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"The saying goes that one has to get up in the morning to beat a Yankee or a Scotchman at a bargain," was McPhearson's quiet observation. "I could add to this tale many another one of the early clockmakers. They were ingenious old fellows. Indeed, they had to be.
Well, if I was rash enough to make a promise like that, I see no way but to keep it; so the Massachusetts clock story it shall be. It happens, too, that you have asked for it at just the right moment, for to-day I am going to work on as fine an old Willard clock as ever you saw. She is the real thing!" "Was Willard the first of the Massachusetts clockmakers?"
It was all a relic of the past. Possibly, too, clockmakers were curious to see what they could do in more limited space. Be this as it may, musical clocks died hard. The old bracket clock we have just sent home, you will recall, played seven different tunes. Purchasers liked the notion of having music to mark the hours.
And when you consider that with this crude equipment you were expected to turn out a mechanism delicate enough to tell time, I am sure you will agree the stern old clockmakers had something on their side." "They sure had!" Christopher exclaimed with enthusiasm. "It is a glory to this Richard Parsons' skill that two hundred years after he made his clock it is still accurately performing its task.
There were good clockmakers in both New York and Philadelphia by the year 1750. So, you see, it was quite possible to buy either a watch or a clock fairly early in our colonial history." "What type of clock did such makers turn out?" was Christopher's interrogation. "For use in the homes the long-case clock was the style favored," McPhearson responded.
"Now all workmen, alas, are jealous for their own prestige and the artisans belonging to the London Clockmakers' Company were no exception to this rule. All of them were ready enough to seize greedily upon the bright ideas of any craftsman following their line of trade and they resented it bitterly if not allowed to do so.
She said that as noble families could not produce a Moliere, a Racine, a Rousseau, a Voltaire, a Massillon, a Beaumarchais, or a Diderot, people must make up their minds to it, and accept the fact that great men had upholsterers and clockmakers and cutlers for their fathers. She said that genius was always noble. She railed at boorish squires for understanding their real interests so imperfectly.
So you can see that despite the fact Harrison was not a member of the Clockmakers' Company he was certainly qualified to be." "And did he go after the prize money?" "Apparently the offer tempted him. Perhaps he not only desired to win the fortune offered but also wished the fun of solving the riddle the government propounded.
Certainly in 1703 the London clockmakers had nothing with which to block Facio's application; if, therefore, in 1705 they had a jeweled watch, it looks much as if they must have deliberately prepared it as an argument against the Genevan's request being granted. What the facts were we shall probably never know; but at least poor Facio lost the glory due him for his invention.
These old clockmakers made their clocks to keep perfect time, and outlast Time himself! And this clock is a perfect specimen of the hood clock, which marked a period in clock-making between the old weight clocks and the long cases. Hood clocks were popular in their day in Holland, but they have always been rare in this country. It would be interesting to trace how this one came into this house.
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