auburndale Watch Co., after an engraving in S. F. Smith, History of Newton, Massachusetts (Boston, 1880).
The New Sponsor
William Bentley Fowle (fig. [10]), new partner with Hopkins and Colt in the watch, was born in Boston, Massachusetts on July 27, 1826. His father, William B. Fowle, Senior, a well-known Boston teacher and 58 educator, had variously been a bookseller and conductor of a “Female Monitorial School.”[18] The junior William B. Fowle we have first located as a ticket master with the Boston and Worcester Railroad in 1848,[19] and he retained this listing in the directory through 1851. Starting in 1852 and continuing through 1862, with no indication of employer or occupation, he had an office at 9 Merchants Exchange. In 1860 and 1862 he was a member of the Boston Common Council, and was president of that body in 1865. In 1862, after the second battle of Bull Run, he raised an infantry company for the 43rd Massachusetts Volunteers and was mustered in, September 24, 1862, with the rank of captain. From December 7, 1862, to March 4, 1863, he was commandant of the military post at Beaufort, North Carolina. He then reported to his regiment. On June 24, 1863, he was left sick at New Bern, North Carolina, by his company bound for Fortress Monroe. On July 21 he rejoined his company at Boston, Massachusetts, in time to be mustered out on July 30 at the expiration of his nine months’ enlistment.[20]
Figure 11.—The Two Lever Escapements Used in the Auburndale Rotary. Note, in addition to the escapement, the absence of banking pins and the metal balance jewel in the escapement at the left, which is from watch No. 176. (Both watches in the author’s collection.)
In the 1864 Boston directory we find him listed as treasurer of the Bear Valley Coal Co., and the North Mountain Coal Co., with an office at 38 City Exchange. This association with the coal business continued with changes unimportant to our story through the directories until 1877, in which year the name is dropped from the Boston directory, not to reappear until the directory of 1880, where he is listed at “Herald Building, watches and timers.” This was apparently the sales office. The Newton directory of 1877 drops its previous listing of coal after Mr. Fowle’s name and first mentions the Auburndale Watch Co.[21] In 1866 Mr. Fowle established his home, Tanglewood, in Auburndale, a village in Newton not far from his boyhood home at West Newton and on the bank of the Charles River about two miles upstream from the Waltham Watch Co. He served the town of Newton as selectman from 1869 through 1871, was an alderman in 1877, and mayor in 1878 and 1879.[22]