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Updated: May 5, 2025
Probably it would have been no small surprise to him had he known that the banjo clock he patented about 1802 and dubbed an improved timepiece would be the one to come down through history bearing his name." "I wouldn't mind having it bear mine," smiled the boy, as he glanced toward the beautiful old Willard lying so ignominiously on its back on McPhearson's workbench.
It won't go that is all!" "I had no idea such a variation as that would count for anything," gasped his listener. "Why, it must have been terrible to figure machinery down to that point! I shouldn't think Mr. Dennison or Mr. Howard would ever have wanted to look at another watch." "I imagine there were times when they didn't," was McPhearson's grave response. "But for all that they persisted.
"Most likely the people over here were thankful to get any clocks at all," the boy ventured. "Evidently there were clockmakers who worked on that theory," was McPhearson's dry answer. "Do not imagine, however, that I am condemning wholesale all the early clockmakers.
"That was all very well to decree," replied Christopher, "but how could the authorities make sure such a rule would be obeyed?" "Ah, the railroad took no chances of being fooled," was McPhearson's instant reply. "A watch inspector was appointed whose duty it was to examine every important official's watch once in a stated period and see that it conformed to the requirements.
"Do you mean to say they really christened clocks by that unearthly name?" asked Christopher incredulously. "Wag-on-the-wall? Yes, indeed. That was the term they went by. Pedlars carried them round on horseback, riding from house to house and jolting them over the bad roads until it is a seven-days' wonder they went at all," was McPhearson's retort.
A thing is seldom so bad that nobody wants it." "Then that is certainly what we must do with our intellectual junk," was McPhearson's instant answer. "Suppose we advertise a sale of it? I will cheerfully part with 'The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck' which I committed to memory when I was eight years old. I'd sell it outright or would exchange it for one of Shakespeare's sonnets."
Some of these were not, to be sure, successful; but as a whole the business thrived wonderfully. Offices were established in London, and America began to take her place among the big watchmaking countries of the world." "Hurrah for Uncle Sam!" laughed the boy. "Rather I say hurrah for the fellows who fought his watch battle for him," was McPhearson's somewhat curt retort.
Now we have graduated even beyond that point and each noon the official time is telegraphed or broadcast from Arlington to all parts of the country." "We do whizz ahead, don't we?" meditated Christopher, absently twirling between his fingers a screw he had picked up from McPhearson's bench. "I should say we did," was the enthusiastic reply. "That screw, for instance!
The clock, however, was not completed until after the President died, and when Willard finally went to put it in place he stayed with Madison who had a home no great distance away." "He seemed to make friends wherever his business took him," remarked Christopher thoughtfully. "Not only that, but his work made friends for him," was McPhearson's answer.
"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.
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