Railroad Watch
date: label: Date made
content: 1853
name: label: maker
content: Barraud & Lund
notes: label: Description
content: This English watch was a part of a technical fix applied to U.S. railroads following accidents in the middle of the 19th century.
label: Description
content: Back then timetables governed train arrivals and departures, established train priorities, and ensured that trains did not collide on single-track lines. Clocks in railroad stations and watches held by conductors and engineers helped to enforce the timetables.
label: Description
content: But in the middle of the 19th century, timepieces in use on the railroads varied wildly in quality and availability to employees of the line. There was no single standard of quality for railroad timekeepers. After a horrific fatal accident on the Providence & Worcester Railroad in August 1853, caused in part by the inaccuracy of a conductor's watch, some railroads in New England responded to public criticism of their industry by tightening up running rules and ordering top-quality clocks and watches for their employees.
label: Description
content: This is one such high-quality railroad watch.
label: Description
content: An official representing the Vermont Central Railroad and three other New England lines, William Raymond Lee, ordered watches and clocks in late 1853 from William Bond & Sons, Boston, the American agent for Barraud & Lund of London. The English firm delivered the first of the timepieces in January 1855. The Vermont Central purchased fifteen watches for $150 each and one clock for $300.
label: Description
content: Barraud & Lund, founded in 1750 by Huguenot watchmaker Francis-Gabriel Barraud, had a long-standing reputation for high-quality timepieces, including marine chronometers, clocks and watches. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the firm had extensive foreign markets and added John Richard Lund, a chronometer maker, to their business.
label: Description
content: William Bond & Son, the firm named on the watch's dust cap, was one of the principal timepiece purveyors of nineteenth-century America. Intimately connected to navigation and commercial shipping, the firm rated and repaired marine chronometers for the busy port of Boston and supplied instruments of all sorts to agencies of the federal government-specifically, the coast survey, the topographical engineers, and the navy. The firm, whose original business provided time for navigating at sea, branched out with the railroad business to perform the same service on land.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United Kingdom: England, London
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanisms
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content: Clothing & Accessories
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content: Measuring & Mapping
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Stephens, Carlene E.. On Time: How America Has Learned to Live by the Clock
label: Related Publication
content: Daybooks of William Bond and Son
label: Related Publication
content: Dodge, Albert O.. An Early Railroad Watch
label: Related Publication
content: Blackwell, Dana J.. Early Railroad Timekeeping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Dana Blackwell
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1999.0278.01
label: catalog number
content: 1999.0278.01
label: accession number
content: 1999.0278
objectType: label: Object Name
content: pocket watch
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: silver (case material)
label: Physical Description
content: fire gilt (dial finish material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 in x 2 1/8 in x 5/8 in; 7.62 cm x 5.3975 cm x 1.5875 cm