THE REVOLUTION IN WATCHMAKING 355 



field, Mass., muskets were made upon the interchangeable 

 plan, and it was while working there that he became confirmed 

 in his belief that a machine made watch was a possibility. 

 In 1849 he succeeded in impressing Edward Howard, a prac- 

 tical clock maker of Boston, with the importance of his un- 

 dertaking, and these two interested a capitalist, Samuel Cur- 

 tis, of the same city, who invested $20,000. Mr. Howard 

 himself says of this interesting beginning: ''Mr, Dennison 

 being a watch repairer, and myself a clock maker, we made a 

 good combination to systematize watchmaking, and to in- 

 vent labor saving machinery for producing perfect and inter- 

 changeable parts. ... It is almost needless to say that we 

 met with many obstacles. We were told by importers and 

 dealers in w^atches that we would never be able to carry out 

 our plans, and that our project would be an utter failure. 

 Some of our friends even told us we were crazy to attempt 

 such an undertaking, but we were Yankees, both of us, and 

 had sufficient quantity of the proverbial grit, and at least 

 believed in ourselves, even if others did not have so much 

 faith." 



Mr. Dennison went to Europe, where he investigated 

 the English division of hand labor, cheerfully writing back 

 that his theory of Americans not finding any difficulty in 

 competing with the English, especially if the interchangeable 

 system and manufacturing in large quantities was adopted, 

 may be accepted as reasonable. A factory was built at Rox- 

 bur}^, Mass., and in 1851 a model watch was completed. It 

 was an eight day watch, but, being found impracticable, was 

 abandoned for the ordinar}^ thirty six hour w^atch. The first 

 hundred movements were finished and put on the market in 

 1853. The factory at Roxbury was in a dusty place, and this 

 drawback, together with the necessity of more room and the 

 desire to make homes in a pleasant spot for the operatives, led 

 to a removal to the present site at Waltham, on the Charles 

 river, about ten miles west of Boston. 



As a result of the founding of the watcli manufacture 

 at Waltham a number of experts from the parent factory 

 started an establishment at Nashua, N. H., but this was not 

 a success and the Waltham company bought it m 1862 and 



