Description:
Tall clock with an eight day brass movement housed in a stylish mahogany case, made by George Holbrook (1767-1846). Written in ink on two labels inside the door: "Tall Clock./Turn nut at end of pen-/dulum to the left a little/if it gains; and to the/right if it loses." and: "This clock belonged to/Major David Dickinson/b. 1747, d. 1822/He was an active Whig./It was probably bought/in Boston about 1790" The clock descended in family of Major Dickinson (1747-1822) and may be "the beautiful hall clock" bought by Mrs. John Sheldon (which she gave to her sister) at the circa 1895 auction of the furnishings of the home on Pine Hill, of Nancy Hoyt Dickinson Campbell (1815-1895), daughter of Rev. Rodolphus Dickinson, and wife of John Campbell. The clock came into Historic Deerfield's collection from the Sheldon descendents. The case is topped with three brass finials with eagles on plain, square plinths over elaborate fret work, over a molded hood top. The hood is decorated with reeded colonnettes with brass trapping and gilding around the glass frame. The upper section of the face has a polychrome painted moon phase dial with the moon with a face and house and trees in the background; and the lower section has hour, minute, second, and date, decorated with a bird and floral sprigs in the center and inscribed: "George Holbrook Brookfield," and flower sprays at each corner. The lower body of the case has quarter-reeded columns with brass trappings, decorative brass hinges, inlaid paterae and fans mid-body and on the base, and on molded bracket feet. George Holbrook (1767-1846) worked in Wrentham, Massachusetts, as well as Medway and Brookfield, where he probably assembled the brass, 8-day movement with moon-phase dial in this example, around 1800. It is also probable that a Brookfield area cabinetmaker constructed the case out of mahogany and mahogany veneers and embellished the door and base with neoclassical elements including lightwood stringing and sand-shaded paterae and quarter-fans. The bonnet features pierced spandrels in the style of tall case clocks made and marketed by members of the Roxbury-based Willard family of clockmakers.
This clock was owned by Major David Dickinson (1747-1822) of Deerfield (Dickinson lived on houselot 4, 5, 6 and built the present Dickinson House in 1782-83 “in anticipation of his marriage in 1783 to Elizabeth Ashley (1745-1808),” according to Susan McGowan and Amelia F. Miller, Family and Landscape. The clock bears the inscription “This clock belonged to Major David Dickinson born 1747, died 1827. He was an active Whig. It was probably bought in Boston about 1790.” This clock’s subsequent history is somewhat hazy. According to the object accession card, it may or may not have been the one that Judge Francis Nims described in the 1939 Proceedings of PVMA as “the beautiful hall clock” bought by Mrs. John Sheldon at the auction of the furnishings of Nancy Hoyt Dickinson Campbell (1815-1895), daughter of Rev. Rodolphus Dickinson. The Flynts purchased the clock from Mrs. Mary Nichols Howe and the accession card further notes: “The clock entered the Historic Deerfield collection from the hands of Sheldon descendants.”
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+56.140 |
