© Donn Haven Lathrop 2000

Shortly after the publication of Frederick M. Shelley's Early American Tower Clocks in early 1999, Jim Dubois of Magnolia, Texas, mentioned via e-mail that he had seen an 1839 tower clock, purportedly identified as a Benjamin Morrill, in the steeple of the Salisbury Heights, New Hampshire, Baptist Church. Following up on this lead, I had the opportunity to examine and photograph the clock in company with John Kepper, the custodian, on 2 August, 1999. It's not a Morrill, but it is a very interesting clock. I was thankful the church had been deconsecrated, as my initial reaction was distinctly unchurchly.

Figure 1. The Salisbury Heights Baptist Church, now owned by the Salisbury Historical Society. The clock's three dials are carried on the northwest, northeast and southeast sides of the steeple and it strikes on an 1836 George Handel Holbrook bell. Note the distinctive diamond-tipped hands. The shape is rarely found on a tower clock.

THE CLOCK AND THE FRAME

The clock is a small, weight-driven, all-wood chairframe with evidence of original old green paint¹. In recent years it has been fitted with three electric motors coupled to the winding squares for automatic rewind. The upright, or 'chairback,' part of the frame carries the time and strike trains inside the frame. The frame members are all of wood, those of the upright portion (in inches) 2 by 2 in cross-section, and those of the "seat" portion 3^3/4 by 2^7/8 in cross section.  The overall dimensions of the frame are (in inches) 34^3/4 long by 29^1/4 wide by 24^3/8 high.  The 'chairback' portion is 21^1/2 tall, 29^1/4 wide, and the front and back frames are separated by 8^7/8 crosspieces. All wood-frame joints are mortised and tenoned and pegged. The arbors pivot in vertical steel bars with pressed-in brass bushings, inletted in the frame and bolted in place. The time train is on the left (viewed from the front, or winding) side of the clock, a reversal of the usual positioning of the trains.

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¹ The frame may have been stripped in the course of recent work done on it. Mr. Dubois commented on the "old green paint" when he told me about the clock.

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The 'working' end of the second wheel arbor also drives a 72 tooth brass idler wheel, post-mounted on the back of the frame, via a 10 leaf pinion. (The front of the clock is traditionally the side on which the clock is wound.) This wheel has at its center a 12 leaf pinion that drives the brass 72 tooth hour wheel, to which is attached the brass strike snail. The idler wheel also drives a brass 36 tooth minute wheel to drive the outside dial hands.

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² Minute wheel of 36, second wheel of 64 with pinion of 10, escape wheel of 36 with pinion of 8:
36 x 64 x 36 x 2  =  165888  =  34.56         60     =   1.736
  10 x 8 x 60             4800                       34.56
Theoretically, the pendulum is just under 118 inches long.

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The 36 tooth minute wheel is connected to a nest of three bevel gears; the two lateral gears drive the side motion works via wood leading-off rods. Interposed between the center bevel gear and the southeast (front of the building) motion work is a unique all-wood, weight-driven auxiliary drive for the outside hands. The drive from this unit is continuous to all three dials, augmenting the drive available from the time-train weight. Somewhat similar units have been noted on Eli Terry and Charles Fasoldt tower clocks, but these latter were triggered to advance the dial hands at full minute intervals, rather than being a continuous drive as is the case with this clock. The winding drum for this auxiliary unit is 3 inches in diameter by 3.5 inches long, and drives the hands via a 48 tooth, crossgrained wood wheel driving a 12 leaf pinion attached to a 30 tooth wood wheel that in turn drives a 12 leaf pinion. This last pinion is in line with the connection from the minute wheel mounted on the clock frame, the center bevel gear, a fork universal, and the front motion works.

The universals for the motion works at the ends of the leading-off rods are a single pin engaging a slot in the driven member. The driven member is connected to the cast-iron minute wheel, and through appropriate reduction drives the cast-iron hour wheel. The gold external hands are of a diamond form, very nicely executed, indicating the time on black dials with gold minute marks and Roman chapters. None of the dials have a service port, and the motion works for the side dials are hidden away behind the boards forming the walls of the clock room.

The clock strikes on a bell mounted above the clock, cast in 1836 by George Handel Holbrook in East Medway (now Millis), Massachusetts. The bell is approximately 33 inches tall, and is 36 inches in diameter at the mouth, is supported by the original hardware and tolled via the usual large grooved wood wheel with a pull rope extending to the first floor of the building.

