cks with only a hammer, file, and drill to help them.
When you consider that, it is little short of a miracle they were able
to produce articles that would keep time with even a reasonable degree
of accuracy. But they contrived to--oh, yes, indeed! Of course they did
not reach their best results immediately. It took a while. Still as
clocks continued to make their appearance the product generally became
better and better. 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. 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. "Some of these had brass works and seconds
pendulums and ran eight days, and others were thirty-hour clocks with
works of wood. Nevertheless, although they were to be had, they were
still something of a luxury and every one did not possess the money to
purchase them; nor, indeed, were they held to be indispensable, many of
the more conservative families preferring still to use the hourglass
even as late as 1812."

"That was the year of the war, wasn't it?" the lad hazarded.

"Yes. The colonists had already had the Revolution on their hands and
national affairs were in such a turmoil it was difficult for any one to
put his mind on building up a trade. But after a while life calmed down
into more tranquil grooves and then clockmaking, like other occupations,
leaped into prosperity. New England, where many of the first clockmakers
had originally settled, led the country in this industry as was natural
she should, more improvements and inventions being perfected there than
anywhere else. And Connecticut was the banner State. She boasted a large
group of successful makers, any one of whom was a master at his craft.
The names of some of them are Daniel Burnap, Thomas Harland, Eli Terry,
Eli Terry, Junior, Silas Hoadley, Seth Thomas, and Chauncey Jerome.
Harland was an expert from London and had a hand in train