Eli Terry, Clockmaker

A Connecticut clockmaker who used waterpower and standardized parts to make thousands of clocks at once, and put a clock on ordinary families' mantels.

An apprentice who rethought the trade

Eli Terry was born on April 13, 1772, in East Windsor, Connecticut. At 14 he was apprenticed to the clockmaker Daniel Burnap, who had himself trained under Thomas Harland, an English maker who settled in Norwich in 1773.

Burnap made brass movements, but ConnecticutHistory.org notes that Terry was also intrigued by the cheaper wooden movements made in East Hartford by Benjamin and Timothy Cheney. In 1793 he opened his own business in the area that later became Plymouth.

At the time, every part of a clock was made and fitted by hand, so clocks were expensive and few households owned one. Terry set out to change that. In 1797 he received the first clock patent granted by the U.S. Patent Office, and around 1803, Britannica says, he worked out how to run his machines by waterpower. By 1806 he was cutting gear teeth with water-powered saws.

The Porter contract

In 1807 Terry agreed to make 4,000 wooden tall-clock movements for Edward and Levi G. Porter of Waterbury within three years. Terry hired two young men, Seth Thomas and Silas Hoadley, redesigned his factory and methods, and finished the job in 1809.

ConnecticutHistory.org calls the contract the first successful large-scale production of a complicated mechanical device with truly interchangeable parts, an important step in America's Industrial Revolution. Both of Terry's helpers went on to run clock businesses of their own, and Seth Thomas later founded the Seth Thomas Clock Company.

See also: how clocks went from luxury to everyday object on OnlineClock.app.

The pillar-and-scroll shelf clock

Terry's next idea was a smaller clock. In 1814 he designed a one-day wooden shelf clock, and he patented it two years later. Because the movement and case were both smaller, the clock cost less to make, and shelf clocks became a regular part of the traveling Yankee peddler's stock, ConnecticutHistory.org notes.

The most familiar form is the pillar-and-scroll case, which Britannica associates with Terry as the maker who gave it its definitive shape. It has a rectangular case topped by a scroll with a break in the middle holding an ornament such as an urn, and a slim pillar on each side. Inside, the usual movement ran for 30 hours, with oak plates, laurelwood pillars and black cherry gears.

See also: what the wheels and plates inside a clock do on OnlineClock.app.

Identifying a Terry clock

Read the label carefully. Other makers also built clocks to Terry's patent design, so a label crediting him does not always mean he made the clock. The Connecticut Historical Society holds a 1830s shelf clock whose printed label reads Patent Clocks, Invented by Eli Terry, but names Julius Peck and Co. of Litchfield as the manufacturer and seller. The label, printed by John Russell in Hartford, carries an eagle holding an E Pluribus Unum banner, directions for use, and a promise that the clock is warranted if well used. The glass panel on the same clock is a lithograph by D. W. Kellogg and Co.

A wooden 30-hour movement in a pillar-and-scroll case is typical of the period when Terry's design dominated. Britannica notes that brass replaced wood in these movements around 1840, when brass became cheaper, so a brass movement in this style is likely later.

Later years, family and legacy

After the Porter contract Terry went into semi-retirement but kept a business of his own, specializing in one-day wooden shelf clocks. He died in Plymouth on February 26, 1852. Britannica describes him as generally considered the father of America's mass-production clock industry.

His son Eli Terry Jr. followed him into clockmaking and died in 1841, aged 42. The village of Terryville, in the town of Plymouth, is named for the son rather than the father, according to the Plymouth Historical Society. It is an easy mix-up, since the father is the more famous clockmaker.

Keep exploring

Sources

1. Eli Terry, Encyclopaedia Britannica
2. Marking Time: Early Connecticut Innovations Transform Clock Making, ConnecticutHistory.org
3. Pillar and scroll shelf clock, Encyclopaedia Britannica
4. Shelf Clock, Julius Peck and Co., 1830s, Connecticut Historical Society
5. Eli Terry cemetery information sign, Plymouth Historical Society