Description:
Wall clock made by Aaron Willard, Jr. (1783-1864) and bought by Elihu Hoyt (1771-1833) who was born and lived in the "Old Indian House" in Deerfield. Elihu Hoyt represented the town in the state legislature for thirty years. On January 17, 1823, he sent this clock and the following letter from Boston to his wife, Hanna Taylor Willard (1772-1864): "I yesterday put on board Mr. Lucius Tuttles Sleigh a Willard timepiece in a box, which I expect he will deliver to you. I wish you to let it remain until I come home. I charged him to take good care of it as it is a very tender thing to handle. I hope it will arrive safe. I bought it of Mr. Willard the original patentee, it is new. + I hope will prove good." Hoyt's 1833 estate inventory listed "1 Brass eight day time piece" valued at $11.00, which may be this clock; the clock was sold to HD by a Hoyt descendent, Joel Benjamin Wells. If a clock was desired to keep accurate time and sent the message of status, the reputation of the Willard family for fine, eight-day timepieces drew patrons from throughout northeastern United States. The eldest brother, Benjamin Willard (1743-1803), was the first of three generations of Willard clock and watch makers who started working in Grafton, Mass., in 1766. When clockmaker Nathaniel Mulliken Sr. of Lexington, Mass., died in 1767, Benjamin moved there and took over his business, while his younger brothers, Aaron (1757-1844) and Simon (1753-1848), stayed behind in Grafton continuing to make clocks and watch repairs. Simon experimented with new forms that reduced the size of clock movements, and in 1801, introduced a wall clock (design patented 1802) with a Patent Timepiece movement, later known as a "banjo" clock. Benjamin Willard set up shop in Roxbury in 1771, followed by Simon and Aaron whose names first appear on the tax roles in 1783, each working in a separate location. Their sons and a grandson continued the profession. Simon's sons, Simon Jr. (1795-1881) opened his own business in Boston in 1828 specializing in manufacturing chronometers and Benjamin (1803-1847) worked with his brother, and Simon Jr.'s son, Zabdiel Adams (1826-after 1911) continued making pocket chronometers; Aaron's sons, Aaron Jr. took over the business in 1823, which Aaron Sr. had moved to Boston about 1792, and Henry (1802-1887) specialized in making clock cases. Since this wall clock was a new clock form, the Willards had to turn to local sources for parts and decorative elments. Suppliers included John Doggett (1780-1857) of Roxbury who produced such items as gilt eagles, brackets or pedestals, balls, swags, and painted tablets for patent pieces, and William Hunneman who provided castings of "side pieces," bezels for the round glass, and wheel blanks. Decorative painters of dials and glass tablets such as Charles Bullard (1794-1871), Spenser Nolan, and John Ritto Penniman (1782–1841) had to understand pigments, varnish, and to conceive their works backwards. The earliest style of ornamental painting on patent timepieces was delicate, geometric, and non-pictorial; floral motifs were featured later, followed by romantic imagery framed by linear borders; and then biblical, mythological and military themes. This banjo-shaped clock has a new (1976) eagle finial; round white-painted dial with black roman numerals and inscribed "No. 1710" and "A. Willard / Boston"; triangular-shaped throat outlined in gilt rope moldings and a reverse-painted or eglomise glass panel decorated with an elaborate design in red and gold and "PATENT" in a scoll at the base, which conceals the pendulum rod and weight; and pendulum box outlined with gilt rope molding and a reverse-painted glass panel decorated with an oval with the three muses dancing under a draped curtain and wreath in red, black, green, pink, blue, orange, white, and gilding. The clock has an eight-day brass movement with a weight-driven recoil escapement, and winds at the 2:00 position.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+54.229 |
