Description:
Half-column "bronze looking glass" shelf clock with a 30-hour wooden movement made by D. N. & R. Day, inscribed: "IMPROVED CLOCKS MADE AND SOLD BY D. N. & R. DAY / WESTFIELD, MASS / ETC." The clock has a stencilled, flat scrolled pediment secured by two flanking plinths; over two stenciled half-columns with baluster-shaped capitals that flank a painted wooden dial with Arabic numerals over a looking glass. In their Westfield, Massachusetts, shop, David N. Day (1808-1867) and his cousin, Robert Day (b. 1794), assembled and retailed clocks using components probably purchased wholesale from Bristol, Connecticut, manufacturer of wooden 30-hour works, Ephraim Downs (1787-1860) either individually or as Atkins & Downs, in partnership with Alden Atkins in the early 1830s. Downs supplied a dozen or more clockmakers with wooden movements made between the 1820s and 1850. A native of Wilbraham, Massachusetts, Ephraim Downs married Chloe Painter, sister-in-law to Silas Hoadley, a prolific maker of wooden-works movements for shelf clocks and tall clocks in Connecticut’s Naugatuck valley. By 1850, David N. Day had branched into the manufacturing of buggy whips; on Feb. 5, 1850, he received a patent for a plaited whip made from twisted thread over a cotton core instead of leather thongs.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+97.68 |
