thumbnail|webster clay ball webster clay ball (october 6, 1847 â march 6, 1922) was a jeweler and watchmaker born in fredericktown, ohio who founded the ball watch company. when standard time was adopted in 1883, he was the first jeweler to use time signals from the united states naval observatory, bringing accurate time to cleveland. ==watchmaker history== after a two-year apprenticeship to a jeweler, ball settled in cleveland, ohio to join a jewelry store. in 1891 there was a collision between lake shore and michigan southern railway trains at kipton, ohio, which occurred because an engineer's watch had stopped. the railroad officials commissioned webb c. ball as their chief time inspector, in order to establish precision standards and a reliable timepiece inspection system for railroad chronometers. he established strict guidelines for the manufacturing of sturdy, reliable precision timepieces, including resistance to magnetism, reliability of time keeping in 5 positions, isochronism, power reserve and dial arrangement, accompanied with record keeping of the reliability of the watch on each regular inspection. his original jewelry business in cleveland grew into the ball watch company (currently headquartered in la chaux-de-fonds, switzerland), which used other watch companies' movements, perfecting them and then reselling them. ball watch company also ordered watches complete from other watch companies. ball used movements from the top american manufacturers, elgin, hamilton, and waltham, and switched to swiss avia movements as early as the 1940s in their wristwatches. the waltham watch company complied immediately with the requirements of ball's guidelines, later followed by elgin national watch company and most of the other american manufacturers: aurora, hamilton, hampden, e. howard & co., illinois, seth thomas, later on joined by some swiss watch manufacturers: audemars piguet, gallet, longines, record watch, vacheron constantin. webb c. ball became the vice president of the hamilton watch company and focused his efforts on developing watches for the railroads. minutes of proceedings of third triennial convention of the brotherhood of locomotive engineers held in the b of le auditorium cleveland, ohio on may 31, 1921 at 2 pm the convention was called to order by grand chief engineer w.s. stone, at this afternoon session webb c ball was introduced, he made a speech, and a resolution was passed unanimously, and he was made an honorary member of the brotherhood. they were the first wrist watch allowed to be used on the railroads, (using a swiss manual-winding movement) followed quickly by the first american made wrist watch on "the roads", elgin. the firm was
1847_births 1922_deaths American_jewellers American_people_in_rail_transportation People_from_Knox_County,_Ohio Watchmakers_(people)