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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.
An excellent one, put up in a church steeple in Newburyport in 1786, was made by Simon Willard, a great Massachusetts clockmaker of whom I will sometime tell you more. There was also a clock of Boston make on the Old South Meeting House sometime before 1768; and Gawen Brown, who made it, also made a long-case clock for the Massachusetts State House.
In her parlour was a long-case clock, and inserted into its dial was a ruddy, round, slant-eyed, joyous-painted face, that wagged over with the most ridiculous ogle when the clock ticked, and back again with the same absurd glad-eye at the next tick.
"Thomas Harland made quite a few of these wags-on-the-wall as well as some fine long-case clocks with works of brass," added the old man. "I suppose none of the makers could turn out very many clocks when every part of them had to be made by hand," was Christopher's thoughtful comment. "No, they couldn't. Moreover the demand for clocks was not great.
I wondered what I'd done to her." "We'll look and see," McPhearson smiled. "Very likely she's just taken a whim, Ebenezer." "I hope so I do indeed, sir." Following the old butler, Christopher and the Scotchman ascended the stairs until they came to a niche where stood the clock in question. It was perhaps four feet tall an exact replica of a long-case clock.
"People are liable to associate him only with the banjo clock that bears his name; but in reality he made clocks of every imaginable description long-case clocks, tower clocks, gallery clocks, shelf clocks. He was a born clock lover if ever there was one! He was, moreover, a marvelous man who up to the end of his long life was active and useful.
"I imagine he was. Nevertheless he married and settled down to his career, starting in to make both shelf and long-case varieties. These he completed during the snowy season when the roads were bad and then, as soon as summer came and it was possible to get about on horseback, he and his brother, Aaron, used to travel about and sell the winter's output.
He had always been an ingenious fellow interested in evolving mathematical instruments of all sorts." "Were his clocks as good as Tompion's?" queried Christopher. "As to that, the two were pretty well matched," was the answer. "Graham, however, concentrated most of his skill on watches while Tompion put the major part of his talent into long-case clocks which were unrivaled.
"Just about every design of the period bracket clocks similar to those of Richard Parsons'; long-case, or what we call grandfather, clocks; even brass clocks with projecting dials; and in addition, the greater part of the finest watches turned out at this time were of his making. There were few who could equal him.
"The long-case clock on the stair had just struck two when the trembler-drum beneath my pillow suddenly broke into a prolonged roll. Someone was standing in front of the safe in the dining-room.
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