Eight-day clock in hickory,
white pine and cherry by Joseph Mulliken.
Keeping
Time:
CONCORD, MASS. - The Concord Museum's groundbreaking "Keeping
Time: , 1790-1835," which runs through January 1, 2001, is the
first major exhibition to reflect on a new and significant
reinterpretation of New England clockmaking by focusing on one
Federal-era craft community. The exhibition - a fascinating mix
of craftsmanship, social history, entrepreneurship, economics,
and art - features over 30 of the finest examples of documented
Concord clocks from the Concord Museum's collection and other
collections.
At the turn of the Nineteenth Century, Concord was a thriving
community, already famous throughout the young nation for its
critical early role in the events leading up to the American
Revolution. It was the half shire town for Middlesex County,
attracting over 500 visitors to the courts twice a year, among
them customers for Concord's hats, shoes, carriages, and clocks.
Among Concord's approximately 400 heads of households in this
period, about 65 percent were in agriculture, four percent in
commerce, and 35 percent in manufacturing.
Of those in manufacturing, seven men headed clockmaking shops and
another 30 or so were engaged in the shops or in businesses that
supplied the clockmaking trade - the brass foundry, iron forge,
wire-drawing mill, and a number of cabinetmaking shops. In short,
the center of Concord - the Milldam - was a machine for the
production of clocks, second only in importance to Boston's
industrial Roxbury Neck, where the influential Willard family had
been producing clocks since about 1785.
The exhibition presents three important aspects of Concord's
clockmaking industry: "The Mechanics," the clockmakers and their
work; "Counting the Seconds," the mechanism of the weight-driven
clock; and "The Business of Making a Clock, " the arrangement of
craft shops within and outside of Concord.
Detail of girandole wall clock, Lemuel Curtis for Daniel
Shattuck, Concord, Mass., 1816-21. From the collection of Old
Sturbridge Village.
With working clocks, clock parts, tools, paintings, maps, diary
and inventory entries, labels and advertisements, hands-on
models, and photographic enlargements, "Keeping Time" conveys not
only an appreciation and understanding of the beauty and
complexity of Concord clocks but an insight into the time period
that produced them and the people who bought and sold them.
Central to the exhibition are the seven clockmakers - Joseph
Mulliken, Daniel Munroe, Jr, Nathaniel Munroe, Samuel Whiting,
Lemuel Curtis, Joseph Dunning, Joseph Dyar - and the work they
produced. Their handsome and well-crafted clocks, featuring
inlaid mahogany cases, enameled dials, and reverse painted
glasses, are generally perceived as products of a traditional
clockmaker - one person at a bench fashioning an eight-day clock
from scratch. But they are actually products of a network of
shops employing journeyman labor that extended from Concord to
Boston and overseas to the highly developed tool trade of
Lancashire, England.
Highlights of the exhibition from the collection of the Concord
Museum include an eight-day clock inscribed by Joseph Mulliken
(1765-1802), Concord, Mass., 1790-1802. Reading "J.
Mulliken/CONCORD" on the dial, it is made of hickory, white pine,
cherry, painted iron, brass, and steel.
Mulliken was a third-generation clockmaker who created tall
clocks for his Concord neighbors to compete with the elegant
clocks of Simon and Aaron Willard, manufactured on the
Boston-Roxbury town line, and the Munroe brothers in Concord.
Mulliken's hickory case is an exceptionally rare use of this wood
in neoclassical case furniture.
In addition to fashionable Willard features such as the pierced
fretwork, columns with brass fixtures, and white enamel dial, the
case is distinctive for its ornamental inlay, which adds the
perception of custom work usually not seen on Willard's
standardized products.
Another piece on view is a miniature eight-day clock inscribed by
Mulliken (1765-1802), in a case attributed to Ammi White (born
1754), Concord, Mass., 1790-1802. It was engraved "Joseph
Mulliken/CONCORD" on the dial and is made of cherry, white pine,
brass, and steel. This unusual clock is an early example of a
wall clock in the form of a miniaturized tall clock. Mulliken may
have been experimenting with new clock forms to compete with
shelf clocks from Roxbury or Concord, or it may have been a
custom order.
Interior of timepiece inscribed by Joseph Dyar, Concord, Mass.,
circa 1821. Mahogany, gilt pine and painted glass.
A timepiece inscribed by Daniel Munroe, Jr (1775-1859), Concord
or Boston, 1805-1810, features "DANIEL/MUNROE" on the lower glass
and is made of mahogany, mahogany and other veneers, pine,
painted iron, brass, steel, and painted glass. Munroe learned
clockmaking as an apprentice in Simon Willard's Roxbury, Mass.,
shop. There he absorbed the techniques for making tall clocks in
batches - a method pioneered by Willard and his brother Aaron in
the 1780s and 90s. The Willards also made less expensive wall
clocks, including "banjo clocks" patented by Simon Willard in
1802. The distinctive diamond-shaped design and inverted movement
of this wall clock may reflect an attempt to circumvent Willard's
patent.
Another timepiece by Joseph Dyar (1795-1850), Concord, Mass.,
circa 1821, is inscribed "Warranted by J. Dyar/Concord" on its
dial and is made of mahogany, gilt pine, painted glass, brass,
steel, and painted iron.
Dyar was one of three clockmakers who produced patent timepieces
("banjo clocks") in Concord between 1800 and 1840. The reverse
painting on the lower glass of this clock depicts Mount Vernon,
George Washington's Virginia estate. The glass was painted in
Boston and the scene was derived from an English print of 1800.
The exhibition is complemented by an interdisciplinary academic
symposium in collaboration with the Massachusetts Historical
Society, gallery talks for collectors, walking tours of the
clockmaking town, and hands-on family programs in collaboration
with the Discovery Museums in Acton.
The Concord Museum is at the intersection of Lexington Road
and Cambridge Turnpike. For information, call 978/369-9763.