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It is extremely unusual to find a clock of this late vintage made in this particular form. Simeon Jocelin's Branford and Madison, Connecticut, tower clocks have all-wood frames, but are much earlier (ca. 1799-1804)³, and it's not likely that Green ever saw either of these clocks. It should be noted that the surviving chairframe clock attributed to Daniel Burnap, (commonly called the "Suffield Clock")⁴ thought to have been made in 1791, has the 'chairback' portion of the frame made of strap iron---not wood.

The auxiliary weight drive for the hands is unique and unprecedented. Its use may have been prompted by the odd layout of the clock train itself. There is also the possibility that the maker wasn't aware of the benefits of a counterpoise on either the hour or minute hands. If the clock didn't have enough power to drive the hands, a heavier drive weight should have corrected the problem. As it is, the weight at the auxiliary unit has the same effect as a heavier drive weight---the weight is just added at a different point in the train. The train contained within the frame, from the winding barrel to the escapement, is straightforward (as is the thoroughly conventional strike train), and follows the usual layout of similar trains. However, the second wheel turning at 3.6 revolutions per hour, and the drive to the hands definitely departs from the usual construction.  An attempt to unravel the maker's execution follows.

An Analysis of the Clock

The 72 tooth main wheel drives the 64 tooth second wheel via a pinion of 8 leaves, the second wheel drives the 36 tooth escape wheel via a pinion of eight leaves. The escape wheel impulses the pendulum via a steel anchor and a closed crutch that engages the upper metal part of the pendulum rod.

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³ See Early American Tower Clocks, Ppg. 31 - 33.
⁴ See Early American Tower Clocks. Page 25. Also see:
The article by Charles Bissell in the Bulletin of the Connecticut Historical Society, Vol. 27, No. 2; The Suffield Tower Clockworks

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Figure 7. A front- and side-view layout of the wheels and pinions for the time train. At left is the portion of the train within the frame; in the center, the layout of the drive to the hour wheel and the dial drive(s) mounted on the back of the clock frame. At the right is a side view of both inner and outer trains, the drives to the hour wheel and snail, and the outside dials.

Morrill's clocks are all flatbeds, with decoratively spoked wheels and pinwheel escapements, and don't require an auxiliary drive for the outside dial hands.

A Bit of Speculation--Who Was The Maker?--and Similar Clocks

Unfortunately, there is little information to be found that would lead to the identity of the maker of the clock. In 1890 the Town Historian wrote: "After this (the 1839 remodelling of the 1794 church) Josiah Green purchased a large clock, which he put into the steeple to remain at his pleasure, for the use of the society and the public." The church records suffer from poor to no record-keeping in the late 1830's---early 1840's, thus that source is of little help.

Josiah Green, born in Stoneham, Massachusetts, on 25 May, 1790, was the eldest of nine children born to Captain Josiah Green, Jr. and Susannah (Buckman) Green, who removed to Salisbury from Stoneham, Massachusetts, in 1800. Josiah apprenticed at 14 to a carpenter/builder in South Reading (now Wakefield, a suburb of Boston), Massachusetts, in 1804. He married Clarissa Sweetser in Wakefield on 21 January, 1817, and upon returning to Salisbury shortly afterwards, built a number of houses, including one for himself, in which he lived for a few years. Of particular interest is this biographical note in the Green genealogy:

"[Josiah] removed thence to the homestead, opposite to which, in 1820, he opened a store and was in trade until 1840, although some years previous he followed the occupation of clock repairing⁶, in which he gained a great reputation."

In this occupation he was succeeded by his son, Sylvester Walker, after the latter's return from the 1849 gold-driven diaspora of New Englanders.

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⁶ It is rather curious that the Salisbury historian only twice in some 886 pages ever refers to making clocks---when mentioning the Blaisdell's of Salisbury and Chester, and a Blaisdell clock owner living in Salisbury in 1890. In another reference to clocks, in about 1830 Oliver Tucker (Salisbury Genealogy) is said merely to have "learned the trade of clock repairer with Mr. Durgin (Gershon Durgin, a known maker) at Andover...", rather than being apprenticed to a clockmaker. The suspicion is that "clock repairer" was a generic term for anyone involved with the trade.
I also found this in the History of Boscawen and Webster while researching this clock: "Jeremiah Gerrish was a gunsmith and repairer of clocks and watches, and made cut-nails...cutting them out of hoop-iron with large shears driven by horsepower..."

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The genealogical record goes on:

"Sylvester prefers a New England home, and remains on the homestead, following his father's trade of clock repairing, in which he enjoys a most excellent reputation throughout central New Hampshire."

Josiah Green died at age 75, on 22 February, 1866.

