Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1888-12-07

they got their signs painted tne reply
was that they left tho order with their
wholesale dealer and the sign came
along. That was all they knew about it.
Inquiries among the wholesalers in
Murray street and Maiden lane developed
the curious fact that there is no compe-
tition in the trade of painting clock
signs. A man named Groot has a prac-
tical monopoly Of the Chicago market
and the territory for hundreds of miles
around. In Cincinnati w. II. Smith
does the business without competition,
and in this city, and for as many miles
around as New York commands tho
clock trade, w. l.. Washburn enjoys a
laborious but enviable monopoly.
This state OF affairs is brought about
by the wholesr le clock and watch deal
ers themselves, who got used to patron
izing these three dealers many years
| ago, and never got enough out Of the
habit of it to give any other painter the
ghost of q show to succeed with an OPP
position shop.
"But Father Washburn," said one
| wholesale dealer, "is father of them all,
and of emblematic signs as well. He
was the first painter to make a sign en-
blematic of any business, and he started
in way back in $50. Why, the big con-
Germs that make metal signs don't bother
him at all. lie gave his ideas to the
whole world to copy, and the world got
rich. The friends he made back in the
'5Qs have stuck to him ever since, and
| one branch of the business has stuck so
| close thatno competitor in other branches
\ of sign work ever thinks of getting a
| clock or watch sign to make, and if by
chance he did, he'd probably be SO scared
he'd send the customer to Father Wash
burn
Mr.. Washburn was painting a clock
| on q big sta when the reporter called.
He was an old man with a happy face
and q 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
eighteen minutes after 8 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 mat
ter OF business. back in '53, it was a clock.
/ don't know how / put the hands. All Z
remember about it is that it was for p.
I. Barnum's old concern on Cortlandt
street, the jerome Clock company, since
| Sohc uP INC sPout. 4 palnteu ZIG iaIluS
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
theatre. ! was working on a sign for
Jeweler Adams, who used to keep on
Broadway, opposite Stewards, at the
time. ! was making q great clock to
hang outside. Adams came running in
while | vas at work. He was a strong
Lincoln man. He said:
Point those hands at the hour Lin
coin was shot, that the deed may never
be forgotten
II painted the hands, therefore, at
eighteen minutes after s. The idea struck
me forcibly, and when I came to look at
the effect l found it was the most conve-
nient 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 if desired. So l threw all
my stencils away and made new ones
for that hour. Ihave never varied from
the system since, and that's the reason
all the clock signs point as they do. The
Chicago and Cincinnati people,, I find,
are doing the same thing. They don't
know the story, but they probably were
won to my plan by the capability of that
particular arrangement for. artistic dis
| play in painting.n-New York Sun.