Tall Case Clock
date: label: Date made
content: 1769
name: label: user
content: Ellicott, Joseph
label: maker
content: Ellicott, Joseph
notes: label: Description
content: The earliest domestic clocks in the American colonies were English-made "lantern" clocks, with brass gear trains held between pillars. Along with fully furnished "best" beds, looking glasses, sofas, silver, and case furniture, such clocks were the household objects consistently assigned the highest monetary value in inventories of possessions.
label: Description
content: By the 18th century, the most common style of domestic clock came to look more like a piece of household furniture. A wooden case enclosed the movement, weights, and pendulum. Through a glass window the dial was visible.
label: Description
content: In 1769, Pennsylvania clockmaker and millwright Joseph Ellicott completed this complicated tall case clock. On three separate dials, it tells the time and shows the phases of the moon; depicts on an orrery the motions of the sun, moon, and planets; and plays selected twenty-four musical tunes on the hour.
label: Description
content: The musical dial on the Ellicott clock allows the listener to choose from twelve pairs of tunes. Each pair includes a short tune and a long one. On the hour only the short tune plays, but every third hour, both play. During a tune, automaton figures at the top of the dial appear to tap their feet in time to the music, and a small dog between them jumps up and down.
label: Description
content: Joseph Ellicott moved from the Philadelphia area to Maryland in 1772 and, with his brothers Andrew and John, set up a flour-milling operation in what is now Ellicott City. The clock was a centerpiece in Ellicott family homes for generations.
label: Description
content: Who else owned clocks in early America? Clock owners, like the American colonists themselves, were not a homogeneous group. Where a person lived influenced the probability of owning a timepiece. In 1774, for example, New Englanders and Middle Atlantic colonials were equally likely to own a timepiece. In those regions, roughly 13 or 14 adults out of 100 had a clock in their possessions when they died. Among Southern colonists at that time, only about 6 in 100 had a clock.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Pennsylvania
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanisms
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content: Industry & Manufacturing
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content: Domestic Furnishings
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content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Richard Norton Fryberger, Joan Evans Strehler and Ann McGaffey Cogswell
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1999.0276.01
label: accession number
content: 1999.0276
label: catalog number
content: 1999.0276.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: clock, case, tall
label: Object Name
content: clock, tall case
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 116 3/4 in x 22 3/8 in x 22 1/4 in; 296.545 cm x 56.8325 cm x 56.515 cm