256 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
April, 1906 
Old-Fashioned Clocks in American Homes 
By Mary H. Northend 
MONG the very interesting and_ often 
curious pieces of household furniture that 
ornament many of our American homes, 
none are more attractive to the lover 
of the antique and none show more exquisite 
workmanship than the beautiful old-fash- 
‘oneal clocks made by masters of their art in a time long gone 
by. Some of these ancient timekeepers have steadily ticked 
away more than two hundred years, yet are still ticking on 
with steadfast exactness. 
To see the most wonderful and the most famous clocks 
one must perforce go to Europe, where the most skilful and 
famous clock makers of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies lived—to Versailles and Exeter, and Westminster 
Abbey, the place of many clocks. But not all of the fine old 
Et myeypkercrers are in 
Europe. Skilful horol- 
ogists flourished in the 
American colonies long 
before 1776, and it 
was the custom in those 
days to have a big 
clock in the house. 
Many clocks of famous 
make were brought to 
America from across 
the water, and not a 
few have come over 
in later years as prized 
heirlooms. They are of 
every conceivable va- 
riety of size, shape and 
structure, from _ the 
great cabinet aftairs, 
with elaborate devices 
for telling the days of 
the month and_ for 
striking the hours, to 
the smaller wall and 
bracket articles. Even 
the curious “table 
clock,” which reclines, 
face upward, like a 
huge watch, may be 
found among them. 
Clock and watch mak- 
ing during the early 
part of the nineteenth 
century was also very successful, and many of the fine old 
clocks to be seen in our houses, especially in certain parts of 
the South and in the Central States, are the products of home 
artists, made in the antebellum days. 
It is in New England, however, in the plantation mansions 
of Virginia and Kentucky and the historical homes of Phil- 
adelphia and New York that the antiquary will find the 
rarest and oldest clocks. The accompanying illustrations 
show some of the most interesting and beautiful of these. 
Almost every fine old house in New England contains an 
equally fine and valuable old timepiece, revered and cherished 
as no less companionable an household article could be. The 
Weaver’s clock, an interesting clock that belongs to one 
of the estates of Swampscott, Mass., is one of the oldest 
in this country. It was brought over from England about 
A Picture Clock about a Century Old which Hangs in a Salem Home 
The Clock is One of Three Which Were Made in 
Switzerland and Sent to America 
the year 1635 by one John Albree, a weaver, and has been in 
the family ever since. The construction of this clock is very 
singular, for it has but one hand. 
Three of the photographs used in illustrating this article 
picture so-called banjo clocks, which are particularly quaint 
and pleasing as to form and ornamentation. ‘Two are wall 
clocks, concerning which it will be noticed that the general 
lines of case structure are similar, the imitation of the musical 
instrument being quite suggestive. The third, which rests 
its base on a shelf instead of being screwed to the wall, is by 
far the most elaborate as to decoration and bears the name 
of its maker, Willard, in large script on the front of the 
pedestal. Like one of the first mentioned, it has two curved 
rods of carved wood at either side of its long, slender waist, 
to further the banjo idea, and, like both the others, the face 
is overtopped by an 
eagle with spread 
wings. The front of 
the case of this clock 
bears also a noticeably 
fine ornamentation in 
scroll design. 
The long-case, eight- 
day clocks, now 
familiarly termed 
“orandfat hem, sien 
which such interesting 
and handsome speci- 
mens occur in consider- 
able numbers in New 
England, were de- 
veloped from the brass 
chamber clock with 
wooden hands, in the 
reign of Charles II. of 
England. Veritable 
relics of that period 
are extremely = janes 
though examples are 
occasionally to be 
found in England. 
Some of these primi- 
tive “grandfathers” 
were exceedingly nar- 
row in the waist, only 
just sufficient width be- 
ing allowed for the 
rise and fall of the 
weights. “he same characteristic marks the ‘‘grandfather” 
of our own country, for, though made later than the close 
of the seventeenth century as many of them were, they were 
built after the same general pattern. Heavy dark woods, 
richly carved and paneled, but usually without landscape or 
other colored ornamentation, appear on all these clocks. They 
are, moreover, probably the most common type of old- 
fashioned timepiece. 
In one corner of the dining-room in the Stark mansion, at 
Dunbarton, N. H., there stands a noble specimen of the finest 
of this type, a “grandfather,” which originally stood in the 
house that was erected by General Pierce, father of the four- 
teenth president of the United States, and has descended by 
heritage through Mrs. Stark (née McNeil) to its present 
home. Another interesting historical clock of the same type 
