Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library

Tall Case Clock
1813-1825
Silas Hoadley (1786-1870)
USA: Connecticut, Plymouth
Pine, tin, glass, paint
overall: 92"h x 19"w x 10-1/2"d
Gift of Lyman Wells Whitcomb by his grandson, Mark S. Whitcomb
96.026a-e

Tall Case Clock; a: case: grain-painted pine; ogee-bracket feet; paper label on interior of door is a poem about clocks; b: pendulum holder; c: pendulum weight; d: movement: painted wood dial with rural village scene in trepanium and floral (roses) spandrels; Arabic numerals, cast tin hands, seconds dial above main arbor, and date dial beneath; marked "S. HOADLEY PLYMOUTH"; movement: 30-hour wooden pull-up, hours strike; reverse of dial pencil inscribed: "10"; case door chalk inscribed: "N1" and repair history: "M-2. 18-09 brushed out & rep. strike calander etc./ M-5-24-18 Cld. etc."; typed poem afixed to the door interior (see inscriptions) an ink inscribed cardboard shipping label afixed to backboard: "Mrs. E.E. Wells/ Barre, Vt/ Freight"; e: bonnet: broken arch pediment and central finial.

Although New England craftsmen had produced clocks with wooden works in the past, three Connecticut clockmakers, Eli Terry, Seth Thomas, and Silas Hoadley, changed the industry in the early 1800s with their innovations in making clocks with wooden works in a factory setting. They all started making standard-sized wooden clock parts in water-powered factories. Hoadley produced many reasonably priced clocks with painted faces in a factory he had bought from Terry. He sold his products near and far. This one may have been originally owned by a Vermont family.