The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-12-22
ONE PUZZLE SOLVED.
Why All Painted Clocks Point to
Eighteen Minutes After Eight.
From the Neto York Sun.


From the Neto York Sun.
An observing man recently sent a letter
to this office asking why it was that every
clock and watch maker who slung an imita-
ton clock or watch outside his shop as a
sign had the hands painted on the face at
exactly S:18 o'clock. This was poser to
every bookseller a reporter asked. The
signs came TO them that way, they said. The
majority of them had never noticed the
curious coincidence. IL asked where they
got their signs painted, the reply was that
they left the order with their wholesale
dealer and the sign came along. That was
ali they knew about it.
Inquiries among the wholesalers in Muir
ray street and Maiden lane developed the
curious fact that there is no competition in
the trade of painting clock signs. This
state of affairs is brought about by the
wholesale clock and watch dealers them
selves, who got used to patronizing three
dealers many years ago, and never got
enough out of the habit of it to give any
other painter the ghost of a show to succeed
with an opposition shop.
"But Father WashburD, said one whole
sale dealer, "is father of them all, and of
emblematic signs as well. He was the first
painter to make a sign emblematlc of any
business, and he started in way back in 1858.
Why, the big concerns that make metal
signs don't bother him at all. He gave his
ideas to the whole world to copy, and the
world got rich. The friends be made back in
the sos have stuck to him ever since, and
one branch of the business has stuck SO
close that no competitor in other branches
of sign work ever thinks of getting clock
or watch sign TO make, and if by chance ne
did, he'd probably be so scared he'd send the
customer to Father Washburn."
Mr.. Washburn was painting clock on
big star when the reporter called. He was
an old man with happy face and white
beard. There were clock signs mapped
out, half done, and finished, hanging all
around, and every blessed one Of them had
the hands pointed at 8:16 o'clock.
1.-THE reason all the dummy clock hands
point to that hour" said Mr.. Washburn,
lis because paint them ALL and / always
paint that hour. When painted the first
emblematic sign ever painted as a matter
of business, back in '53, it was clock. l
don't know how l put the hands. All |
remember about it is that it was for P. T.
Bainum's old concern on Cortlandt street,
the Jerome Clock Company, since gone up
the spout. painted the hands any way l
chose, up, down, crosswise, or together, as
my mood dictated, from that time up to
April IA, 1865. That night the news was
flashed into the city that Lincoln had been
shot in Ford's theater. l was working on
a sign for Jeweler Adams. who used to
keep on Broadway, opposite Stewards at
the time. l was making a great clock to
hang outside. Adams came running in
while l was at work. He was a strong
Lincoln man. he said:
Point those hands at the hour Lincoln
was shot, that the deed may never be for
gotten
II painted the hands. therefore, at S:1S
o'clock. The idea struck me forcibly, and
when | came to look at the effect found 1t
was the most convenient arrangement,
since it displayed both the hands well, and
left the top half of the clock free to paint
in the name of the clock seller il desired.
So threw all my stencils away and made
new ones for that hour. l have never
varied from the system since, and that's
the reason all the clock signs point as they
do. The Chicago and Cincinnati people, l
find, are doing the same thing. They don't
know the story, but they probably we're
won to my plan by the capability of that
particular arrangement for artistic display
in painting