The Project Gutenberg eBook, History of the American Clock Business for
the Past Sixty Years, and Life of Chauncey Jerome, by Chauncey Jerome

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Title: History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years,
and Life of Chauncey Jerome

Author: Chauncey Jerome

Release Date: June 23, 2004 [eBook #12694]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN CLOCK
BUSINESS FOR THE PAST SIXTY YEARS, AND LIFE OF CHAUNCEY JEROME***

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

1860.

[Illustration: Litho of E.B. & E.C. Kellogg, Hartford, Conn.
Signature of Chauncey Jerome]

PREFACE.

The manufacture of Clocks has become one of the most important branches
of American industry. Its productions are of immense value and form an
important article of export to foreign countries. It has grown from
almost nothing to its present dimensions within the last thirty years,
and is confined to one of the smallest States in the Union. Sixty years
ago, a few men with clumsy tools supplied the demand; at the present
time, with systematized labor and complicated machinery, it gives
employment to thousands of men, occupying some of the largest factories
of New England. Previous to the year 1838, most clock movements were
made of wood; since that time they have been constructed of metal, which
is not only better and more durable but even cheaper to manufacture.

Many years of my own life have been inseparably connected with and
devoted to the American clock business, and the most important changes
in it have taken place within my remembrance and actual experience. Its
whole history is familiar to me, and I cannot write my life without
having much to say about "Yankee clocks." Neither can there be a history
of that business written without alluding to myself. A few weeks since
I entered my sixty-seventh year, and reviewing the past, many trying
experiences a