Illus. 354.—Hassam
Clock, 1800.
Another New England clock-maker of long and picturesque life was Stephen Hassam, sometimes called Hasham. He was born in 1761, and is said to have lived to be over one hundred years old. He was a witness, when a boy, of the battle of Bunker Hill from the steeple of a church in Boston, and he lived until after the beginning of the Civil War. He moved from Boston to Grafton and then to Worcester, where he learned the clock-maker’s trade, perhaps with the Willards who lived in those towns at about that time. He established himself finally in Charlestown, New Hampshire, where he lived and made clocks, which are highly valued for their excellent qualities, as well as for the associations with the name of the centenarian clock-maker.
A clock similar in size, and also in design, to the last four illustrated is shown in Illustration [354]. It was made by Stephen Hassam and bears his name. It is owned by Charles H. Morse, Esq., and has always stood since it was made, about 1800, upon a mahogany bracket in the corner. The case is of very finely grained mahogany.
Simon Willard patented in 1802 an improved time-piece, which Mr. Howard says is the clock now known as the “banjo” clock. Illustration [355] shows a clock bought by the writer in a country town from an old man who called it a time-piece, which is the name given it in the country, “banjo” being suggested to the modern mind by the shape of the upper part. The sides of the clock are of mahogany. The glass door to the face is convex and is framed in brass, and the ornaments at the sides of the clock are also of brass.
Illus. 355—“Banjo” Clock, 1802-1820.
The long glass in the middle of the case is framed like the door of painted glass in wood gilt. The turned ornament on the top of the clock and the bracket below it are of wood gilt. Plainer clock-cases of this shape were of mahogany without the bracket below.