E-text prepared by Robert Shimmin and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
HISTORY
OF THE
American Clock Business
FOR THE PAST SIXTY YEARS,
AND
Life of CHAUNCEY JEROME,
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
BARNUM'S CONNECTION
WITH THE
YANKEE CLOCK BUSINESS.
New Haven: 1860
PREFACE.
The manufacture of Clocks has become one of the most important branchesof American industry. Its productions are of immense value and form animportant article of export to foreign countries. It has grown fromalmost nothing to its present dimensions within the last thirty years,and is confined to one of the smallest States in the Union. Sixty yearsago, a few men with clumsy tools supplied the demand; at the presenttime, with systematized labor and complicated machinery, it givesemployment to thousands of men, occupying some of the largest factoriesof New England. Previous to the year 1838, most clock movements weremade of wood; since that time they have been constructed of metal, whichis not only better and more durable but even cheaper to manufacture.
Many years of my own life have been inseparably connected with anddevoted to the American clock business, and the most important changesin it have taken place within my remembrance and actual experience. Itswhole history is familiar to me, and I cannot write my life withouthaving much to say about "Yankee clocks." Neither can there be a historyof that business written without alluding to myself. A few weeks sinceI entered my sixty-seventh year, and reviewing the past, many tryingexperiences are brought fresh into my mind. For more than forty-fiveyears I have been actively engaged in the manufacture of clocks, andconstantly studying and contriving new methods of manufacturing for thebenefit of myself and fellow-men, and although through theinstrumentality of others, I have been unfortunate in the loss of mygood name and an independent competency, which I had honorably andhonestly acquired by these long years of patient toil and industry, itis a satisfaction to me now to know that I have been the means of doingsome good in the world.
On the following pages in my simple language, and in a bungling manner,I have told the story of my life. I am no author, but claim a titlewhich I consider nobler, that of a "Mechanic." Being possessed of aremarkable memory, I am able to give a minute account and even the dateof every important transaction of my whole life, and distinctly rememberevent