American Watch Making and story of “The Watchmakers Wife”

The first reference of American watchmaker, as mentioned in the book “The Watch Factories of America, past and present", by Henry G. Abott, published in 1881, mentions Luther Goodard in 1809 who managed to manufacture 500 watches. Later the Pitkin brothers, James and Henry established the Pitkin watch and managed to produce about 800 movements.

The American watch making once it moved to mass production, send shivers to Swiss and British watch industry, post Great depression the Swiss managed to bounce back, but the British lost the will and would slowly cease its exports.

“I am a watchmaker, Sylvester Pocock, of Barnville, Massachusetts, and for a long time I have wanted to test the movements of a watch at different altitudes.”

“If you want a good watch, “said the watchmaker, “I can lend you one, though I don’t know really that anything extra in the way of a watch would be of service to you, not taking any interest in the influence of altitude on balance- wheels”

Excerpt from “The Watchmakers Wife, Frank R. Stockton, 1893

In 1850 American Horologe Company was established by Edward Howard and Aaron Dennison, which would later become the Waltham Watch Company.

It was the American Civil War in 1861 which created a huge demand from military for the watches and changed the fortune of Waltham and later the railroad contracts kept it going for another few decades, even riding the wave of World War 1, however the First Great Depression 1920 onwards casted the beginning of end of this great American made brand.

“At the present day, the Waltham Company employs nearly four thousand people and produces about sixty-eight thousand complete watch movements a month, or over three quarters of a million a year”

Time telling through the Ages, Harry C. Brearley 1919