Simon Willard Tower Clock
date: label: Date made
content: 1832
name: label: maker
content: Willard, Simon
notes: label: Description
content: Almost from the moment of the mechanical clock's invention, the local clock tower on a church or other public building dominated the landscape. Tower clocks announced the time to people within earshot of their bells and regulated urban life in the Western world. The introduction of the pendulum and the anchor escapement in the late seventeenth century made these clocks remarkably accurate. They were set at local noon (when the sun reached its highest point in the sky at a particular location), and thus gave each town a time of its own, depending on its longitude.
label: Description
content: In America, before specialized manufacturers began mass-producing tower clocks in the second half of the nineteenth century, the clocks were built to order by versatile individual clockmakers and, occasionally, by adventurous blacksmiths. The tower clock shown here is one of the few built by Simon Willard (1753-1848) of Boston, the most famous of the many clockmaking members of the Willard family. Willard was inventive as well as prolific, a clockmaker who worked not only for a regional clientele but also for Thomas Jefferson and the outfitters of the U.S. Capitol.
label: Description
content: Marked "Made in 1832 by Simon Willard in his 80th year," this tower clock served for more than a century on the First (Unitarian) Parish in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In all details the movement shows uncompromising craftsmanship. It has a pinwheel dead-beat escapement with maintaining power and a rack-and-snail hour striking train.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Boston
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanisms
label: See more items in
content: Industry & Manufacturing
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Newton L. Lockwood
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: ME.330398
label: catalog number
content: 330398
label: accession number
content: 288890
objectType: label: Object Name
content: clock
label: Other Terms
content: clock; Mechanical, Weight-Driven; Tower Clock
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: brass (movement material)
label: Physical Description
content: iron (frame material)
label: Physical Description
content: iron (movement material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 48 in x 42 in x 16 in; 121.92 cm x 106.68 cm x 40.64 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 45 in x 66 in x 68 in; 114.3 cm x 167.64 cm x 172.72 cm