Clocks · Lighthouse clock
Lighthouse Clock
- Maker / attribution
- Simon Willard and Sons (maker)
- Date
- 1825–30
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- United States
- Place
- Roxbury
- Object type
- Lighthouse clock
- Materials / technique
- White pine, mahogany veneer, enamel, brass, and gilt and silver mounts
- Dimensions
- 74.9 × 26 cm (29 1/2 × 10 1/4 in.)
- Holding institution
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Accession / object no.
- 1997.451
- Credit line
- Gift of the Antiquarian Society
- Catalogue title (original)
- Lighthouse Clock (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Art Institute of Chicago (object number 1997.451), this is a lighthouse clock by Simon Willard and Sons, made in Roxbury, United States, dated 1825–30. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: White pine, mahogany veneer, enamel, brass, and gilt and silver mounts. Recorded dimensions: 74.9 × 26 cm (29 1/2 × 10 1/4 in.). The record is illustrated with 1 photograph.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Description — Art Institute of Chicago
In 1819 Simon Willard applied for and received a patent for the first American alarm clock. He intended for the clocks to be portable so that one could use them around the house or while traveling. Patented by Willard under the name “alarm timepiece,” clocks like this one are now referred to as lighthouse clocks for their marked similarity to the Eddystone lighthouse in the English Channel off Plymouth, England. This particular clock descended in the family of Simon Willard’s brother Aaron.
Historical context
Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
Harrison solves longitude; Mudge invents the lever; Breguet's Paris workshop defines the modern watch.
The age of the deadbeat escapement, compensated pendulums and observatory regulators. Domestic clocks spread through the middle classes: English longcase and bracket clocks, French gilt-bronze mantel clocks, Viennese Biedermeier wall clocks, Black Forest painted-shield clocks, and the first American shelf clocks.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Early Modern Horology
Atlas type guide
Domestic clocks
A clock combines four systems: a source of power (falling weight, coiled spring, or later electricity), a gear train that divides time, an escapement and oscillator that regulate it (foliot, pendulum or balance), and an indicating system of dial and hands or a bell. Its history runs from the large iron weight-driven clocks of the late thirteenth century to Renaissance spring-driven table clocks, the pendulum revolution of 1656, the factory clocks of the nineteenth century and electric and quartz clocks of the twentieth.
Domestic clocks also reflect regional furniture and decorative traditions — English longcase and bracket clocks, French pendules, Viennese regulators, Black Forest and American shelf clocks — and therefore record changing tastes as much as technical progress.
What to look for
- How the clock is powered: weights, spring barrel, fusee, electric coil.
- The oscillator: foliot, short pendulum, long seconds pendulum or balance.
- Whether it strikes: hour only (count wheel) or hours and quarters (rack striking).
- The maker or retailer's name on dial and movement, and any factory trademarks.
- Signs of alteration — replaced dials, converted escapements, 'married' cases.
Dating clues
- Before 1656 clocks used foliots or balances; after, most domestic clocks have pendulums.
- Anchor escapements spread after c. 1670; minute hands became common at the same time.
- Factory production in America and Germany transformed prices after c. 1840.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
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