: History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years and Life of Chauncey Jerome Barnum's Connection with the Yankee Clock Business by Jerome Chauncey - Clock and watch making United States

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EARLY DAYS.--LEAVING HOME.--BOUND OUT.--FARMING.--CARPENTER.--SOLDIER.-- CLOCK MAKING.

I was born in the town of Canaan, Litchfield County, in the State of Connecticut, on the 10th day of June, 1793. My parents were poor but respectable and industrious. My father was a blacksmith and wrought-nail maker by trade, and the father of six children--four sons and two daughters. I was the fourth child.

In January, 1797, he moved from Canaan to the town of Plymouth, in the same County, and in the following spring built a blacksmith shop, which was large enough for three or four men to work at the nail making business, besides carrying on the blacksmithing. At that time all the nails used in the country were hammered by hand out of iron rods, which practice has almost entirely been done away by the introduction of cut nails.

My advantages for education were very poor. When large enough to handle a hoe, or a bundle of rye, I was kept at work on the farm. The only opportunity I had for attending school was in the winter season, and then only about three months in the year, and at a very poor school. When I was nine years old, my father took me into the shop to work, where I soon learned to make nails, and worked with him in this way until his death, which occurred on the fifth of October, 1804. For two or three days before he died, he suffered the most excruciating pains from the disease known as the black colic. The day of his death was a sad one to me, for I knew that I should lose my happy home, and be obliged to leave it to seek work for my support. There being no manufacturing of any account in the country, the poor boys were obliged to let themselves to the farmers, and it was extremely difficult to find a place to live where they would treat a poor boy like a human being. Never shall I forget the Monday morning that I took my little bundle of clothes, and with a bursting heart bid my poor mother good bye.

I knew that the rest of the family had got to leave soon, and I perhaps never to see any of them again. Being but a boy and naturally very sympathizing, it really seemed as if my heart would break to think of leaving my dear old home for good, but stern necessity compelled me, and I was forced to obey.

The first year after leaving home I was at work on a farm, and almost every day when alone in the fields would burst into tears--not because I had to work, but because my father was dead whom I loved, and our happy family separated and broken up never to live together again. In my new place I was kept at work very hard, and at the age of fourteen did almost the work of a man. It was a very lonely place where we lived, and nothing to interest a child of my age. The people I lived with seemed to me as very old, though they were probably not more than thirty-six years of age, and felt no particular interest in me, more than to keep me constantly at work, early and late, in all kinds of weather, of which I never complained. I have many times worked all day in the woods, chopping down trees, with my shoes filled with snow; never had a pair of boots till I was more than twenty years old. Once in two weeks I was allowed to go to church, which opportunity I always improved.

I liked to attend church, for I could see so many folks, and the habit which I then acquired has never to this day left me, and my love for it dates back to this time in my youth, though the attractions now are different.

I shall never forget how frightened I was at the great eclipse which took place on the 16th of June, 1806, and which so terrified the good people in every part of the land. They were more ignorant about such operations of the sun fifty-four years ago than at the present time. I had heard something about eclipses but had not the faintest idea what it could be. I was hoeing corn that day in a by-place three miles from town, and thought it certainly was the day of judgment. I watched the sun steadily disappearing with a trembling heart, and not till it again appeared bright and shining as before, did I regain my breath and courage sufficient to whistle.

The winter before I was fifteen years old, I went to live with a house carpenter to learn the trade, and was bound to him by my guardian till I was twenty-one years old, and was to have my board and clothes for my services. I learned the business very readily, and during the last three years of my apprenticeship could do the work of a man.

It was a very pleasant family that I lived with while learning my trade. In the year 1809 my "boss" took a job in Torringford, and I went with him. After being absent several months from home, I felt very anxious to see my poor mother who lived about two miles from Plymouth. She lived alone--with the exception of my youngest brother about nine years old. I made up my mind that I would go down and see her one night. In this way I could satisfy my boss by not losing any time. It was about twenty miles, and I only sixteen years old. I was really sorry after I had started, but was not the boy to back out. It took me till nearly morning to get there, tramping through the woods half of the way; every noise I heard I thought was a bear or something that would kill me, and the frightful notes of the whippoorwill made my hair stand on end. The dogs were after me at every house I passed. I have never forgotten that night. The boys of to-day do not see such times as I did.

The next year, 1810, my boss took a job in Ellsworth Society, Litchfield County. I footed it to and from that place several times in the course of the year, with a load of joiners' tools on my back. What would a boy 17 years old now think to travel thirty miles in a hot summer's day, with a heavy load of joiners' tools on his back? But that was about the only way that we could get around in those days. At that time there were not half a dozen one-horse wagons in the whole town. At that place I attended the church of Rev. Daniel Parker, father of Hon. Amasa J. Parker, of Albany, who was then a little boy four or five years old. I often saw him at meeting with his mother. He is a first cousin of F.S. & J. Parker of this city, two highly respectable men engaged in the paper business.

In the fall of 1811, I made a bargain with the man that I was bound to, that if he would give me four months in the winter of each year when the business was dull, I would clothe myself. I therefore went to Waterbury, and hired myself to Lewis Stebbins, to work at making the dials for the old fashioned long clock. This kind of business gave me great satisfaction, for I always had a desire to work at clocks. In 1807, when I was fourteen years old, I proposed to my guardian to get me a place with Mr. Eli Terry, of Plymouth, to work at them. Mr. Terry was at that time making more clocks than any other man in the country, about two hundred in a year, which was thought to be a great number.

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