412 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



and finishing witli a knife. Tliese clocks Mr. Terry peddled himself on 

 horseback. He sold them for twenty- five dollars each; this was for the 

 movements alone. The first 500 clocks ever made by machinery in one 

 lot, were commenced by him in 1808; all previous to this had been marked 

 out with the square and compass. 



The first mantle clock was made by Mr. Terry in 1814, which completely 

 revolutionized the business. They were called the pillar-scroll top ease. 

 Mr. Terry sold Seth Thomas the right to manufacture them, for 1,000 dol- 

 lars. They each manufactured about 5,000 a year at first, but finally 

 increased the number to 12,000, and sold them for fifteen dollars a piece, 

 wholesale. 



Metal Clocks. • 



In 1818, Joseph Ives invented a metal clock — iron plates and brass 

 wheels. This Jo. Ives, as he was called, was a rare genius, and ever had 

 a new idea; but there was one idea that always stuck to him, and that waa 

 a "rolling" idea. I think I have seen twenty different constructions of 

 movements that were the offspring of his brain — some very good, and none 

 very bad. A Mr. Atkins appears to have been associated with him in later 

 years. Mr. Atkins was a saw-maker, and for a time they made plates and 

 wheels of scrap steel, bushing the plates with brass. He made all his 

 movements with rolling pinions, but he used to change the escapement by 

 sometimes making the verge or pallets rolling, and sometimes rolling teeth 

 in the escapement wheel. He could not get out two lots of movements 

 alike; one lot he would make of steel wheels, the next lot of brass, and 

 perhaps the next lot mixed. Elliptic springs were quite a hobby with him; 

 and his 30-day movement ran splendidly; in fact, ran so well, that the next 

 lot he got out he put in a coiled spring and fusee. He had the power of 

 his elliptic springs so nicely equalized, that the power didjnot vary an ounce 

 in thirty days; and, by having two cords and barrels, it ran while winding. 

 This coiled spring and fusee ran so poor, that he put the ti'ain into other 

 plates and made a 30-day weight-regulator of it, which ran as well or 

 better than Hov/ard & Davis' best. 



Mr. Jerome says, in his life, that, in 180T, he proposed to his guardian to 

 get him a situation with Mr. Terry, to learn the business, but the reply 

 was, that Mr. Terry was a fool, that he had commenced 200 clocks and he 

 never would live to finish them, and if he did he never could sell them. 

 Jerome, in after years, manufactured 200,000 a year himself 



Up to 1822, they sawed veneer for their cases with a handsaw. In the 

 year 1835, our Southern brethren became so incensed at the Yankee clock 

 peddlers that they raised the price of licenses so high as to amount to a 

 blockade. That state of affairs could not last long, for they wanted clocks 

 and the Yankees wanted money — and especially the money; so Chauncey 

 and Noble Jerome started a factory in Richmond. Everything was made 

 in Connecticut — even to printing the labels in Hartford — for the great clock 

 manufactory in Richmond. Having a clock manufactory in the South, 

 seems to have pleased the F. F. V's very much, until they found that all 

 the tools they had were a few pairs of plyers and a jack-knife to each of 

 the Yankees that went down to finish them up. Another company went to 