Joseph Chadwick⁷, Morrill's contemporary and competitor (regardless that he married Morrill's older sister) in Boscawen is not known to have made tower clocks (he was in Lebanon, New Hampshire, by 1821) nor were there any other known tower clock makers (other than Benjamin Morrill, whose clocks are of a different design) at work in the area. Nathaniel Atkinson of Boscawen was 86 years old in 1839, therefore it's unlikely that he made the clock. By way of comparison, the two somewhat contemporaneous wood-plate/brass-wheel clocks illustrated in Parsons' New Hampshire Clocks and Clockmakers (Ppg. 140-143) were checked, but these clocks use count-wheel striking, and their maker's locales and at-work dates preclude the possibility that they were the makers.

The time train reminds one of the trains of various later---primarily brass movement---house clocks, particularly those with an idler (sometimes called the second wheel) between the minute arbor and the time train. The distinctive diamond-tipped hands---a shape rarely found on a tower clock---remind one of the hands of a much smaller house clock. These resemblances lend some credence to the idea that a repairer of clocks built this clock.

A thorough search of Parsons' book beyond the above-mentioned clocks yields nothing in the way of hints concerning a possible maker's identity.  Donald K. Packard's When New Hampshire was a Clockmaking Center is also of no help in suggesting a maker.

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⁷ Chadwick could have made the clock, but it is rather unlikely. His life is not thoroughly documented, but he has been traced via census records to Lebanon, New Hampshire, in the 1820's, and Norwich, Vermont, in the late 1830's---early 1840's.

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There is the distinct possibility that Josiah Green himself made the clock "...which he put into the steeple to remain at his pleasure..." He may have purchased some of the parts and assembled them, rather than having "purchased a large clock" from an unnamed and unidentified maker, or he may have made the parts. The frame certainly was made by someone intimately conversant with the wood joinery of the times, yet the overall construction and the utilitarian---perhaps even crude---appearance of the clock's other parts suggests that it was made by someone who had not apprenticed to a clockmaker, but who had picked up bits and pieces of the clockmaker's skills and designed and built a tower clock whose train layout is very similar to those of smaller clocks. There is an admixture of sophistication---the pendulum box; makeshift design---the wedge-held pendulum bob; and old-fashioned design seen in the frame style that poses an intriguing question concerning just what sources of information the maker consulted in designing the clock. None of Green's contemporaries (Thomas Woolson, Jr. and Luther Elliott in Amherst, Stephen Hasham in Charlestown, and Benjamin Morrill, the last just a few miles away in Boscawen) made anything but flatbed tower clocks, nor are there any known chairframe clocks in either New Hampshire or Massachusetts. The sole exception is the (possible chairframe) clock Daniel Burnap made for South Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1802-3, which has disappeared.

A record⁸ of the order for this South Hadley clock is signed "Ruggles Woodbridge, for the Committee" and dated "South Hadley, Nov. 2nd 1802." George D. Seymour⁹ wrote of "...the unbelievably big models for the hands of a steeple clock." in Burnap's Andover, Connecticut, attic work-room. Mr. Seymour also quotes the Burnap Papers (Appendix 6); concerning the "meeting-house clock for South Hadley," and the "steple" clock therefor, of which Burnap wrote; "I think it is a matter of uncertainty whether I shall be able to finish it so as to get it to you before sleighing." (Appendix 5.) Ela Burnap's (his nephew and one time apprentice), correspondence on tower clocks from Rochester, New York (February 20, 1837), asks for construction details for a tower clock, referring to "that clock we made when I was with you." Ela was born in 1784, therefore he could not have seen the "clock we made when I was with you" before 1798-1800, assuming he started his apprenticeship at 14 to 16 years of age.

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⁸ HOOPES, Penrose R.  The Shop Records of Daniel Burnap: The Connecticut Historical Society, 1958. Pg. 31.
⁹ SEYMOUR, George Dudley, Daniel Burnap---Master Clockmaker:  NAWCC BULLETIN # 105, Pg. 811.

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A chairframe clock¹⁰ attributed to Burnap is in the collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, but the only (extremely tenuous) link to Burnap is found in the description of a similar clock in his Memorandum Book.

Regardless of who the maker of the Salisbury Heights tower clock was, it is an interesting and now-documented clock, and as a side benefit, four more names---Josiah and Sylvester Green, Oliver Tucker and Jeremiah Gerrish---have been added to the ranks of New Hampshire horologists.

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¹⁰ See Early American Tower Clocks, Ppg.25 - 27, and Shop Records of Daniel Burnap; "Form of the Suffield Clock."

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