between the two. Wooden clocks were made as early as the 17th 

 century in Germany and Holland, and they were known in England 

 in the early 18th century. In the Colonies the wooden clock was 

 first produced in Connecticut, and the earliest type was associated 

 with Hartford County. This form was quite common in East 

 Hartford in 1761, and its first production may have had some 

 association with Ebenezer Parmele (1690-1777), since an association 

 between Parmele and all of the earliest makers of wooden clocks 

 can be traced.'^ Little is known about Parmele. His father was 

 a cabinetmaker in Guilford, Connecticut, and Ebenezer practiced 

 the same craft, in addition to being a boat builder. He was a 

 man of means, held various town offices, and served as town 

 treasurer. For a while he operated a cargo sloop on Long Island 

 Sound. In 1726 he built the first tower clock in Connecticut for 

 the Guilford meeting house. He was a versatile worker in wood, 

 and it is believed that he served an apprenticeship in New York 

 City with a Dutch clockmaker from 1705 to 1710, where he may 

 have learned to make wooden clocks. 



This early type of wooden clock is associated with Benjamin 

 Cheney (1725-1815), a clockmaker of East Hartford. The early 

 or "Cheney" type of wooden clock was produced in Connecticut 

 as late as 1812. A later form of the wooden movement began to 

 appear about 1790, and was probably introduced by Gideon 

 Roberts (1749-1813) of Bristol. Roberts had lived in the Wyoming 

 Valley of Pennsylvania before 1790, and it is conjectured that he 

 became familiar with the wooden clocks produced by the German 

 settlers of that region. ^^ 



It is not surprising that the wooden clock had its colonial origins 

 in Connecticut, so completely was it adaptable to the pioneer 

 conditions in that colony. The materials were the abundant 

 native woods — cherry, apple, oak, and laurel. The parts were 

 made with simple carpenter tools and a wooden foot lathe, using 

 the methods of the cabinetmaker. Although it has been sug- 

 gested that some relationship may have existed between the 

 makers of wooden instruments in England, and the makers of 

 wooden clocks and scientific instruments in the New England 

 Colonies,''^ a careful study has failed to reveal any connection. 



^* HooPES, op. cit. (footnote 50), p. 3; and Hoopes, op. cit. (footnote 24), 

 pp. 101-103. 



^^ Hoopes, op. cit. (footnote 19), pp. 106-107. 



^^ E. G. R. Taylor, The Mathematical Practitioners of Tudor and Stuart England 

 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), pp. 185-292. 



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