The most famous name among American clock-makers is Willard. There were three Willard brothers,—Benjamin, Simon, and Aaron,—clock-makers in Grafton, Massachusetts, in 1765. Benjamin and Simon established a business in Roxbury, and in December, 1771, Benjamin advertised in the Boston Evening Post his “removal from Lexington to Roxbury. He will sell house clocks neatly made, cheaper than imported.” February 22, 1773, he advertised that he “at his shop in Roxbury Street, pursues the different branches of clock and watch work, and has for sale musical clocks, playing different tunes, a new tune each day, and on Sunday a Psalm tune. These tunes perform every hour.... All the branches of the business likewise carried on in Grafton.” The third brother, Aaron, may have remained in Grafton, for he went from there later to Roxbury, as fifer of a company of minute-men, in the first days of the War of the Revolution. Simon Willard remained in the same shop in Roxbury for over seventy years, dying in 1848 at the great age of ninety-six years. Aaron Willard built a shop in Boston and made a specialty of tall striking clocks.
Illus. 352.—Willard Clock, 1784.
Illustration [352] shows a clock owned by Dr. G. Faulkner of Jamaica Plain. Inside the clock is written in a quaint hand, “The first short time-piece made in America, 1784.” Dr. Faulkner’s father was married at about that date, and the clock was made for him. It has always stood upon a bracket upon the wall, and has been running constantly for one hundred and seventeen years. Upon the scroll under the dial is the inscription “Aaron Willard, Roxbury.” The case is of mahogany, and stands twenty-six inches high. Upon the lower part are very beautiful scroll feet, turning back. The upper part stands upon ogee feet, and can be lifted off. The glass door is painted so that it forms a frame for the dial.
Mr. Howard, the founder of the Howard Watch Company, has told me that the Willards invented this style of clock as well as the style known as the banjo clock. Mr. Howard was born in 1813 and when he was sixteen he started to learn his trade in Boston, in the shop of Aaron Willard, Jr. I have not been able to find that clocks of this style were made in England at all, and they seem to be purely American, but in Britten’s “Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers” is an illustration of an astronomical clock made by Henry Jenkins, 1760 to 1780, with a case very similar in shape to these clocks, and with a top like the centre one of the three in Illustration [353]. Aaron Willard may have obtained his idea from such a clock. The clock in Illustration [352] is the earliest one that I have heard of.
Illustration [353] shows three clocks made some years later, probably about 1800 to 1815. The clock with the ogee feet is a Willard clock, and belongs to W. S. G. Kennedy, Esq. The clock with the door of bird’s-eye maple and the inlaid fan-shaped top is owned by Mrs. E. A. Morse. The third clock is owned by the writer.
Illus. 353.—Willard Clocks, 1800-1815.
